aggrandizement of Louis XIV. combined, and compelled him to abandon a large portion of the Netherlands, though he still retained several fortresses.  The ambition of Louis XIV. was inflamed, not checked by this reverse, and all Europe was involved again in bloody wars.  The aggressions of France, and the devastations of Tarenne in the Palatinate, roused Germany to listen to the appeals of Leopold, and the empire declared war against France.  Months of desolating war rolled on, decisive of no results, except universal misery.  The fierce conflict continued with unintermitted fury until 1679, when the haughty monarch of France, who was as sagacious in diplomacy as he was able in war, by bribes and threats succeeded in detaching one after another from the coalition against him, until Leopold, deserted by nearly all his allies, was also compelled to accede to peace.

France, under Louis XIV., was now the dominant power in Europe.  Every court seemed to be agitated by the intrigues of this haughty sovereign, and one becomes weary of describing the incessant fluctuations of the warfare.  The arrogance of Louis, his unblushing perfidy and his insulting assumptions of superiority over all other powers, exasperated the emperor to the highest pitch.  But the French monarch, by secret missions and abounding bribes, kept Hungary in continued commotion, and excited such jealousy in the different States of the empire, that Leopold was compelled to submit in silent indignation to wrongs almost too grievous for human nature to bear.

At length Leopold succeeded in organizing another coalition to resist the aggressions of Louis XIV.  The Prince of Orange, the King of Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg were the principal parties united with the emperor in this confederacy, which was concluded, under the name of the “League of Augsburg,” on the 21st of June, 1686.  An army of sixty thousand men was immediately raised.  From all parts of Germany troops were now hurrying towards the Rhine.  Louis, alarmed, retired from the Palatinate, which he had overrun, and, to place a barrier between himself and his foes, ordered the utter devastation of the unhappy country.  The diabolical order was executed by Turenne.  The whole of the Palatinate was surrendered to pillage and conflagration.  The elector, from the towers of his castle at Mannheim, saw at one time two cities and twenty-five villages in flames.  He had no force sufficient to warrant him to leave the walls of his fortress to oppose the foe.  He was, however, so moved to despair by the sight, that he sent a challenge to Turenne to meet him in single combat.  Turenne, by command of the king, declined accepting the challenge.  More than forty large towns, besides innumerable villages, were given up to the flames.  It was mid-winter.  The fields were covered with snow, and swept by freezing blasts.  The wretched inhabitants, parents and children, driven into the bleak plains without food or clothing or