  Liberal republicans were dealt a major blow in 1672. In this so-called disaster year (rampjaar), French troops, under the command of Louis XIV, invaded the United Provinces, capturing a number of Dutch cities (Nadler 1999, 305). Grand Pensionary (chief statesman and legal advisor) Johan de Witt shouldered much of the blame for this military embarrassment. De Witt was the leader of the States of Holland for much of the republican period that followed the death of Stadholder (a quasi-monarchical position held by the House of Orange) William II in 1650. After the French invasion, the stadholdership was reinstituted in the person of William III, and De Witt was forced to resign. Shortly afterward he and his brother, Cornelis, were brutally killed by a zealous mob. This incident evoked uncommon anger in Spinoza, who was an admirer of de Witt and the republican ideals for which he stood. According to one famous account, Spinoza had to be restrained by his landlord from taking a sign reading ultimi barbarorum [“ultimate of barbarians”] to the site of the massacre (Freudenthal 1899, 201). Spinoza’s Tractatus Politicus was composed in the aftermath of, and perhaps prompted by, the events of 1672.