by
the king of France, at the suggestion of Richelieu, with the
title of "highness," instead of the inferior one of "excellency";
and the states-general, jealous of this distinction granted to
their chief magistrate, adopted for themselves the sounding
appellation of "high and mighty lords." The Prince of Orange,
whatever might have been his private views of ambition, had however
the prudence to silence all suspicion, by the mild and moderate
use which he made of the power, which he might perhaps have wished
to increase, but never attempted to abuse.

On the 9th of November, 1641, the prince-cardinal Ferdinand died
at Brussels in his thirty-third year; another instance of those
who were cut off, in the very vigor of manhood, from worldly
dignities and the exercise of the painful and inauspicious duties
of governor-general of the Netherlands. Don Francisco de Mello, a
nobleman of highly reputed talents, was the next who obtained this
onerous situation. He commenced his governorship by a succession of
military operations, by which, like most of his predecessors, he
is alone distinguished. Acts of civil administration are scarcely
noticed by the historians of these men. Not one of them, with
the exception of the archduke Albert, seems to have valued the
internal interests of the government; and he alone, perhaps,
because they were declared and secured as his own. De Mello,
after taking some towns, and defeating the marshal De Guiche in
the battle of Hannecourt, tarnished all his fame by the great
faults which he committed in the famous battle of Rocroy. The
duke of Enghien, then twenty-one years of age, and subsequently
so celebrated as the great Conde, completely defeated De Mello,
and nearly annihilated the Spanish and Walloon infantry. The
military operations of the Dutch army were this year only remarkable
by the gallant conduct of Prince William, son of the Prince of
Orange, who, not yet seventeen years of age, defeated, near Hulst,
under the eyes of his father, a Spanish detachment in a very
warm skirmish.

Considerable changes were now insensibly operating in the policy
of Europe. Cardinal Richelieu had finished his dazzling but
tempestuous career of government, in which the hand of death
arrested him on the 4th of December, 1642. Louis XIII. soon followed
to the grave him who was rather his master than his minister. Anne
of Austria was declared regent during the minority of her son,
Louis XIV., then only five