y advance towards a reconciliation with the
new government of England till the whole strength of his realm had been
put forth in one more effort. A mighty effort in truth it was, but too
exhausting to be repeated. He made an immense display of force at once
on the Pyrenees and on the Alps, on the Rhine and on the Meuse, in the
Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. That nothing might be wanting which
could excite the martial ardour of a nation eminently highspirited, he
instituted, a few days before he left his palace for the camp, a new
military order of knighthood, and placed it under the protection of his
own sainted ancestor and patron. The new cross of Saint Lewis shone on
the breasts of the gentlemen who had been conspicuous in the trenches
before Mons and Namur, and on the fields of Fleurus and Steinkirk; and
the sight raised a generous emulation among those who had still to win
an honourable fame in arms. [438]

In the week in which this celebrated order began to exist Middleton
visited Versailles. A letter in which he gave his friends in England
an account of his visit has come down to us. [439] He was presented to
Lewis, was most kindly received, and was overpowered by gratitude and
admiration. Of all the wonders of the Court,--so Middleton wrote,--its
master was the greatest. The splendour of the great King's personal
merit threw even the splendour of his fortunes into the shade. The
language which His Most Christian Majesty held about English politics
was, on the whole, highly satisfactory. Yet in one thing this
accomplished prince and his able and experienced ministers were
strangely mistaken. They were all possessed with the absurd notion
that the Prince of Orange was a great man. No pains had been spared
to undeceive them; but they were under an incurable delusion. They saw
through a magnifying glass of such power that the leech appeared to them
a leviathan. It ought to have occurred to Middleton that possibly the
delusion might be in his own vision and not in theirs. Lewis and the
counsellors who surrounded him were far indeed from loving William. But
they did not hate him with that mad hatred which raged in the breasts of
his English enemies. Middleton was one of the wisest and most moderate
of the Jacobites. Yet even Middleton's judgment was so much darkened
by malice that, on this subject, he talked nonsense unworthy of his
capacity. He, like the rest of his party, could see in the usurper
nothing but wha