A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume V Part 21

The King of France and the emperor were looking up allies. The princes of the north were absorbed by the war which was being waged against his neighbors of Russia and Poland by the young King of Sweden, Charles XII., a hero of eighteen, as irresistible as Gustavus Adolphus in his impetuous bravery, without possessing the rare qualities of authority and judgment which had distinguished the Lion of the North. He joined the Grand Alliance, as did Denmark and Poland, whose new king, the Elector of Saxony, had been supported by the emperor in his candidature and in his abjuration of Protestantism. The Elector of Brandenburg, recently recognized as King of Prussia under the name of Frederic I., and the new Elector of Hanover were eager to serve Leopold, who had aided them in their elevation. In Germany, only Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, governor of the Low Countries, and his brother, the Elector of Cologne, embraced the side of France. The Duke of Savoy, generalissimo of the king's forces in Italy, had taken the command of the army. "But in that country," wrote the Count of Tesse, "there is no reliance to be placed on places, or troops, or officers, or people. I have had another interview with this incomprehensible prince, who received me with every manifestation of kindness, of outward sincerity, and, if he were capable of it, I would say of friendship for him of whom his Majesty made use but lately in the work of peace in Italy. 'The king is master of my person, of my dominions,' he said to me, 'he has only to give his commands; but I suppose that he still desires my welfare and my aggrandizement.' 'As for your aggrandizement, Monseigneur,' said I, 'in truth I do not see much material for it just at present; as for your welfare, we must be allowed to see your intentions a little more clearly first, and take the liberty of repeating to you that my prescience does not extend so far. I do him the justice to believe that he really feels the greater part of all that he expresses for your Majesty; but that horrid habit of indecision and putting off till to-morrow what he might do to-day is not eradicated, and never will be.'"

The Duke of Savoy was not so undecided as M. de Tess supposed; he managed to turn to good account the mystery which hung habitually over all his resolutions. A year had not rolled by, and he was openly engaged in the Grand Alliance, pursuing, against France, the cause of that aggrandizement which he had but lately hoped to obtain from her, and which, by the treaty of Utrecht, was worth the t.i.tle of king to him.

Pending the time to declare himself he had married his second daughter, Princess Marie Louise Gabrielle, to the young King of Spain, Philip V.

"Never had the tranquillity of Europe been so unstable as it was at the commencement of 1702," says the correspondence of Chamillard, published by General Pelet; "it was but a phantom of peace that was enjoyed, and it was clear, from whatever side matters were regarded, that we were on the eve of a war which could not but be of long duration, unless, by some unforeseen accident, the houses of Bourbon and Austria should come to an arrangement which would allow them to set themselves in accord touching the Spanish succession; but there was no appearance of conciliation."

Louis XIV. had just done a deed which destroyed the last faint hopes of peace. King James II. was dying at St. Germain, and the king went to see him. The sick man opened his eyes for a moment when he was told that the king was there [_Memoires de Dangeau,_ t. viii. p. 192], and closed them again immediately. The king told him that he had come to a.s.sure him that he might die in peace as regarded the Prince of Wales, and that he would recognize him as King of England, Ireland, and Scotland. All the English who were in the room fell upon their knees, and cried, "G.o.d save the king!" James II. expired a week later, on the 16th of September, 1701, saying to his son, as his last advice, "I am about to leave this world, which has been to me nothing but a sea of tempests and storms. The Omnipotent has thought right to visit me with great afflictions; serve Him with all your heart, and never place the crown of England in the balance with your eternal salvation." James II. was justified in giving his son this supreme advice the solitary ray of greatness in his life and in his soul had proceeded from his religious faith, and his unwavering resolution to remain loyal to it at any price and at any risk.

"On returning to Marly," says St. Simon, "the king told the whole court what he had just done. There was nothing but acclamations and praises.

It was a fine field for them: but reflections, too, were not less prompt, if they were less public. The king still flattered himself that he would hinder Holland and England, the former of which was so completely dependent, from breaking with him in favor of the house of Austria; he relied upon that to terminate before long the war in Italy, as well as the whole affair of the succession in Spain and its vast dependencies, which the emperor could not dispute with his own forces only, or even with those of the empire. Nothing, therefore, could be more incompatible with this position, and with the solemn recognition he had given, at the peace of Ryswick, of the Prince of Orange as King of England. It was to hurt him personally in the most sensitive spot, all England with him and Holland into the bargain, without giving the Prince of Wales, by recognition, any solid support in his own case."

