The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668 followed, which made Louis the most prominent figure in Europe.  He was then twenty-nine years of age, in the pride of strength, devoted equally to pleasure and ambition.  It was then that he was the lover of the Duchesse de La Valliere, who was soon to be supplanted by the imperious Montespan.  Louis remained at peace for four years, but all the while he was preparing for another war, aimed against Holland, which had offended him because resolved to resist him.

Vaster preparations were made for this war than that against Flanders, five years before.  The storm broke out in 1672, when this little state saw itself invaded by one hundred and thirty thousand men, led by the King in person, accompanied by his principal marshals, his war-minister Louvois, and Vauban, to whom was intrusted the direction of siege operations,—­an engineer who changed the system of fortifications.  This was the most magnificent army that Europe had ever seen since the Crusades, and much was expected of it.  Against Conde, Turenne, Luxembourg, and Vauban, all under the eye of the King, with a powerful train of artillery, and immense sums of money to bribe the commanders of garrisons, Holland had only to oppose twenty-five thousand soldiers, under a sickly young man of twenty-two, William, Prince of Orange.

Of course Holland was unable to resist such an overwhelming tide of enemies, such vast and disproportionate forces.  City after city and fortress after fortress was compelled to surrender to the generals of the French King.  “They were taken almost as soon as they were invested.”  All the strongholds on the Rhine and Issel fell.  The Prince of Orange could not even take the field.  Louis crossed the Rhine without difficulty, when the waters were low, with only four or five hundred horsemen to dispute his passage.  This famous passage was the subject of ridiculous panegyrics by both painters and poets.  It was generally regarded as a prodigious feat, especially by the people of Paris, as if it were another passage of the Granicus.

Then rapidly fell Arnheim, Nimeguen, Utrecht, and other cities.  The wealthy families of Amsterdam prepared to embark in their ships for the East Indies.  Nothing remained to complete the conquest of Holland but the surrender of Amsterdam, which still held out.  Holland was in despair, and sent ambassadors to the camp of Louis, headed by Grotius, to implore his mercy.  He received them, after protracted delays, with blended insolence and arrogance, and demanded, as the conditions of his mercy, that the States should give up all their fortified cities, pay twenty millions of francs, and establish the Catholic religion,—­conditions which would have reduced the Hollanders to absolute slavery, morally and politically.  From an inspiration of blended patriotism and despair, the Dutch opened their dykes, overflowed the whole country in possession of the enemy, and thus made Amsterdam impregnable,—­especially as they were still masters of the sea, and had just dispersed, in a brilliant naval battle under De Ruyter, the combined fleets of France and England.