White-Hall Sept. 19 1667.  
Let this TRANSLATION be Printed.  
By the Appointment of the Right Honourable the Lord ARLINGTON, His MAJESTY'S Principal Secretary of State. Joseph Williamson.   

THE BUCKLER OF State and Justice Against The DESIGN manifestly discovered of the UNIVERSAL MONARCHY, Under the vain PRETEXT OF THE QUEEN of France HER PRETENSIONS.  
Translated out of French.  
LONDON, Printed by James Flesher, for Richard Royston, Bookseller to His most Excellent Majesty. 1667.   

THE Preface.  
WHILSED we rested quietly under the shade of Peace, and the faith of the Promises very lately renewed by France not to break it, the noise of a mighty Preparation for War in our Neighbourhood unexpectedly struck our ears; a Conspiracy was detected, through the indefatigable pains of our 
* The Marquis of Castel-Rodrigo.  Governor, upon one of our 
* The City of Luxemburg.  principal Places; which hastily awakened us out of this Repose: and scarce were our eyes opened, but divers Libels (the usual forerunners of War) were spread up and down promiscuously amongst the Nobility and Common people, to seduce his majesty's faithful Subjects, under colour of some Pretensions of the most Christian Queen upon all these Provinces. One whereof is entitled, A Dialogue on the Subject of the Rights of the most Christian Queen. The next hath for Title, A Treatise of the Rights which the most Christian Queen hath to sundry Estates of the Monarchy of Spain. And the third goes by the Appellation of Threescore and fourteen Reasons, which prove as clear as the day, that the Renunciation made by the Queen of France is null, etc. These Pretensions tend only to sap and undermine the foundation of the Pyrenean Treaty, by overthrowing the most Christian Queen's Renunciation (which she so solemnly swore to observe in favour both of the Peace and Marriage) of all Rights that might belong to her, and stretch themselves to no less than the Duchy of Brabant with its Appurtenances, the Seignory of Machelen, Antwerp, the upper Gelderland, Namur, Limburg, and the united places beyond the River of Maes, Hainault, Artois, Cambray, the Free County of Burgundy, the Duchy of Luxemburg, and one of the principal parts of the County of Flanders.  
After I had curiously read over the Contents of these Libels, at first I could not be persuaded that such Writings were authorized by the Court of France, and looked upon them a great while as passe-volants, and the effects of some idle Pens, which out of wantonness affected to make themselves remarkable by wittily maintaining a Paradox: and indeed their proceeding was too irregular, the matter too brittle, and the form too unhandsome, to believe with any ground of likelihood that they leaned upon public Authority. For I supposed, and with Justice enough on my side, that what Pretensions soever the most Christian King could have upon a Prince united unto him by so many ties of Kindred and Amity, he would never have begun by the way of Execution, and the exciting of his People to Rebellion; but that the voice of the Cannon should have been the last made use of to plead his Cause, having before made trial of all other means. This opinion was confirmed to me by the continual Assurances and positive words which his most Christian Majesty hath often sent to the Court of Spain by his 
* The Archbishop of Ambrun.  Ambassador there, and by the 
* Spanish Ambassador in France.  Marquis de la Fuente, That nothing should be able to hinder him from observing religiously the Peace. In which belief he still fortified us by Propositions of Leagues, and of Mediation, and by reiterated Promises of an inviolable Friendship, not sparing any care to dissipate all the Suspicions which his powerful Arming might justly have made us conceive.  
Our own Consciences also did oblige us not to doubt of the sincerity of the Promises of France, and the scrupulous care which we took to avoid the giving them any cause of displeasure, even to the rejecting (for their respect) the means which were offered us from all parts for our safety, gave us cause to believe, that such a Comportment as this was, being so neat and obliging, should not only stop the effects of their Arms, by taking away all the Causes, but should also have touched them with tenderness for the Innocence of an Infant, a Cousin, and a Brother-in-Law, to let him pass his younger years in the quiet of a Peace, which the King his Father had so dearly bought for him. And though the Succours which France sent from time to time into Portugal (and that too before they could pretend to the effect of this imaginary Devolution) were manifest discoveries, that the Faith of Treaties & of Oaths were much inferior to the Interest of State; yet we flattered ourselves, that the longanimity of our Patience might shelter us from receiving new injuries at their hands, by dissembling our sense of the first, and that they would be ashamed to heap so many without interruption the one upon the other.  
But having heard that the same Libels had been solemnly presented by the 
* Monsieur de l' Estrade.  French Ambassador to the States of the United Provinces, and to the Imperial Diet, and divers Princes of Germany; I thought that I should be wanting in all that I own to my King, my Country, and the Public, as well as to myself, if I did not employ the little knowledge and light which God hath given me, towards the removal of the false Impressions which the artifice of a slight Eloquence, much more than the solidity of Reasons, might produce in the opinion of credulous spirits, not throughly versed in our Laws and Customs. Besides, methought that I owed this Consolation to the afflicted people, and this satisfaction to the neighbouring States, to let them evidently understand, that all the Pretexts with which the French do labour to disguise the vast Designs that they have in hand, are but false colours to mask the true Spring which gives the Motion to this Machine, and to make an Ambition which goes at a great pace to the Universal Monarchy pass under the veil of Justice.  
Which consideration hath induced me seriously to weigh these Writings, and maturely to examine all the Reasons, Ends and Circumstances of them: And after having carefully turned over all the Acts, (as much as the shortness of time and the confusion of the present Troubles would give me leave) and examined the Treaties of Peace and Marriage, with the Act of Renunciation, and consulted the most expert Civi●ians that are amongst us in the Practic and Customs of places; I found, without any preoccupation of mind, these Pretensions not only to be contrary to public Right, to the Customs in Sovereign Successions, and the sincere Faith of Treaties, which are made betwixt Crown and Crown for the Tranquillity of the People, and the Conservation of Monarchies; but even to that particular Right which regulates private Families, and those Municipal Customs which every Nation doth prescribe unto itself, by the will or permission, either express or , of their Sovereigns. I have besides observed so many evident Falsehoods in the matter of Fact, so many insupportable Invectives against the Person of the 
* PHILIP the Fourth.  late King of most Glorious Memory, so great a number of malicious Artifices to pervert the people, so many hyperbolical Exaggerations to cast dust in the eyes of the neighbouring Princes, and so many pernicious Maxims, which draw along after them a train of Consequences most dangerous for all Christendom; that I had a great deal of difficulty to conceive how people, who make profession of Learning and Knowledge of the Affairs of the World, durst expose to public censure things so ill digested: which hath the more encouraged me to undertake this Work, by reason that I foresee how much it imports, not to suffer a boldness (which so freely abuses the patience of the Readers) to pass unchastised; and the Interest which all States have in this Affair makes me assuredly believe, that I do plead in this the Cause of the whole World. It is, I confess, a matter of trouble to see myself obliged to reduce to the terms of litigious pleading a Difference between Sovereign Princes, so solemnly decided by a public Treaty, upon the Faith whereof all Christendom did solely found their Quiet. But as a good Cause fears no Judge, nor a good Conscience any kind of Censure; I will freely enter the Lists, and shall be overjoyed to have as many Witnesses of the Justice of our Cause, as there be reasonable and disinteressed persons in the World.  
Though we cannot doubt of the Approbation which the most Christian King hath given to those injurious Writings, I cannot yet be persuaded that he ever took the pains to read them over, and will rather believe (to his honour) that his weighty Affairs, and his great application to this lofty Arming, have so taken up all his time, that he had none to spare to cast his eyes upon works which have so little sympathy with his Genius and Quality. It is much easier to believe, that trusting in this to the faith of others, he hath abandoned himself to his natural propension to immortalize his name by Arms and Conquests, and to the Suggestions of those who desire nothing more than to see him encumbered abroad for their self-ends. In effect he hath too much Generosity, and Love for the Queen his Consort, to suffer that any should so unworthily defame the Reputation of his Father-in-Law; he is too much concerned in the common Cause of Kings, to endure that his Scribblers should attempt upon Royal persons; he hath too much Justice, to permit that they should make the most tender Father and best of Kings pass for a Tyrant, constraining his Daughter, by a barbarous Disinheriting her, or a Cheater, who assigned her only an Imaginary Portion; he hath too great a mind, to approve of trifling upon Jewels, or to desire that an account by way of Inventory should be given him of all the Knacks which belonged to the Queen his Mother-in-Law, and that all the Earth should be alarmed about a Domestic concernment, which the relations of the parties would decide without noise amongst mean Citizens: he knows that the Bounty of the King his Father-in-Law towards a Princess whom he loved more than himself did not restrain itself to Notaries Clausules; that both before and after the Marriage he ceased not to load her with his Benefits; and that he hath freely bestowed his Provinces and Dominions, to set upon her Head one of the fairest Crowns in the World. In fine, he hath too much Prudence and love for Truth, ever to consent to the publication of so many false Allegations so inconsiderately packed together one upon the back of another; not questioning at all, but if that he had attentively considered them, they would have touched him with just indignation against those who have so impudently abused his Name, as to engage maliciously his Reputation and his Arms in an Enterprise so ill grounded.  
Which makes me hope that (having established his majesty's Rights upon unquestionable Foundations) the solidity of our Reasons will not only conduce to fortify the People, and persuade the neighbour-Princes, but even pierce the heart of the most Christian King; and that yielding to the strength of their Evidence, he will resolve henceforwards to propose juster and more plausible matters to himself, whereby to make his Name famous, when in the unworthy Oppression of a Pupil King; or at least that he will contrive sweeter and more honest ways in order to his full information. But if by secret Judgements of God we cannot obtain by this means that which we ought to promise to ourselves from the Prudence and the Equity of so Great a King; I shall yet have this satisfaction, to have omitted nothing on my part that might contribute towards the dissipation of this Tempest, which threatens all Christendom; and having overcome by Reasons, we hope that the Arbiter of Sovereigns and supreme Protector of Justice will not let us sink under the weight of his Arms.  
To make fully known in the eye of the Sun the Deformity and bad Connexion of those seditious Writings, it would be necessary to anatomize them, and examine every piece apart. But as that design would engage me to a large Volume, and that time for the present is too precious; I have thought that it should now suffice to collect only the principal Points, to destroy their Grounds, and establish contrary Foundations, and to go (without stopping at a thousand Superfluities, which they have alleged out of all season only to make the bulk of their Books bigger, and to embroil the mind of the Reader) directly to the substance and the heart of the Difficulty in question. This shall be my endeavour; and in this I require in the Readers an attention void of interest, if yet they can be without interest in a Cause which so nearly toucheth them by an inevitable reflection.  
Though I have proposed to myself in this Writing all the Moderation and Sweetness which decency and inclination towards Peace doth require; yet the matter is of itself so very sharp, that it is almost impossible to give it a form that shall not participate of its roughness. It's here intended to make the whole World see, That a War is unjust, the Ground of it ruinous, the Reasons for it vain Pretexts; That the Apparences cover vast Designs; That the Allegations are false, the Proceed violent, the Ends naught, and the Consequences dangerous. The necessity of a just Defence doth oblige us to bring to light all these Truths: and I defy the most dexterous Pens to be able to express them in terms void of some Bitterness, or to apply the Razor to the bottom of the Wound without Pain to the Patient. I wish I were able to make things understood without naming them, and to colour them with obliging terms: but this cannot be done without destroying the Substance; and this Mask of words would pass for a jeering sharper than single Expressions. I beseech the Reader to be persuaded that my only drift is, to speak of Things without touching of Persons; and if my Subject doth forcibly draw me into complaints and some reproaches, I do here solemnly protest, That I pretend the most Christian King's Sacred Person to be excepted; and that I do ascribe all the Evils which are intended towards us only to those mean Incendiary Writers, who, out of a desire of Novelty, and perhaps with purposes more dangerous to their own King then to ourselves, have so lightly and unseasonably sounded to horse.   

THE CONTENTS.  

I. Of the Ends which France doth propose unto itself in this War, and in these Libels.  
II. That the Entry of the King of France into the Estates of the Catholic King in the Low Countries is an evident Rupture.  
III. That this Rupture is unjust, admitting the Right of the Queen of France were well founded.  
iv That the Renunciation of the French Queen is just, irrevocable, necessary, and useful to the Public good, nor contains in itself any cause of Nullity or Laesion, and that the Queen of France hath been duly Doted.  
V That the Succession of the Sovereignty of the Duchy of Brabant, and the other Provinces which are specified in these Libels, ought not to be regulated by the particular Customs.  
VI A Discourse of the Interest of the Christian Princes in this War and of the precise Obligation which the Estates of the Empire have to warrant the Circle of Burgundy.    

THE BUCKLER OF STATE & JUSTICE AGAINST The Design manifestly discovered of the Universal Monarchy, under the vain pretext of the Queen of France her Pretensions.  

ARTICLE I.  
Of the Ends which FRANCE proposeth unto itself in this War, and in these Libels.  
THE Author of these Libels employs a great deal more of care and art to colour the Designs of his Party, then to establish the Grounds of his imaginary Right. In this last his Pen is both dry and crawling: In the other it doth spread itself with a pleasant stream of words into a Thousand superfluous expressions, endeavouring as much as it can to present without discovery a false Light, hoping to change the Nature of things by changing only their Names. He extols the love which his Master hath for Peace, at the very instant when he is breaking it; he complains at the same time when he strikes; he takes away by violence, when he asks; he pleads and decides at once; he requires Peace, and brings War; attaques without Rupture, forces without constraint, and plays with so much contempt upon the Ignorance and Credulity which he supposes to be in the Judgement of his Readers, that he will needs have the way of Fact to pass for Justice, Violence for Moderation, Usurpation for Title, and Defence for a Crime: and so he can but only take away the odious name of War from the Attempt which Frame is now making, he thinks that she may freely practise all manner of Hostilities under that of Peace: Which is the effect of the excellent opinion they have of the abilities of all other Nations, whom they esteem barbarous or simple enough to believe things of this nature, and afterwards glory in their jesting, (according to their obliging custom of turning into ridiculous the most Illustrious Nations) That they took us for Germans.  
This dull conceit tends evidently unto two Ends: The one, to extenuate a little the ugliness of their Enterprise, and the Scandal and Confusion which they foresee it will produce throughout all Europe: and that they may make all the cares which we shall take for our Defence pass for as many Contraventions of the Peace; and by this means get some pretext whereby either they may press their Allies to join their Arms to theirs, in favour of their Design, or else may one of these days bring the War upon themselves, for having failed in performing the Obligation of their League of Warranty. By which it is obvious to all sorts of capacities, that the Absolute Empire which they do equally affect over their Friends & Enemies makes them act so Magisterially both with the one and the other: So that to keep Peace with them, it is requisite to give them all that they require; and to satisfy the Alliances made with them, it's necessary to help them to take all.  
But to judge of the injustice of this Pretention, it is sufficient to read over the Treaty of the Peace of the Empire, in the Article of Warranty, and that of the League of the Rhine: and then it will be clearly seen, that the Obligation of reciprocal Succours doth extend no farther than to those Lands which France did possess in the Empire at the time when these Leagues were concluded; that they do not reach any new Conquests or Claims, and ought not to be understood but against Aggressours: Else the Princes of the Empire had imposed an horrible Servitude on themselves, to be the Ministers and Instruments of the Ambition of an Ally, to enlarge his Limits at the price of their blood and of their own safety, and to be bound to take arms into their hands as often as the Writers of France should think fit to put their hand to the pen, to frame to their Crown some new Rights.  
It is not enough to understand the cunning of the Ends of their proceeding, but it concerns all the World to penetrate farther, even into the bottom of their Designs. If we will take it upon their faith, they have no other End but an honest Accommodation with Spain; They themselves invite Foreign Princes to intermeddle in it; They protest that they will suffer themselves to be brought to moderate Conditions, That they do make War against their stomaches, That they would lay down their arms with pleasure, That they would submit themselves to the Judgement of those who are willing to employ their pains in it. Let us see then whether their behaviour doth suit with their words.— Spectemur agendo.  
All their Actions and Motions tend towards a vast and deep Design. This proud arming, this prodigious expense, this excessive profusion in their foreign Negotiations; this forwardness in making of Leagues, to gain Ministers, to keep them in business who may give them jealousy; the reiterated instances and the large offers which they have tendered to the Swedes to embroil the Empire; the extraordinary application to force the Polanders by corruption and violence to choose a Successor contrary to their Fundamental Laws; are proofs capable to convince the darkest understandings, that all this immense Preparation of Arms and Intrigues hath something in it of greater extent than the bare Conquest of some Provinces, (which our overmuch Credulity hath exposed to them as a prey) and ends not in a simple desire of tearing away a few pieces of them by a Treaty. These huge Mountains are not to bring forth Mice, but to vomit out Flames as the Vesuve, to set the whole neighbouring Countries on fire.  
