s readily granted. The assembly was unusually large. The
general belief was that some overture respecting commerce was about
to be made; and the President brought a written answer framed on that
supposition. As soon as Avaux began to disclose his errand, signs
of uneasiness were discernible. Those who were believed to enjoy the
confidence of the Prince of Orange cast down their eyes. The agitation
became great when the Envoy announced that his master was strictly bound
by the ties of friendship and alliance to His Britannic Majesty, and
that any attack on England would be considered as a declaration of war
against France. The President, completely taken by surprise, stammered
out a few evasive phrases; and the conference terminated. It was at
the same time notified to the States that Lewis had taken under his
protection Cardinal Furstemburg and the Chapter of Cologne. [470]

The Deputies were in great agitation. Some recommended caution and
delay. Others breathed nothing but war. Fagel spoke vehemently of
the French insolence, and implored his brethren not to be daunted by
threats. The proper answer to such a communication, he said, was to
levy more soldiers, and to equip more ships. A courier was instantly
despatched to recall William from Minden, where he was holding a
consultation of high moment with the Elector of Brandenburg.

But there was no cause for alarm. James was bent on ruining himself; and
every attempt to stop him only made him rush more eagerly to his doom.
When his throne was secure, when his people were submissive, when
the most obsequious of Parliaments was eager to anticipate all his
reasonable wishes, when foreign kingdoms and commonwealths paid emulous
court to him, when it depended only on himself whether he would be the
arbiter of Christendom, he had stooped to be the slave and the hireling
of France. And now when, by a series of crimes and follies, he had
succeeded in alienating his neighbours, his subjects, his soldiers, his
sailors, his children, and had left himself no refuge but the protection
of France, he was taken with a fit of pride, and determined to assert
his independence. That help which, when he did not want it, he had
accepted with ignominious tears, he now, when it was indispensable to
him, threw contemptuously away. Having been abject when he might, with
propriety, have been punctilious in maintaining his dignity, he became
ungratefully haughty at a moment when haughtiness must b