Thus was being undone, link by link, the chain of alliances which Louis XIV. had but lately twisted round Holland.  France, in her turn, was finding herself alone, with all Europe against her; scared, and, consequently, active and resolute; the congress of Cologne had broken up; not one of the belligerents desired peace; the Hollanders had just settled the heredity of the stadtholderate in the house of Orange.  Louis XIV. saw the danger.  “So many enemies,” says he in his Memoires, “obliged me to take care of myself, and think what I must do to maintain the reputation of my arms, the advantage of my dominions, and my personal glory.”  It was in Franche-Comte that Louis XIV. went to seek these advantages.  The whole province was reduced to submission in the month of June, 1674.  Turenne had kept the Rhine against the Imperialists; the marshal alone escaped the tyranny of the king and Louvois, and presumed to conduct the campaign in his own way; when Louis XIV. sent him instructions, he was by this time careful to add, “You will not bind yourself down to what I send you hereby as to my intentions, save when you think that the good of my service will permit you, and you will give me of your news the oftenest you find it possible.” (30th of March, 1674.) Turenne did not always write, and it sometimes happened that he did not obey.

This redounded to his honor in the campaign of 1674.  Conde had gained, on the 11th of August, the bloody victory of Seneffe over the Prince of Orange and the allied generals; the four squadrons of the king’s household, posted within range of the fire, had remained for eight hours in order of battle, without any movement but that of closing up as the men fell.  Madame de Sdvigne, to whom her son, standard-bearer in the dauphin’s gendarmes, had told the story, wrote to M. de BussyRabutin, “But for the Te Deum, and some flags brought to Notre-Dame, we should have thought we had lost the battle.”  The Prince 6f Orange, ever indomitable in his cold courage, had attacked Audenarde on the 15th of September; but he was not in force, and the, approach of Conde had obliged him to raise the siege; to make up, he had taken Grave, spite of the heroic resistance made by the Marquis of Chemilly, who had held out ninety-three days.  Advantages remained balanced in Flanders; the result of the campaign depended on Turenne, who commanded on the Rhine.  “If the king had taken the most important place in Flanders,” he wrote to Louvois, “and the emperor were master of Alsace, even without Philipsburg or Brisach, I think the king’s affairs would be in the worst plight in the world; we should see what armies we should have in Lorraine, in the Bishoprics, and in Champagne.  I do assure you that, if I had the honor of commanding in Flanders, I would speak as I do.”  On the 16th of June he engaged in battle, at Sinzheim, with the Duke of Lorraine, who was coming up with the advance-guard.  “I never saw a more obstinate fight,”