The first 
* The Bishop of Rhodes.  Governor of the most Christian King hath given him for a Model the Life and Designs of his Grandfather Henry the Fourth, as may be seen in the Book which he hath published. This Prince, as well by his own Genius, as by the happy success of his first Undertake, hath relished such Instructions, and hath solely proposed to himself this Example for the Rule of his Actions. The History of this Great King hath been his most ordinary study: He hath, in imitation of him, taken great care to accumulate much Treasure, sought for Alliances abroad, and at length hath raised most powerful Armies. We must therefore conclude, that he acts upon the very same Draughts; and that all we see at present are but renewed Projects, and the effects of those Impressions which he hath sucked in with his milk. To draw the Consequences from these Principles we need only read the Memorials of Henry the Fourth, those of the Precedent Jannin, and of the Bishop of Rhodes; and conclude, that whatsoever that Potent King had conceived in his imagination, this King intends to bring forth by the power of his Armies. But as the desire of Glory hath no bounds, and that his years and present condition put him in a capacity to run a longer course than Henry the Great; so we cannot reasonably expect that the swiftness of the Rhine shall be able to stop him.  
His Writers have taken a great deal of pains to nourish him in these thoughts: and as that sort of men have no other study but to observe the weakness of their Prince, the better to insinuate their Flatteries, they have freely sacrificed their mercenary Pens to tickle this natural desire of Glory which they have discovered in him. The Rewards they have received are authentic marks of his Acceptance; and this acknowledgement in a young spirit, that believeth himself to be in a posture to execute all that pleaseth him, and which hath drunk in this Maxim, That to take possession by the Sword any Title is sufficient, must needs be esteemed a dangerous forerunning Sentence against all those upon whom he shall believe that he hath any thing to pretend.  
Which yet more clearly to make appear to us, we only need read the printed Books which have lately been dedicated unto him, and principally one above the rest, which carries the Title of THE JUST PRETENSIONS OF THE KING OF FRANCE TO THE EMPIRE; where having laid down for a Ground, That the Dominions of Sovereign Princes have always been the Dominions and Conquests of their Estates, and, That the Dominions and Conquests of Crowns can neither be alienated nor prescribed; he adds the two Articles following: 

1. That the greatest part of Germany is the Patrimony and ancient Inheritance of French Princes:  
2. Charlemain did possess Germany as King of France, and not as Emperor.   I leave to those who will vouchsafe to read over this Treatise, to form the Consequences from such Premises.  
If one may judge of what is to come by what is past, all Europe will have cause enough to stand upon her guard, if it doth but reflect upon the conduct of France since the close of the Pyrenean Peace till this minute. Hardly did we see that Treaty established upon the most religious and inviolable Laws that humane Prudence could devise, when presently, upon a small punctilio of difference for the precedency of Ambassadors, (which had been always in dispute, and was left undecided by the Peace) they proceeded to the uttermost extremities against a Father-in-Law, at the same time when they suffered without murmuring the unheard-of Indignities which the Grand Vizier at Constantinople caused to be committed against the Royal Person of the most Christian King in that of his Ambassador; and when they did admit, without taking the least offence thereat, the Competition for place betwixt the Swedish Ambassadors and theirs: which is so much the more remarkable, that even in the Pyrenean Treaty the two Crowns marched equally hand in hand together; and that in one of the Instruments thereof Spain was the first nominated, and in the other France. Why then did they conclude the Peace with this Equality, if they were resolved to break it afterwards upon the point of Competition? Which makes it evidently seen, that from the very day of the Peace they have always watched for the occasions of War, and concluded this Treaty only to take a little breath to settle their Revenues at home, and make an end of reducing their people under the yoke.  
The Bonesires which were every where kindled for joy of the Peace were not quite extinguished, when an evident breach of the Treaty was seen by the Succours which France sent into Portugal; at the beginning under the name of the Marshal of Turenne, and a little while after without any kind of disguise. A Sedition which happened at Rome, to the great displeasure of the Pope, by the Soldiers who were provoked with an infinity of Insolences committed by the French Embassador's Family, 
The Duke of Creqny.  was near putting all Italy again into Combustion, had not the tears of his Holiness stopped it, by sacrificing his own Kindred, and erecting a Pyramid to France for an unworthy Trophy of the spoils of the glory of the vicary of Jesus Christ, and the common Father, of whom they style themselves the Eldest Sons.  
A little after they obliged the Duke Charles of Lorraine to sell them his Duchy, to the prejudice of the lawful Successor: and the Contract not being valid, they forced him with violence to put the only place which was left him into their hands; by means whereof (revoking their Bargain) they got the thing without paying the price.  
The Bishop of Munster, who was included in the League of the Rhine, seeing himself attaqued in the Empire by the States of Holland, in vain implored their assistance, by virtue of the Warranty: but when he began to resent it, he was strait assaulted by the French Troops: and if his own Enemies had not shown more moderation towards him than their Allies, his Country (which is of the Patrimony of the Church) had been at present totally reduced into Ashes.  
The War of England against the States of the United Provinces, which was raised by the French practices, and fomented by their industry, in giving the counterpoise to him who for the time appeared the weaker, hath sufficiently instructed all the World, that the Game of France is to depress all Powers which are capable of obstructing the torrent of their Erterprises.  
But to stray no farther from the matter which I have in hand, I will be contented to note only two plain Arguments, which evidently prove that their Design is to drive on their Conquests as far as ever the fortune of War will suffer them, and that those Overtures of Peace which they do make are but to amuse the neighbouring Princes, and to bridle their own Subjects; believing that the first will not have recourse to Arms for hindering their progress, so long as they have any hopes to get it done by Negotiation; and that the others, terrified with the apprehension of the quick end of this War, shall not dare to make use of any occasion which they will hold to be uncertain and staggering.  
The first Argument is, That at the instant when they profess to seek Peace, they have laid an essential Obstacle in the way, by concluding a League offensive with Portugal for ten years; by the which they bind themselves not to treat, unless the Portuguese may be entirely satisfied. They are not ignorant how exorbitant the demands of that People are, and that this is to touch Spain in the apple of the eye, and put the same stop to the Peace which was the principal Difficulty in the Debates of the Pyrenean Treaty. The same League carries (as it is written from Lisbon) that all the Harbours which the Portuguese shall take in Spain, either upon the one or the other Sea, shall be put into the power of France: which directly corresponds to the Design which they have of late framed, to make that Kingdom absolute Mistress 
* Of the Article England had need take care.  of the Trade. All this hath no connexion with their Claim to Brabant and the other Provinces: and if they had no other Design then to take possession of their pretended Goods, without breaking the Peace, they would not contrive the acquisition of Ports where they themselves confess that they have nothing to pretend.  
The second is, That at the same time when they protest they have no design to break the Peace, they labour to destroy the Foundations of it, and to take away all hopes of a Reconciliation, by annulling the Queen's Renunciation, upon which the whole Pyrenean Treaty doth so lean, that in case this Basis shall be overturned, of necessity the whole Fabric must fall. If this Renunciation doth not subsist, there is no way left for an Accommodation, nor means of finding any security necessary to it. The Peace which shall be made cannot be but the seed of a new War; it will be impossible to cut the evil by the root. 'Tis here where the Mediators shall find themselves puzzled: and if all their Pretensions be granted, then will they be absolute Masters of the Netherlands, and in a condition to take possession by the same Title not only of that part of Brabant of which the States of the United Provinces stand possessed, but also of all the rest of their Countries, as I shall make appear more at large in the Fifth Article. If they adjudge unto them that part which we hold, they give a previous Sentence against themselves, and will be condemned by their own Decree. But if France content itself with a part, it will be needful that the Queen should pass a new Act of Renunciation touching all the remainder, which, according to their Principles, must be subject to the same causes of Nullity that the first is; if it be true that Princes can never lawfully renounce their pretended Rights: And I do not see how they can find new Clauses nor new Oaths to make this Act more irrevocable than that which they seek to destroy. However, though all they ask at present were granted them, nothing could be solidly treated of, because by annulling the Renunciation we should open a door unto them to bring in a new Pretention upon all the Monarchy; and then must the Peace needs be as brittle as is the life of a young Infant, who hath yet a thousand dangers to go through before he can reach to those years in which he shall be able to secure the Succession in his own Line, and cut off the course of the vast hopes of those who build the design of an Universal Dominion upon his Death. In a word, it is superfluous to reason by Arguments, when the things do speak of themselves. The most Christian King had the goodness to undeceive us in the vain hopes of a Peace, by a Letter written by his order to the Marquis de la Fuente, upon the Offer made by his Excellency the Marquis of Castel-Rodrigo in most respectful terms, to enter into a Treaty of Accommodation, and remit the business to the Arbitration of the neighbouring Princes; by his Answer he doth not only reject the Proposition, and look upon it as an injury, but be frames to himself a voluntary impossibility of a Peace, which he establisheth upon the Reply of our Queen to the Marquis de la Fuente, in prosecution of a Discourse which the Queen of France had slightly intimated to the said Marquis by way of Conversation, and strives to settle upon so weak a groundwork not only the Justice of his Arms, but also an essential Obstacle to a Reconciliation.  
By all these palpable Verities, which cannot be called in question, it is easy to discern, That France, employing her endeavour to render the Peace impossible or unsure, aims absolutely at the entire Destruction of a Monarchy which is the Bulwark of all the rest, that she may attaque them with less trouble, having thus beaten down their Flankers. It is left to wise Politicians to make necessary reflections upon a matter of such high concernment.   

ARTICLE II.  
That the Entry of the King of France into the Low-countrieses is a true Rupture.  
THe French Academy hath of late taken a great deal of pains in the polishing of their Language, and hath given itself the liberty to reform in it many words, to add some, and to enrich it with many graceful expressions: But I never could find that ever it called War by the name of Peace. The Latins indeed, by an Ironical Figure, have named War, Bellum; and it may be in imitation of them this ingenious Writer would make us believe that Hostilities are Gallantries, and the preparation for a great Army but a Tournament.  
Conjugium vocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam.  
I desire very much that he would explain unto us what he means by the word Rupture, and how he can reconcile a violent Intrusion by the power of men and Cannons with the due observation of a Treaty, which in the first place doth prohibit all manner of such armed attempts, and which is instituted to no other end but to hinder them. I would know how he can make the Peace subsist with the most lamentable effects of War; and how that by the only defect of the formality of sending a Herald at Arms to denounce it, it loses all its bitterness and injustice. For my own part, (who use to reason more dully) I have always held that to be a Rupture which is inconsistent with the essence of Peace, which overthrows the foundations and troubles all the harmony of it. There are certain Attempts which may alter a Peace, and yet not break it, which be rather Contraventions then Infringing, and which do not give the parties injured the right of Revenging themselves by Arms, but only to pretend Reparation by more gentle means. The Turks do not esteem to be a Rupture the Incursions which are made by the one or the other party in times of Peace, provided they be not accompanied with Infantry and Cannon. But when one doth act by open force with the full bodies of an Army, followed with all the Train necessary for great Erterprises; that Subjects are solicited to rebel against their Prince, and that they are compelled under the penalty of the Confiscation of their Goods to take an unjust Oath, without process and without form of Law; I do avow that I am ignorant what either Peace, War, Treaties, or Ruptures are, if all these things can have any compatibilitie together at the same time. It is a new knowledge in Law whereof the Ancients were ignorant, who have left us an Instruction totally opposite to this doctrine: 
Philo de Legious.  Hosts non solùm existimantur qui jam navali aut terrestri praelio certant, sed pro talibus habendi & qui machinas admovent portubus aut moenibus, etiamsi nondum pugnam incipiunt.  
But that we may be the more able to judge in this business, it is necessary that we examine all the terms of the Treaty of Peace, and consider the nature, the effects and the ends of the same; to conclude that if all those be destroyed by this Invasion, it cannot be called by any other name then by that of a manifest Rupture.  
The motive Cause of the Peace was, The desire of the good, quiet and ease of their good Subjects: The Object was, To put a period to so many mischiefs: The Effect, To forget and extinguish all the causes and motives of the Wars past, and to establish a sincere, entire, and durable Peace betwixt them and their Successors. All these are overthrown by this present Attempt, which doth trouble the good and tranquillity of the people, renew the public misfortunes, rekindle and resuscitate all the causes and motives of the Wars past, and raise new ones. I do not see how one can conceive that Peace should subsist with an Invasion, which ruins it in its Cause, in its Ends, and in all its Effects.  
Moreover, if the Entry of the most Christian King into these Provinces be but a simple taking of possession, yet is it altogether illegal, contrary to the Laws of Nations, and to the customs and practice of the Civil and Municipal Laws, as I will make appear in the Article following; and what colour soever these do put upon it, it cannot pass but for the way of Fact, which is never permitted except by the Law of War. So that by endeavouring to take away the name of War from this Invasion, they do deprive it of that Veil which was able to cover it at least with the false appearance of the Right of Arms, and manifestly conclude, that if it be not a Rupture, 'tis a violent Intrusion; if it be not a War, 'tis a Depredation and piracy; and if it be not an infringing of the Peace, it is an unjust Attempt, which gives a shock to all Laws and Forms. Thus are the French entangled in their own Nets, and thinking to make their Cause plausible, or less odious, by a Subtlety which hath neither body nor substance, they destroy the principal Foundation of it, and take from themselves the means of establishing their Conquest upon the right of War, by declaring that they will Conquer without breaking the Peace. 
L. Hosts, de vern. signif.  Hosts sunt qui nobis, aut quibus nos publicè Bellum decernimus: caeteri Latrones aut Praedones sunt.  
We do ordinarily distinguish betwixt Contravention, Infringing, and Rupture. The first is but an Abuse either in action or omission contrary to some particular Condition, which hinders not the existence of a Treaty in its integrity, and only affords the parties concerned a right to pretend that the Damage be repaired. The second shocks the substance of the Peace, overthrows the Groundwork of it, and gives a right to pursue satisfaction by Arms, if it cannot be obtained by any other way. The third consists simply in those acts of Hostility which are incompatible with Peace, which is in one word when one pursues his Right by force: And War, according to the opinion of Civilians, is nothing else but A Contention by strength of hands and by violence of Arms. Others take the word Rupture more at large, and extend it to three cases: The first, to every Act which is against the nature and ends of Peace: the second, to the committing or omitting of something which is contrary to the express tenor of the Treaty: the third, to the making of some Attempt which brings Consequences along with it incompatible with all that can be understood by the name of Peace. Grotius lib. 3. cap. 20. These three Conditions meet here: there is open Force; there is an express Contravention to the most essential Articles; and Consequences which induce an irreparable Damage.  
The Contravention to the Treaty on the part of France may evidently be proved by a multitude of Acts repugnant to the sincerity of that Friendship which the two Kings promised each other, which is the chief End of this Peace, and which overthrows the Conditions agreed on betwixt them. The secret practices, both within and without the Realm, have never ceased since the Peace; thus to keep the Monarchy at a check, and to raise enemies and enviers to it from all parts. The Portugueses have almost totally subsisted ever since upon the provision of Corn which hath been sent them out of France; and in all the Debates which have happened either touching the Execution or the Interpretation of the Treaty, or the Purchase of Dunkirk, they have always alleged unto us their Will in place of all other Reason, offering to give us the Law even in our own houses, and to forbid the reparation even of our own Channels; so that upon the least difference wherein we did not yield unto them without reply whatever they asked, they have presently returned the bargain in our hand. If any Leagues were proposed for our Defence only, instantly they thundered out against us menaces of War; which was a word so frequently in the mouth of the Archbishop of Ambrun, that upon business of no value, and between private persons, he instantly made a public concernment. In fine, they have made use with so much exorbitancy of the strong Inclination which they observed in us for the preservation of Peace, that they have still employed, upon the slightest occasions, the Scarecrow of War, thinking thereby to pull from us all that their humour made them desire.  
Though our condition were very unfortunate to live in this continual Disquiet, to see the Sword always hanging over our heads, and our Repose tied to so small a thread: yet the remembrance of our former Sufferings, and the apprehension of what might come hereafter, made us prefer an uncertain and tottering Rest before those inevitable Confusions and Troubles which a Rupture would produce; and expect that our Moderation might touch their hearts, or that the Divine Providence would by some other means provide for our safety. But this Patience of ours hath served them for a Ladder whereby they have mounted to open Infringing of the Peace, which cannot admit of any Interpretation or Extenuation: And I defy all the subtlety of the Gallicane litigious Cavils, to palliate them with the least pretext or meanest appearance of Justice. 'Tis here that I do entreat the Reader to show me no favour, but to divest himself of all kind of Complacency which perhaps he may have for us, to retain all his Partiality (if any he have) for our Enemies, and to judge of our Cause with the uttermost of Rigour.  
The Abandoning of Portugal is one of the essential Foundations of the Peace; without that it could never have been treated of nor concluded: France doth declare it by these words, in the LX Article of the said Treaty: For as much as we have foreseen and apprehended that such an Engagement might be an Obstacle not to be surmounted in the conclusion of the Peace, and consequently reduce the Two Kings to a necessity of perpetuating the War. And a little beneath in the very same Article it goes on in these terms: In fine, in contemplation of the Peace, and seeing the absolute necessity wherein his most Christian Majesty finds himself, either to perpetuate the War by a Rupture of the present Treaty, which he perceives to be inevitable, in case he should have persisted to obtain in this Affair from his Catholic Majesty other Conditions than those which he had offered, etc.  
'Tis clear in the second place by the same Article, that to oblige France to this Abandoning, the King of Spain refused from the most Christian King the Restitution of all those places and Dominions upon which the Arms of France had seized during the War. The terms are clear in the same Article: Offering, besides the places which are to be restored unto his Catholic Majesty by the present Treaty, to render unto him also all the other Conquests in general which his said Arms have made in this War, and entirely to restore the Prince of Conde; providing, and upon condition, that the Affairs of the Kingdom of Portugal should remain in the state in which at present they are.  