[Ill.u.s.tration: News for William III.----481]

William III. was at table in his castle of Dieren, in Holland, when he received this news. He did not utter a word, but he colored, crushed his hat over his head, and could not command his countenance. The Earl of Manchester, English amba.s.sador, left Paris without taking leave of the king, otherwise than by this note to M. de Torcy:--

"Sir: The king my master, being informed that his Most Christian.

Majesty has recognized another King of Great Britain, does not consider that his dignity and his service will permit him to any longer keep an amba.s.sador at the court of the king your master, and he has sent me orders to withdraw at once, of which I do myself the honor to advertise you by this note."

"All the English," says Torcy, in his Memoires, "unanimously regard it as a mortal affront on the part of France, that she should pretend to arrogate to herself the right of giving them a king, to the prejudice of him whom they had themselves invited and recognized for many years past."

Voltaire declares, in the "Siecle de Louis XIV.,_ that M. de Torcy attributed the recognition of the Prince of Wales by Louis XIV. to the influence of Madame de Maintenon, who was touched by the tears of the queen, Mary of Modena. "He had not," he said, "inserted the fact in his Memoires, because he did not think it to his master's honor that two women should have made him change a resolution to the contrary taken in his council." Perhaps the deplorable state of William III.'s health, and the inclination supposed to be felt by Princess Anne of Denmark to restore the Stuarts to the throne, since she herself had lost the Duke of Gloucester, the last survivor of her seventeen children, might have influenced the unfortunate resolution of Louis XIV. His kingly magnanimity and illusions might have bound him to support James II., dethroned and fugitive; but no obligation of that sort existed in the case of a prince who had left England at his nurse's, breast, and who had grown up in exile. In the _Athalie_ of Racine, Joad (Jehoiada) invokes upon the impious queen:

"That spirit of infatuation and error The fatal avant-courier of the fall of kings."

The recognition of the Prince of Wales as King of England was, in the case of Louis XIV., the most indisputable token of that fatal blindness.

William III. had paid dear for the honor of being called to the throne of England. More than once he had been on the point of abandonhig the ungrateful nation which so ill requited his great services; he had thought of returning to live in the midst of his Hollanders, affectionately attached to his family as well as to his person. The insult of the King of France restored to his already dying adversary all the popularity he had lost. When William returned from Holland to open a new Parliament, on the 10th of January, 1702, manifestations of sympathy were lavished upon him on all sides of the house. "I have no doubt,"

said he, "that the late proceedings of his Most Christian Majesty and the dangers which threaten all the powers of Europe have excited your most lively resentment. All the world have their eyes fixed upon England; there is still time, she may save her religion and her liberty, but let her profit by every moment, let her arm by land and sea, let her lend her allies all the a.s.sistance in her power, and swear to show her enemies, the foes of her religion, her liberty, her government, and the king of her choice, all the hatred they deserve."

This speech, more impa.s.sioned than the utterances of William III.

generally were, met with an eager echo from his people; the houses voted a levy of forty thousand sailors and fifty thousand soldiers; Holland had promised ninety thousand men; but the health of the King of England went on declining; he had fallen from his horse on the 4th of March, and broken his collarbone; this accident hastened the progress of the malady which was pulling him down; when his friend Keppel, whom he had made Earl of Albemarle, returned, on the 18th of March, from Holland, William received him with these words: "I am drawing towards my end."

He had received the consolations of religion from the bishops, and had communicated with great self-possession; he scarcely spoke now, and breathed with difficulty. "Can this last long?" he asked the physician, who made a sign in the negative. He had sent for the Earl of Portland, Bentinek, his oldest and most faithful friend; when he arrived, the king took his hand and held it between both his own, upon his heart. Thus he remained for a few moments; then he yielded up his great spirit to G.o.d, on the 19th (8th) of March, 1702, at eight in the morning. He was not yet fifty-two.

In a greater degree perhaps than any other period, the eighteenth century was rich in men of the first order. But never did more of the spirit of policy, never did loftier and broader views, never did steadier courage animate and sustain a weaker body than in the case of William of Orange.

