The foreign wars of Louis XIV. proceeded in great measure from the same ruling principles or prejudices of his mind. He disliked the Dutch, whom he considered as mercantile plebeiaos, heretics, and republicans, "a body formed of too many heads, which cannot be warmed by the fire of noble passions" (' Instructions pour le Dauphin,' vol. iL, p. 201); and he carried his antipathy to the grave, without having succeeded in subjecting that small nation, whoa-. wealth excited enemies against him everywhere. It is impossible not to be struck with the similarity of prejudices in two men, however dissimilar in some respects, Napoleon L and Louis XIV. The hatred of Napoleon against England, which he designated as a nation of shop keepers, was like that of Louis against the Dutch, and it produced similar results to his empire. The same determination of establishing uniformity iu everything ; the same mania for a unity and singleness of power, which both mistook for strength ; the same ambition of making France the ruling nation of Europe uuder an absolute ruler, were alike the dominant principles, or rather passions, of the legiti mate and most Christian king,' and of the plebeian child and champion of the Revolution.' Several of the plans and schemes of Louis XIV., relative to foreign conquests, were found in the archives, and were revived and acted upon by Bonaparte.
Tho first war of Louie XIV. against the emperor Leopold, Holland, and Spain, was ended by the treaty of Nymegen, 1678. Louis kept the Franche Comt6 and part of the Spanish Netherlands. The war broke out again in 1639, between Louis on one side, and the Empire, Holland, and England on the other. Louis undertook to support James 11. in Ireland, but the battle of the Boyne and the capitula tion of Limerick put an end to the hopes of the Stuarts, and James II. passed the rest of his life in exile at St. Germain-en-Laye, where he died a pensioner of the French king. In Germany Louis XIV. caused one of the most atrocious acts recorded in the history of modern warfare. This was no lees than the devastation of the Palatinate by his commanders. A district of more than thirty English miles in length, with the towns of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Speyer, Oppenheim, Crutzenach, Frankenthal, Ingelheim,Bacharaoh, Sinzheim, and others, was ravaged, plundered, and burnt, iu cold blood, under the pre tence of forming a barrier between the French army and its enemies. A cry of indignation resounded throughout all Europe at the disastrous news. It was just about this time that James Stuart solicited, from his exile at St. Germain, the assistance of the emperor against William of Orange, iu the name of legitimacy and the Catholio religion. Leopold in his answer observed, "that there are no people who injure so much the cause of religion as the French themselves, who on one side support the Turks, the enemies of all Christendom, to the detriment of the empire; and on the other, have ravaged and burnt innocent towns, which had surrendered by capitulations signed' by the hand of the Dauphin : they have burnt the palaces of princes, plundered the churches, carried away the inhabitants as slaves, and treated Catholics with a cruelty of which the Turks themselves would be ashamed." (' Letter from the Emperor Leopold to James II., 9th
of April 1639,' in the `116moires do Jacques II.,' vol. iv.) In 1693 the unfortunate town of Heidelberg, which had been partly restored by the inhabitants, was taken again by the French marshal De Lorges, the women were violated, the churches set on fire, end the inhabitants in general, 15,000 In number, stripped of everything and driven away from their homes. On these news a 'To Deum ' was sung at Paris, and a coin struck, which represented tho town in flames, with the inscription, "Rex dixit at faotum est I " The treaty of Ityswick, lu 1697, terminated the war, by which Louis gained nothing, acknow ledged William III. as king of Great Britain, and restored the Duke of Lorraine to his dominions.
The third war of Louis was that of the Spanish succession. It began in 1701 and lasted thirteen years, convulsed all Europe, and was terminated at last by the peace of Utrecht in 1713. Louis suc ceeded in establishing a Bourbon dynasty in Spain, but this was the only advantage he gained; his armies had been repeatedly defeated by Eugene and Marlborough, his best generals were dead, his treasury was exhausted, his subjects were tired of war and of taxes, and ho himself was broken down in health and spirits, a more shadow of what ho had been. He lingered about two years more, during which ho legitimated his numerous natural children ; made his will, by which he appointed his nephew, Philip, duke of Orleans, regent during the minority of his great-grandson aul heir Louis XV.; fell ill in August 1715, and died the let of the following September, seventy seven years of age.
After divesting the character of Louis XIV. of the exaggerated praise bestowed on him by flattery or national vanity, after animad verting upon his numerous faults, and even crimes, it must be fairly acknowledged that he was a remarkable prince, and had many valu able qualities. He was active, intelligent, and regular in business; quick in discovering the abilities of others, an able administrator himself; endowed with a constant equanimity in adversity as well as prosperity, and a perfect self-command ; a kind master, he was not prone to change his servants capriciously, was not harsh in rebuking them, and was ever ready to encourage merit, and praise and reward zeal for his service. Hence he had many faithful and devoted servants. His manner was noble, and his appearance impo sing ; he acted the king, but he acted it admirably, at least to the then taste of the people ; he -had a lively sense of decorum and outward propriety, which never forsook him. What he knew he learnt by himself : his natural gifts and the experience of his youth, passed among civil wars, made up for his want of learning and of study. If be carried his notions of absolutism to an extreme, he was evidently persuaded of hie supposed right, and acted as much from a sense of duty as from inclination. In his reign of seventy two years he reared the fabric of the absolute monarchy in France, which continued for seventy-two years more after his death; and when it was shaken to pieces in the storms of the Revolution, still the ruling principles of his administration, uniformity and centralisa tiou, survived the wreck, and France is still governed by them.