'Tis likewise out of controversy (every way) that this Abandoning of Portugal was covenanted and promised by France, so authentically and in such clear and special terms, that it cannot be called in question, nor be made subject to any Interpretations contrary to the true sense and intention of the Parties contracting. Here you have the terms: His said Majesty shall meddle no more with the said Affair, and doth promise and oblige himself upon his Honour, and in the Faith and the Word of a King, for himself and his Successors, not to give unto the aforementioned Kingdom of Portugal, neither in general, nor to any person or persons of it in particular, of what dignity, estate or condition they way be, neither for the present nor hereafter, any Aid or Assistance, public or secret, directly or indirectly, of Men, Arms, Ammunition, Victuals, Ships or Moneys, under any pretext, nor of any other thing that is or can be, by land nor by Sea, nor in any other farshion: as likewise not to permit that any Levies shall be made in any of his most Christian majesty's Kingdoms and Estates, nor grant free passage to those which may come out of other Countries to the help of the aforesaid Realm of Portugal.  
'Tis no less evident that they have failed in every point and every circumstance of this Promise; That from the very beginning they secretly conveyed Troops into Portugal in several bodies; That at the selfsame time when, upon the complaints of the Marquis de la Fuente, they sent public Orders to the Governors of their Ports, that no Soldiers should be suffered to embark for Portugal, they did not abstain from making them pass underhand and by connivance; That a little while after the Marshal of Turenne publicly made Levies for their assistance; and that the Marquis de la Fuente having represented that this was a direct Contravention to the Treaty of Peace, they paid him with this cold and disdainful Answer, that it was a particular act of the Marshal of Turenne's, in which the Court of France had no hand; That they continued to provide them with Corn and all other sorts of Ammunition for War: And all this whilst the effect of the pretended Devolution was yet uncertain, and could no ways operate even among private persons, unless the Daughter did survive the Father, and before ever the French made any Instance or Overture touching that Pretention.  
We have in our hands the Letters intercepted, which make faith that the Court of France hath ever since the Peace fomented the Obstinacy of the Portugueses, that she hath hindered them from accepting the advantageous Conditions which were offered them, animating them by a hope of mighty Succours not only for their own Defence, but also for carrying an Offensive War into the very heart of Spain: We have many Letters of Monsieur de Lionne and the Archbishop of Ambrun to Monsieur de Shomberg, which prove the continual Correspondence which was betwixt them, for the direction of that War. No body is ignorant how the Duke of Beaufort the last year came with his whole Fleet upon the Coasts of Portugal, where he spent a part of the Summer, to the great prejudice of his Allies, only to secure the passage of Victuals and Ammunition, whereof the Portugueses were in extreme want; and that at the same time when they were offering us their Mediation to work an Accommodation with Portugal. All the World knows that Monsieur Colbert privately made several voyages thither, to encourage them, and contract a secret Alliance with them: That the Sieur Courtin, a little while after the close of the Pyrenean Treaty, went expressly into England, to move the King of Great Britain not to abandon the Portugueses. We intercepted in a French Bottom, which came from Portugal, the account of the Expenses and the Succours which France hath given without intermission to that Kingdom since the Conclusion of the Peace; whereby it is clear, amongst other things, that the French have always entertained Troops at their own charge to uphold this War.  
And for the Masterpiece of all these unjust proceed, France itself cannot deny, but that it hath lately concluded a League offensive with that Kingdom against all its Enemies. The principal Conditions of this League are: That they shall be the Friends of their Friends, and the Enemies of their Enemies, excepting England: That France shall furnish them with as many men as they need, to carry on an offensive War in Spain both by Sea and land; shall advance unto them by way of loan the half of their Pay; for the entertainment of Auxiliarie Troops; and that they shall furnish them every year, under the same title of Loan, with the sum of three hundred thousand Crowns: That all the Ports which they shall take in Spain, either upon the one or the other Sea, shall be put into the power of France: That they shall not treat, neither of Peace nor Truce, without common consent: That this League shall last for the space of ten years.  
By the clauses above specified of the Pyrenean Treaty it may be seen, that the Abandoning of Portugal was both an essential and fundamental point of the Peace: That his Catholic Majesty preferred that Interest before all the Provinces, Estates, Dominions and strong Holds which he quitted to France, and which he might have recovered, if he would have yielded in the Affair of Portugal. So that France doth not justly possess so many places as have been made over to her, but in so fare as she hath satisfied the Condition in contemplation whereof they were given, and without which all would have been restored to us.  
Whereby it is proved, that the public and secret Aids which France hath given to that Kingdom, and particularly the League offensive which she hath concluded with it, are not simple Contraventions or Infringements, but an open Rupture of the Treaty of Peace, which restores his Catholic Majesty to the just right of pretending to and redemanding of whatever hath been accorded to France by virtue of this same Treaty, and all the Expense & Damages which the continuation of this War, and the impediments which France hath brought to an Accommodation, have occasioned to the Crown of Spain. This Conclusion is founded upon three invincible Reasons.  
The first is drawn from the Third Article of the Instrument of Peace, whereby it is agreed, That, to avoid the Differences which may afterwards happen between some Princes or Potentates, Allies of the said Kings, etc. if they cannot reconcile them by their Interposition, and that the said Allies shall therefore take Arms, every one of the said Kings may help his own Ally with his forces, without coming to any Rupture betwixt their Majesties by reason of such Assistance.  
But in the end of the same Article Portugal is expressly excepted. From whence may be deduced this evident Consequence, That if the Treaty doth allow the two Kings to assist their Allies, without breaking of the Peace, Portugal excepted; it must follow that France cannot assist Portugal without Rupture, since that Kingdom is excepted by a clause restrictve of the general provision which is made for all the other Allies.  
And in the close of the same Third Article all manner of Succours is generally prohibited to be given to the Subjects which might hereafter revolt against either of the said Kings, to limit the permission contained in the said Article of assisting the Allies without Rupture, only to Lawful Princes and Potentates, with an absolute exclusion of all Rebels.  
The second is, That the Treaty is truly broken, when by an Attempt of one of the Parties it is reduced to such terms in which it could never have been concluded nor commenced: Lege quod ab initio, F. de Reg. Jur. It is certain by the LX. Article above cited, and by the proper Declaration of France, That this Engagement with Portugal was an insuperable Obstacle to the Conclusion of Peace. It is then clearer than the day, that since the Peace could never have been made without the Abandoning of Portugal, it cannot subsist with those Succours nor with that League.  
The third Reason is, That by the League offensive with Portugal they do declare themselves Enemies to the Enemies the one of the other, England only excepted. It follows then manifestly, that the Crown of Spain not being excepted, but on the contrary this League being directly against it, his most Christian Majesty hath declared himself an open Enemy to Spain, by concluding it with this Condition.  
Let us add to all this the Hostility already begun against those of Armentiers, the Detention of the Governor of that place, the Massacre o● the Soldiers of the Garrison; the Conspiracy against the Town of Luxemburg; the Contributions which they have demanded from those very Provinces that are not comprised in this Pretention, to save them from fire and pillage; the Invasion of Charleroy, which they fortify; the sacking and burning of divers Villages, even in the Country of Liege; the profanation of the Churches and Holy places; and the taking of Berges S. Winox: And if all this cannot be called War, Rupture, and an Infringement of the Treaty of Peace, I see not what names henceforth can be given to things to express their nature.  
After all this, the Latin Translator of this Libel sport's himself wittily with these majestical Hyperboles: Rex Invictissimus Galliarum, non proferendi Imperii cupiditate, aut gloriâ Bellicae laudis, sed communi utilitate & Officii Religione compulsus, etc. And farther, Neque enim is est qui de inferenda finitimis cogitet injuria, aut in rem suam aliena convertere, aut aliorum demum invadere velit Imperia: unam praeter caeter as Virtutes colit Justitiam; huic Coronam Sceptrúmque submittit, etc. He believes that to persuade his saying is sufficient, that his single words shall be able to give the lie to all the contrary effects, and that Christendom will give more credit to their Ears then to their Eyes and to their Experience.   

ARTICLE III.  
That this Rupture is unjust. admitting that the Rights of the most Christian King were well founded.  
THE Injustice of the Rupture, and the infringing of the Peace by the Succours which France hath sent into the Kingdom of Portugal, and by the League newly concluded with them, is so manifest of itself and so clearly proved, that it were to have an ill opinion of the sufficiency and the Judgement of the Readers, and to abuse their leisure, to employ time or Reasons to render it more evident.  
But to give our Enemies yet a larger Career, and fight with them with less advantage; I am content for once to tie my hands, and shut my eyes to all our Rights, and grant them by a false supposition (which I reserve to be destroyed in the following Articles) that their Pretensions are Just, and grounded on solid Foundations. I will also for this time afford them the liberty of deciding this Question either by public Right or Municipal Customs: Though in the sequel I will make them see, that 'tis solely the Treaty of Peace which ought to be the Judge of this Process. And after I have granted them (of my own accord, and without prejudice) all those advantages which may seem to give them the gain of the Cause, my only aim in this Article is, to demonstrate That this Invasion and Rupture is unjust, contrary to the Laws of Nations, and void of all those forms which are necessarily required to make a War lawful; That the Oath which France doth exact from the People without discussing the Cause is unjust, inconsistent with the Divine Laws, with the obligation of their Consciences, and drawing after it most pernicious Consequences against all Princes, to render the Fidelity of their Subjects exposed to all Winds; and in conclusion, That the care which they take for their Defence is a precise and undispensable Duty, and cannot without Calumny be termed by the name either of Rebellion or Rupture.  
If we consider this business according to public Right and the Law of Nations, all Statesmen and Lawyers will agree, that to a just War the subsequent conditions are necessary; Sovereign Authority, a just Title, a preceding Requisition of that Satisfaction which is pretended, joined to an obstinate and invincible Refusal by the contrary party, in such sort that the Damage cannot be otherways repaired but by Arms, and finally a legal Denunciation of War formally intimated by a solemn Decree to the Party.  
Here it might be said, that the most Christian King doth not act in this occasion in the quality of a Sovereign, and ought not to be considered but as a particular Pretender in matter of Succession, in regard he grounds all his Right upon the Provincial Customs established between private persons by their own consents, without interposition of the supreme Authority so much as by a Decree of simple Approbation, and which by consequence cannot give him any right to make War. But I reserve this matter to be treated of more fully in another place.  
The just Title is wanting. Though we should suppose that his Right were well grounded, (which notwithstanding is controverted) the contrary party is in peaceable Possession, founded upon the common Right of sovereign successions, upon a Treaty of Peace, upon an authentic Renunciation, upon a Testament, and upon a continual Custom. In doubtful cases the favour of the Laws is for the Possessor: It is the part of the Actor to prove and verfie his Right. The Judges themselves cannot pronounce sentence without duly hearing of the parties: Qui statuit aliquid parte inauditâ alterâ, etc. It is much more unjust that the parties should do Justice to themselves without form of Process. If it were permitted to Kings and Potentates to right themselves instantly, and to seize by force of Arms whatsoever they believe they may have cause to pretend to, there would be no Possession secure in this world. If it be sufficient to have made a Book be composed by an Advocate to justify a Right, and to be able thereafter to prosecute it by force; if no Treaties nor Renunciations nor Prescriptions are able to stop the current of it; there is no more security in the world for England, Germany, Holland, Lorraine, Italy, Corsica, and Castille: all the Preparations are already framed for their Ruin, the Books are already composed, the Cause is judged in the Tribunal of France, the right of War is established, the Arms are ready, there wants nothing but an Occasion to take possession of their Estates by a Right proved by the same forms, and adjudged by the same Authority which hath determined their Pretensions against us. Cassan, Aubery, Arroyus, Peter du Puy, and the nameless Author of the Treaty of the Interests and Maxims of Princes, with an infinity of other turbulent spirits wherewith France doth abound, are as competent Arbiters in this point, as the Writer who forged the Rights of the Queen. France, by the same moderation which it uses towards us, void of Ambition to extend its Limits, of the desire of Glory, of the intention of Rupture, but only for public good, & Officii Religione impulsa, may drive them out of their Possessions, to establish her own, and yet they should not be able with reason to complain of any Injustice, if they should suffer them freely to introduce this dangerous Prejudication. If the Propositions of these Scribblers be true, That all that hath been acquired by the Kings of France hath been united to the Crown; Arroy, fol. 90. That the Authority of Charlemain which was over Germany, Italy and spain, aught to be in Lewis the Just, and consequently in Lewis the XIVth; Arroy, fol. 86: If this Right be unalienable by virtue of the Salic Law, which they would have pass for Divine; idem, fol. 81: In fine, if the greatest part of Germany be the Patrimony of the Kings of France; Auber. Lib. 2. pag. 93. Can a juster Title be required to take possession of it? And will he not have much better ground to redemand his own Patrimony, than he believes to have now to pretend to a foreign Succession?  
It is not enough to have a legal Pretext and Sovereign Authority to render a War just; there must be some fault, and an invincible obstinacy on the other side:  seilicet illi qui impugnantur propter aliquam culpam impugnationem mereansur; D. Thom. 22. Quaest. 40. Art. I. which he establishes upon the Doctrine of S. Augustine in lib. 83. super Josue Quaest. 10. Si gens vel civitas plecl enda est, quae vel vindicare neglexerit quod à suis improbè factum est, vel redde re quod per injuriam ablatum est. Whence it may be inferred, that the Injury must needs be very great to deserve so violent a Reparation, and that it must be irreparable by any other way, that it may be lawful to come to the last remedy. All War that is not absolutely necessary is against the Law of God and Nature, as the same S. Thomas doth explicate it in the same place, and is not permitted but as the last means, when all others are found to be ineffectual. Extrema primo nemo tentavit loco. To judge from these grounds of the Justice of this War, we must examine by parcels the proceeding which France hath held in seeking Satisfaction, and it will clearly be seen, that she hath carefully shunned the true means of obtaining it by lawful courses; that she hath provoked us with divers Injuries, as I shown before; that not only her first end and sole design hath been to renew the War, but also to surprise us by a false pretext of Peace and Friendship.  
The Conduct which Decency and the Law of Nations seemed to prescribe to them in this occasion was, to advertise the Queen presently, after the death of the late King, by an authentic and legal way, (according to the Custom amongst Monarches) as by some Envoy, or by their ordinary Ambassador at the Court of Spain, to acquaint her with the subject of their Pretensions, and to show 
* The QUEEN-Regent of Spain.  her the reasons and instructions of them, to require Satisfaction, or else to propose ways of Agreement: in case of refusal, to declare solemnly, that they should be forced to take Arms, if they could obtain nothing by Reason and fair means. After all this it became them, according to all manner of Law, to have had recourse to the immediate Lord of those Fiefs to which they pretended, either for submitting themselves to his Arbitration, or at least for seeking his Interposition, and laying open their Rights before him.  
But far from all this they began with Leagues, with Aids sent to the Portugueses, with secret Practices amongst our People, and a thousand unworthy Intrigues, forerunners and evident discoveries of a form Design of War; and in place of all intimation or seeking after amicable ways, they have contented themselves with a simple familiar Discourse which passed in Conversation between the Queen of France and the Marquis de la Fuente.  
Here it is wherein evidently doth appear a proceeding full of Artifice, which cannot tend but to two ends; the one, to have in time and place a fitting occasion to bring War upon us, and in some kind to justify by that Demand the Violence which they did resolve to found upon our Refusal; the other, That they might be able to surprise us, and make us neglect the care of our Defence and Safety, and might avoid those Obstacles which by the good offices of the neighbouring Princes, and interessed in the Cause, they foresaw would certainly have been employed from all parts to prevent a War, from which they would not be diverted by any manner of Agreement. They feared that if they had observed all the Formalities which I have above related, they should have given us an Alarm out of season, and have awakened us out of that profound Sleep into which our confidence in their Treaties and words had lulled us: They judged reasonably enough, that all the neighbour-States would sufficiently apprehend the Consequences of this War, to make use or all their care and power to terminate this Difference by an Accommodation: They saw that an express Declaration of their Design might open the eyes of all the World; and that, on the other part, a sudden Invasion without any preceding Formality would bring an universal blame upon them, and convict them of manifest Injustice: They have chosen this weak middle betwixt those two extremes, to throw in the air an empty Proposition without matter and without form, to the end they might take the advantage of our Answer when their business should suffer it; knowing very well, that upon such a weak ground we were not able to make any Reply to their full satisfaction: They believed that by this cunning they should have wherewithal to convince us without giving us the Alarm, and wherewith to prove their Moderation without being obliged to desist from their Violences. But God is not so cheated, nor men of sound understanding: these are Spiders webs, which are good for nothing but to catch flies. Yet of those things do they make the Frontispiece of their work and the Foundation of their Building: they do move and bestir themselves upon them with that life which is so natural unto them, imagining that having this Shield, we shall not carry in a stroke upon them which they shall not be able to ward.  
To judge well of the matter, we must enter upon the truth of the Fact, which the Author of these Libels falsifies in all its circumstances. The very first words of his Preface contain a palpable Untruth; which is, A little after the deceased Queen-Mother had paid to the Memory of the Catholic King, her Brother, all the Duties and all the Civilities which are usual in such occasions, she sent to call the Marquis de la Fuente, etc.  
