45. Louis XIV. —(concluded)
CHAPTER XLV. Louis XIV. —(concluded) 1643-1715
The cruelty of Louis to the Protestants had made him enemies in all the countries of Europe. Many of his neighbours had been afraid of his great power for some time, and had been trying to make up a league to join together against him; but now all the Protestants were so angry with him, that some of those who had been inclined to take his side went over to the League; and Louis saw that he was in great danger, and that war might begin against him at any moment. His chief enemies were the Emperor of Germany, several of the German princes, and William of Orange; the English, for the present, were on his side, as James II., a Roman Catholic, was now reigning over them, and was the friend of Louis. His enemies called their league the League of Augsburg, from the name of a German town, where it had been chiefly arranged between them; and the war which began about three years after the persecution of the Huguenots, is called the War of the League of Augsburg. It lasted for nine years, and Louis won several great battles, and took several large towns, with great difficulty; yet it was not on the whole successful for him.
Very soon after it began there was a revolution in England : the people drove away James II., their Roman Catholic king, and invited William of Orange, his son-in-law, to come and rule over them. He went, became King of England, and had all the strength of the English to help him in his war against Louis. At the same time, having all the affairs of England to attend to, he could not spend so much of his time in fighting the French as he otherwise might have done. Every summer he went over to the Continent to take part in the war; his armies were made up of Englishmen, Dutchmen, and a great number of the French Huguenots who had been driven from their country by Louis. Their great wish was to go back again to France and be settled there as before, and they believed that no one could bring them back but William. They hoped that if they helped him to conquer his enemy Louis, he would make Louis agree to their going back to France, and living there undisturbed; but this hope was never fulfilled. The Huguenots who had joined the English army spent their lives in England; many of them married English people, and their children and grandchildren became as much Englishmen as any of their neighbours.
Louis had a very strong army with which to resist the other countries of Europe; he also had with him an engineer named Vauban, who knew more about defending and besieging towns than any other man of that time. He used to build towers and walls round a town, and make it so strong that it was almost impossible for any one else to take it; or, on the other hand, he could arrange guns so well, and make trenches and siege-works of different kinds so skilfully, that very few towns could resist when he besieged them. This man was of the greatest use to Louis all through his wars; he could also make canals and bridges; and he wrote a very useful book on the state of France.
While the war was going on Louis had tried to make difficulties for William by helping his enemy, James II., who had come for shelter to the French court when he was turned off the throne of England. Louis gave him a fleet and an army, and sent him to Ireland, where he fought the battle of the Boyne against William III. and his Protestant army, and was entirely beaten; so he fled back to France again. Louis then let him live at Versailles, a palace which had been built in this reign just outside Paris, and treated him with great kindness. William's wife Mary died in the course of the war, and as it was supposed that many of the English cared for William only because he was her husband, Louis thought that now would be a good time for James to try once again whether he could find no friends in his old kingdom. A plot was arranged in England, and James was sent off with some ships, and a brave and skilful captain to command them, to cross the Channel, and land, if possible, in England. But it was of no use; the English fleet was watching, and James had to come back to France once more. He stayed there for the rest of his life.
In this war William and his friends hardly ever won a victory. William himself gained only one in the whole course of his life, and that was in Ireland, at the battle of the Boyne, Year after year he went to the Netherlands, or to Germany, or wherever the war was going on, fought a great battle, or tried to take or defend a town, and was beaten. Yet, after nine years of fighting, Louis was willing to agree to the terms of peace which William proposed. These terms were, that he should acknowledge William as King of England, and give up to the English and Dutch and Germans all the towns and country he had taken from them during the war. A peace was made at Ryswick in Holland, which was, on the whole, good for the allies of the League of Augsburg, and bad for France and Louis; but it is said that the reason Louis agreed to it was that he wanted to give all his thoughts and strength to the question of who should be the next King of Spain, about which he was very anxious. Before the peace was settled, William III. tried to persuade Louis to give leave to the Huguenots who had been driven away from France to come back to their own homes and settle there again, but the French king would not hear of it.
There are so many wars and treaties of peace in this reign, that I have made a little table of them at the end of this chapter, for it is impossible that any one can remember them by merely reading their names once. By seeing a list of them all together, one comes to understand what an extraordinary reign this was, on account both of its length and of the number of events which happened in it. We have now come to the end of the seventeenth century. The peace of Ryswick was signed three years before 1700; all that comes after this happened in the last century, in which people no older than our own grandfathers were born. During all this war of the League of Augsburg the people of France had suffered terribly. Two or three men in the country were bold enough to write books, in which they gave an account of all the misery they saw about them. Louis XIV. had such complete power in France that there were not many of his subjects who dared to tell him the truth, and he never called together the States-General, so that he did not even have the lists of complaints which they would have drawn up, and which might have given him some idea of the state of his subjects. This is the way in which one of the great writers of that time — Fénélon, who was tutor to the king's grandson, and afterwards a bishop — describes France as it was then: — "The whole of France is one great hospital, with no food in it. The people who once loved you so well (his book is a kind of letter addressed to Louis) are now losing their trust in you, their friendship, and even their respect for you. You are obliged either to leave their rebellions unpunished, or to massacre people whom you have driven to despair, and who are dying every day of illnesses brought on by famine. The land is almost uncultivated; the cities and the country have lost their inhabitants, commerce has come to an end, and trade brings in no riches." The letter goes on to say that Louis ought to make peace, even on bad terms, for that the war he was carrying on was an unjust one, in which he was thinking only of his own glory, and that his first duty was to attend to his people's happiness. It is not certain that the king ever saw this letter, but it gives us some idea of what the state of the country must have been; and other people wrote books, saying the same sort of thing, which were published and read by every one, though they do not seem to have had any special effect on Louis.
