possession of the ground between the Rhine and the city, as well as of the redoubt that covered the bridge. Louvois appeared at their head, and demanded that the town should be put under the protection of his master. The magistrates had been corrupted: the inhabitants were all consternation: the city opened its gates, after having secured its privileges by capitulation. Vauban, who had fortified so many places, here exhausted his art, and rendered Strasburg the strongest barrier of France.(1)

Nor did Lewis behave with less arrogance on the side of the Low Countries. He demanded the country of Alost from the Spaniards, on the most frivolous, and even ridiculous pretence. His minister, he said, had forgot to insert it in the articles of peace; and as it was not immediately yielded to him, he blockaded Luxemburg. (2) Alarmed at these ambitious pretensions, the empire. Spain, and Holland began to take measures for restraining the encroachments of France. But Spain was yet too feeble to enter upon a new war, and the imperial armies were required in another quarter, to oppose a more pressing danger.

The Hungarians, whose privileges Leopold had never sufficiently respected, had again broke out into rebellion; and Tekeli, the head of the insurgents, had called in the Turks to the support of his countrymen. By the assistance of the basha of Buda, he ravaged Silesia, and reduced many important places in Hungary while Mahomet IV., the reigning sultan, was preparing the most formidable force that the Ottoman empire had ever sent against Christendom.

Leopold, foreseeing that the gathering storm would finally break upon Germany, besides demanding the assistance of the princes of the empire, concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with John Sobieski, king of Poland. Meanwhile, the grand vizier, Kara Mustapha, passing through Hungary, at the head of fifty thousand janizaries, thirty thousand spahis, and two hundred thousand common men assembled for the occasion, with baggage and artillery in proportion to such a multitude, advanced towards Vienna. The duke of Lorrain, who commanded the imperial forces, attempted in vain to oppose the progress of the invader. The Turks, under the grand vizier, took the right of the Danube, and Tekeli, with the Hungarians, the left. Seeing his capital threatened on every side, the emperor retired first to Lintz, and afterward to Passau. Two-thirds of the inhabitants followed the court, and nothing was to be seen, on all sides, but fugitives, equipages, and carriages laden with moveables.(3) The whole empire was thrown into consternation.

The garrison of Vienna amounted to about fifteen thousand men; and the citizens able to bear arms, to near fifty thousand. The Turks invested the town on the 17th of July; and they had not only destroyed the suburbs, but made a breach in the body of the place by the first of September. The duke of Lorrain had been so fortunate as to prevent the Hungarians from joining the Turks, but was unable to lend the garrison any relief; and an assault was every moment expected, when a deliverer appeared. John Sobieski, king of Poland, having joined his troops to those of Saxony, Bavaria, and the Circles, made a signal to the besieged from the top of the mountain of Calemberg, and inspired them with new hopes. Kara Mustapha, who, from a contempt of the Christians, had neglected to push the assault, and who, amid the progress of ruin, had wantoned in luxury, was now made sensible of his mistake, when too late to repair it.

The Christians, to the number of sixty-four thousand, descended the mountain, under the command of the king of Poland, the duke of Lorrain, and an incredible number of German princes. The grand vizier advanced to meet them at the head of the main body of the Turkish army, while he ordered an assault to be made upon the city with twenty thousand men, who were left in the trenches. The assault failed; and the Turks, being seized with a panic, were routed almost without resistance. Only five hundred of

(1) Hist. d'Alsace, liv. xxiii.
(3) Annal. de l'Emp. tom. ii.

Voltaire, Siècle, chap. xiii.
Barre, tom. x.

(2) Voltaire, ubi sup,

238

[PART II.

the victors fell, and not above one thousand of the vanquished. And so great was the terror, and so precipitate the flight, of the infidels, that they abandoned not only their tents, artillery, and baggage, but left behind them even the famous standard of Mahomet, which was sent as a present to the pope!(1) The Turks received another defeat in the plain of Barean; and all Hungary, on both sides of the Danube, was recovered by the imperial arms.

The king of France, who had supported the malecontents in Hungary, and who encouraged the invasion of the Turks, raised however the blockade of Luxemburg, when they approached Vienna. "attack a Christian prince, while Christendom is in danger from the infi"I will never," said he, dels."(2) He was confident when he made his declaration, that the imperial city would be taken, and had an army on the frontiers of Germany, ready to oppose the farther progress of those very Turks whom he had invited thither! By becoming the protector of the empire, he hoped to get his son elected king of the Romans. (3) But this scheme being defeated, and the apprehensions of Christendom removed by the relief of Vienna and the expulsion of the Turks, Lewis returned to the siege of Luxemburg; and reduced, in a short time, not only that place, but also Courtray and Dixmude.