It is certain by the Relation of the Marquis de la Fuente, and by the date of his Letters written to Spain, that the Queen-Mother held this discourse with him on the 13. of August; and all the world knows that the King died not till the 17. of the Month following.  
'Tis a thing of bad presage to the success of this Writing, that the first words of the Preface should begin with so notable a Lie, which gives just cause to believe that the Conclusion of the same Work, which promises to our people a Haven of Benedictions, if they will come under their power, shall be of the same nature, and that the Epilogue will correspond to the Exordium, by the just Conformity which such a great Orator, without doubt, aught to have observed in all the parts of a Piece which he began to meditate from the very day of the Peace; since in effect he is not ashamed to avow, that they did not consent to the Act of Renunciation but with a form design to break it.  
Thus all that he doth alledgin consequence of that Commission which the Queen-Mother gave to the Marquis de la Fuente to write to the Queen of Spain on this subject, is but a weaving of the same Untruth, since no body can be ignorant that the Queen had no hand in Business whilst the King lived, and that she would by no means have intruded in a matter whereof she had no manner of knowledge, and which was not then within the extent of her Sphere.  
That he may not give himself the lie, he continues still to accumulate Lies upon Lies. The Discourse which the Queen-Mother held with the Marquis was altogether of another strain than that which he citeth. This wise Princess, who considered the Peace as her own work, and who knew the unquietness of the French humour, and the desire of Glory which boiled in the heart of her Son, thought fit to declare confidently her thoughts of it to the Marquis de la Fuente, that they might search jointly for some means to stay his impetuosity. She ingenuously represented unto him the trouble which the bad Suggestions which were infused into her Son upon vain pretensions did occasion to her, and she entreated him to advertise the King her Brother thereof, that he might make such Reflections thereon as were necessary; that she would wish, that after he had given so much for the Peace, he would yet yield in something to preserve it, and stop the mouths of all such as carried on the King her Son to violent Resolutions; that for her part she would inculcate all the Moderation that she did wish in him. Thus did that Royal and prudent Princess speak, and witnessed sufficiently by her discourse that she had in horror a Pretention which she did not sustain but by the fear of a greater evil. The Marquis de la Fuente did never charge himself with this Commission, (contrary to what this Author doth relate with the same fidelity that he hath done all the rest) for it is clear by the Relation which he sent into spain upon this subject; and all those who are but a very little versed in the management of public affairs will judge that he could not do it, without he had been ignorant of the Duty of an Ambassador; (which cannot be presumed of a Minister of so long experience, and who deserves the general applause by his good behaviour in so many great Embassages.) He knew too well that, being the Catholic King's Minister, he might not act as solicitor for the most Christian King; that he could not enter into a Negotiation upon a matter of this importance without an express Order; that the sole end of his Embassage was, to cause the Treaty of Peace to be observed in every point, and not to overthrow the Foundations of it; and that the very discourse of the Queen was not sufficiently authorized, to frame an authentic Proposition to his Master, or to open a Negotiation. He satisfied himself then by remonstrating to the Queen-Mother, in the freedom of the same familiar discourse, the Reasons which ought to divert the most Christian King from such thoughts, and did beseech her to employ her endeavours to infuse into him juster & more moderate ones. Notwithstanding, as Ambassadors are bound to give their Masters an account even of the smallest circumstances of things, he could not omit to inform the Court of Spain of all this little Intrigue by way of Relation, and not by way of Proposition, and to entreat them to instruct him how he should behave himself, in case that they should make more legal Instances unto him upon this subject. The King was yet alive when this Letter came; but falling sick at the same time of the disease whereof he died, the Confusion Wherein things were then afforded not leisure to make much reflection upon a Narration which had nothing of authentic in it: and they were content only to give him order, that if the Queen-Mother should again debate upon that business, he should inform her fully touching the Rights of his Majesty, and let her know, that the Queen being neither Arbitress nor Mistress of those Affairs, she could not of herself dispose of them during her Regency.  
To this Answer no new Instance was made, no Proposition, no Complaint. Monsieur de Bellefond was sent to Madrid to compliment the Queen, without making the least overture unto her touching this Pretention. His most Christian Majesty hath not ceased ever since that time to confirm unto the Marquis de la Fuente the assurances of a firm resolution to continue the Peace, without ever so much as once naming to him the name of this pretended Devolution. The Archbishop of Ambrun (as I have already said) hath ever since that time acted the part of a busy man, by proposing of Leagues and Mediations, and laboured to make those be looked upon as turbulent and seditious spirits who would have framed the least scruple against the assurances which he gave. And in these last months passed the Marquis de la Fuente taking leave of the King to return into Spain, he positively charged him to engage his Faith and Word to the Queen, that he would keep with her and her Kingdoms a constant Amity. Which Promise was not restricted by any Condition; it was full, free, and universal, without any intermixture of Complaints or Pretensions, which might have given occasion to second thoughts.  
After all these things the Court of Spain had just cause to believe that the apprehensions of the Queen-Mother were but panic fears; that an excess of her love of Peace gave her vain suspicions of things more remote; or that her Tears, her Reasons, and the Supplications which she tendered to the King her son when she gave him her last Embraces, had mollified his heart; or that the prudent Answer of our Queen had convinced him; or, at the worst, that he would have the patience to stay till our young Monarch were in a condition to understand and dispose of his Affairs, that they might agree as Brothers-in-Law, Kindred, and Friends, upon a Difference which could not so easily nor so securely be ended during his Minority.  
From this sincere and true Narration all men who are not prepossessed may easily judge, that the discourse which the Queen held with the Marquis de la Fuente cannot be taken for a Denunciation, nor so much as for a Proposition, or a Demand, or a simple Overture of Negotiation. The reasons whereof are beyond reply. 

First, Because she did it not in the name of the King, and did not avow so much as that he had any knowledge thereof; and that she had no more any hand in the Regency, nor in the Administration of public Affairs. But so it is, that a Denunciation cannot be either legal or authentic, unless it doth proceed from a Sovereign Authority. Grotius lib. 2. de Jure Belli.  
Secondly, It was spoken merely by way of discourse, and advertisement, by an anticipated foresight of the ensuing dangers, and not as a formal Proposition duly authorized.  
Thirdly, That the Case was not yet in being, wherein the pretended Devolution could have any effect.  
Fourthly, That it was not accompanied with any Instructions, nor specification of Reasons, of Titles, and not so much as with the names of the Provinces to which they pretended; which was absolutely necessary, to the end a Categorical Answer might have been given, the Case being understood.  
Fifthly, That it was addressed to a Minister no ways commissionated to receive it, nor to enter into the matter of so new a business, so surprising, and of so great importance.  
Sixthly, That the most judicious Answer of the Queen did not stop the course of Negotiation, but on the contrary afforded them conveniency to propose their Reasons, to let her see, that by yielding up of those Provinces which were devolved unto them by so clear a Right as they would persuade it to be, she did not alienate any thing of her Son's Estate, but performed an act of Justice, which would shelter his Minority from a dangerous War.   But they were cautious enough not to enter into the particulars of the business, they shunned all clearing, they would not urge that which they feared they should obtain; and to make way for their more vast Pretensions by the Right of Arms, it was requisite to open the passage to them by that of the Devolution. Consequently all those pretty Reasons which are now alleged to make the Queen's Answer be esteemed an absolute Refusal, and an invincible Obstacle to all Accommodation, behoved to be carefully reserved, that they might not be presented to the world but only by the mouth of Mortar-pieces and Cannons.  
Meanwhile it is left to the judgement of the Readers, whether the Queen could have given a more equitable, moderate and prudent Answer. Hardly were her first Tears dried up which the death of her dear Husband brought so abundantly from her eyes, scarcely had she taken the most summary informations of the Affairs of the Court and Kingdom; when, instead of the Assistance which she ought to have expected from a Prince so nearly allied, she saw her self entertained in place of the first Compliments by a Proposition without form, which was not addressed unto her, which was introduced by an indirect and unwarranted way, by which they required from her Provinces without naming them, without specifying the Causes, or backing them with other Reasons than those of Buying the Conservation of a Peace, whereof the purchase had been sold unto us at so high a rate. What other Answer could she make, but that she was not informed of that Right, that she was but a bare Regent, and had no power to alienate any of her Son's Dominions?  
Was it not incumbent to France to let her see the Grounds of this Pretention, and that she should not alienate any thing by restoring to every one his own? Do they think that this was a Process which could summarily be decided by Bill and Answer? and that upon their single assertion denuded of all manner of Evidences she would out of a frolic throw at their faces Eight of the most flourishing and rich Provinces of the ancient Patrimony of her Family? Meanwhile upon this they raise the Hue and cry, they take her Reasons for Refusals, they do not reply to them but by Arms, and let her not know what it is they pretend, until they find themselves in a posture able to snatch it away by force. It is farther to be observed here, that this Answer was not addressed to the Queen, nor given in form of a Resolution, but only in the simple terms of an Instruction to the marquis de la Fuente, in order to his particular Direction, that he might try by his prudence gently to divert by a Reason so solid the mind of the most Christian King from a thought so little suiting with his own Glory.  
For the last condition of a just War, all Lawyers do require a solemn Declaration by a public Decree legally intimated to the parties. It is an essential condition which the Law of Nations doth prescribe, and all Wars destitute of this Formality are Robberies, except the urging necessity of repelling force by force shall dispense with us therein by the Law of Nature.  
It seems that France, not to forget any thing which might render her Attempt more unjust and scandalous, would needs omit this Formality, to make her acting the more unseemly, by publishing in her Declarations, that she had no design to break the Peace, at the same time when she did make us feel all the effects of a War. From whence it must be concluded, that in regard this Answer cannot be interpreted a Refusal, since there was no form in the Demand, and at the most cannot pass but for a simple exception of Right, which the Queen did object to defend that of her Son, there cannot be in it any title for a just War; seeing the Laws do not permit even bare Reprisals, but when the party required doth shut up all the ways by which Justice can be obtained. L. Vlp. ff. de cond. indeb. And since they have been answered by a juridick Reason, it was the part of the most Christian King to overturn it by a stronger, before he come to extremities.  
This Denunciation is not only necessary and requisite by the Law of Nations, but also is expressly stipulated in the XXVI. Article of the Treaty of Peace, wherein it is agreed, That if any Rupture shall afterwards happen betwixt the two Crowns, (which God forbidden) there shall always six months' time he given on the one part as well as the other, to retire and transport their goods and persons, etc. Which of absolute necessity requires a legal and precedent Denunciation, without which they can never be able to know when it shall be time to retire themselves, and shall find themselves involved in an unforeseen War.  
It is not sufficient to be endued with Sovereign Authority, that he may have right to make War in all cases; but the action he doth intent to pursue by Arms must be of such quality that he may act in it as Sovereign, that is, that he act on the behalf of some public Interest which concerns the Sovereignty; and in this case his power is to be regulated by the nature of the Sovereignty, or of that Right whereby he acts: so that if in this action he depends upon the Civil Laws, and be subject to a superior power, what Sovereignty soever he does otherwise possess, he hath not the right of making War, but aught to have recourse to those Tribunals before which the Cause is to be decided, and is not in this respect considered but as a private person. Grotius lib. 2. cap. II. de Jure Belli. Experience confirms this every day. It is for this that the Fiscal is instituted, principally to defend and pursue the particular Actions of Kings by the ways and forms of Justice: and this Custom would be unprofitable, if Princes were both Judges and Executors of their own Causes. They themselves plead every day against their own Subjects, they submit themselves to the Decrees of their Tribunals; and if they do observe this Justice toward their Inferiors, they are much more obliged to keep it toward the direct Lord of those Fiefs which they do claim. The reason is, because that War is of the Law of Nations, and such like Actions are of the Civil Law; That the Magistrates and Tribunals are established to hinder particular Violences, which otherwise would reign in the World, if it were indifferently permitted to seek satisfaction by Arms: From whence it follows, that when the way of Civil Law is open, and that he who intends the Action is subordinate in this particular case to a Superior Authority, he hath not the right of Arms in his power, and cannot of himself have recourse to the Right of Nations, nor act as a Sovereign, in regard he is none in this case.  
Now in this Action the most Chrian King (as the Libel itself doth declare) doth act in no other quality but as prosecuting the Actions of the Queen his Wife, and consequently cannot have in that any other Right or quality then that which is competent to herself. Therefore in this quality either he doth proceed as actual Duke of Brabant, and Prince of the other Provinces, which he claims by a real Action, as Lord of those Lands by virtue of a devolved Succession; or only as having a Right to claim them. In both cases it is certain that he is not Possessor, that his Right is not without controversy, that another is in the peaceable possession, founded upon very plausible Titles, and that if even the most Christian King had by violence thrust him out of his possession, the Judges could not pronounce any thing in the principal matter, unless the business were restored to its first condition. This is a Principle in Law which no Lawyer will call in question.  
It is likewise most certain, that in the quality of Duke of Brabant he cannot claim his Right by Arms against a peaceable and ancient Possessor, seeing he depends upon a Superior Power, to whose Judgement he is bound to submit: That his Action being a Right undecided and in controversy, he cannot take possession without a decisive Sentence, nor consequently establish fully his Jurisdiction in that Duchy without doing Homage to the direct Lord, and taking the Investiture from him.  
France itself will not deny that the Duchy of Brabant, and the most part of the other Provinces which she pretends to, are Fiefs depending upon the Empire, which she herself doth seem of her own accord to acknowledge very clearly by these words, which she hath inserted in the end of her Preface; That his intention is to possess the Estates which are fallen to the Queen in the Low-Countries, by the same Title by which the Catholic King hath possessed them in reference to the Empire. She declares it yet more openly in the same Libels, wherein for a principal foundation of the pretended Devolution of the Sovereignty of Brabant, she alleges the Decree of the Emperor Henry, in favour of Prince Henry, against his Father. Though I shall answer this Objection in its proper place, for the present it's sufficient I draw this advantage from it, that she doth acknowledge the Emperor for the supreme and lawful Judge of the Differences which may arise for the Sovereignty of Brabant, and even in this particular case, which they draw by the hair to that of the Devolution; and that the said Emperor did prohibit the Duke to undertake any thing in it to the prejudice of his Children. Whereby the Author of this Writing pretends fully to establish the Emperor's Right of Judging, pronouncing, and interdicting, which are all effects of a Supreme Authority. And though in that there may be many exceptions and limitations, without farther examining the matter, we will be content in this place to make use of their own Allegations ', to fight them with their own Weapons; so much the rather, because the Privileges granted to the Dutchies of Brabant, Limbourg, and the other Provinces of the Netherlands, by the Emperor Charles the IV, Sigismond, Maximilian, and others, evidently confirm that a part of Brabant and of the other Provinces hold of the Empire: besides, it is set down in express terms, that the said Provinces are Fiefs of the Empire. No person is ignorant that they compose one 
* The Empire is divided into Circles.  Circle of it, and consequently that for what concerns public Right they are subject to the Laws, reserving nevertheless their particular Privileges and Jurisdiction.  
It is out of controversy that all the Processes and Differences which arise touching Successions, Investitures, Rights, and Pretensions upon Fiefs of the Empire, depend of the Supreme Jurisdiction of the direct Lord, and that no Prince of this great Body can seize the Estates of another by way of fact, what just Pretention soever he may have, without contravening the Order and Imperial Constitutions, and obliging all the other Princes to take Arms against the Aggressour. Experience shows us this in an infinity of Processes of this nature, which are still depending before their lawful Tribunals. As also no body will deny but that the Treaties of Munster and Osnabrug are made use of at this day as a Fundamental Law to regulate the Affairs of the Empire: And this is expressly declared, Inst. Pacis Germano-Gall. §. Pro majori; Sit haec Transactio perpetua Lex & pragmatica Imperit Sanctio. And France is so much the more obliged to conform itself to this Rule, because it hath reaped most abundantly the chiefest Fruits of this Peace. It is also unquestionable, that by the same Treaty the Circle of Burgundy is expressly included in these words, §.  eò sincerior; Circulus quidem Burgundicus sit maneátque Membrum Imperii post Controversias inter Galliam Hispaniámque sopitas hâc Pacificatione comprehensus: and by consequence it ought to enjoy all Rights, Immunities and Prerogatives of the Circles of the Empire specified in the §.  autem, and in the following, and of the general and reciprocal Warranty expressed in the same Instrument of Peace. In the §. Tam univers. are infringed and annulled all attempts and ways of fact formerly committed, or which shall be commenced for the future, quae nullo praecedente legitimo Juris & Executionis ordine fieri attentaríve poterunt. And in the §.  autem provisum sit, it is provided that, to avoid new Controversies, all the Princes of the Empire shall remain in the peaceable possession and enjoyment of their Rights and Prerogatives, ut à nullo unquam sub quocunque praetextu de facto turbari possint.  
In the §. Pax verò conclusa, it is expressly ordained against all ways of Fact; Et si quid eorum à quocunque violari contigerit, laesus laedentem inprimis à via Facti dehortetur, causâ ipsâ vel amicabili Compositioni, vel Juris disceptationi submissâ. And in the §. following, the term of three years is appointed to terminate the Difference either by the one or the other way: And in case that without having recourse to or putting in practice the one or the other of these means, any one before the said term of three years do undertake any thing by the way of Arms; teneantur omnes & singuli hujus Transactionis consortes, junctis cum parte laesa (that is to say, he who is attaqued by force) consiliis viribúsque, Arma sumere ad repellendam Injuriam à passo moniti, quòd nec Amicitiae nec Juris viae locum invenerit. By which it is clear, that it is not permitted to any to take up Arms until he hath tried for the space of three years the means of Accommodation, or of Justice. The words that follow in the same §. do yet more clearly explain it: Et nulli omnino Statuum Imperii liceat Jus suum vi vel armis persequi; sed si quid Controversiae sive jam exortum sit, sive posthac inciderit, unusquisque jure experiatur: secùs faciens reus sit fractae Pacis.  
