doubtful; he had placed at the head of his forces in
Italy the Marquis of Las Minas, with orders to preserve to Spain her only
army. "The Spanish soldiers are of no more use to us than if they were
so much cardboard," said the French troops. Europe was tired of the war.
England avenged herself for her reverses upon the Continent by her
successes at sea; the French navy, neglected systematically by Cardinal
Fleury, did not even suffice for the protection of commerce. The
Hollanders, who had for a long while been undecided, and had at last
engaged in the struggle against France without any declaration of war,
bore, in 1747, the burden of the hostilities. Count Lowendahl, a friend
of Marshal Saxe, and, like him, in the service of France, had taken Sluys
and Sas-de-Gand; Bergen-op-Zoom was besieged; on the 1st of July, Marshal
Saxe had gained, under the king's own eye, the battle of Lawfeldt. As in
1672, the French invasion had been the signal for a political revolution
in Holland; the aristocratical burgessdom, which had resumed power,
succumbed once more beneath the efforts of the popular party, directed by
the house of Nassau and supported by England. "The republic has need of
a chief against an ambitious and perfidious neighbor who sports with the
faith of treaties," said a deputy of the States-general on the day of the
proclamation of the stadtholderate, re-established in favor of William
IV., grand-nephew of the great William III., and son-in-law of the King
of England, George II. Louis XV. did not let himself be put out by this
outburst. "The Hollanders are good folks," he wrote to Marshal Noailles:
"it is said, however, that they are going to declare war against us; they
will lose quite as much as we shall."

Bergen-op-Zoom was taken and plundered on the 16th of September. Count
Lowendahl was made a marshal of France. "Peace is in Maestricht, Sir,"
was Maurice of Saxony's constant remark to the king. On the 9th of
April, 1748, the place was invested, before the thirty-five thousand
Russians, promised to England by the Czarina Elizabeth, had found time to
make their appearance on the Rhine. A congress was already assembled at
Aix-la-Chapelle to treat for peace. The Hollanders, whom the Marquis of
Argenson before his disgrace used always to call "the ambassadors of
England," took fright at the spectacle of Maestricht besieged; from
parleys they proceeded to the most vehement urgency; and England yielded.