“I was all impatience,” says Louis XIV. in his Memoires, “to commence the campaign of 1678, and greatly desirous of doing something therein as glorious as, and more useful than, what had already been done; but it was no easy matter to come by it, and to surpass the lustre conferred by the capture of three large places and the winning of a battle.  I examined what was feasible, and Ghent being the most important of all I could attack, I fixed upon it to besiege.”  The place was invested on the 1st of March, and capitulated on the 11th; Ypres, in its turn, succumbed on the 25th, after a vigorous resistance.  On the 7th of April the king returned to St. Germain, “pretty content with what I had done,” he says, “and purposing to do better in the future, if the promise I had given not to undertake anything for two months were not followed by the conclusion of peace.”  Louis XIV. sent his ultimatum to Nimeguen.

Holland had weight in congress as well as in war, and her influence was now enlisted on the side of peace.  “Not only is it desired,” said the grand pensionary Fagel, “but it is absolutely indispensable, and I would not answer for it that the States General, if driven to extremity by the sluggishness of their allies, will not make a separate peace with France.  I know nobody in Holland who is not of the same opinion.”  The Prince of Orange flew out at such language.  “Well, then, I know somebody,” said he, “and that is myself; I will oppose it to the best of my ability; but,” he added more slowly, upon reflection, “if I were not here, I know quite well that peace would be concluded within twenty-four hours.”

One man alone, though it were the Prince of Orange, cannot long withstand the wishes of a free people.  The republican party, for a while cast down by the death of John van Witt, had taken courage again, and Louis XIV. secretly encouraged it.  William of Orange had let out his desire of becoming Duke of Gueldres and Count of Zutphen:  these foreshadowings of sovereignty had scared the province of Holland, which refused its consent; the influence of the stadtholder was weakened thereby; the Estates pronounced for peace, spite of the entreaties of the Prince of Orange.  “I am always ready to obey the orders of the state,” said he, “but do not require me to give my assent to a peace which appears to me not only ruinous, but shameful as well.”  Two deputies from the United Provinces set out for Brussels.

“It is better to throw one’s self out of the window than from the top of the roof,” said the Spanish plenipotentiary to the nuncio, when he had cognizance of the French proposals, and he accepted the treaty offered him.  “The Duke of Villa Hermosa says that he will accept the conditions; for ourselves, we will do the same,” said the Prince of Orange, bitterly, “and so here is peace made, if France continues to desire it on this footing, which I very much doubt.”