Savior of Holland at the age of twenty-two in the war against Louis XIV., protector of the liberties of England against the tyranny of James II., defender of the independence of the European states against the unbridled ambition of the King of France, he became the head of Europe by the proper and free ascendency of his genius; cold and reserved, more capable of feeling than of testifying sympathy, often ill, always unfortunate in war, he managed to make his will triumph, in England despite Jacobite plots and the jealous suspicions of the English Parliaments, in Holland despite the constant efforts of the republican and aristocratic party, in Europe despite envy and the waverings of the allied sovereigns.

Intrepid, spite of his bad health, to the extent of being ready, if need were, to die in the last ditch, of indomitable obstinacy in his resolutions, and of rare ability in the manipulation of affairs, he was one of those who are born masters of men, no matter what may at the outset be their condition and their destiny. In vain had Cromwell required of Holland the abolition of the stadtholderate in the house of Na.s.sau, in vain had John van Witt obtained the voting of the perpetual edict, William of Orange lived and died stadtholder of Holland and king of that England which had wanted to close against him forever the approaches to the throne in his own native countiy. When G.o.d has created a man to play a part and hold a place in this world, all efforts and all counsels to the contrary are but so many stalks of straw under his feet.

William of Orange at his death had accomplished his work: Europe had risen against Louis XIV.

The campaigns of 1702 and 1703 presented an alternation of successes and reverses favorable, on the whole, to France. Marshal Villeroi had failed in Italy against Prince Eugene. He was superseded by the Duke of Vendome, grandson of Henry IV. and captor of Barcelona, indolent, debauched, free in tone and in conduct, but able, bold, beloved by the soldiers, and strongly supported at court. Catinat had returned to France, and went to Versailles at the commencement of the year 1702.

"M. de Chamillard had told him the day before, from the king, that his Majesty had resolved to give him the command of the army in Germany; he excused himself for some time from accepting this employment; the king ended by saying, 'Now we are in a position for you to explain to me, and open your heart about all that took place in Italy during the last campaign.' The marshal answered, 'Sir, those things are all past; the details I could give you thereof would be of no good to the service of your Majesty, and would serve merely, perhaps, to keep up eternal heart-burnings; and so I entreat you to be pleased to let me preserve a profound silence as to all that. I will only justify myself, sir, by thinking how I may serve you still better, if I can, in Germany than I did in Italy.'" Worn out and disgusted, Catinat failed in Germany as he had in Italy; he took his retirement, and never left his castle of St.

Gratien any more: it was the Marquis of Villars, lately amba.s.sador at Vienna, who defeated the imperialists at Friedlingen, on the 14th of August, 1702; a month later Tallard retook the town of Landau. The perfidious manoeuvres of the Duke of Savoy had just come to light. The king ordered Vendome to disarm the five thousand Piedmontese who were serving in his army. That operation effected, the prince sent Victor- Amadeo this note, written by Louis XIV.'s own hand:--

"Sir: As religion, honor, and your own signature count for nothing between us, I send my cousin, the Duke of Vendome, to, explain to you my wishes. He will give you twenty-four hours to decide."

The mind of the Duke of Savoy was made up, from this day forth the father of the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy and of the Queen of Spain took rank amongst the declared enemies of France and Spain.

Whilst Louis XIV. was facing Europe, in coalition against him, with generals of the second and third order, the allies were discovering in the Duke of Marlborough a worthy rival of Prince Eugene. A covetous and able courtier, openly disgraced by William III. in consequence of his perfidious intrigues with the court of St. Germain, he had found his fortunes suddenly retrieved by the accession of Queen Anne, over whom his wife had for a long time held the sway of a haughty and powerful favorite. The campaigns of 1702 and 1703 had shown him to be a prudent and a bold soldier, fertile in resources and novel conceptions; and those had earned him the thanks of Parliament and the t.i.tle of duke. The campaign of 1704 established his glory upon the misfortunes of France.

