164

HISTORY 03? ENGLAKD.

CnAP.

XII.

1689 .

signs of the times, his obstinacy, always most offensively dis-played when wisdom enjoined concession, his vacillation, alwaysexhibited most pitiably in emergencies which required firm-ness, had made him an outcast from England, and might,if his counsels ivere blindly followed, bring great calamities onFrance. As a legitimate sovereign expelled by rebels, as aconfessor of the true faith persecuted by heretics, as a nearkinsman of the House of Bourbon, ■who had seated himself onthe hearth of that House, he was entitled to hospitality, totenderness, to respect. It was fit that he should have a statelypalace and a spacious forest, that the household troops shouldsalute him with the highest military honours, that he shouldhave at his command all the hounds of the Grand Huntsmanand all the hawks of the Grand Falconer. But, when a prince,who, at the head of a great fleet and army, had lost an empirewithout striking a blow, undertook to furnish plans for navaland military expeditions; when a prince, who had been undoneby his profound ignorance of the temper of his own country-men, of his own soldiers, of his own domestics, of his ownchildren, undertook to answer for the zeal and fidelity of theIrish people, whose language he could not speak, and on whoseland he had never set his foot; itw'as necessary to receive hissuggestions with caution. Such were the sentiments of Lewis;and in these sentiments he was confirmed by his Ministerof War Louvois, who, on private as w’ell as on public grounds,was unwilling that James should be accompanied by a largemilitary force. Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was a favouriteat Saint Germains. He wore the garter, a badge of honourwhich has very seldom been conferred on aliens who were notsovereign princes. It ivas believed indeed at the French Courtthat, in order to distinguish him from the other knights of themost illustrious of European orders, he had been decoratedwith that very George which Charles the First had, on the