he opposite party, the House of Orange, come
into power on his downfall. While negotiations were pending, the Dutch
towns continued to surrender; and on the 20th of June a few French
soldiers entered Muyden, the key to Amsterdam. They were only
stragglers, though the large body to which they belonged was near at
hand; and the burghers, who had admitted them under the influence of
the panic prevailing throughout the land, seeing that they were alone,
soon made them drunk and put them out. The nobler feeling that
animated Amsterdam now made itself felt in Muyden; a body of troops
hurried up from the capital, and the smaller city was saved.
"Situated on the Zuyder Zee, two hours distant from Amsterdam, at the
junction of a number of rivers and canals, Muyden not only held the
key of the principal dykes by which Amsterdam could surround herself
with a protecting inundation, it also held the key of the harbor of
this great city, all the ships which went from the North Sea to
Amsterdam by the Zuyder Zee being obliged to pass under its guns.
Muyden saved and its dykes open, Amsterdam had time to breathe, and
remained free to break off her communications by land and to maintain
them by sea."[50] It was the turning-point of the invasion; but what
would have been the effect upon the spirit of the Dutch, oppressed by
defeat and distracted in council, if in that fateful fortnight which
went before, the allied fleet had attacked their coasts? From this
they were saved by the battle of Solebay.

Negotiations continued. The burgomasters--the party representing
wealth and commerce--favored submission; they shrank from the
destruction of their property and trade. New advances were made; but
while the envoys were still in the camp of Louis, the populace and the
Orange party rose, and with them the spirit of resistance. On the 25th
of June Amsterdam opened the dykes, and her example was followed by
the other cities of Holland; immense loss was entailed, but the
flooded country and the cities contained therein, standing like
islands amid the waters, were safe from attack by land forces until
freezing weather. The revolution continued. William of Orange,
afterward William III. of England, was on the 8th of July made
stadtholder, and head of the army and navy; and the two De Witts, the
heads of the republican party, were murdered by a mob a few weeks
later.

The resistance born of popular enthusiasm and pride of country was
strengthened b