Father. Very well; I mean now to give you some idea of the cost of a war to the people among whom it is carried on. This may serve to abate something of the admiration with which historians are to apt to inspire us for great warriors and conquerors. You have heard, I doubt not, of Louis the Fourteenth, king of France?
Oswald. Oh, yes!
Fa. He was entitled by his subjects Louis le Grand, and was compared by them to the Cesars and Alexanders of antiquity; and with some justice as to the extent of his power, and the use he made of it. He was the most potent prince of his time; commanded mighty and victorious armies; and enlarged the limits of his hereditary dominions. Louis was not naturally a hard-hearted man; but having been taught from his cradle that everything ought to give way to the interests of his glory, and that this glory consisted in domineering over his neighbours, and making conquests, he grew to be insensible to all the miseries brought on his own and other people, in pursuit of this noble design, as he thought it. Moreover, he was plunged in dissolute pleasures, and the delights of pomp and splendour, from his youth; and he was ever surrounded by a tribe of abject flatterers, who made him believe that he had a full right, in all cases to do as he pleased. Conquest abroad and pleasure at home, were therefore the chief business of his life.
One evening, his minister, Louvois, came to him and said, “Sire, it is absolutely necessary to make a desert of the Palatinate.”
This is a country in Germany, on the banks of the Rhine, one of the most populous and best-cultivated districts in that empire, filled with towns and villages, and industrious inhabitants.
“I should be sorry to do it,” replied the king, “for you know how much odium we acquired throughout Europe when a part of it was laid waste sometime ago, under Marshal Turenne.”
“It cannot be helped, sire,” returned Louvois. “All the damage he did has been repaired, and the country is as flourishing as ever. If we leave it in its present state it will afford quarters to your majesty’s enemies, and endanger your conquests. It must be entirely ruined—the good of the service will not permit it to be otherwise.”
“Well, then,” answered Louis, “if it must be so, you are to give orders accordingly.” So saying, he left the cabinet, and went to assist a magnificent festival given in honour of his favourite mistress by a prince of the blood.
The pitiless Louvois lost no time; but despatched a courier that very night, with positive orders to the French generals in the Palatinate to carry fire and desolation through the whole country—not to leave a house or a tree standing—and to expel all the inhabitants.
It was the midst of a rigorous winter.