As in 1672, the French invasion had been the signal for a political revolution in Holland; the aristocratical burgessdom, which had resumed power, succumbed once more beneath the efforts of the popular party, directed by the house of Nassau and supported by England.

"The republic has need of a chief against an ambitious and perfidious neighbor who sports with the faith of treaties," said a deputy of the States-general on the day of the proclamation of the stadtholderate, re-established in favor of William IV., grand-nephew of the great William III., and son-in-law of the King of England, George II.

Louis XV.

did not let himself be put out by this outburst.

"The Hollanders are good folks," he wrote to Marshal Noailles: "it is said, however, that they are going to declare war against us; they will lose quite as much as we shall." Bergen-op-Zoom was taken and plundered on the 16th of September.