Either then the most Christian King will act in this Cause in the name of the Queen his Consort as she is a Princess of the Empire, or as a private person by virtue of the Municipal Laws of Brabant. In the first case he ought as a Vassal to have recourse to the Sovereign Tribunal where the Controversies about the Ducal Succession are tried: In the second case he ought to submit himself to the Judgement of the Feodal Court, which is the only Interpreter of the Customs of the Country, and the supreme Judge of the particular Actions touching Fiefs.  
As to the Declaration which they do make in the same Writing, that they'll possess these new Conquests under the same Laws and Dependences on the Empire whereby our Kings have held them; It is a Protestation contrary to the Act, and their proceeding doth destroy it absolutely. How can it be hoped that they I subject themselves to the Laws of the Empire in the fruition of those Estates, when they do violate them all by the Invading of this Circle? All the Pretensions of the Princes of the Empire one against another have always been left to the Supreme Judicatory; they have ever been begun by some Process: And those who, wearied with their tediousness, have laboured to right themselves, have still found opposition, and been discountenanced by the 
* Which is the Imperial Diet.  General Diet. Even they who have carried Arms against the Empire have never been condemned, nor exposed to the Imperial outlawry, but according to the forms of Justice. This course is so regulated and so confirmed by Custom, that amongst so many Differences of which Germany is full, and in the numberless multitude of noble Families which compose this great Body, not so much as one is to be seen which hath strayed from this Highway without punishment. France alone, which is yet but upon the Threshold of the Door, will already command within the House, and without any form of Process erects to herself a Tribunal of her Throne, Advocates of her Army, and Judges of her own Power. What can the Empire expect from her Submission when she is Mistress, if she make such use of it when she is but a Pretender? And how should one promise to himself the Fealty of Vassalage from those who commit an act of Felony to acquire it, and will not enter but by the oppression of Laws and Justice?  
From all these Principles, which are clearer than the day, this Conclusion may be drawn, That the Oath and the Acknowledgement which they exact from his Catholic majesty's Subject's is a Seditious practice, contrary to the Right of Nations, which shocks both their Duty and their Consciences, and which no body can take without making themselves guilty of a Crime against God, of Rebellion against their Prince, and of Baseness as to themselves; though we should continue still in the supposition that the Pretention of the most Christian King were equitable. I shall prove this by five convincing Reasons.  

The first is, That they are at present tied to the King of Spain by a solemn Oath with which they cannot dispense of themselves.  
The second is, That this Oath is valid and lawful, being founded upon the authentic Titles of the perpetual order of the Succession of their Duchy, upon the Imperial Investiture, upon the Queen's Renunciation, upon the Pyrenean Treaty, and upon the Testament of the late King.  
The third is, That it hath been tendered since the Case of the pretended Devolution happened, without any Opposition made by the most Christian King, or Protestation to the contrary, which might have put them into the least doubt of the validity of their Oath: And in such like public Acts which are of consequence the ordinary Rule is, Qui tacet, consentit.  
The fourth is, Because there is neither previous Judgement nor Sentence to the contrary, which can dispense with them in their natural Obligation.  
The fifth is, That what Pretention soever may be moved against a Prince that is in actual possession, the Subjects are not Judges in this Cause, but are bound to keep their Fidelity to him to whom they have sworn it, either till he himself dispense with them, or that some superior Authority decide the matter: otherwise it would be a Levity of most pernicious example for all the Subjects of other Princes, if upon the simple Assertion of the first comer they might have liberty to renounce their Faith, and blindly to give themselves to whoever should challenge them to be his. It would likewise be an intolerable Arrogance in Subjects, which would overthrow all the Order of Polity and of humane Society, if they would attribute to themselves the power of Judging Causes of Sovereignties: that same would not be endured even in private Successions, in which the Subjects ought to remain under the Obedience of their Masters, so long as they are not exempted from it by a superior Decree. We could, according to this wicked Maxim, by a more specious Right solicit the Subjects of the Dutchies of Burgundy and Bretanny, and also, with a far juster Title, all those of the Places resigned by the last Peace, which France hath so frankly and lightly broken, to renounce the Duty which they have promised to him who possesses them. We should be grounded in our Pretention to the Duchy of Burgundy on a solemn Treaty of Peace, and for that of Bretanny, on the Right of a lawful Succession: And I am certain that if the decision of this Process were referred to the people, they would not hesitate to declare in our favour.   
'Tis a Question which the Great and Supreme Arbiter of the World, our SAVIOUR, decided in the same case, upon the captious propositions of the Pharisees: Though the Right of the Romans, and particularly Caesar's, was subject to many Exceptions, and that his Possession was not by much so well founded as ours is, yet he ordained notwithstanding that the Tribute should be paid to the present Possessor; to teach the people, that it did not belong to them to judge of the Right, but to yield Obedience to the party who was in actual fruition of the Sovereignty, who bore the marks and the Character, and exercised the Jurisdiction thereto belonging.   

ARTICLE IU.  
That the Renunciation of the French Queen is just, irrevocable, necessary, and useful to the Public good, nor contains in itself any cause of Nullity or Laesion; and that the Queen of France hath been duly Doted.  
HAving made known the Injustice of the Proceeding; it remains to make evident that of the Pretention. I shall conform myself upon this Subject to the Method which they have observed in their Libels, that I may not lose sight of them. Before they do attaque the Strength of the place, they have employed all their force to take the Outworks: and seeing that the Renunciation of the Queen of France was a Barricado which hindered them in their approaches unto it, they have employed their most powerful Engines to blow it up; without considering that by destroying that Work, they overthrew the Foundation of a Treaty which hath given them such great Advantages over our Monarchy, and deprive themselves of all the Rights to those Provinces which by this Peace they had acquired, so that they can neither possess nor retain them henceforwards without manifest Injustice, unless they acknowledge the Principles on which their Possession was established; their own Mine doth fall back upon themselves. If the Renunciation should be null, the Pyrenean Treaty must be so too; every thing must be brought back to it's primitive Integrity: They can no longer make use of the Instrument of Peace, to secure and render their Conquests lawful; they repossess us again in all our Rights; and all the Fruits which they have gathered from that Tree, of which they endeavour to cut up the Root, are but so many goods ill purchased.  
Here it must be acknowledged that the Flattery of those Writers is very inconsiderate, and that they have applied themselves more to a petty litigious Interest then to the Glory of their Prince; they cannot controvert upon the Queen's Renunciation without calling the sincere Faith of their King into question. The Marriage was concluded upon the ground of the Renunciation, and the Peace upon that of the Marriage: all these things have an inseparable connexion. His most Christian Majesty was assisted in this occasion by the most expert and the ablest Ministers of his Kingdom, who could not be ignorant whether the Infanta had power to renounce lawfully or not: This Work was premeditated, debated and concerted amongst the Parties by a long Negotiation, which gave occasion to all the reflections upon Law and Policy which the clearest Wits could frame in so important a matter. If then they discovered that Truth which since they would make pass for so clear and palpable, That this Act of Renunciation could not be valid, either they must confess that they have been the authors of a signal Cheat, by Treating upon this Foundation, approving it, accepting it, and inserting it into the Treaty of Peace by an express Article, promising to cause it to be Registered amongst the Acts of the Parliament of Paris, and authorising it by their Oath; or else they must accuse themselves of Ignorance, in not having understood before they concluded the business those Nullities which at present do appear so evident unto them. To what condition go they to reduce the Affairs of the World, if the solemn Treaties made betwixt such Great Monarches, for the universal Benefit of Christendom, the Repose of the People, and the Security of the neighbouring States, are found exposed to mental Reservations, and all the Subtleties of the Bar? And if ordinary Merchants, only for the good of their Commerce, have the liberty to form to themselves a Right, and particular style, which shelters them from the Intrigues of the Palace; would it be convenient that Sovereign Princes in public Treaties, which do concern the public good, should not be exempt from that subjection? If this pernicious Maxim be once established, of reducing the public Right to the condition of private Right, we shall quickly see as many Wars arise amongst Princes as there be Suits of Law amongst Citizens.  
To discourse to the bottom upon this matter, we must deduce some circumstances of Fact, which are most necessary to give it a full clearing.  
When France, rather wearied then satiated with War, did resolve to listen to the Propositions of the Peace, and that their domestic Disorders did oblige them to clear themselves from foreign business, that they might reform those Abuses which undermined them at home, the wisest Statesmen both of the one and the other side did conceive by a prudent foresight, that nothing could be solidly and durably treated of, 
This is proved by the Instrument of Peace, and the Article of Renunciation.  if the Root of the Mischief were not pulled up, and if some effectual means were not found out, not only to stifle all the Differences past, and prevent those to come, but also to extinguish, by a real and undissolvible Union, the ancient Emulation of the two Crowns, and the natural Antipathy of the two Nations: that all other Dress could never reach the bottom of the Wound, and would prove but Lenitives to mitigate the pain for a time, without taking away the Cause of the Evil. Having long searched for Expedients answerable to the importance of the Design, none was thought proper but that of a Marriage between the most Christian King and the most Serene Infanta Mary Teresa, to join the Seal of the Sacrament to that of the Treaties, Love to Concord, and Alliance to Reconciliation.  
Spain, which desired the Peace, but yet withal wished to have it firm and inviolable, judged, with reason, that this was the only mean to remedy all those Mischiefs which the continual Opposition of those two great Poles of Christendom had occasioned for the space of so many years: but in this she found an essential Difficulty proceeding from the Contrariety of the Fundamental Laws of the one and the other Realm in two principal Points. Though those of Spain do always prefer Males in the Succession, they do notwithstanding leave the Gate open for Daughters, failing the Heirs Male in the same Line. Those of France, quite contrary, do perpetually exclude the Females, and to their prejudice make the Right of Succession pass even to Strangers.  
The second is, That one of the most ancient Constitutions of the Monarchy of Spain, on which they lay all the foundation of their Government, is, that their Kingdom is not Alienable, that they live always under their own peculiar Kings, and that their Crown can neither be annexed nor incorporated with any other. That of France, on the contrary, doth arrogate unto itself this Right, (as it appears by their Writers and Lawyers) That whatsoever is possessed or acquired by the Kings of France by any kind of Title doth fall to the Crown, is the proper Dominion of it, and can never more be dismembered from it, and aught to be subject to the same Laws and form of Government as their own Kingdom, as well in relation to the sovereign Succession, as to what concerns the public State. So that in case the Monarchy of Spain should fall by Marriage or otherwise under the power of a King of France, she would become a member and an inseparable Accessory of France; she would be reduced to the same condition with Bretannie and other Provinces, and failing of lawful Successors in her Line, it would pass to the Collaterals, and to all those who should attain to the Throne of the Flowers-de-luce.  
All Frenchmen are so unanimous in this Pretention, that it would be superfluous to prove it to them; though it would not be hard to impugn it. But 'tis a Maxim received amongst them, of which they have put themselves in possession by a long abuse, and which they are resolved stubbornly to maintain in all manner of Rencounters.  
This Incompatibility held for a while the Council of Spain in suspense; they wished Peace, yet would not buy it at the price of so hard a Servitude; and the Directours of so many Kingdoms could never have persuaded themselves to become Subjects of another Realm, nor to see their Ruling Crown reduced to a Province.  
The Queen-Mother of France, who with the tender feelings both of a Mother and an Aunt passionately and with ardour wished so fair and so fitting an union of two Persons which were so dear unto her, applied all her cares to remove those Hindrances, and this temperating mean was found out to secure the reasonable Doubts of the Council of Spain, That by the Contract of Marriage, the Infanta should absolutely renounce all kind of Rights which she might ever pretend either upon the whole or the parts of this great Succession, under any Title or Pretext whatsoever which at any time she might have thereunto, to the end that in no case the Spanish Monarchy might either be subject or dismembered.  
And both sides the willinglier consented to this Expedient, in regard that the way had already been beaten by the example of the Queen-Mother of France, and that in effect the Renunciation which she made was of the same nature with this present one, both in the form and in the substance, as being founded on the very same cause of the incompatibility of these two Successions. This Marriage, and consequently this Renunciation, which was the groundstone of it, hath been so much celebrated by the French Authors, that in the Book of James de Buy of France Metallick is seen engraven on the backside of a Medal of Gold Lewis the XIIIth holding Elizabeth of Austria by the hand, with this Inscription, AETERNAE FOEDERA PACIS. But the rapid motion of France is inconsistent with the fixed point of Eternity.  
Spain, which presupposed the same Sincerity to be in others which she found in herself, gave ear to this Offer, believing that by this Precaution the Laws of Spain might be reconciled with the Salic Law, and the Liberty of their People and the Authority of their ancient Government be fully secured. France, 
It is certain by the Act of Renunciation, and by the Contract of Marriage, that in Agreement be●●●●t the two Kings did precede the said Renunciation.  which acknowledged that the thing was just, and had been formerly in use, put her hands fully to it, because of the great good which would redound unto her by a Peace which did establish her in so many Conquests. The Instrument of it was drawn by common Consent, and the most Christian King obliged himself to Ratify it, and cause it to be Enrolled in the Parliament of Paris, presently after the Marriage. And this Agreement was all the Foundation of the Peace, which was immediately thereafter concluded.  
Things being thus concerted between the Parties, the King, who had a Passion for this Princess which surpassed all the Reasons of State, would conclude nothing without her Approbation, and therefore did put into her hands the decision of her Fortune: On the one side he represented to her the Crown of France, and the Person of the most Christian King, with all the Advantages which do render him so worthy of esteem; and on the other side a doubtful Succession (which indirectly looked towards her,) to one of the greatest and most powerful Monarchies of the World; Made known to her those irrevocable Laws, which could not suffer that these two Kingdoms should be united into one, and did not permit that she should retain her hopes and her Rights in the one, if she preferred to it the possession of the other; That he left it to her entire disposition, to choose of these two incompatible things that which she should find most agreeable to her Genius, and most suitable to her Fortune.  
This Generous Princess, who had been educated in an Inclination for France, and had a sufficient esteem for the Person of the most Christian King, to prefer it before all the Kingdoms of the World, and who, stung with a very noble Ambition not to despise so beautiful a Throne as that of France, did not stick to embrace the better and the more advantageous Bargain: She freely renounced what could never be hers, but by the death of those whom she loved as much as herself, to accept of a Good much more precious in her esteem then that which she abandoned; she quitted the doubtful and the future for what was certain and present, hopes for realities, and renounced most generously those Pretensions which she abhorred, since they were but impediments to the accomplishment of her desires and to her good fortune. Nor can it be doubted of without doing her injury, but that if it were yet at her election to re-enter again into her Rights by quitting the Good she doth possess, she would as willingly ratify this Act to keep and enjoy it, as she did freely sign to obtain it.  
Upon this true Narration, and upon the Act of Renunciation, as also upon the XXXIII. Article of the Treaty of Peace, divers Reflections may be made, and Principles established, which will overthrow from the foundations all those of the contrary party.  
The first is, That this Treaty of Marriage, and this Renunciation, is an essential member of the Peace; and though they be digested into different Instruments, they do all notwithstanding make up but one Treaty, as it is expressly declared in the said XXXIII. Article, wherein speaking of the Contract of Marriage to which they refer themselves, these words following are added; Which though it be separated, hath the same force and vigour that the present Treaty of Peace hath, as being the principal part thereof, and the most precious Pawn of its greater security and lasting.  
Secondly, That as well the said Treaty of Peace as that of the Marriage are Contracts of sincere Faith, and not of strict Law; and that for the rule and ground of their subsistence and Interpretation, we must refer ourselves to the Causes and Ends which both sides did propose to themselves in Treating, and the Utility which arises from thence to the public good.  
Thirdly, That these are Treaties betwixt two Great Monarches, who are not subject to any particular Laws, 
It is clearly explained in the Act of Renunciation.  nor dependent on the Customs of Places: That they are fundamental Laws of the one and the other State, which are not to be measured but by the Laws of Nations; 'tis a natural Obligation which they contract, which cannot be broken by any Civil Law; 
I. Jura naturae de Reg. Jur.  it is properly the indispensable Law of Sovereigns, which they can never violate nor alter without Injustice, nor correct but by common Consent. They are above particular Laws, they can change and augment them at their pleasure, as the Codes Henry and Lewis: But these which tie them to an Equal with a reciprocal knot, and which are the foundation of the public Tranquillity, can never receive any other form then that which the public Seal hath imprinted upon them.  
