Archbishop Le Tellier scoffingly termed James II., who had "sacrificed three kingdoms for a mass." To himself, on the other hand, it seemed something of a sacred act to open his house to the "Woman persecuted by the dragon." However, all this was but as dust in the balance by the side of the compelling necessity of French dictation, doubly compelling at that particular period. For Leopold had of late been playing his own little game. Things had gone against France in the field, and he had put his money on the other horse. He was always after a fashion a gambling and speculative ruler, willing to stake almost his very existence on the _roulette_ of high politics. At that moment he was flattering himself with hopes that the Congress of Utrecht would do something for him. Both Austria and England had privately promised--at least some of their statesmen had--that he was to have a seat at the Congress table. That would add immensely to his dignity and prestige. Then he was to have a slice of the Low Countries. To ensure this result, he was "casting his bread upon the waters" with a vengeance--spending money wholesale, bribing English, and Dutch, and Austrian statesmen with the most profuse generosity--more particularly Marlborough, in whom he appears to have retained a belief throughout, who most faithlessly "sold" him, and who cost him a fortune. At the very time here spoken of our great general had been favoured with a fresh mark of favour from Leopold--a magnificent _carosse_, horsed with six splendid dapple-greys (Leopold was a great horse-fancier), hung with most costly trappings. All this--which proved in the event to have been entirely thrown away--very naturally gave umbrage to France. And Louis XIV. had not missed his opportunity of letting Leopold know that a score was being marked up against him at Versailles. France had never stood on much ceremony with Lorraine, from Henry II. downward. Louis XIV., more particularly, had done his best to equal his grandfather's notorious and most capricious hostility. In 1702, in the teeth of international law and of Leopold's protests, as well as Elizabeth Charlotte's prayers, he had marched his troops into Lorraine. They were still there, indeed, in larger numbers than before. When 1709 brought its "_grand hiver_"--still remembered as a time of grievous tribulation--when the crops froze in the fields, the vines in the vineyards, the children in the nursery, the sacramental wine in the chalice, the water by the fire, when Dearth and Famine once more laid their grim hand upon all Lorraine--Louis XIV. had given Leopold a little additional cut with his tyrant's whip, seizing some of the provisions providently laid up for the relief of his subjects, and appropriating them to the use of his own armies, which moreover, he reinforced by a fresh contingent of 20,000 men, sent with orders to live "_à discrétion_." Louis was quite ready to do something of the same sort again. Therefore, when Louis said: Receive