Everything, in fact, was ready for this great enterprise:  the regent of Spain, Mary Anne of Austria, a feeble creature, under the thumb of one Father Nithard, a Jesuit, had allowed herself to be sent to sleep by the skilful manoeuvres of the Archbishop of Embrun; she had refused to make a treaty of alliance with England and to recognize Portugal, to which Louis XIV. had just given a French queen, by marrying Mdlle. de Nemours to King Alphonso VI.  The league of the Rhine secured to him the neutrality, at the least, of Germany; the emperor was not prepared for war; Europe, divided between fear and favor, saw with astonishment Louis XIV. take the field in the month of May, 1667.  “It is not,” said the manifesto sent by the king to the court of Spain, “either the ambition of possessing new states, or the desire of winning glory by arms, which inspires the Most Christian King with the design of maintaining the rights of the queen his wife; but would it not be shame for a king to allow all the privileges of blood and of law to be violated in the persons of himself, his wife, and his son?  As king, he feels himself obliged to prevent this injustice; as master, to oppose this usurpation; and, as father, to secure the patrimony to his son.  He has no desire to employ force to open the gates, but he wishes to enter, as a beneficent sun, by the rays of his love, and to scatter everywhere, in country, towns, and private houses, the gentle influences of abundance and peace, which follow in his train.”  To secure the gentle influences of peace, Louis XIV. had collected an army of fifty thousand men, carefully armed and equipped under the supervision of Turenne, to whom Louvois as yet rendered docile obedience.  There was none too much of this fine army for recovering the queen’s rights over the duchy of Brabant, the marquisate of Antwerp, Limburg, Hainault, the countship of Namur, and other territories.  “Heaven not having ordained any tribunal on earth at which the Kings of France can demand justice, the Most Christian King has only his own arms to look to for it,” said the manifesto.  Louis XIV. set out with M. de Turenne.  Marshal Crequi had orders to observe Germany.

The Spaniards were taken unprepared:  Armentieres, Charleroi, Douai, and Tournay had but insufficient garrisons, and they fell almost without striking a blow.  Whilst the army was busy with the siege of Courtray, Louis XIV. returned to Compiegne to fetch the queen.  The whole court followed him to the camp.  “All that you have read about—­the magnificence of Solomon and the grandeur of the King of Persia, is not to be compared with the pomp that attends the king in his expedition,” says a letter to Bussy-Rabutin from the Count of Coligny.  “You see passing along the streets nothing but plumes, gold-laced uniforms, chariots, mules superbly harnessed, parade-horses, housings with embroidery of fine gold.”  “I took the queen to Flanders,” says Louis XIV., “to show her to the peoples of that country, who received her,