il of State faintly expressed regret that an event which,
in a political point of view, was most auspicious, should be prejudicial
to the interests of the true Church. [623] But the tolerant policy of
the Prince soon quieted all scruples, and his elevation was seen with
scarcely less satisfaction by the bigoted Grandees of Castile than by
the English Whigs.

With very different feelings had the news of this great revolution been
received in France. The politics of a long, eventful, and glorious reign
had been confounded in a day. England was again the England of Elizabeth
and of Cromwell; and all the relations of all the states of Christendom
were completely changed by the sudden introduction of this new power
into the system. The Parisians could talk of nothing but what was
passing in London. National and religious feeling impelled them to take
the part of James. They knew nothing of the English constitution. They
abominated the English Church. Our revolution appeared to them, not
as the triumph of public liberty over despotism, but as a frightful
domestic tragedy in which a venerable and pious Servius was hurled
from his throne by a Tarquin, and crushed under the chariot wheels of
a Tullia. They cried shame on the traitorous captains, execrated the
unnatural daughters, and regarded William with a mortal loathing,
tempered, however, by the respect which valour, capacity, and success
seldom fail to inspire. [624] The Queen, exposed to the night wind and
rain, with the infant heir of three crowns clasped to her breast, the
King stopped, robbed, and outraged by ruffians, were objects of pity and
of romantic interest to all France. But Lewis saw with peculiar emotion
the calamities of the House of Stuart. All the selfish and all the
generous parts of his nature were moved alike. After many years of
prosperity he had at length met with a great check. He had reckoned on
the support or neutrality of England. He had now nothing to expect from
her but energetic and pertinacious hostility. A few weeks earlier he
might not unreasonably have hoped to subjugate Flanders and to give law
to Germany. At present he might think himself fortunate if he should be
able to defend his own frontiers against a confederacy such as
Europe had not seen during many ages. From this position, so new, so
embarrassing, so alarming, nothing but a counterrevolution or a civil
war in the British Islands could extricate him. He was therefore
impelled by a