Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 141: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE DUC DE LUXEMBOURG. 129 coming master outside of it. For eight years, he applied himself to cementing alliances, to neutralizing the efforts of powers whose rivalry was to be dreaded, to making everywhere blaze the supremacy of France. Spain recog- nized the precedence of France as the result of a quarrel at London between the ambassadors of the two countries; Pope Alexander V. is constrained to disavow, by a public reparation, the insult offered to the French ambassador by his Corsican guard; Dunkirk and Mardick are purchased from the English for five million francs; the alliance with Switzerland is renewed, Marsul in Lorraine is taken, the Algerian pirates are punished, the Portuguese sustained against the Spaniards, and the Emperor Leopold receives a reinforcement of six thousand volunteers who aid him to fight the Turks and take a glorious part in the battle of St. Gothard. In the meantime the King of France was waiting for his hour to come; the most skilful generals commanded his army; the navy was increased; he let his ally, Holland, exhaust herself in a sterile and ruinous war against England, and was holding himself in readiness to act, when the death of Philip IV. permitted him at last to try his strength. But while formidable preparations seemed to threaten entire Europe, fetes filled with splen- dor the royal residences of Versailles and St. Germain, the stage attracted illustrious strangers, everywhere rose up splendid monuments, and the most polished as well as the most brilliant court in the world saw its days pass in the midst of the pomp of triumphant royalty and the marvels of honored intelligence. All at once, in the midst of this fruitful peace, embellished by the thousand creations of the arts, war burst out, and upon all the frontiers of the north the fires are lit. The king himself crosses the Sambre, ac- companied by the best captains of the time—Condé, Turenne, Luxembourg, Créqui, Grammont, and Vauban. In this general commotion, the shocks were so sudden and so profound, that even the most insignificant, pushed for- | ward by the chances of fortune, might aspire to the first places. When great wars or social upheavals agitate nations, audacity, intelligence, knowledge, are stepping- -__ gtones; the levels are lowered, and those who are at the bottom may hope to mount. It belongs then to those who have the energy to open a way. All these thoughts rapidly traversed Belle-Rose’s mind; he glimpsed the light on the horizon and ardently prayed for the hour of combat. The next day, at daybreak, Monsieur de Naucrais sent for him in order to confide to him the organization and command 3 (e(oy pa icel exoye) Ss (