Enraged at these violences, the Spaniards declared war, and attempted to retaliate. And the prince of Orange was eager for a general confederacy against France; but not being able to induce his uncle, the king of England, to take part in it, he laid aside the design. The emperor, still deeply involved in the war with the Turks and Hungarians, could make no effort on the side of Flanders; and the Spaniards alone were unequal to the contest in which, forgetting their weakness, they had rashly engaged. A truce of twenty years was, therefore, concluded by Spain and the empire with France at Ratisbon. The principal articles of this temporary treaty were, that Lewis should restore Courtray and Dixmude, but retain possession of Luxemburg, Strasburg, the fortress of Kehl, and part of the reunions made by his arbitrary courts established at Metz and Brisac.(4)

The glory and greatness of the French monarch were still farther extended by means of his naval power. He had now raised his lately created marine to a degree of force that exceeded the hopes of France, and increased the fears of Europe. He had upwards of a hundred ships of the line, and sixty thousand seamen.(5) The magnificent port of Toulon, in the Mediterranean, was constructed at an immense expense; and that of Brest, upon the ocean, was formed on as extensive a plan. Dunkirk and Havre-de-Grace were filled with ships; and Rochefort, in spite of nature, was converted into a convenient harbour. allow his ships to lie inactive in these ports. He sent out squadrons, at difNor did Lewis, though engaged in no naval war, ferent times, to clear the seas of the Barbary pirates: he ordered Algiers twice to be bombarded; and he had the pleasure not only of humbling that haughty predatory city, and of obliging the Algerines to release all their Christian slaves, but of subjecting Tunis and Tripoli to the same conditions.(6)

The republic of Genoa, for a slight offence, was no less severely treated than Algiers. The Genoese were accused of having sold bombs and gunpowder to the Algerines, and they had farther incurred the displeasure of Lewis, by engaging to build four galleys for the Spaniards. He commanded them, under pain of his resentment, not to launch those galleys. Incensed at this insult on their independency, the Genoese paid no regard to the menace. They seemed even desirous to show their contempt of such arrogance; but they had soon occasion to repent their temerity. Fourteen ships of the line, twenty galleys, ten bomb-ketches, and several frigates, immediately sailed from Toulon, under old du Quesne; and appearing before Genoa, suddenly reduced to a heap of ruins part of those magnificent buildings,

(1) Annal. de l'Emp. tom. ii. Barre, tom. x.
(3) Voltaire, ubi sup.

(5) Voltaire, Siècle, chap. xiii.

Voltaire, Siècle, chap. xiii.
(4) Dumont, Corv. Diplom. tom. vii.
Id. ibid.

which have obtained for that city the appellation of PROUD. Four thousand men were landed, and the suburb of St. Peter d'Arena was burned. It now became necessary for the Genoese to make submissions, in order to prevent the total destruction of their capital. Lewis demanded that the doge, and four of the principal senators, should come and implore his clemency in his palace at Versailles; and, in order to prevent the Genoese from eluding this satisfaction, or depriving him of any part of his triumph, he insisted that the doge, who should be sent to deprecate his vengeance, should be continued in office, notwithstanding the perpetual law of the republic, by which a doge is deprived of his dignity the moment he quits the city.(1) These humiliating conditions were complied with. Imperiale Lascaro, doge of Genoa, in his ceremonial habit, accompanied by four of the principal senators, appeared before Lewis in a supplicating posture. The doge, who was a man of wit and vivacity, on being asked by the French courtiers what he saw most extraordinary at Versailles, very pointedly replied "To see myself here!" The grandeur of Lewis XIV. was now at its highest point of elevation; but the sinews of his real power were already somewhat slackened, by the death of the great Colbert. That excellent minister, to whom France owes her most valuable manufactures, her commerce, and her navy, had enabled his master, by the order and economy with which he conducted the finances, to support the most expensive wars; to dazzle with his pomp all the nations of Europe; and to corrupt its principal courts, without distressing his people. He has, however, been accused of not sufficiently encouraging agriculture, and of paying too much attention to the manufactures connected with luxury. But these, which for a time made all her neighbours in a manner tributary to France, he was sensible, only could supply the excessive drain of war, and the ostentatious waste of the king. He was not at liberty to follow his own judgment. The necessities of the state obliged him to adopt a temporary policy; and to encourage the more sumptuous manufactures at the expense of general industry, and consequently of population.

