monarch had become a state pensioner of the court of Versailles; when a
secret treaty had united them by apparently indissoluble bonds; when the
ministers equally and the patriots of England were corrupted by his
bribes; when the dreaded fleets of Britain were to be seen in union with
those of France, to break down the squadrons of an inconsiderable
republic; when the descendants of the conquerors of Cressy, Poitiers,
and Azincour stood side by side with the successors of the vanquished in
those disastrous fields, to achieve the conquest of Flanders and
Holland. Without doubt, so far as human foresight could go, Louvois and
Colbert were right. Nothing could appear so decidedly calculated to fix
the power of Louis XIV. on an immovable foundation. But how vain are the
calculations of the greatest human intellects, when put in opposition to
the overruling will of Omnipotence! It was that very English alliance
which ruined Louis XIV., as the Austrian alliance and marriage, which
seemed to put the keystone in the arch of his greatness, afterwards
ruined Napoleon. By the effect, and one of the most desired effects, of
the English alliance, a strong body of British auxiliaries were sent to
Flanders; the English officers learned the theory and practice of war in
the best of all schools, and under the best of all teachers; that
ignorance of the military art, the result in every age of our insular
situation, and which generally causes the four or five first years of
every war to terminate in disaster, was for the time removed, and that
mighty genius was developed under the eye of Louis XIV., and by the
example of Turenne, which was destined to hurl back to their own
frontiers the tide of Gallic invasion, and close in mourning the reign
of the _Grande Monarque_. "Les hommes agissent," says Bossuet, "mais
Dieu les mene."

Upon Churchill's return to London, the brilliant reputation which had
preceded, and the even augmented personal advantages which accompanied
him, immediately rendered him the idol of beauty and fashion. The ladies
of the palace vied for his homage--the nobles of the land hastened to
cultivate his society. Like Julius Caesar, he was carried away by the
stream, and plunged into the vortex of courtly dissipation with the
ardour which marks an energetic character in the pursuit whether of good
or evil. The elegance of his person and manners, and charms of his
conversation, prevailed so far with Charles II. and the Duk