Even the French invasion of the Low Countries might be attended with dangerous consequences; and would suffice, in these jealous times, to revive the old suspicion of a combination against Holland, and against the Protestant religion, a suspicion which had already produced such discontents in England.

These were the views suggested by Sunderland, and it must be confessed, that the reasons on which they were founded were sufficiently plausible; as indeed the situation to which the king had reduced himself was, to the last degree, delicate and perplexing.
Still Lewis was unwilling to abandon a friend and ally, whose interests he regarded as closely connected with his own.

By the suggestion of Skelton, the king's minister at Paris, orders were sent to D'Avaux to remonstrate with the states, in Lewis's name, against those preparations which they were making to invade England.

The strict amity, said the French minister, which subsists between the two monarchs, will make Lewis regard every attempt against his ally as an act of hostility against himself.

This remonstrance had a bad effect and put the states in a flame.