Marshals Tallard and Marsin were commanding in Germany together with the Elector of Bavaria; the emperor, threatened with a fresh insurrection in Hungary, recalled Prince Eugene from Italy; Marlborough effected a junction with him by a rapid march, which Marshal Villeroi would fain have hindered, but to no purpose; on the 13th of August, 1704, the hostile armies met between Blenheim and Hochstett, near the Danube; the forces were about equal, but on the French side the counsels were divided, the various corps acted independently. Tallard sustained single-handed the attack of the English and the Dutch, commanded by Marlborough; he was made prisoner, his son was killed at his side; the cavalry, having lost their leader and being pressed by the enemy, took to flight in the direction of the Danube; many officers and soldiers perished in the river; the slaughter was awful. Marsin and the elector, who had repulsed five successive charges of Prince Eugene, succeeded in effecting their retreat; but the electorates of Bavaria and Cologne were lost, Landau was recovered by the allies after a siege of two months, the French army recrossed the Rhine, Elsa.s.s was uncovered, and Germany evacuated. In Spain the English had just made themselves masters of Gibraltar. "This shows clearly, sir," wrote Tallard to Chamillard after the defeat, "what is the effect of such diversity of counsel, which makes public all that one intends to do, and it is a severe lesson never to have more than one man at the head of an army. It is a great misfortune to have to deal with a prince of such a temper as the Elector of Bavaria." Villars was of the same opinion; it had been his fate, in the campaign of 1703, to come to open loggerheads with the elector. "The king's army will march to-morrow, as I have had the honor to tell your Highness," he had declared. "At these words," says Villars, the blood mounted to his face; he threw his hat and wig on the table in a rage.

'I commanded,' said he, 'the emperor's army in conjunction with the Duke of Lorraine; he was a tolerably great general, and he never treated me in this manner.' 'The Duke of Lorraine,' answered I, 'was a great prince and a great general; but, for myself, I am responsible to the king for his army, and I will not expose it to destruction through the evil counsels so obstinately persisted in.' Thereupon I went out of the room." Complete swaggerer as he was, Villars had more wits and resolution than the majority of the generals left to Louis XIV., but in 1704 he was occupied in putting down the insurrection of the Camisards in the south of France: neither Tallard nor Marsin had been able to impose their will upon the elector. In 1705 Villars succeeded in checking the movement of Marlborough on Lothringen and Champagne. "He flattered himself he would swallow me like a grain of salt," wrote the marshal.

The English fell back, hampered in their adventurous plans by the prudence of the Hollanders, controlled from a distance by the grand pensionary Heinsius. The imperialists were threatening Elsa.s.s; the weather was fearful; letters had been written to Chamillard to say that the inundations alone would be enough to prevent the enemy from investing Fort Louis. "There is nothing so nice as a map," replied Villars; "with a little green and blue one puts under water all that one wishes but a general who goes and examines it, as I have done, finds in divers places distances of a mile where these little rivers, which are supposed to inundate the country, are quite snug in their natural bed, larger than usual, but not enough to hinder the enemy in any way in the world from making bridges." Fort Louis was surrounded, and Villars found himself obliged to retire upon Strasburg, whence he protected Elsa.s.s during the whole campaign of 1706.

The defeat of Hochstett, in 1704, had been the first step down the ladder; the defeat of Ramillies, on the 23d of May, 1706, was the second and the fatal rung. The king's personal attachment to Marshal Villeroi blinded him as to his military talents. Beaten in Italy by Prince Eugene, Villeroi, as presumptuous as he was incapable, hoped to retrieve himself against Marlborough. "The whole army breathed nothing but battle; I know it was your Majesty's own feeling," wrote Villeroi to the king, after the defeat: "could I help committing myself to a course which I considered expedient?" The marshal had deceived himself as regarded his advantages, as well as the confidence of his troops; there had been eight hours' fighting at Hochstett, inflicting much damage upon the enemy; at Ramillies, the Bavarians took to their heels at the end of an hour; the French, who felt that they were badly commanded, followed their example; the rout was terrible, and the disorder inexpressible. Villeroi kept recoiling before the enemy, Marlborough kept advancing; two thirds of Belgium and sixteen strong places were lost, when Louis XIV. sent Chamillard into the Low Countries; it was no longer the time when Louvois made armies spring from the very soil, and when Vauban prepared the defence of Dunkerque. The king recalled Villeroi, showing him to the last unwavering kindness. "There is no more luck at our age, marshal,"

was all he said to Villeroi, on his arrival at Versailles. "He was nothing more than an old wrinkled balloon, out of which all the gas that inflated it has gone," says St. Simon: "he went off to Paris and to Villeroi, having lost all the varnish that made him glitter, and having nothing more to show but the under-stratum."