The Princes who are absolute Sovereigns, when they do act as such, have but two ways to terminate their Quarrels, Arms and Treaties. The first is but a means to attain to the other: but if the latter have not a solid and immovable foundation, and if it be permitted to break it upon the least Subtleties of private Right, there is no more Security in the World; and it is to reduce it to its first Confusion, which gave occasion to the bringing in of Kings and Magistrates, to hinder that force might not be the sole Arbiter of Differences. Now as Princes are established to remedy this disorder among their Subjects, so are Treaties likewise introduced to work the same effect among Princes; so they are their Judges and their Magistrates, to which they ought entirely and absolutely to submit themselves, as they pretend that their proper Subjects are submitted to them. France admits of no Prescription to the prejudice of the Royal Domain, she receives no Judges nor Processes; there is nothing then but public Treaties which can bond her Pretensions, which do extend themselves almost over all Europe. If she be suffered to exclude even this, there will be no other means remaining but that of Force, which silences all Laws, and Kings shall put themselves absolutely out of all Commerce.  
Fourthly, That this Renunciation is the Soul and the inseparable Condition of this Treaty of Marriage, without which it had never been either designed or concluded, nor consequently the Treaty of Peace; as is expressed in the Article before cited.  
Fifthly, That it proceeds not from the bare motion of the deceased King, or a particular inclination of his towards the Children of the Second Bed; but out of an inevitable Necessity flowing from the Salic Law, and the unjust Extension which France doth make of it to all the States which Fortune hath put into her power: this Necessity, and the other of the Public good, with the conservation of this August Family, reduced the Infanta to the condition of never being able to be Queen of France, but by this Renunciation.  
Sixthly, 
This is evident by the Act of Renunciation, fol. 17.  That there's no constraint nor violence on her Father's part, whose Sweetness and natural Moderation have so eminently shined throughout the whole course of his life, not only towards his faithful Subjects, but likewise towards his Enemies and Rebels, that many conceived it did reach unto excess. It is not to be presumed that the same heart which had in it an inexhaustible treasure of Bounty toward all the rest of the World, should have nothing but Rigour and Hardness for a Daughter who was the Centre of his choicest delights. If there had been any Constraint, the effects would have been seen by some Complaint or Action of the Infanta's; and if her respect to her Father did hold them up, her Discontent would have appeared in her eyes and in her face: the troubles of the Soul, what care soever is taken to hid them, do imprint a character outwardly which betrays the secret of the Heart. Never was any seen to go to a Wedding with more visible signs of satisfaction: She signed this Act with so pleasant a Resolution, that it was easy to observe she much more esteemed what she was to acquire, than what she lost thereby; and the Tears which she shed at this day for this War, of which, against her mind, they do make her the innocent Pretext, witness sufficiently that she disapproves of the Cause of it as much as she detests the Effects, and are authentic ratifications of the free Consent which she gave to this Renunciation. If she had done it unwillingly, she would not have failed to have made Protestations against it, as soon as ever she found herself in a condition to declare without fear and with the applause of all France the true thoughts of her mind. She herself will confess, without doubt, that it was neither Respect, nor Obedience, no nor Complacency, but the free choice of her own Inclination and Prudence: That the King her Father neither employed his Paternal power, nor Royal Authority, nor Command, nor Threats, nay not so much as Persuasions, to induce her thereunto; but that he satisfied himself by proposing nakedly the state of Business to her, that he might leave to herself the entire decision: That of the two parts she made choice of the most advantageous, and the most fitting: That she never repent of this Choice, and would to day do the same thing again without any kind of hesitation, if she were in the same condition in which she was then. From whence it may be concluded, that this Act having been made without any kind of Fear or Violence, it cannot be called in question by reason of any exception of the Civil Laws. Qui metum non intendit, Promissio validè fiet; nec scrutabimur quid aut quatenus ejus intersit, quae Juris Romani sunt subtilitates. Grot. lib. 3. cap. 19 de Jure Belli.  
Seventhly, That there is no Laesion, seeing that she acquires a greater Benefit then that which she hath renounced, not being able to possess them both together by an irremediable repugnancy. It was then a kind of Permutation, rather than a Session, because she gave to obtain, and quitted to get. The Laws give no rise to an entire Restitution, where the condition of the Minor is rendered more advantageous by the Contract, and do permit in this case Alienations even of the Goods of Pupils. It is almost impracticable in the Contracts of Kings, to prove the Laesion, and determine the legal Portion with its just weight, which cannot be verified but by the valuation of the Goods; the inevitable Expenses must be deducted, and the necessary Charges: their affairs are involved into so many Intrigues, charged with so many Obligations and Costs, that to consider it in its rigour there remains very little unto them whereof they can freely dispose; and by the ordinary Rules it is impossible to set a price upon their Estates. It is for this reason that they are accustomed, by a practice received among Monarches, to give unto the Daughters a certain sum of Money, which serves instead of a legal Portion, without ever coming to any other rating of Goods, which cannot be justly valued. The most Christian Kings do practise this towards the Daughters of France. He of England used the same way towards the Duchess of Orleans; our King towards his: The Princes of Italy and Germany have the same Custom, without ever speaking of Supplements, legal Portions, or Laesions, which are properly the Actions of private persons, unworthy the Greatness of Monarches, who never act for Profit, but for Reason of State.  
Moreover, we must consider (as I have said) this Marriage not as a private Contract, but as a Member of the Treaty of Peace, which necessarily relates to all the other Conditions. By the said Treaty, and consequently in consideration of the said Marriage, are granted unto the most Christian King a great quantity of Provinces and States, which do so notably increase his Dominions, much exceeding the value of whatever the Queen of France can pretend for her legal Portion: and this Concession doth redound to the advantage and to the Greatness of the Queen of France, by that inseparable conjunction which unites all her Husband's Interests with hers. Whence it follows, that this Session ought to suffice her in the place of her legal Portion, since the Marriage was made in favour of the Peace, and the Peace in consideration of the Marriage, and that they are two indivisible things, which could not have being the one without the other, and so strongly chained together, that the Conditions of the Marriage are included in the essence of the thing, if the Cause, the End, the Effects and the whole Context of the Negotiation be considered.  
'Tis in vain that they allege that they have acquired them by the right of Arms, and that they were in a condition to drive us to Extremities, and would have us esteem it a grace to have spoiled us but of a half: 'tis too much to presume on their good fortune, and to dispose too absolutely of the success of Arms, of which God alone hath reserved the events to his Providence. All the world knows that if the necessity of our Affairs had obliged us to take the resolution of treating with Portugal, we could have had means enough to oblige France (at the least) to have shared equally the fear and the danger with us. Their People, wearied with the War, and overwhelmed with Taxes, waited only for a turn of the Tide to take off the Masque: the neighbouring Princes were resolved not to suffer them to enlarge their Conquests any farther. The Tyrant of England, who made that Kingdom act against its own Interests, in favour of France, was already removed by death, and the common voice of the Nation in order to the Reestablishment of the Lawful Successor, enlightened with so many knowledges, and endued with such vigour and experience, that it was not to be doubted but that he would soon put the Counterpoise upon our side, by joining to his Interests the resentment of a multitude of Wrongs: We were powerfully armed in all places, and in those very Summers which preceded the Peace we were in a condition to carry the War home to them. The most penetrating among them know the secret motives which obliged the Cardinal Mazarin to make this Peace, and that the apprehension of what was to come more than any Moderation was the first mover of it.  
But setting all their Boastings apart, is it not a considerable advantage for them to have established by a Treaty what they had conquered by Arms, to have acquired by a just Title that which they could never have retained without Usurpation, and to have freed themselves from all the dangers and expenses which were inevitable to them in keeping them?  
But if it be true, as they do pretend, that they were in a condition to dispossess our King of his Throne; they must confess two things which are extremely against them: The one, That the Marriage and Renunciation were the Safety and Deliverance of the Monarchy; and that the King could not only have made the most illustrious Infanta renounce all her Rights upon this consideration, but that he was bound so to do by a strict Obligation, since the Goods of private persons belong to the Public in case of such necessities: 
Arist. l. 1. cap. 10.  that the public good is greater and more divine than the private: that this last, by obligation of Conscience, is bound always to yield to the other, according to the opinion of all Doctors: and that even the Infanta herself, 
Sakes populi s●p●… Lox.  giving her remote and uncertain Pretensions to the common good of both the Crowns, hath done an heroic Action, whereof France would now obscure the Glory.  
The other is, That she hath not only done good to the Public, but also that without betraying herself she could not refuse to give her consent to this Renunciation: her Rights and Pretensions should have been swallowed up in the public Shipwreck; in vain had she reserved to herself Titles, if the Arms of her Enemies were upon the point to take all from her. So that very far from a Laesion, she may reckon for a new Purchase all that she hath been able to save from this Wreck. Her Portion had been very ill assigned, in case her paternal Goods had fallen into hands which cannot dismember, alienate, nor restore one inch of Land. And in this case it is very probable that the most Christian King would have despised the Alliance of a poor exiled Princess, who would not have had any other provision but her Virtue; and she herself would not have had the heart to cast herself into the arms of him whom she found loaden with the Spoils of her Father. She hath redressed all those inconveniences by this Renunciation, and opened to her self the way to this Crown, to which we now see her so worthily elevated. What Laesion then can there be pretended, when these two Conveniences, de damno vitando & lucro captando, do meet so perfectly united?  
Eighthly, 'Tis an affected ignorance both of Fact & Law, to allege that the Queen was under age when she passed this Act. No body can doubt but that the Princes and Princesses of Spain are out of Minority before the age of Twenty years, as it is expressly declared in the Renunciation; And as by the grace of God I do find myself to be in the age of Major, and more than twenty years old. Royal Persons are held to be out of Minority as soon as they have attained to the years of Youth. And though one should consider the Infanta as a private person, and that this were to be regulated by the Laws and Customs of private Successions; it is a certain truth, that by the Local Customs upon which France doth found her Right, both Sons and Daughters are Majors at the age of twenty years, and may freely dispose of their Fiefs even in relation to their own life, without any Dispensation from the King, or authority of a Guardian. 
L. Scio, ff. de in inc. rest.  And if she were under age, there must first be some enormous Laesion caused by the Facility of her who renounces, or by the Deceitfulness of the other party. 
Auth. Sacramento pauperum, C. Si adversus vead.  But here is neither Laesion, Weakness, nor Deceit; and in the end the privilege of Minority serves them for nothing, where the Deed is confirmed by Oath. It is certain that if in this age she had attained to the Succession of the Kingdom, or the Provinces which they say do belong unto her, she would have had no need either of Tutors or Governors: This Law supposes, that Nature and Education do sooner produce in the minds of Princes those fruits of Prudence, which do not grow ripe in others but by time. And if the Civil Laws dispense before the time prescribed by Municipal Laws, touching the subjectings to Minority those, who by industry and assiduity have rendered themselves capable to govern their own and other people's business; it is much more just that such as the public Laws admit without limitations and dependences to the Administration of Kingdoms, may uncontrolled dispose of their own concerns, though the Custom which restricts private persons to the age of Twenty years should not be considered. And since she was in a condition to enjoy the privilege of Reigning without an Overseer, 'tis evident that she had no right to enjoy the benefit of Reparation; forasmuch as the French Civilians hold for an indubitable Maxim, that he Daughters which are capable of Marriage are also capable of any other kind of legal Deed. Du Moulin on the Custom of Blois, Art. 161.  
Ninthly, It is an insupportable Injury to the Memory of the late King, to accuse him to have disinherited his Daughter the Infanta. On his part there was no positive Act, more than a simple consent and authorising of the free Renunciation made by this Princess, who by a voluntary choice did prefer the Crown of France before that of Spain, which she looked upon as very remote. The Testament of the King is nothing else but a Confirmation of this same Deed, which he supposed to be Legal, being framed upon the platform of those things which were established by the Peace. And if the Renunciation be just, it must of necessity follow that the Testamentary disposition, which is but a consequence of it, is so likewise. All the vain Exclamations which the Authors of these Libels do make upon that Subject are but the extravagant digressions of an affected Eloquence to astonish the people. 'Tis the like too of all those majestical Consequences which they draw from thence to exaggerate the Injuries which have been done to his Successors. If the thing be just in itself, and received in the person of the Mother, it cannot be unjust in her Successors, who have no Right but what they derive from her. And if it be permitted to private persons to make Entails to the exclusion of Daughters and their offspring, in favour of collateral Lines; if the Salic Law may perpetually deprive them and all their Descendants of an Hereditary Kingdom; what Injustice can be found in this, that Spain hath desired this Renunciation, to the end they fall not into the dependency upon a stranger-Kingdome? The Dauphin of France had never been in the world, nor had any share in the Crown of France, if the Queen had not renounced: and if he cannot be at one time King both of France and Spain, he must lay the fault on the Salic Law, which devours all that it possesses, and obliges all other Kingdoms to provide for their own safety by fitting Precautions, and by the natural Law, quod quisque Juris.  
The source which they leave for the Queen to re-enter into her Rights, in case that God should afflict her with a Widowhood without Children, is an effect of the Fatherly Tenderness and Justice, which would needs establish her Happiness in all cases, by putting her in a condition either to reign gloriously in France by her Fruitfulness, or to have wherewithal to comfort her in case of Barrenness, by re-entering into her Rights to the Monarchy of Spain. This doth clearly show that in this Renunciation her Person was not regarded, but only the Obstacle inconsistent with the Reason of State, which did suspend the effects of that Love which they had for her; and that renders the Renunciation the more valid, because it is not absolute, and leaveth the Gate still open for her Reentry as often as the essential Impediment shall not come in the way; far from wishing her Barrenness, or exclusion of her Offspring, whenever they may be received without subjecting the Kingdom. 
Instrument of Renunciation, fol. 13.  The way is opened to place her and her Successors upon the Throne of Spain; If for public Conveniencies and just Considerations she should marry with the consent of the Catholic King, and the Prince of Spain her Brother. Whereby it is manifest, that the fundamental and sole cause of this Renunciation is, to exclude France from the right of being able to annex the Monarchy of Spain to his Realm and Laws, and not to deprive the Queen or her Issue of it, when no other thing shall hinder them from being admitted. Meanwhile upon this the French do make a great noise, they convert the Honey of this Deed into Poison, and make an Injury of a Benefit; and testify thereby that it is not the love of the Queen, but their own Covetousness to devour all, under colour of her Rights, which doth throw them into this inordinate passion.  
Upon these indubitable Principles it will not be difficult to establish and ground in Law the validity of the Queen's Renunciation upon the following Rules.  

1. It is lawful for Princes to resign and renounce their Hereditary Kingdom in favour of the next Heir. The example of Charles the Vth, Philip the IIᵈ, and the Queen Christina, doth evidently prove it. And even in Elective Kingdoms, where it seems that the Obligation to reign is more indispensable and less capable of being retracted then in those which be Hereditary, because it is established by a reciprocal Covenant, and by an Obligation which such Kings have willingly imposed upon themselves, we have seen Henry the IIIᵈ renounce openly by his flight. And if the French themselves could constrain Childeric the IIIᵈ and some other of their Kings to throw themselves into Monasteries, and make them renounce their hereditary Crowns even in favour of Strangers; why shall it not be permitted to Princes to divest themselves thereof willingly, to obtain a greater benefit, or for the simple desire of Quietness? 
Gen. 3.  John King of Armenia quitted the Kingdom to his Nephew Leon, 
Clem. 5. Greg. 11.  to enter into the Order of Saint Francis. A great many Princes and Princesses, lawful Heirs of Hereditary Kingdoms, have validly renounced them, either for the Public good, or their private Tranquillity, to embrace Religious or retired life; as Saint Bridget in Sweden, and others in Hungary, Germany, and Spain. France also furnishes us with examples of this kind: Carloman, the eldest Son of Charles Martel, parted with his Kingdom to his Brother Pepin, that he might wholly dedicate himself to the Service of God. What those Princes have been able to do, either out of Devotion, or the love of Liberty, the Infanta might do with a juster title for the good of the Peace of two Monarchies. The Fundamental Law which called her to the Succession was in her favour, and not for constraining her: It is a Right that is given them, but not a necessity imposed upon them: 'tis not a forbidding Law, which we cannot renounce. The King her Father could not without the consent of the States exclude her against her will, or make her uncapable of the Succession; but she might voluntarily renounce, for her greater good, and for that of the State itself, and that too with the general applause of the people over whom she might have been Queen.  
2. Though the ancient Laws were in some kind against the Renunciation of future Successions, the practice of them is now abolished for this respect, and the contrary so well established over all the World, that the French Laws do unanimously agree unto it, and even that He who hath renounced some future Succession, cannot recall by the happening of Children what he hath quitted; Epeisses Tom. 1. pag. 407. The Constitution of Pope Boniface, 
Con. ad cap. Quamvis, p. 3. Const. Bon.  which the Author of these Libels citys on this Subject, determines it clearly; the practice of it is commonly received in Spain, In Brabant, and in all the King's Dominions; and since he himself doth nor disagree with it, I think it would be superfluous to seek any greater proofs.  
3. That the Right of Devolution according to the Custom of Brabant being neither Succession nor Propriety, nor a real assured Estate, but casual and in suspense, it may be validly renounced; and that the use of it is common throughout the whole Duchy. 
Wamesius, Kintschot, Christin. Mean.  These three conditions of the Right of Devolution are clearly proved in that learned and solid Treatise which the Counsellor Stockmans' hath lately published on this Subject, and all the Authors of the Country who have written upon it do unanimously agree with him therein.   
As to the first Point, that the Devolution is not a Succession, it is easily proved by the Customs of the Places where this Right is in force, and by the Effects both of the one and the other, which are totally different. Succession supposes Death, and Devolution doth begin from the moment of the Dissolution of the first Marriage. 
