Hungry Soldiers Throw Away their Rations

The War of the Spanish Succession cost France many severe battles with the combined powers of Europe, viz.: Blenheim, 1704; Ramillies, 1707; Oudenarde, 1708, and Malplaquet, 1709. When the signal for this last great battle was given, the French soldiers had just received their rations of bread, but, half starving as they were, they bravely threw it aside to obey the summons.

The famous War of the Spanish Succession was the last great contest in which Louis XIV. of France, was engaged. By it he secured for his grandson, Philip V., the throne of Spain; but one of the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) was that the French and Spanish crowns should not be united.

Louis XIV. died in 1715, after a reign of seventy-two years, the longest in all the world's history. His great-grandson, a child five years of age, succeeded him, as Louis XV.

This war is said to have been started by a glass of water.

Mrs. Mashaur is supposed to have been carrying a glass of water, when, in a quarrel with the Marquis de Torey, the water was spilt, and he taking offence, an enmity was stirred up between the French and English courts. This story is probably fabulous, and may have originated from the French play "La Verre d'Eau."