The king summoned Vendome, to place him at the head of the army of Flanders, "in hopes of restoring to it the spirit of vigor and audacity natural to the French nation," as he himself says. For two years past, amidst a great deal of ill-success, Vendome had managed to keep in check Victor-Amadeo and Prince Eugene, in spite of the embarra.s.sment caused him by his brother the grand prior, the Duke of La Feuillade, Chamillard's son-in-law, and the orders which reached him directly from the king; he had gained during his two campaigns the name of taker of towns, and had just beaten the Austrians in the battle of Cascinato. Prince Eugene had, however, crossed the Adige and the Po when Vendome left Italy.

"Everybody here is ready to take off his hat when Marlborough's name is mentioned," he wrote to Chamillard, on arriving in Flanders. The English and Dutch army occupied all the country from Ostend to Maestricht.

The Duke of Orleans, nephew of the king, had succeeded the Duke of Vendome. He found the army in great disorder, the generals divided and insubordinate, Turin besieged according to the plans of La Feuillade, against the advice of Vauban, who had offered "to put his marshal's baton behind the door, and confine himself to giving his counsels for the direction of the siege;" the prince, in his irritation, resigned his powers into the hands of Marshal Marsin; Prince Eugene, who had effected his junction with Victor-Amadeo, encountered the French army between the Rivers Doria and Stora. The soldiers remembered the Duke of Orleans at Steinkirk and Neerwinden; they asked him if he would grudge them his sword. He yielded, and was severely wounded at the battle of Turin, on the 7th of September, 1706; Marsin was killed, discouragement spread amongst the generals and the troops, and the siege of Turin was raised; before the end of the year, nearly all the places were lost, and Dauphiny was threatened. Victor-Amadeo refused to listen to a special peace: in the month of March, 1707, the Prince of Vaudemont, governor of Milaness for the King of Spain, signed a capitulation, at Mantua, and led back to France the troops which still remained to him. The imperialists were masters of Naples. Spain no longer had any possessions in Italy.

Philip V. had been threatened with the loss of Spain as well as of Italy.

For two years past Archduke Charles, under the t.i.tle of Charles III., had, with the support of England and Portugal, been disputing the crown with the young king. Philip V. had lost Catalonia, and had just failed in his attempt to retake Barcelona; the road to Madrid was cut off, the army was obliged to make its way by Roussillon and Warn to resume the campaign; the king threw himself in person into his capital, whither he was escorted by Marshal Berwick, a natural son of James II., a Frenchman by choice, full of courage and resolution, "but a great stick of an Englishman, who hadn't a word to say," and who was distasteful to the young queen, Marie-Louise. Philip V. could not remain at Madrid, which was threatened by the enemy: he removed to Burgos; the English entered the capital, and there proclaimed Charles III.

This was too, much; Spain could not let herself submit to have an Austrian king imposed upon her by heretics and Portuguese; the old military energy appeared again amongst that people besotted by priests and ceremonials; war broke out all at once at every point; the foreign soldiers were everywhere attacked openly or secretly murdered; the towns rose; a few hors.e.m.e.n sufficed for Berwick to recover possession of Madrid; the king entered it once more, on the 4th of October, amidst the cheers of his people, whilst Berwick was pursuing the enemy, whom he had cornered (_rencogne_), he says, in the mountains of Valencia. Charles III. had no longer anything left in Spain but Aragon and Catalonia. The French garrisons, set free by the evacuation of Italy, went to the aid of the Spaniards. "Your enemies ought not to hope for success," wrote Louis XIV. to his grandson, "since their progress has served only to bring out the courage and fidelity of a nation always equally brave and firmly attached to its masters. I am told that your people cannot be distinguished from regular troops. We have not been fortunate in Flanders, but we must submit to the judgment of G.o.d." He had already let his grandson understand that a great sacrifice would be necessary to obtain peace, which he considered himself bound to procure before long for his people. The Hollanders refused their mediation. "The three men who rule in Europe, to wit, the grand pensionary Heinsius, the Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene, desire war for their own interests," was the saying in France. The campaign of 1707 was signalized in Spain by the victory of Almanza, gained on the 13th of April by Marshal Berwick over the Anglo-Portuguese army, and by the capture of Lerida, which capitulated on the 11th of November into the hands of the Duke of Orleans. In Germany, Villars drove back the enemy from the banks of the Rhine, advanced into Suabia, and ravaged the Palatinate, crushing the country with requisitions, of which he openly reserved a portion for himself. "Marshal Villars is doing very well for himself," said somebody, one day, to the king. "Yes," answered his Majesty, "and for me too." "I wrote to the king that I really must fat my calf," said Villars.

