the prayer for the departing was read at his bedside. That feeling was
enmity to France, and to the magnificent King who, in more than one
sense, represented France, and who to virtues and accomplishments
eminently French joined in large measure that unquiet, unscrupulous,
and vainglorious ambition which has repeatedly drawn on France the
resentment of Europe.

It is not difficult to trace the progress of the sentiment which
gradually possessed itself of William's whole soul. When he was little
more than a boy his country had been attacked by Lewis in ostentatious
defiance of justice and public law, had been overrun, had
been desolated, had been given up to every excess of rapacity,
licentiousness, and cruelty. The Dutch had in dismay humbled themselves
before the conqueror, and had implored mercy. They had been told in
reply that, if they desired peace, they must resign their independence
and do annual homage to the House of Bourbon. The injured nation, driven
to despair, had opened its dykes and had called in the sea as an ally
against the French tyranny. It was in the agony of that conflict, when
peasants were flying in terror before the invaders, when hundreds of
fair gardens and pleasure houses were buried beneath the waves, when
the deliberations of the States were interrupted by the fainting and
the loud weeping of ancient senators who could not bear the thought of
surviving the freedom and glory of their native land, that William had
been called to the head of affairs. For a time it seemed to him that
resistance was hopeless. He looked round for succour, and looked in
vain. Spain was unnerved, Germany distracted, England corrupted. Nothing
seemed left to the young Stadtholder but to perish sword in hand, or to
be the Aeneas of a great emigration, and to create another Holland in
countries beyond the reach of the tyranny of France. No obstacle would
then remain to check the progress of the House of Bourbon. A few years,
and that House might add to its dominions Loraine and Flanders, Castile
and Aragon, Naples and Milan, Mexico and Peru. Lewis might wear the
imperial crown, might place a prince of his family on the throne of
Poland, might be sole master of Europe from the Scythian deserts to
the Atlantic Ocean, and of America from regions north of the Tropic
of Cancer to regions south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Such was the
prospect which lay before William when first he entered on public life,
and which never c