DEATH OF POPE INNOCENT XI.

The French were likewise baffled in their attempt upon Catalonia, where the duke de Noailles had taken Campredon in the month of May. Leaving a garrison in this place, he retreated to the frontiers of France, while the duke de Villa Hermosa, at the head of a Spanish army, blocked up the place and laid Rousillon under contribution. He afterwards undertook the siege in form, and Noailles marched to its relief; but he was so hard pressed by the Spaniards that he withdrew the garrison, dismantled the place, and retreated with great precipitation. The French king hoped to derive some considerable advantage from the death of Pope Innocent XL which happened on the twelfth day of August. That pontiff had been an inveterate enemy to Louis ever since the affair of the franchises, and the seizure of Avignon. 016 [See note F, at the end of this Vol.] Cabals were immediately formed at Eome by the French faction against the Spanish and Imperial interest. The French cardinals, de Bouillon and Bonzi, accompanied by Furstemberg, repaired to Eome with a large sum of money. Peter Ottoboni, a Venetian, was elected pope, and assumed the name of Alexander VIII. The duke de Chaulnes, ambassador from France, immediately signified in the name of his master, that Avignon should be restored to the patrimony of the church; and Louis renounced the franchises in a letter written by his own hand to the pontiff. Alexander received these marks of respect with the warmest acknowledgments; but when the ambassador and Furstemberg besought him to re-examine the election of the bishop of Cologne, which had been the source of so much calamity to the empire, he lent a deaf ear to their solicitations. He even confirmed the dispensations granted by his predecessor to the prince of Bavaria, who was thus empowered to take possession of the electorate, though he had not yet attained the age required by the canons. Furstemberg retired in disgust to Paris, where Louis immediately gratified him with the abbey of St. Germains.

WILLIAM AND MARY, 1688—1701.