Louis placed himself at the head of the army which he had reformed and reorganized, and announced that he was to undertake a "journey," as if his invasion was only an expedition into another part of his undisputed realms. He easily took a number of towns on the border, and completely conquered Franche-Comté. This was an outlying province of Spain, isolated from her other lands, and a most tempting morsel for the hungry king of France. These conquests alarmed Europe, and especially Holland, which could not afford to have the barrier between it and France removed, for Louis would be an uncomfortable neighbor. A Triple Alliance, composed of Holland, England, and Sweden, was accordingly organized to induce France to make peace with Spain. Louis contented himself for the moment with the dozen border towns that he had taken and which Spain ceded to him on condition that he would return Franche-Comté (Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668).
Louis breaks up the Triple Alliance and allies himself with Charles II of England.
The success with which Holland had held her own against the navy of England[353] and brought the proud king of France to a halt, produced an elation on the part of that tiny country which was very aggravating to Louis. He was thoroughly vexed that he should have been blocked by so trifling an obstacle as Dutch intervention. He consequently conceived a strong dislike for the United Provinces, which was increased by the protection that they afforded to political writers who annoyed him with their attacks. He broke up the Triple Alliance by inducing Charles II of England to conclude a treaty which arranged that England should help France in a new war against the Dutch.
Louis' invasion of Holland, 1672.
Louis then startled Europe again by seizing the duchy of Lorraine, which brought him to the border of Holland. At the head of a hundred thousand men he crossed the Rhine (1672) and easily conquered southern Holland. For the moment the Dutch cause appeared to be lost. But William of Orange showed the spirit of his great ancestor, William the Silent; the sluices in the dikes were opened and the country flooded, so the French army was checked before it could take Amsterdam and advance into the north. Holland found an ally in the elector of Brandenburg, and the war became general. The emperor sent an army against Louis, and England deserted him and made peace with Holland.
Peace of Nimwegen, 1678.
Louis' encroachments on German territory.
When a general peace was concluded at Nimwegen, at the end of six years, the chief provisions were that Holland should be left intact, and that France should retain Franche-Comté, which had been conquered by Louis in person. This bit of the Burgundian heritage thus became at last a part of France, after France and Spain had quarreled over it for a century and a half. For the ten years following there was no open war, but Louis busied himself in the interval by instituting courts in the debatable region between France and Germany, to decide what neighboring districts belonged to the various territories and towns which had been ceded to France by the treaties of Westphalia and later ones. The vestiges of the old feudal entanglements gave ample scope for claims, which were reënforced by Louis' troops. Louis, moreover, seized the important free city of Strasburg, and made many other less conspicuous but equally unwarranted additions to his territory. The emperor was unable to do more than protest against these outrageous encroachments, for he was fully occupied with the Turks, who had just laid siege to Vienna.[354]
Situation of the Huguenots at the beginning of Louis XIV's reign.
195. Louis XIV exhibited as woeful a want of statesmanship in the treatment of his Protestant subjects as in the prosecution of disastrous wars. The Huguenots, deprived of their former military and political power, had turned to manufacture, trade, and banking; "as rich as a Huguenot" had become a proverb in France. There were perhaps a million of them among fifteen million Frenchmen, and they undoubtedly formed by far the most thrifty and enterprising part of the nation. The Catholic clergy, however, did not cease to urge the complete suppression of heresy.