The Elector of Bavaria, an able prince and a good soldier, had roused Germany to avenge his wrongs; France had just been placed under the ban of the empire; and the grand alliance was forming.  All the German princes joined it; the United Provinces, England, and Spain combined for the restoration of the treaties of Westphalia and of the Pyrenees.  Europe had mistaken hopes of forcing Louis XIV. to give up all his conquests.  Twenty years of wars and reverses were not to suffice for that.  Fortune, however, was tiring of being favorable to France; Marshals Duras and Humieres were unable to hamper the movements of the Duke of Lorraine, Charles V., and of the Elector of Bavaria; the French garrisons of Mayence and of Bonn were obliged to capitulate after an heroic defence their munitions failed.  The king recalled Marshal Luxembourg to the head of his armies.  The able courtier had managed to get reconciled with Louvois.  “You know, sir,” he wrote to him on the 9th of May, 1690, “with what pleasure I shall seek after such things as will possibly find favor with the king and give you satisfaction.  I am too well aware how far my small authority extends to suppose that I can withdraw any man from any place without having written to you previously.  It is with some repugnance that I resolve to put before you what comes into my head, knowing well that all that is good can come only from you, and looking upon anything I conceive as merely simple ideas produced by the indolence in which we are living here.”

[Illustration:  Marshal Luxembourg—–­461]

The wary indolence and the observations of Luxembourg were not long in giving place to activity.  The marshal crossed the Sambre on the 29th of June, entered Charleroi and Namur, and on the 2d of July attacked the Prince of Waldeck near the rivulet of Fleurus.  A considerable body of troops had made a forced march of seven leagues during the night, and came up to take the enemy in the rear; it was a complete success, but devoid of result, like the victory of Stafarde, gained by Catinat over the Duke of Savoy, Victor-Amadeo, who had openly joined the coalition.  The triumphant naval battle delivered by Tourville to the English and Dutch fleets off Beachy Head was a great humiliation for the maritime powers.  “I cannot express to you,” wrote William III. to the grand pensionary Heinsius, holding in his absence the government of the United Provinces, “how distressed I am at the disasters of the fleet; I am so much the more deeply affected as I have been informed that my ships did not properly support those of the Estates, and left them in the lurch.”

[Illustration:  Heinsius——­461]

William had said, when he left Holland, “The republic must lead off the dance.”  The moment had come when England was going to take her part in it.