In the year 1700 the King of Spain, Charles II., died, after having been for thirty-two years so weak and delicate that it had been supposed every year that he must die before the end of it. He had been married three times, but had never had any children, so that it was not certain who would be king after him. In Spain the king could make a will if he had no child, leaving the Crown to anyone he chose, so that there was great interest to know what Charles would (settle). He had had no brothers, but two sisters, and each of his sisters had a grandson. One of these sisters had been the wife of Louis XIV., so her grandson was his grandson as well, and what Louis naturally wished was that this young man, whose name was Philip, should be King of Spain, in which case Louis himself would really govern both kingdoms, for Philip was young, and would have done as his grandfather desired him. But Charles II. liked the grandson of his other sister better than Philip, and always said he should leave the kingdom to him. This was a child of seven years old, a little prince of Bavaria, called Joseph Ferdinand. There was one other person who thought he had a right to be king, and this was Charles, son of the Emperor of Germany, who was not so near a relation as either of the others, but who had the wife of Charles II. for his friend.
The poor King of Spain spent the last year or two of his life in the greatest distress, trying in vain to make up his mind which of all these people should succeed him. His wife wished for Charles, and he wished for Joseph Ferdinand, and some of his ministers wished for Philip, the grandson of Louis; and the other countries of Europe, in particular England, interfered, and began making treaties with each other for dividing the kingdom, which he thought worse than anything. At last little Joseph Ferdinand died suddenly, and the question was now only between the French prince, the grandson of Louis, and the German prince, the son of the Emperor. Louis sent an ambassador to Spain, who lived at Madrid, and did everything he could to please the king and make friends with the great nobles and the people. His wife came to live there too, and was a great help to him, for she was so charming that every one liked to come to his house, and he was then able to say to them all that he wished. In the end he was successful. Charles II. made a will leaving all his possessions to Philip, and if he did not accept them, to Charles, the Emperor's son. Directly after this he died; the will was read, and Philip was invited to come to Spain, and settle himself there as king.
Louis had now gained what he had been wishing for so long, but it brought him great trouble as well as pleasure. He had just made an arrangement with William of England, by which the Spanish kingdom was to be divided between England, France, and Germany, and he knew the English would be angry at his taking it all for himself. However, after some little thought, he decided to accept the will, and sent his grandson Philip to Spain, telling him to be a good Spaniard, without forgetting that he was a Frenchman, and hoping that France and Spain would now be like one country. "There are no more Pyrenees," he said to Philip, meaning that the natural division between the two countries had come to an end. After this Louis, in several small ways, offended every one who had already been made angry by his allowing his grandson to accept this great inheritance, and at last his chief enemies made a league against him and began a war. These enemies were the English, the Dutch, and the (Emperor). Their league was called the Grand Alliance, and the war, the War of the Spanish Succession; it lasted for twelve years. Peace was made only two years before the death of Louis. Soon after the war had begun William III. of England died, and was succeeded by Anne — "the good Queen Anne" — his sister-in-law, whose general, the Duke of Marlborough, was almost as good a soldier as William, though (a far less) great man, and carried on the war very successfully for England. Louis had bad generals; he usually appointed men who were friends of his own, or of Madame de Maintenon's, whether they were good soldiers or not. This was one of the bad results of doing everything for himself, and trusting so little to any minister. The Emperor's son Charles, who now called himself Charles III. of Spain, attacked Philip V., King of Spain, and at one time drove him from the throne and set himself up there instead. But the Spanish people, in the course of this war, came to care strongly about Philip, and fought for him faithfully, so that at last Charles was driven out of the country; and when his father and his elder brother died, he became Emperor of Germany, and cared no more about Spain, so Philip and his descendants ruled there peacefully as Louis had wished.
But with Louis himself, as the war went on, things did not go so well. He had two specially dangerous enemies, the Duke of Marlborough in England, and the Prince Eugene in Germany. These two were both great soldiers, and they planned the war so skilfully that their armies were always coming up to help one another and to destroy the French. A great battle was fought at Blenheim, near the river Danube, where the French were entirely beaten, and lost not only many men, but all their power and force in Germany. This was the worst misfortune that had then ever happened to Louis.
