war. Some of the exiles
of Limerick showed, on that day, under the standard of France, a valour
which distinguished them among many thousands of brave men. It is
remarkable that on the same day a battalion of the persecuted and
expatriated Huguenots stood firm amidst the general disorder round the
standard of Savoy, and fell fighting desperately to the last.

The Duke of Lorges had marched into the Palatinate, already twice
devastated, and had found that Turenne and Duras had left him something
to destroy. Heidelberg, just beginning to rise again from its ruins,
was again sacked, the peaceable citizens butchered, their wives and
daughters foully outraged. The very choirs of the churches were stained
with blood; the pyxes and crucifixes were torn from the altars; the
tombs of the ancient Electors were broken open; the corpses, stripped
of their cerecloths and ornaments, were dragged about the streets. The
skull of the father of the Duchess of Orleans was beaten to fragments
by the soldiers of a prince among the ladies of whose splendid Court she
held the foremost place.

And yet a discerning eye might have perceived that, unfortunate as the
confederates seemed to have been, the advantage had really been on their
side. The contest was quite as much a financial as a military contest.
The French King had, some months before, said that the last piece of
gold would carry the day; and he now began painfully to feel the truth
of the saying. England was undoubtedly hard pressed by public burdens;
but still she stood up erect. France meanwhile was fast sinking. Her
recent efforts had been too much for her strength, and had left her
spent and unnerved. Never had her rulers shown more ingenuity in
devising taxes or more severity in exacting them; but by no ingenuity,
by no severity, was it possible to raise the sums necessary for another
such campaign as that of 1693. In England the harvest had been abundant.
In France the corn and the wine had again failed. The people, as usual,
railed at the government. The government, with shameful ignorance or
more shameful dishonesty, tried to direct the public indignation
against the dealers in grain. Decrees appeared which seemed to have been
elaborately framed for the purpose of turning dearth into famine. The
nation was assured that there was no reason for uneasiness, that there
was more than a sufficient supply of food, and that the scarcity had
been produced by the villanous arts of mi