But in the prosecution of this system, which, though radically defective, was the best that could be adopted in such circumstances, Colbert employed the wisest measures. He not only established the most ingenious and least known manufactures, such as silks, velvets, laces, tapestries, carpets; but he established them in the cheapest and most convenient places, and encouraged, without distinction, persons of all nations and all religions. Above the rest, the Hugonots, or French Protestants, seemed to claim his attention. Having long lost their political consequence, they devoted themselves chiefly to manufactures. They every where recommended themselves by their industry and ingenuity, which were often rewarded with great opulence. This opulence begot envy; envy produced jealousy; and soon after the death of Colbert, who had always protected and patronised them, these useful and ingenious sectaries, without the imputation of any crime, were exposed to a cruel and impolitic persecution, which reduced them to the necessity of abandoning their native country.

This persecution, whose progress was marked by the revocation of the famous edict of Nantz, which secured to the French Protestants the free exercise of their religion, and was understood to be perpetual, throws peculiar disgrace on the polished court and enlightened reign of Lewis XIV. Even before the revocation of that edict, so blindly bigoted, or violent and shortsighted, were the French ministers, that the Protestants were not only excluded from all civil employments, but rendered incapable of holding any share in the principal silk manufactories, though they only could carry them on to advantage !(2)

One might think, from such regulations, that those ministers had lived in the darkest ages, or were determined to ruin the state. Nor were their ordinances, after repealing the edict of Nantz, less impolitic or absurd. They banished all the Protestant pastors, without once suspecting the flock would

(1) Voltaire, ubi sup.

(2) Mem. de Noailles, par l'Abbé Millot, tom. i

follow them: and when that evil was perceived, it was ineffectually decreed, that such as attempted to leave the kingdom should be sent to the galleys. Those who remained, were prohibited even the private exercise of their religion on pain of death; and, by a singular piece of barbarity, the children of Protestants were ordered to be taken from their parents, and committed to their nearest Catholic relations; or, in default of those, to such other good Catholics as the judges should appoint for their education. All the terrors of military execution, and all the artifices of priestcraft, were employed to make converts; and such as relapsed, were sentenced to the most cruel punishments. A twentieth part of the whole body was put to death in a short time, and a price was set on the heads of the rest, who were hunted like wild beasts upon the mountains.(1)

By these severities, in spite of the guards that were placed on the frontiers, and every other tyrannical restraint, France was deprived of near six hundred thousand of her most valuable inhabitants, who carried their wealth, their industry, and their skill in ingenious manufactures, into England, Holland, and Germany; where Lewis XIV. found, in his own fugitive, and once faithful subjects, not only formidable rivals in commerce, but powerful enemies burning with revenge, and gallant soldiers ready to set bounds to his ambition.

But while Lewis thus persecuted the French Protestants, contrary to all the principles of humanity and sound policy, he was no dupe to the court of Rome. On the contrary, he did every thing in his power to mortify Innocent XI., a man of virtue and abilities, who now filled the papal chair. He carried ecclesiastical disputes with him as far as possible, without separating the Gallican church entirely from the apostolic see. In civil affairs, the contest was still warmer, and took its rise from a singular abuse. The ambassadors of popish princes at Rome extended what they called their quarters, or the right of freedom and asylum, to a great distance from their houses. This pernicious privilege rendered one-half of Rome a certain refuge for all sorts of criminals; and, by another privilege, as whatever entered Rome under the sanction of an ambassador's name, paid no duty, the trade of the city suffered, and the state was defrauded of its revenue. In order to remedy these abuses, Innocent prevailed on the emperor and the king of Spain to forego such odious rights and an application to the same purpose was made to the king of France, entreating him to concur with the other princes in promoting the tranquillity and good order of Rome. Lewis, who was already dissatisfied with the pope, haughtily replied, that he had never made the conduct of others an example to himself; but, on the contrary, would make himself an example to others!(2) He accordingly sent his ambassador to Rome, surrounded with guards and other armed attendants; and Innocent was able to oppose him only with excommunications.