The inexhaustible elasticity and marvellous resources of France were enough to restore some hope in 1707. The invasion of Provence by Victor- Amadeo and Prince Eugene, their check before Toulon, and their retreat, precipitated by the rising of the peasants, had irritated the allies; the attempts at negotiation which the king had entered upon at the Hague remained without result; the Duke of Burgundy took the command of the armies of Flanders, with Vendome for his second; it was hoped that the lieutenant's boldness, his geniality towards the troops, and his consummate knowledge of war, would counterbalance the excessive gravity, austerity, and inexperience of the young prince so virtuous and capable, but reserved, cold, and unaccustomed to command; discord arose amongst the courtiers; on the 5th of July Ghent was surprised; Vendome had intelligence inside the place, the Belgians were weary of their new masters. "The States have dealt so badly with this country," said Marlborough, "that all the towns are ready to play us the same trick as Ghent, the moment they have the opportunity." Bruges opened its gates to the French. Prince Eugene advanced to second Marlborough, but he was late in starting; the troops of the Elector of Bavaria hara.s.sed his march. "I shouldn't like to say a word against Prince Eugene," said Marlborough, "but he will arrive at the appointed spot on the Moselle ten days too late." The English were by themselves when they encountered the French army in front of Audernarde. The engagement began. Vendome, who commanded the right wing, sent word to the Duke of Burgundy. The latter hesitated and delayed; the generals about him did not approve of Vendome's movement. He fought single-handed, and was beaten. The excess of confidence of one leader, and the inertness of the other, caused failure in all the operations of the campaign; Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough laid siege to Lille, which was defended by old Marshal Boufflers, the bravest and the most respected of all the king's servants.

Lille was not relieved, and fell on the 25th of October; the citadel held out until the 9th of December; the king heaped rewards on Marshal Bouffers: at the march out from Lille, Prince Eugene had ordered all his army to pay him the same honors as to himself. Ghent and Bruges were abandoned to the imperialists. "We had made blunder upon blunder in this campaign," says Marshal Berwick, in his Memoires, "and, in spite of all that if somebody had not made the last in giving up Ghent and Bruges, there would have been a fine game the year after." The Low Countries were lost, and the French frontier was encroached upon by the capture of Lille. For the first time, in a letter addressed to Marshal Berwick, Marlborough let a glimpse be seen of a desire to make peace; the king still hoped for the mediation of Holland, and he neglected the overtures of Marlborough: "the army of the allies is, without doubt, in evil plight," said Chamillard.

The campaign in Spain had not been successful; the Duke of Orleans, weary of his powerlessness, and under suspicion at the court of Philip V., had given up the command of the troops; the English admiral, Leake, had taken possession of Sardinia, of the Island of Minorca, and of Port Mahon; the archduke was master of the isles and of the sea. The dest.i.tution in France was fearful, and the winter so severe that the poor were in want of everything; riots multiplied in the towns; the king sent his plate to the mint, and put his jewels in p.a.w.n; he likewise took a resolution which cost him even more; he determined to ask for peace.

"Although his courage appeared at every trial," says the Marquis of Torcy, "he felt within him just sorrow for a war whereof the weight overwhelmed his subjects. More concerned for their woes than for his own glory, he employed, to terminate them, means which might have induced France to submit to the hardest conditions before obtaining a peace that had become necessary, if G.o.d, protecting the king, had not, after humiliating him, struck his foes with blindness."

