y; and he must be stationed between the Rhine and the Meuse. [288]
The Elector of Saxony complained that bad winter quarters had been
assigned to his troops; he therefore recalled them just when they should
have been preparing to take the field, but very coolly offered to send
them back if England and Holland would give him four hundred thousand
rixdollars. [289]

It might have been expected that at least the two chiefs of the House
of Austria would have put forth, at this conjuncture, all their strength
against the rival House of Bourbon. Unfortunately they could not be
induced to exert themselves vigorously even for their own preservation.
They were deeply interested in keeping the French out of Italy. Yet they
could with difficulty be prevailed upon to lend the smallest assistance
to the Duke of Savoy. They seemed to think it the business of England
and Holland to defend the passes of the Alps, and to prevent the armies
of Lewis from overflowing Lombardy. To the Emperor indeed the war
against France was a secondary object. His first object was the war
against Turkey. He was dull and bigoted. His mind misgave him that
the war against France was, in some sense, a war against the Catholic
religion; and the war against Turkey was a crusade. His recent campaign
on the Danube had been successful. He might easily have concluded an
honourable peace with the Porte, and have turned his arms westward. But
he had conceived the hope that he might extend his hereditary dominions
at the expense of the Infidels. Visions of a triumphant entry into
Constantinople and of a Te Deum in Saint Sophia's had risen in his
brain. He not only employed in the East a force more than sufficient to
have defended Piedmont and reconquered Loraine; but he seemed to think
that England and Holland were bound to reward him largely for neglecting
their interests and pursuing his own. [290]

Spain already was what she continued to be down to our own time. Of the
Spain which had domineered over the land and the ocean, over the Old
and the New World, of the Spain which had, in the short space of twelve
years, led captive a Pope and a King of France, a Sovereign of Mexico
and a Sovereign of Peru, of the Spain which had sent an army to the
walls of Paris and had equipped a mighty fleet to invade England,
nothing remained but an arrogance which had once excited terror and
hatred, but which could now excite only derision. In extent, indeed, the
dominions of the