This triumph over the spiritual father of Christendom was the last insult on the dignity of sovereigns, which Lewis XIV. was suffered to commit with impunity. The emperor had taken Buda from the Turks, after an obstinate siege: he had defeated them with great slaughter at Mohatz: he had entirely subdued the Hungarian malecontents: he had even got the crown of Hungary declared hereditary in the house of Austria, and his son Joseph proclaimed king of that country. Though still engaged in hostilities with the infidels, he had now leisure to turn his eye towards France; nor could he do it with indifference. The same vainglorious ambition which had prompted Lewis to tyrannize over the pope, and to persecute his Protestant subjects, that, to use the language of his historians, as there was ONE king there might be but ONE religion in the monarchy, and which justly alarmed all Germany and the North, at length awakened the resentment of Leopold.

A league had been already concluded by the whole empire at Augsburg, in order to restrain the encroachments of France, and to vindicate the objects

(1) Mem. de Noailles, par l'Abbé Millot, tom. i. See also Voltaire, Siècle, chap. xxxii.
(2) Voltaire, Siècle, chap. xiii.

of the treaties of Westphalia, the Pyrenees, and Nimeguen. And an ambitious attempt of Lewis XIV. to get the cardinal de Furstemburg, one of his own creatures, made elector of Cologne in opposition to the emperor, at once showed the necessity of such an association, and lighted anew the flames of war in Germany and the Low Countries. Spain and Holland had become principals in the league; Denmark, Sweden, and Savoy were afterward gained; so that the accession of England seemed only wanting to render the confederacy complete, and that was at last acquired. But, before I enter into particulars, we must take a view of the unhappy reign of James II., and the great change in the English constitution with which it was terminated.

LETTER XVI.

Great Britain and Ireland during the Reign of James II.

CHARLES II., by his popular character and temporizing policy, had so generally reconciled the English nation to his arbitrary administration, that the obnoxious religion, and even the blind bigotry of his brother, may perhaps be considered as fortunate circumstances for the British constitution. For had James II. been a Protestant, he might quietly have established despotism in England; or had he, as he formerly promised, made his religion a private affair between God and his own conscience, he might still have been able to subdue the small remains of liberty, and to establish that absolute government which he loved. But the justice of these reflections will best appear from the facts by which they were suggested.

The new king, who was fifty years of age when he ascended the throne, began his reign with a very popular act. He immediately assembled the privy council, and declared, that although he had been represented as a man of arbitrary principles, and though determined not to relinquish the just rights and prerogatives of the crown, he was resolved to maintain the established government, both in church and state, being sensible that the laws of England were sufficient to make him as great a monarch as he could wish.(1) This decla ration gave great satisfaction to the council, and was received with the warmest applause by the nation. As James had hitherto been considered as a prince of unimpeached honour and sincerity, no one doubted but his intentions were conformable to his professions. "We have now," it was commonly said, "the word of a king; and a word never yet broken!"(2) It was represented as a greater security to the constitution than any that laws could give. Addresses poured in from all quarters, full not only of expressions of duty, but of the most servile adulation.(3)

But this popularity was of short continuance. The nation was soon convinced, that the king either was not sincere in his promise to preserve the constitution inviolate, or entertained ideas of that constitution very different from those of his people, and such as could yield no security to their civil or religious liberties. He went openly, and with all the ensigns of his dignity, to mass, an illegal worship: he was even so imprudent as to urge others to follow his example: he sent an agent to Rome, in order to make submissions to the pope; and he levied taxes without the authority of parliament.(4)

James, however, soon found the necessity of assembling a parliament; and in consequence of the influence which the crown had acquired in the boroughs, by the violation of the corporation charters, a house of commons was procured as compliant as the most arbitrary prince could have wished. If they

(1) Printed Declaration.

(2) Burnet, book iv.

(3) The address from the Quakers was, however, distinguished by that plainness which has so long characterized the sect. "We are come," said they, "to testify our sorrow for the death of our good friend Charles, and our joy for thy being made our governor. We are told thou art not of the persuasion of the church of England, any more than we; wherefore we hope thou wilt grant us the same liberty which thou allowest thyself; which doing, we wish thee all manner of happiness.

(4) Burnet, book iv. Carte's Life of Ormond, vol. iii.

VOL. II.-Q

11