There are regions to which superior minds alone ascend, and which are not attained by the men, however distinguished, who succeed them. William III. was no longer at the head of affairs in Europe; and the triumvirate of Heinsius, Marlborough, and Prince Eugene did not view the aggregate of things from a sufficiently calm height to free themselves from the hatreds and, bitternesses of the strife, when the proposals of Louis XIV.

arrived at the Hague. "Amidst the sufferings caused to commerce by the war, there was room to hope," says Torcy, "that the grand pensionary, thinking chiefly of his country's interest, would desire the end of a war of which he felt all the burdensomeness. Clothed with authority in his own republic, he had no reason to fear either secret design or cabals to displace him from a post which he filled to the satisfaction of his masters, and in which he conducted himself with moderation. Up to that time the United Provinces had borne the princ.i.p.al burden of the war. The emperor alone reaped the fruit of it. One would have said that the Hollanders kept the temple of peace, and that they had the keys of it in their hands."

The king offered the Hollanders a very extended barrier in the Low Countries, and all the facilities they had long been asking for their commerce. He accepted the abandonment of Spain to the archduke, and merely claimed to reserve to his grandson Naples, Sardinia, and Sicily.

This was what was secured to him by the second treaty of part.i.tion lately concluded between England, tine United Provinces, and France; he did not even demand Lothringen. President Rouille, formerly French envoy to Lisbon, arrived disguised in Holland; conferences were opened secretly at Bodegraven.

The treaties of part.i.tion negotiated by William of Orange, as well as the wars which he had sustained against Louis XIV. with such persistent obstinacy, had but one sole end, the maintenance of the European equilibrium between the houses of Bourbon and Austria, which were alone powerful enough to serve as mutual counterpoise. To despoil one to the profit of the other, to throw, all at once, into the balance on the side of the empire all the weight of the Spanish succession, was to destroy the work of William III.'s far-sighted wisdom. Heinsius did not see it; but led on by his fidelity to the allies, distrustful and suspicious as regarded France, burning to avenge the wrongs put upon the republic, he, in concert with Marlborough and Prince Eugene, required conditions so hard that the French agent scarcely dared transmit them to Versailles.

What was demanded was the abdication, pure and simple, of Philip V.: Holland merely promised her good offices to obtain in his favor Naples and Sicily; England claimed Dunkerque; Germany wanted Strasburg and the renewal of the peace of Westphalia; Victor-Amadeo aspired to recover Nice and Savoy; to the Dutch barrier stipulated for at Ryswick were to be added Lille, Conde, and Tournay. In vain was the matter discussed article by article; Rouille for some time believed that he had gained Lille. "You misinterpreted our intentions," said the deputies of the States General; "we let you believe what you pleased; at the commencement of April. Lille was still in a bad condition; we had reason to fear that the French had a design of taking advantage of that; it was a matter of prudence to let you believe that it would be restored to you by the peace. Lille is at the present moment in a state of security; do not count any longer on its rest.i.tution." "Probably," said the States'

delegate to Marlborough, "the king will break off negotiations rather than entertain such hard conditions." "So much the worse for France,"

rejoined the English general; "for when the campaign is once begun, things will go farther than the king thinks. The allies will never unsay their preliminary demands." And he set out for England without even waiting for a favorable wind to cross.

Louis XIV. a.s.sembled his council, the same which, in 1700, had decided upon acceptance of the crown of Spain. "The king felt all these calamities so much the more keenly," says Torcy, "in that he had experienced nothing of the sort ever since he had taken into his own hands the government of a flourishing kingdom. It was a terrible humiliation for a monarch accustomed to conquer, belauded for his victories, his triumphs, his moderation when he granted peace and prescribed its laws, to see himself now obliged to ask it of his enemies, to offer them to no purpose, in order to obtain it, the rest.i.tution of a portion of his conquests, the monarchy of Spain, the abandonment of his allies, and forced, in order to get such offers accepted, to apply to that same republic whose princ.i.p.al provinces he had conquered in the year 1692, and whose submission he had rejected when she entreated him to grant her peace on such terms as he should be pleased to dictate. The king bore so sensible a change with the firmness of a hero, and with a Christian's complete submission to the decrees of Providence, being less affected by his own inward pangs than by the suffering of his people, and being ever concerned about the means of relieving it, and terminating the war. It was scarcely perceived that he did himself some violence in order to conceal his own feelings from the public; indeed; they were so little known that it was pretty generally believed that, thinking more of his own glory than of the woes of his kingdom, he preferred to the blessing of peace the keeping of certain places he had taken in person.