L. qui supustitis, ff. de acquir. haered.  There can be no Succession to a living person, that were to bury the Fathers before their decease, and make Children succeed one another in the Father's life-time, to change a Succession which is direct in its own nature into a collateral one: The Grandchilds (whose Father died before their Grandfather) would be wholly excluded from the Inheritance; for they cannot enter by way of direct Succession, because it would be fallen to their Uncles or to their Aunts; nor by collateral, because they would be of an inferior degree, and that the Feodal Custom of Brabant doth not admit of Representation in indirect Successions: so that if it were a true Succession, it might happen that an Aunt would totally exclude the Son of her elder Brother, which would overthrow the whole order of the Succession, and the first Institution of the Fiefs of Brabant, where the Males of the First Bed and their Descendants are always preferred to the Females. It is to no purpose that the Authors of these Libels will make use upon this subject of some ill-conceived terms, and improperly applied in some one of the Feodal Customs, by which it seems that they give the name of Succession to Devolution: for the same Feodal Customs of Brabant which he citys were never decreed nor approved, and those which we find in print are for the most part but the Projects of the Lieutenant of the Fiefs of Brabant, and of some Practitioners who have not reflected upon the force of the words, but having been presented to the Governor to be examined and decreed, the Approbation of them was refused, in regard they were conceived in terms not very proper. But however it be, when the Law and Custom is contrary, and that the intention of the Law or of the Custom is manifestly known, 'tis a ridiculous thing to prefer the words before the substance, so much the more, because the same Customs do explicate very clearly the Equivocation in other places. In the XXV. Article it is said, that If the Fiefs come from the first deceased, the Propriety succeeds to the Children: which evidently expresseth by this distinction, that they do not succeed in the Propriety of the Goods of the Survivor; and that the one is Succession, and the other Devolution. In the XXXVII. Article also it is said, that Feodal Successors do not ascend, but must always descend: so that were the Devolution a Succession, it would pass immediately unto the Children of the Second Bed, in case those of the First die without Issue: whereas 'tis certain by the XXIII. Article, that they do return back to the Fathers, or rather that they remain free and relieved of the band by which they were tied, which is rather a Settling, than a Return of the Propriety. Otherwise a great absurdity must follow, which is, That the father would succeed as representing his Son, and so would be obliged to renew his Investiture, and swear Homage anew; which hath never been practised. Although that the enacted Customs of Louvain speak very uncorrectedly, and seem in some places to confound the Devolution and the Succession; nevertheless it may be seen by the coherence, that they ought to be understood with different relations, and that the word Succession ought to be applied to an Estate already fallen by the death of one of the Parents, and that of Devolution as relative to the Goods of the Survivors; since the Custom in this place treats of the one and the other, and in others it calls the Father the Proprietary of the Use or fruits, and that they treat distinctly and in several Articles both of the Succession and Devolution, as matters of a different nature in their Cause and in all their Effects. This Question is so plainly handled in the Treatise of the Sieur Stockmans', chap. 5. de Jure Devol. that the Reader therein will find wherewith to satisfy himself fully touching this particular, if he hath the curiosity to run it over.  
As for that which concerns the Propriety, the Children of the First Bed do not possess any effect thereof whilst either of the espoused are living, as having neither the use of the fruit, nor the testamentary disposition, nor the right of Alienation or of Engagement, nor any other of those Actions which by Law do belong to the Proprietor: and if they chance to die before their Father, they fall from it totally. So that all their Right consists in a simple assurance that those Goods shall not be alienated, and in a hope to succeed one day thereunto, in case they do outlive their Father. If they were Proprietors, they would be obliged by the same Custom Article LII. to take the Investiture from the direct Lord during the life of their Father; which hath never been practised. The Father on the contrary hath all the effects of the Propriety, with this limitation only, that he cannot alienate to the prejudice of the Children of the First Bed: that excepted, he enjoys, he possesses, he governs, he acts juridically in his proper name; he is not bound to make any Inventory, nor liable to give an Account, and hath all the real Actions, which of right cannot belong to a simple Usufructuarie, and are necessarily annexed to the Propriety. He is not so bridled, but that the Alienations which he makes are valid in themselves and subsisting, if the Children come to die before him; though they be subject to Rescission, if they survive him. In a word, the Propriety by this Devolution cannot be attributed to the Children by any of the Titles of Law by which Domains are acquired: they cannot pretend to it by way of Succession, as I have already shown; the Devolution gives them not any effect, nor any Title; and the Father hath not lost it by any of the ways of Alienation which the Civil Laws have prescribed; the Death of his Wife cannot take from him the Domain of his Goods, 
L. nemo, ff. de Reg. Jur.  which cannot be lost but by a voluntary act, as of Donation, Sale, Session, or Crime. Whence it ought to be concluded, that the name of Propriety, without abusing the word, cannot be given to that which hath neither the effects nor the cause thereof; and the Custom cannot, without injustice, denude a Father absolutely of the Propriety of his Goods before his Death, without his own Consent. All these Truths are confirmed by solemn Decrees, and by the unanimous Opinion of all the Doctors of the Country, as well modern as ancient, who have treated of this Subject.  
By all that I have said it is easy to infer, that by renouncing the Devolution we do not denude ourselves of our proper Goods, we do not part with a Succession already acquired by us, but deprive ourselves only of a hope, whereof the event is no less uncertain than the hour of our death; which is properly to renounce only a future and doubtful Succession, which is permitted by the Laws, and is in use in relation even to those Goods devolved in all places where the Right of Devolution is received.  
If the Queen of France might lawfully renounce, I do maintain that she was bound to do it by a strict Obligation, for the good of the two Kingdoms, for her own good, and by a principle of Thankfulness for the Kindness of the King her Father.  
She herself professes in several places of the Deed of Renunciation, that the Motives which induced her to do it are, the Acknowledgement of the numberless Benefits which she had received from the King her Father, the good and conservation of his August Family, and the love of the Safety and Quietness of the State. And I persuade myself that she suffered a great deal less Damage and Grief by denuding herself of this Right, than she undergoes now by the Avidity of those who would re-establish her in it against her will. In effect, she sees herself reduced to the necessity of deploring the Misfortunes of a Brother, or of a Husband; to see her Family overthrown, or her Throne destroyed: and that to which of the two sides soever Victory doth lean, it cannot be but fatal to her Glory, or to her Affection.  
Against the evidence of these Verities the Scribbler forms divers Objections, which are all founded upon false Suppositions in matter of Fact and Right. He citys one only Article of the Treaty of Marriage, and draws out of it one Member to make up the whole Body of his Discourse, without citing any thing of the Act of Renunciation. The two Reasons which he presses most are these: That it is of the essence of a Renunciation, that a Daughter should be endowed; that the Law in Spain is express for it; and that if the Father gives less to his Daughter then her Legal Part, the Renunciation is null; and that it is requisite that her Endowment should be constituted out of the Father's Estate.  
Upon which he makes two Arguments. The one is, That the Infanta hath not been endowed, because the King owed to his Daughter eleven hundred thousand Crowns of Gold of the Goods belonging to her Mother, and hath promised her but five hundred thousand for her Portion, obliging her to renounce that which he was indebted to her.  
The second is, That these five hundred thousand Crowns of Gold were not paid within the Term prefixed; That a Portion promised and not paid is not a Portion. From whence he will infer, that by this deficiency the Renunciation is annulled.  
These two Propositions, which he endeavours to prove by a rabble of unuseful Allegations, are not comprehended within the Fact, of which he doth craftily omit the principal Circumstances, and touches not the essential point of the Question: so that if we should agree with him in his Principles, yet he could not draw from thence any Conclusion to our disadvantage.  
In the first place he abuses very improperly the terms, and the substance of the Laws, when he strains himself to prove that the Portion promised and not paid is not a Portion; which shocks all the doctrine of the Law, it being indubitable that it is truly a Portion as soon as it is promised, for it induceth a real Obligation upon him who did make it: Et qui habet Actionem ad Rem, Rem ipsam habere dicitur, when the Debtor is sufficient. This Question is to be found very clearly decided in Tiraquel, and the Texts of the Law and Authors which he citys, in his Treatise of Retract. Convent. 8.7. ad fin. tit. Gloss. 2. num. 32. & seqq.  
In the second place he mistakes himself, by intending to make this Renunciation pass for a private Deed, which ought to be regulated by the Civil Laws. I have shown before that it is a public Deed, an essential Member of the Peace, and an Obligation which hath for its Cause the Fundamental Laws of the State, & for its End the Conservation of it: and I affirm farther, that it is a Law and a Pragmatic Sanction, established by common Consent between the two Crowns, and by the general desire and wishes of the People, expressly derogating from all particular Laws, as it is evidently set down in the Deed of Renunciation; speaking of the Agreement made betwixt the two Kings for the Treaty of Marriage, it expresseth itself in these words: And that in the V and VI Articles of the said Treaty it is resolved and settled by common Consent, (that is to say, of the two Kings,) and by the same will, and as a thing most convenient, after having attentively considered it, etc. that I, and the Children which God shall give us of this Marriage, shall remain unable and incapable, and absolutely excluded from the Rights and hope to succeed to any of the Kingdoms, Estates and Signories, etc. And a little lower it proceeds; Condescending to this with the common desire and wish of their Subjects, Vassals, and natural Liege's, who will that it have the force and vigour of a Law and pragmatic Sanction, and that it be received and observed as such. And some few lines after in the following §. it is added; It shall be agreed by Covenant, that their Majesty's will that it have the strength and vigour of a Law established in favour of their Realms, and of the public Interest of them, etc.  
Three lines above this he doth specify the Causes: Regard being had to that which imports to the public State, and their Preservation, (he speaks of the two Crowns) that being so great they come not to be joined together, and that the occasions be prevented that may afterwards happen of joining them together, etc. He expresses himself yet more clearly two pages below: Having jointly regard to the Public and Commons of the Realms of which God hath given him charge, the which and those of the Crown of France are equally concerned that the Grandeur and Majesty which they have sustained and preserved for so many years, with such good fortune and glory to the name of their Kings Catholic and most Christian, may not be diminished nor decrease, as necessarily it would diminish and decrease, if by the means and by reason of this Marriage they should come to be joined and united in some of the Children or Descendants, the event whereof would occasion to the Subjects and Vassals the Discontents and Afflictions which may be considered: and subsequently makes report of divers public utilities which arise from this Agreement, and places it as the essential Foundation of the Peace and of its continuance. And to facilitate for the future the Alliances betwixt the two Crowns; which otherwise the pretended Salic Law would render always dangerous and not to be practised, unless they had agreed amongst themselves upon this Remedy, whereupon there are many things to be considered.  
1. That it is an Agreement made betwixt the two Kings, for the good of their Estates; that this Renunciation is relative to the V and VI Articles of the Treaty of Marriage which was concluded with the most Christian King, wherein he intervened as the principal party, as is certain by the Narrative at the beginning of the said Deed. It appears also by the Obligation which he imposes upon himself to ratify it: because if he had not acted in this Renunciation but in the quality of a Husband, and not of a party promising and accepting in his own name, he could not nor ought not to have ratified it, but only to have authorized it; though he hath ratified it, as the Author himself doth acknowledge, and that the Ratification of the Treaty of Peace did necessarily include all that to which it was relative. Now it is uncontroverted that the two Kings by common consent, at the desire of their People, had power to derogate from Laws of private concernment, in regard they made them, and have the right of repealing them; that the Kings of Spain and France, for causes of less importance, do not only derogate, but change every day their Constitutions and Laws: and therefore that which they do for the private respects of civil Justice, they have much more power to do for the common good of the State: otherwise if they should not have the power to derogate from Laws, to extinguish Actions, and stop the Proceed of civil Justice by public Treaties, they could grant no Amnesties, nor hinder the Right of the fiscal in the punishment of Crimes, nor of private persons for the Restitution of what they have taken the one party from the other, nor impose silence to parties contending, nor restore the Goods given upon just Confiscations, nor other things of the like nature, which fall out in all Pacifications, and which make it appear that the necessity and the utility of the Public good may derogate from Laws when it pleaseth the Sovereign. As it is certain that they have had the power, it is also clear by the same Instrument that it was their will, and that such hath been their intention. Without having regard to the said Laws, Customs, Ordinances and Dispositions, by virtue whereof they have succeeded and do succeed to all the aforementioned Kingdoms, etc. And thereafter; To which and every one of them their said Majesties ought to derogate in so far as they shall be contrary, etc. And more below; And that it is understood by the Approbation of this Treaty, they do derogate and hold them to be derogated. And in the V Article it is said; With Derogations and Abrogations of all and whatsoever Laws, Usages and Customs, etc. from which their Catholic and most Christian Majesties ought to derogate, and shall be understood from this present to remain derogated from, etc. But that which is yet of more efficacy and more considerable is, that in the Ratification of the Treaty of Peace on the part of the most Christian King this very Derogation is expressly contained; Derogating to this end as we do derogate from all Laws, Customs and Dispositions to the contrary.  
2. It is certain by the Author of the Dialogues own confession, that the most Christian King hath ratified this Agreement: 'tis in page 30. As to the Ratification of the most Christian King, it might be of some consequence, if there were not other Nullities in the Queen's Renunciation then the defect of the Authorization of the King her Husband. Here he doth avow the Ratification, though in the same passage he will needs make it pass for a simple Authorization: but it is perspicuously seen by all the Clauses of this Instrument, that it is an Agreement in which the most Christian King enters as the principal party, & that the Renunciation of the Infanta hath its beginning and source from this Agreement, to which she did willingly consent: so that he must of necessity acknowledge either that the Kings of France have not the power to exempt themselves and free themselves from the Civil Laws in public Treaties, nor to hinder the effects of them in what concerns themselves, (which is directly against the uniform opinion of their Doctors, and offends even common sense;) or that he grant that the most Christian King, nor the Queen his Consort, cannot make use to their own advantage of those Actions which Law might give them, after they have derogated from them by a solemn Treaty. Otherwise men must renounce the faith of Treaties, and no Peace shall ever be secure, if in it the Actions competent to Parties can by no means be extinguished, and if still a gate be left open to the Exceptions in Law.  
3. That these Writers do suppose a false Principle, that the Renunciation was made only in contemplation of the Portion: the Clauses above cited do evidently show that they are mistaken. Things must be looked upon in another light to judge sound of them. The Right of Succession was an essential Obstacle to the Marriage, which is certain throughout the Text of the Renunciation: The Marriage was a necessary means to the Peace; I have already proved it by the same Instrument of Peace: The only remedy against all Pretensions was the Renunciation: to conclude the Marriage, the Obstacle was to be removed. Let us acknowledge then that the Renunciation ought to hold the first place, as the Dispositions ought to precede the Form; that it is independent of the Portion, as having different Causes and Ends; that it ought to have been stipulated before the Marriage was ever spoken of or the Portion. The whole Text of this Instrument shows that the Portion is in favour of the Marriage, and the Renunciation doth regard the good of the two Monarchies; the one being founded upon the love and natural obligation of Fathers, and the other upon public benefit: The one is a pragmatic Sanction, and the other not. It is agreed that the King my Lord (because and in respect of this Marriage, and to the end that I might carry to it my Portion and proper Goods) hath promised that be will give me five hundred thousand Crowns. It saith not that because and by virtue of the Renunciation five hundred thousand Crowns shall be given, but in regard of the Marriage, which supposes that the Impediment of State should be removed by the Renunciation: and thus the Cause of the assignation of the Portion is the Marriage; the End, that she may carry her Portion to it. But the Cause and the End of the Renunciation is, For the public good of the Kingdoms, the conservation of the Greatness and the Glory of their Majesties; to avoid the Discontents of the People, and the Damages which might arise from thence; and to facilitate thenceforwards the Marriages between the Children and the Descendants of the two Kings; and lastly, to avoid the Hindrance which Reason of State brought to this Marriage, and consequently to the Peace. All these Causes are in their own nature irremoveable, unalterable, and of absolute necessity, nor can be tied to a private Deed, as is the payment of the Portion, nor limited by any restrictive Conditions: and on the contrary the obligation for payment of the Portion may depend as to its execution upon many Conditions, and the effect thereof may be suspended for just causes. In the Renunciation the Infanta hath obliged herself to the whole State; in the Assignation of the Dowry the King hath obliged himself to the most Christian King, as the future Spouse of his Daughter. The delay in the payment of the Portion is a prejudice in a pecuniary matter, which may easily be repaired by paying the Interest which the Civil Law doth appoint after the term of payment is past; to show that deficiency in the payment doth not annul the Contract, since the Law hath provided for it by another remedy. But the defect of the Renunciation would bring along with it a damage which could never be compensed nor repaired; whereby it may be judged, that it hath not nor could not be the intention of the Parties to tie the Renunciation to the payment of the Portion, and make so necessary a thing depend upon one so casual, that it may be retarded by a thousand accidents. The Renunciation also is conceived in terms of doing presently, and the payment of the Portion in these of doing hereafter. And from this present time I do hold myself content and entirely paid all that belongs or may belong unto me. And as to the payment of the Portion, it is said; And this Sum shall be paid in the manner following, etc.  
