The effeminate Charles II was bought over by a large sum of money and the
present of a pretty French mistress. Sweden also received a subsidy, and
her schemes of aggrandizement on continental Germany were encouraged.
Meanwhile the illustrious man who ruled Holland showed that kind of
weakness which good men often do in the presence of the unscrupulous and
wicked. John de Witt could not be convinced of the reality of Louis'
nefarious designs. France had ever been Holland's best friend, and he could
not believe that the policy of Henry IV, of Richelieu and Mazarin, would
be suddenly reversed by the young King of France. He tried negotiations in
which he was amused by Louis so long as it suited the latter's purpose. At
last, when the King's preparations were complete, he threw off the mask,
and insultingly told the Dutch that it was not for hucksters like them, and
usurpers of authority not theirs, to meddle with such high matters.

Then commenced one of the brightest pages in the history of national
heroism. At first the Dutch were overwhelmed; town after town capitulated
without a blow. It seemed as if the United Provinces were going to be
subdued, as Franche-Comte had been five years before. But Louis XIV had
been too much intoxicated by that pride which goes before a fall to retain
any clearness of head, if indeed he ever had any, in military matters. The
great Conde, with his keen eye for attack, at once suggested one of those
tiger-springs for which he was unequalled among commanders. Seeing the
dismay of the Dutch, he advised a rapid dash with six thousand horse on
Amsterdam. It is nearly certain, if this advice had been followed, that the
little commonwealth, so precious to Europe, would have been extinguished;
and that that scheme, born of heroic despair, of transferring to Batavia,
"under new stars and amid a strange vegetation," the treasure of freedom
and valor ruined in its old home by the Sardanapalus of Versailles, might
have been put in execution. But it was not to be.