"Sire, they are very simple. We have only to march on the German towns, sack and burn them, and put to the sword all those that presume to defy the power of France. We must spread consternation throughout all Germany, that your majesty's name may cause every cheek to pale, and every heart to sink with fear. The enemy shall provision our army, and forage our horses. We will take possession of their magazines, stores, and shambles; and to every house that refuses us gold, we will apply the devouring torch. Thus we will make it impossible for the emperor to advance to Lorraine; and the wide desert that intervenes between us will become French territory."
"I approve your mode of warfare, Louvois; it is good. If the emperor had ratified my choice of an Elector of Cologne, and had sustained my claims to Lorraine and Alsatia, I would have conceded him as many triumphs as he chose in Transylvania. As he opposes me, let him take the consequence—war with all its horrors!"
"Your majesty empowers me, then, to dispatch my couriers?" said
Louvois.
"I do, my dear marquis," was the gracious reply, while the royal hand was held out to be kissed.
Louvois pressed it to his lips, as a lover does the rosy fingers of his mistress, and, hastening away with the agility of a young man, sprang into his carriage, and drove off. "'My dear marquis,'" murmured he, with a smile of complacency. "He called me his dear marquis, and the storm of his displeasure has passed away. I came very near being struck by its lightning, nevertheless. That De Maintenon is a shrewd woman, and found me out at once. Yes!—yes, your majesty! Had you admired my window at Trianon, I should not have been obliged to involve you in a war with Germany."
CHAPTER V.
THE IMPERIAL DIET AT REGENSBURG.
In 1687 the imperial Diet assembled at Regensburg, to examine the claims of the King of France to Alsatia, Lorraine, the Palatinate, and other possessions, which his majesty longed to appropriate out of the domains of his neighbors.
On the 2d of October, 1689, a travelling-carriage might have been seen standing in front of the large, antiquated building occupied by Count Spaur, the envoy of the Emperor Leopold.
The postilion sounded his horn, and cracked his whip with such vehemence, that here and there an inquiring and angry face might be seen at the neighboring windows, peering out upon the untimely intruders, who were making dawn hideous by their clattering arrival. The footman sprang from his board, and thundered with all his might at the door, while, between each interval of knocking, the postilion accompanied him by a fanfare that stirred up the sleeping echoes of that dull old town in a manner that was astonishing to hear.