The war went on, and two years later Marlborough won another great victory at Ramillies. This was in the Netherlands, and therefore much nearer to France and Paris than Blenheim had been. The king and his people were frightened, and Louis tried to make peace with England and Holland separately. However, the war still went on; the English took the Rock of Gibraltar from the Spaniards, and have kept it as their own till this day. They had constant success, though they lost many soldiers in every battle, and there was a party in England which was very anxious that the war should stop as soon as might be. Seven years after the war began there came a dreadful winter in France; till January the weather was so warm that leaves came out, and flowers and blossom began to grow, then there came a sudden sharp frost, and everything was killed. The frost lasted for some time, and the people, who were in great poverty and wretchedness to begin with, suffered terribly; their houses were falling down, their clothes were thin and bad, and when they could buy no food they fell ill and died in great numbers. Wolves came down from the forests and mountains and attacked the people in the plains.
The next summer Marlborough gained a third great victory, as famous as those of Blenheim and Ramillies; it was at Malplaquet, in Belgium. Here more men were killed on both sides than in any former battle. The English, though they were victorious, had lost more men than the French, and people in England became more and more anxious that the war should come to an end. The French, who had retreated from the battle in good order, were in rather better spirits, though they had been beaten, than they had been before, and were becoming less afraid of the "fierce Malbrook," as he was called in France. After this there was no other serious battle, and four years afterwards peace was signed at Utrecht. Philip was to remain King of Spain, and Louis solemnly promised that the countries of France and Spain should never be ruled by the same king. Louis recognised Anne as Queen of England, and promised to send away from France the son of James II., called the Pretender, who wished to make himself King of England as James III. There were altogether ten treaties made at Utrecht, for France made peace separately with all the nations which had joined the Grand Alliance, and Spain and Portugal did the same. Thus, at last, there was peace through all Europe.
A year before the end of the war a great trouble came upon Louis XIV. His eldest son, the Dauphin, had lived to be about fifty without making himself remarkable in any (kind of) way. The king had taken great pains with his education, and had him brought up by one of the greatest writers, and the most famous Churchman of the time — Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux — who had written books entirely for him, and done everything possible to make him a perfect king, in spite of all which he grew up with hardly any character, no virtues, no particular vices; and hardly anything is known of him till, when he was fifty years old, he suddenly died of smallpox. He left a son of about twenty-five, who had been brought up with as much care as his father, and with much better success. His tutor had been Fénélon, the Archbishop of Cambrai, who is sometimes called the Swan of Cambrai, from his gentleness and innocence; while Bossuet is called the Eagle of Meaux, from his strength and activity, and king-like qualities. Fénélon's pupil, the Duke of Burgundy, had had many faults while he was quite young, but had been cured of them by his master, and was at once so good and so clever that the people were looking forward to a good king in him. Now that his father, the Dauphin, was dead, he was next heir to the throne, and Louis felt that he should leave a worthy successor behind him.
The Duke of Burgundy had a wife who was very gay and charming, made the court amusing and cheerful to every one, and was specially loved by the old king. Suddenly she fell ill of a violent fever, and died after a few days' illness. The next morning her husband, the duke, was seized with the same illness; a few days after he also died, leaving two children, both boys, one five and the other two years old. Both children caught the fever from their parents; the elder died, the younger was saved with great difficulty, and lived to succeed his great-grandfather as Louis XV.
The poor old king was deeply grieved by these misfortunes, which happened to him one after another. He also knew that his people were in great distress; he found it vain to try and raise any more money from them. There were riots for bread in several cities. The court became more and more gloomy; even Madame de Maintenon grew tired of the king, who was still devoted to her. He had now been on the throne for seventy-two years, and was dying of old age. He was calm and grand and king-like, as he had always been, to the very end of his life. On his deathbed he had his little great-grandson Louis XV., who was then five years old, brought to him, and said good-bye to the child in words which were afterwards painted on the head of his bed, that they might be in his sight night and morning. "You are soon to be king of a great country. What I commend most earnestly to you is never to forget the obligations you owe to God. Remember that you owe all you are to Him. Try to keep peace with your neighbours; I have been too fond of war, do not imitate me in that, nor in my too great expenditure." Louis XIV. died, left alone by his friends, even by Madame de Maintenon, and his people were glad to hear of his death. They had suffered so much in the last years of his reign, that they hoped for something better under a new Government, whatever it might be. They could not foresee how bad a king was to succeed their Great Monarch, as Louis was called during his lifetime and since. Louis was one of the most remarkable kings in French history; and though no one would say that he was altogether a good man, there are many reasons for thinking him a great one.
The Wars and Treaties in the Reign of Louis XIV. Thirty Years' War. Ended by the Peace of Westphalia, 1648. (Going on when he began to reign.)
War with Spain. Ended by the Peace of the Pyrenees, 1658. (By which it was settled that Louis should marry Maria Theresa.)
War with Spain (about Maria Theresa's rights). Ended by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668.
War with Holland (lasted six years). Ended by the Peace of Nimeguen, 1678.
War of the League of Augsburg. Ended by the Peace of Ryswick, 1697.
War of the Spanish Succession. Ended by the Peace of Utrecht, 1713.
