The autumn was by this time far advanced, and the armies in the Netherlands had gone into quarters for the winter.  On the last day of October William landed in England.  The Parliament was about to meet; and he had every reason to expect a session even more stormy than the last.  The people were discontented, and not without cause.  The year had been every where disastrous to the allies, not only on the sea and in the Low Countries, but also in Servia, in Spain, in Italy, and in Germany.  The Turks had compelled the generals of the Empire to raise the siege of Belgrade.  A newly created Marshal of France, the Duke of Noailles, had invaded Catalonia and taken the fortress of Rosas.  Another newly created Marshal, the skilful and valiant Catinat, had descended from the Alps on Piedmont, and had, at Marsiglia, gained a complete victory over the forces of the Duke of Savoy.  This battle is memorable as the first of a long series of battles in which the Irish troops retrieved the honour lost by misfortunes and misconduct in domestic war.  Some of the exiles of Limerick showed, on that day, under the standard of France, a valour which distinguished them among many thousands of brave men.  It is remarkable that on the same day a battalion of the persecuted and expatriated Huguenots stood firm amidst the general disorder round the standard of Savoy, and fell fighting desperately to the last.

The Duke of Lorges had marched into the Palatinate, already twice devastated, and had found that Turenne and Duras had left him something to destroy.  Heidelberg, just beginning to rise again from its ruins, was again sacked, the peaceable citizens butchered, their wives and daughters foully outraged.  The very choirs of the churches were stained with blood; the pyxes and crucifixes were torn from the altars; the tombs of the ancient Electors were broken open; the corpses, stripped of their cerecloths and ornaments, were dragged about the streets.  The skull of the father of the Duchess of Orleans was beaten to fragments by the soldiers of a prince among the ladies of whose splendid Court she held the foremost place.

And yet a discerning eye might have perceived that, unfortunate as the confederates seemed to have been, the advantage had really been on their side.  The contest was quite as much a financial as a military contest.  The French King had, some months before, said that the last piece of gold would carry the day; and he now began painfully to feel the truth of the saying.  England was undoubtedly hard pressed by public burdens; but still she stood up erect.  France meanwhile was fast sinking.  Her recent efforts had been too much for her strength, and had left her spent and unnerved.  Never had her rulers shown more ingenuity in devising taxes or more severity in exacting them; but by no ingenuity, by no severity, was it possible to raise the sums necessary for another such campaign as that of 1693.  In England the harvest had been abundant.  In France the corn