In regard to these various wars, which plunged Europe in mourning and rage for nearly fifty years, Louis is generally censured by historians.  They were wars of ambition, like those of Alexander and Frederic II., until Europe combined against him and compelled him to act on the defensive.  The limits of this lecture necessarily prevent me from describing these wars; I can only allude to the most important of them, and then only to show results.

His first great war was simply outrageous, and was an insult to all Europe, and a violation of all international law.  In 1667, with an immense army, he undertook the conquest of Flanders, with no better excuse than Frederic II. had for the invasion of Silesia,—­because he wanted an increase of territory.  Flanders had done nothing to warrant this outrage, was unprepared for war, and was a weak state, but rich and populous, with fine harbors, and flourishing manufactures.  With nearly fifty thousand men, under Conde, Turenne, and Luxembourg, and other generals of note, aided by Louvois, who provided military stores of every kind, and all under the eye of the King himself, full of ideas of glory, the issue of the conflict was not doubtful.  In fact, there was no serious defence.  It was hopeless from the first.  Louis had only to take possession of cities and fortresses which were at his mercy.  The frontier towns were mostly without fortifications, so that it took only about two or three days to conquer any city.  The campaign was more a court progress than a series of battles.  It was a sort of holiday sport for courtiers, like a royal hunt.  The conquest of all Flanders might have been the work of a single campaign, for no city offered a stubborn resistance; but the war was prolonged for another year, that Louis might more easily take possession of Franche-Comte,—­a poor province, but fertile in soil, well peopled, one hundred and twenty miles in length and sixty in breadth.  In less than three weeks this province was added to France.  “Louis,” said the Spanish council in derision, “might have sent his valet de chambre to have taken possession of the country in his name, and saved himself the trouble of going in person.”

This successful raid seems to have contented the King for the time, since Holland made signs of resistance, and a league was forming against him, embracing England, Holland, and Sweden.

The courtiers and flatterers of Louis XIV. called this unheroic seizure “glory.”  And it doubtless added to the dominion of France, inflamed the people with military ambition, and caused the pride of birth for the first time to yield to military talent and military rank.  A marshal became a greater personage than a duke, although a marshal was generally taken from the higher nobility.

Louis paid no apparent penalty for this crime, any more than prosperous wickedness at first usually receives.  “His eyes stood out with fatness.”  To idolatrous courtiers “he had more than heart could wish.”  But the penalty was to come:  law cannot be violated with impunity.