this confederacy, which was concluded, under the name of
the "League of Augsburg," on the 21st of June, 1686. An army of sixty
thousand men was immediately raised. From all parts of Germany troops
were now hurrying towards the Rhine. Louis, alarmed, retired from the
Palatinate, which he had overrun, and, to place a barrier between
himself and his foes, ordered the utter devastation of the unhappy
country. The diabolical order was executed by Turenne. The whole of the
Palatinate was surrendered to pillage and conflagration. The elector,
from the towers of his castle at Mannheim, saw at one time two cities
and twenty-five villages in flames. He had no force sufficient to
warrant him to leave the walls of his fortress to oppose the foe. He
was, however, so moved to despair by the sight, that he sent a challenge
to Turenne to meet him in single combat. Turenne, by command of the
king, declined accepting the challenge. More than forty large towns,
besides innumerable villages, were given up to the flames. It was
mid-winter. The fields were covered with snow, and swept by freezing
blasts. The wretched inhabitants, parents and children, driven into the
bleak plains without food or clothing or shelter, perished miserably by
thousands. The devastation of the Palatinate is one of the most cruel
deeds which war has ever perpetrated. For these woes, which no
imagination can gauge, Louis XIV. is responsible. He has escaped any
adequate earthly penalty for the crime, but the instinctive sense of
justice implanted in every breast, demands that he should not escape the
retributions of a righteous God. "After death cometh the judgment."

This horrible deed roused Germany. All Europe now combined against
France, except Portugal, Russia and a few of the Italian States. The
tide now turned in favor of the house of Austria. Germany was so alarmed
by the arrogance of France, that, to strengthen the power of the
emperor, the diet with almost perfect unanimity elected his son Joseph,
though a lad but eleven years of age, to succeed to the imperial throne.
Indeed, Leopold presented his son in a manner which seemed to claim the
crown for him as his hereditary right, and the diet did not resist that
claim. France, rich and powerful, with marvelous energy breasted her
host of foes. All Europe was in a blaze. The war raged on the ocean,
over the marshes of Holland, along the banks of the Rhine, upon the
plains of Italy, through the defiles of the Al