This unjust opinion had crept in even amongst the council."

The reading of the Dutch proposals tore away every veil; "the necessity of obtaining peace, whatever price it might cost, was felt so much the more." The king gave orders to Rouille to resume the conferences, demanding clear and precise explanations. "If the worst comes to the worst," said he, "I will give up Lille to the Hollanders, Strasburg dismantled to the Empire, and I will content myself with Naples without Sicily for my grandson. You will be astounded at the orders contained in this despatch, so different from those that I have given you hitherto, and that I considered, as it was, too liberal, but I have always submitted to the divine will, and the evils with which He is pleased to afflict my kingdom do not permit me any longer to doubt of the sacrifice He requires me to make to Him of all that might touch me most nearly. I waive, therefore, my glory." The Marquis of Torcy, secretary of state for foreign affairs, followed close after the despatch; he had offered the king to go and treat personally with Heinsius.

"The grand pensionary appeared surprised when he heard that his Majesty was sending one of his ministers to Holland. He had been placed at that post by the Prince of Orange, who put entire confidence in him. Heinsius had not long before been sent to France to confer with Louvois, and, in the discharge of that commission, he had experienced the bad temper of a minister more accustomed to speak harshly to military officers than to treat with foreigners; he had not forgotten that the minister had threatened to have him put in the Bastille. Consummate master of affairs, of which he had a long experience, he was the soul of the league with Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough; but the pensionary was not accused either of being so much in love with the importance given him by continuance of the war as to desire its prolongation or of any personally interested view. His externals were simple, there was no ostentation in his household; his address was cold without any sort of rudeness, his conversation was polished, he rarely grew warm in discussion." Torcy could not obtain anything from Heinsius, any more than from Marlborough and Prince Eugene, who had both arrived at the Hague: the prince remained cold and stern; he had not forgotten the king's behavior towards his house. "That's a splendid post in France, that of colonel general," said he one day; "my father held it; at his death we hoped that my brother might get it; the king thought it better to give it to one of his, natural sons. He is master, but all the same is one not sorry sometimes to find one's self in a position to make slights repented of." "Marlborough displayed courtesy, insisting upon seeing in the affairs of the coalition the finger of G.o.d, who had permitted eight nations to think and act like one man." The concessions extorted from France were no longer sufficient: M. de Torcy gave up Sicily, and then Naples; a demand was made for Elsa.s.s, and certain places in Dauphiny and Provence; lastly, the allies required that the conditions of peace should be carried out at short notice, during the two months'

truce it was agreed to grant, and that Louis XIV. should forthwith put into the hands of the Hollanders three places by way of guarantee, in case Philip V. should refuse to abdicate. This was to despoil himself prematurely and gratuitously, for it was impossible to execute the definitive treaty of peace at the time fixed. "The king did not hesitate about the only course there was for him to take, not only for his own glory, but for the welfare of his kingdom," says Torcy; he recalled his envoys, and wrote to the governors of the provinces and towns,--

"Sir: The hope of an imminent peace was so generally diffused throughout my kingdom, that I consider it due to the fidelity which my people have shown during the course of my reign to give them the consolation of informing them of the reasons which still prevent them from enjoying the repose I had intended to procure for them. I would, to restore it, have accepted conditions much opposed to the security of my frontier provinces; but the more readiness and desire I displayed to dissipate the suspicions which my enemies affect to retain of my power and my designs, the more did they multiply their pretensions, refusing to enter into any undertaking beyond putting a stop to all acts of hostility until the first of the month of August, reserving to themselves the liberty of then acting by way of arms if the King of Spain, my grandson, persisted in his resolution to defend the crown which G.o.d has given him; such a suspension was more dangerous than war for my people, for it secured to the enemy more important advantages than they could hope for from their troops. As I place my trust in the protection of G.o.d, and hope that the purity of my intentions will bring down His blessing on my arms, I wish my people to know that they would enjoy peace if it had depended only on my will to procure them a boon which they reasonably, desire, but which must be won by fresh efforts, since the immense conditions I would have granted are useless for the restoration of the public peace.

"Signed: Louis."