It cannot likewise be conceived how this Scribbler dares to publish, that the Spaniards did make the Infanta ratify it posteriourly to her Marriage, by some secret Acts which France hath never seen; seeing he himself doth acknowledge that the most Christian King did ratify it, and that it is expressly set down in the VI Article of the Contract of Marriage, that the Queen should pass an Act of Renunciation before she shall marry in words importing the present time, and afterwards shall approve and ratify it jointly with the most Christian King, as soon as she shall have celebrated her Marriage. And though France had never seen those Articles, she cannot pretend any cause of ignorance of any of the Clauses contained therein, seeing that by the same Article of the Treaty the most Christian King doth consent that this Renunciation should be made in the most effectual and fitting form which could be for their validity and firmness, with the Clauses, Derogations and Abrogations, etc. To which in the same Article he consented, and hath approved them as if they had been already made: They are held already made now for then by virtue of this Treaty.  
But the Subtlety of this Writer, who seeks by all means to fasten himself upon such smooth ice, leaves all the Substance of the Case behind, to take hold of one word of the same Article, which is, providing the payment, etc. and would infer, that this Renunciation is absolutely relative, not only to the payment of the money, but also to the terms of the payment designed in the Second Article; which cannot subsist without altering the whole nature of the Treaty, and giving a violent interpretation, and opposite to the sense and to the conception of this Article, and of the Renunciation: because it is not said in this place, that in case of payment she shall renounce, but that she shall be content with the said Portion; which declares no other thing, but that when her Portion shall be paid, she shall be content therewith, it being certain that she could not be satisfied in this respect before she should be paid. So that the defect of payment within the terms mentioned gives her a just right to pretend to it with the Interests, which run from the time limited by the Laws, (if some just cause do not hinder) which regularly would not be due without an express Promise, unless that it were in favour of the Portion, and cannot be extended farther. 
L. 1. ff. de Usutap.  And albeit there should be in that some obscurity of terms, it is certain that in the Interpretation of such Treaties which are of upright Faith the Intention of the Parties is only to be respected: so that the Scruples which may arise from the Ambiguity of the words may not prejudge the principal end. L. 1. de Legatis. And it is the more manifest in this case, because the Renunciation ought to be made in present and positive terms before the terms of payment should have been run out. Wherefore to put the Queen in the right of re-entering into all her Pretensions by defect of punctual payment, they should have declared it by an express Clause, which should have reserved those Rights to the Queen in case of failing; the rather, because in the same Renunciation they do specify two other cases in which she may be reestablished in her Rights. If the intention of the parties had been to extend it to this, they would not have failed to explain it as clearly as the rest, being that it was as important and as likely to happen. By which it may be seen that this word [providing] is no restrictive Condition, which suspends the Act of Renunciation, or which can annul it, because it is not said, that in case of payment she shall renounce; (for in that case she would not have been obliged to renounce till after the payment, or at least under the same condition:) but thereby it is only meant that she shall content herself. And he subjoins the cause independent of the Portion; By reason she ought to remain excluded of all of whatsoever condition or nature, etc. which cannot signify any other thing but that by a preceding Agreement between the two Kings, for the Reasons of State above mentioned, she was to remain excluded. In effect, there can be no probability that for five hundred thousand Crowns of Gold she would ever have renounced the hopes of so great a Succession, if some other more powerful Motive had not given the weight to this Resolution: and albeit even the payment of the Portion were one cause of the Renunciation, they cannot deny but there are others more principal and superior, which do concur thereunto; and in this case respect is to be had to the chief and predominant, and to the End that was proposed in this Deed.  
In truth it is a thing which occasions pity to see this Question moved between Kings, and that the ground of a War is laid upon a Subtlety which private persons durst not dispute in justice. It is certain in Law, Argumento L. 2. Cod. ff. Quando liceat ab empt. disc. that regularly Contracts are not annulled by the defect of accomplishing the Conditions within the time, unless there be some express and particular Clause annulling them in that case, otherwise the Action, competent to the Actor by virtue of the Contract against him who hath not performed it would be extinguished: which is certainly false; for he who hath sold an Inheritance, 
L. n. ff. de Art. empt.  and hath not received the Price, hath right to pursue his payment and damages, but not to retract the Bargain; and he that hath not paid within the time ceases not to have a legal Action to pretend to the Inheritance by fulfilling the Contract, 
L. 14. Cod. de resc. vend.  and repairing the Damage occasioned by the delay. It is the same of a Husband who demands the Portion, 
L. 19 ff. de obl. & act.  who is of the same condition as a Purchasour. In this point the French Lawyers do agree; and also upon the particular case of Renunciations made simply in contemplation of the Portion, they hold that the defect of payment doth not annul them: and the general Rule is, That as the sole Consent of the Parties constitutes the essence of Contracts, it is also their Consent alone which is able to dissolve them; 
L. 1. cod. quando lec. ab emp. disc.  which hath no place neither but when things are still in their integrity.  
When the Portion hath not been paid, 
L. 1. cod. de dot. caut. non nuw.  no person hath right to demand it from the Husband, though in the Instrument (as it happens oftentimes) it be inserted that it hath been received. 
Lib. 3. cod. cod.  And in this case the Husband may propound his Exception, non numeratae pecuniae; of which he would have no need, if by the default of payment the Contract were annulled.  
All the Allegations which he citys upon this Subject are out of the Case, or else make against himself. That which he urges out of Baldus may help us to convince him of his error; 
Bald. in l. neque mater.  Pater dotavit Filiam de bonis Vxoris: numquid ista Filia habebit regressum ad bona paterna? Respondeo quòd sic, quia ista non est cum effectu à Patre dotata. He doth not say that she is not endowed, but only that she hath not received the effect of her Portion; and this Recourse which he leaves her to the Goods of the Father for her Portion shows that it is truly settled, since the hath right to pretend to the effect of it. But that makes nothing to the prejudice of the Renunciation; on the contrary it confirms it, by leaving her the right to pursue for the Portion. It is the same of the Allegation which follows in the Dialogue. Bened. in Cap. Raynut. in verb. Duas habens uxores.  
The Laws which he citys to prove that the Portion is not constituted if it be not paid, 
L. 1. ff. de dot. L. dotale, ff. de fun. dot.  and all the others, are evidently understood of the effects of the Portion, which fall to the charge of the Husband; it being unjust that be should be charged with a thing which he hath not received. If pains be taken to examine these Laws, it will be found that they cannot be interpreted in any other sense, and in effect the Portion must needs be constituted, since it is due, and that the Husband hath right to pretend unto it. A thing which is not cannot produce an Action. The Law which he citys, Traject. ff. de Obl. & Act. is altogether out of our case, and applied beside the purpose: It speaks only of Contracts wherein a Penalty is expressly stipulated against him who fails to satisfy, 
L. traject. ff. de Obl. & Act. Poena (utì assolet) ob operas ejus, qui eam pecuniam peteret, in stipulationem erat deducta.  and concludes no other thing, but that he is obliged to pay the Penalty, if he cannot show that the defect came not by his fault, the Contract as to the remainder continuing in its full vigour.  
But when the Debtor hath failed to satisfy through the fault of the Creditor, who hath not accomplished on his part the essential Conditions of the Contract, than it is out of controversy that the delay ought not to be imputed unto him, 
Argumento L. 23. ff. de Act. & Obl.  and that he is not obliged, neither to the Interests, nor the reparation of any Damage, although there were a Penalty expressly stipulated in the Contract.  
If we would reduce this business to the rigours of the Civil Law, we should have a fair field to prove by their own Principles, that all the delay in the payment of the Portion ought not to be imputed to any other party but France itself, if it be true (as they say, and we strongly do deny) that the Renunciation is founded solely upon the Portion, that they are Inseparables, and necessarily depending the one upon the other. It follows then by a clear consequence, that the King neither could nor ought to pay the Portion, until he had gotten all the Securities which were by the same Treaty promised to establish absolutely the Renunciation. Wherein they must needs agree, that in the IVth Article of the Contract of Marriage it is expressed in formal terms that the most Serene Infanta, after the Act of Renunciation which she shall pass before the Marriage, shall make just such another jointly with the most Christian King, as soon as she is married with his Majesty, which shall be Registered and passed in the Parliament of Paris in the form and with the Clauses accustomed, etc. This Act not only hath not appeared, but likewise they make use of their own omission against us for one of the proofs of the Nullity; they complain that since the Marriage the Queen was made pass a secret Act which France hath not seen. But he doth profess it more clearly in the 23. page, where, albeit he hath elsewhere confessed the King's Ratification, he doth not stick to call it in doubt again in these words: But after all this, Spain having made the Infanta renounce posteriourly to her Marriage by secret Acts, which the Spaniards never durst let come to light, who is it that can imagine that the most Christian King hath validly ratified what he never saw, & c? All this discourse contains as many Untruths as words: but we must judge them from their own mouth. The most Christian King and Queen were obliged by a Contract of Marriage (which is a Member of the Peace) to make a new Renunciation in the same form as the precedent, as soon as the Marriage was accomplished, and cause it to be Registered in the Parliament of Paris: He denies that this was done, and declares that the King never saw it: He maintains that the Portion was necessarily and inseparably tied to the Renunciation; they have not satisfied this necessary and inseparable Condition, and for their failing to have satisfied, they will needs impugn the Renunciation because of the delay of payment, which could not be accomplished until that they had given the Securities requisite for the Renunciation. We leave it therefore to be judged of, to whom the delay of payment is justly to be imputed, which hath been offered divers times, and is offered to them at present, if they would but perform the Condition which was promised.  
Moreover it is clear in Law, that the payment of a Debt may be retained by way of compensation o● another liquidated pretention. And so was it practised at the payment o● the Portions of the two Princesses Anne Infanta of Spain and Elizabet● of France, married to Philip the IV●● and Lewis the XIIIth. It is certain that in the VI Article of the Peace his Majesty doth absolutely renounce all his Rights and Pretensions upon Alsatia. This Renunciation is founded upon a Proviso much more efficacious than that which is contained in the Queen's, which cannot be imputed to any other cause then that which is expressed in the words following; By means of which Renunciation his most Christian Majesty offers to satisfy the payment of three millions of livers, which he is bound to pay unto the Archduke's of Inspruck.  
This Obligation is contained in the same Instrument of the Peace, which is all but one Deed with the Treaty of Marriage and Renunciation, by which the Portion is promised: the one and the other are equally obliging. If the most Christian King have been able to dispense with himself without breaking or annulling the Treaty, he cannot pretend that the delay in paying of the Portion is more rigorously interpreted. There was no cause on our part which hindered him from satisfying this Obligation. It serves for nothing to say that it was not the King to whom he owed this sum, since it concerned the King that it should be paid, that it is he who hath renounced, and that it is he to whom the Promise was made in the Treaty; and consequently it is to him that the most Christian King hath contracted the Obligation to satisfy the most serene Archduke.  
By these Principles the second Objection falls to the ground of itself: Though we should acknowledge that the Infanta hath not been endowed with her Paternal Goods, the Renunciation would not cease to remain in its force, as being established upon more powerful Foundations then that of the Portion; and at the worst the Queen would not have in this case any other right then to pretend a Legal Portion.  
But to show that our Right abounds in Reasons, and that on which side soever it be attaqued, they can find no weakness in it; I will briefly demonstrate that all this discourse which he urges so strongly is built upon a false Supposition.  
The Queen was provided not only according to the practice accustomed to the Princesses of Spain, but much beyond that, as it appears by the very Deed of Renunciation, in these terms: It is a very competent Portion, and the greatest which hath yet been given to any Infanta of Spain, and this in consideration of the Person of the most Christian King. Portions, as I have already said, are not regulated betwixt Kings by the estimation of the legal Portion, but by a Custom which they establish in their Royal Families, which passes in ordinary style, and is subject to no Controversy: else to take it in rigour, the Princesses of France would have been very ill provided with five hundred thousand Crowns. The essential reason of this Custom is, because the Princes, who are the Authors and Interpreters of Laws, consider the Soul more than the Body, and without staying upon words ought solely to take hold of the Reason from which they have taken their first beginning. Now it is certain that the Portion given in Marriage is instituted to help the Husband to undergo the charges of the Marriage, and the Legal Portion to keep the Children out of necessity, and after the death of the Father to supply the defect of the Aliment which he did owe them whilst he lived. All these Reasons do cease amongst great Monarches, whose high Fortunes shelter them from ordinary Wants, and who ought to propose unto themselves in their Marriages more noble and solid Interests then that of a petty sum of Money. This is the reason why they do rarely come to the discussion of Goods, the supplement of Legal Portions, Inventories, and other such ways of redress which are introduced in favour of private persons, and are in respect of them but mere Trifles; but rather content themselves with that which the Custom of those Courts with which they treat hath established for this purpose, esteeming it to be much below their Honour to cheapen a Wife, and to make it appear that they seek any other thing in her but Greatness and Virtue. In fine, the most Christian King did content himself, the Queen remained satisfied with it. All this did pass by a Treaty of Peace into the strength of a public Law; there is no more any remedy.  
I say yet farther, that she hath been endowed with her Paternal Goods in two sorts. The one, because all which was granted unto the most Christian King by the Treaty of Peace was done in contemplation of the Marriage, as the Marriage was concluded solely in order to the Peace. It is a reciprocal Relation, an inseparable Connexion, one and the selfsame Treaty, Cause, and End; they cannot possibly be divided without overthrowing the whole foundation of the Peace. His Majesty hath sacrificed so many fair Provinces to the Satisfaction and Good fortune of his Daughter, and the Infanta gave up her Pretensions for the good of the State, to the Happiness of this Marriage, and to the Gratitude which she owed to the Bounty of her Father. The Renunciation was reciprocal; that of the most Serene Infanta to her Pretensions was accompanied also with the King's to so many rich Domains, and even to the Right which he had to Alsatia. Nor can it be presumed with any appearance of Reason, that he would have devested himself with such facility of so great an Estate, if he had not been invited thereunto by the Love of his Daughter, and the desire to see her reign happily, by heaping Benefits and Satisfactions upon the King her Husband. And if there remained any doubt or ambiguity as to this, the presumption is in favour of the Father.  
Before I do enter into an exact Account with such severe Merchants, 
1. Fin. Cod. dot. prom. Alex. in ad Bart. in d.l. .. in l. 1. ff. Soluto Mat.  I must first declare that the specification of the Portion contained in the Treaty of Marriage was not the square of the late King's Bounty, and was thus expressed only to satisfy the Forms used in the like Treaties, according to the style of the Court; but it hath extended itself far beyond that, to considerable sums of money which he gave her in Jewels, Plate, and Silver, and to what else could be found rarest in all his Kingdoms: and that she herself doth avow in the Renunciation, that in consideration of so many Bounties, she did renounce with all her heart all her Maternal Goods, not only by way of Renunciation, but also of Donation amongst the living, regard being had to all those Benefits, 
In the Act of the Renunciation pag. 14.  and because he desires and procures her Satisfaction and Advantage with so much love, having a joint regard to the Public, etc. This Renunciation was covenanted and agreed with the King of France preliminarilic, and before any other Condition was treated of. This is evident, because the Marriage could not be treated of until the Obstacle was removed: from whence this consequence is drawn, That whatsoever the King endowed the Infanta with by way of Portion was purely out of his own Stock.  
However, if it behaved us to come to a Citizen-like Account, one might deduct with Justice from the Maternal Goods all that was expended for her Maintenance ever since the death of her Mother, being certain that whenever the Maternal Goods do exceed the value of the Portion, the Father is really obliged to supply it out of his own: but he may deduct the Aliments, which he is not obliged to give when the Daughter is endowed with her own proper Goods. 
Bart. ad L. libertis, § 1. num. 3. ff. de Alim. L. si quis, § si vel parens, ff. de Lib. Agn.  If we would draw this into an Account, it would be found that what hath been already received doth far exceed the Debt. The King did inherit from Prince Balthasar: his Son all his Maternal Goods, which, according to the Law of Spain, aught to return to the Father. The Law which deprives the Fathers and Mothers of this Succession in case of Second Marriages is reproved by the Canons; it never had other cause or reason, then to put a bridle upon Marriages which are made out of Covetousness to the prejudice of the Children of the First Bed. But the Second Marriage of the deceased King was an inevitable Necessity of State, the universal desire of the People, and a precise Obligation which he owed unto his Subjects and his House. Monarch's should act by Principles quite different from those of the vulgar; and if one would tie them in public Acts to the ordinary Laws, all their Conduct would be disordered, by rendering of them uncapable to provide freely for the public Necessities. Possibly the Jewels were not delivered in specie to the most Serene Infanta; but threefold more at the least hath been given her. It is not the custom of Kings to take Acquittances, nor to keep Registers of all that they bestow upon their Daughters; they pour out upon them with full hands, without account and without measure: they are not accustomed but to Treaties depending upon sincere faith, justly scorning those little Formalities which are not established for them.  
But though all this were not so, is it a matter which merits all this stir, that all Europe should be troubled, and a War raised again, which hath cost so much blood, so many tears and Desolations to Christendom? Though the most Serene Infanta could not have renounced her Maternal Rights, all she could then pretend would be to be repaired upon this Head, 
L. 1. ff. sed mihi de verb. obl.  Vtile per inutile non debet vitiari. We see it almost in all Contracts which have any defective part, the Body doth not cease to subsist though some Member of it be cut off, providing the substance of the Contract be not altered. This is a general Rule which can suffer no exceptions? but when the two Members, whereof the one is defective and the other legitime, 
L. 7. ff. d Arb  are so inseparable that the one cannot subsist without the other, or that the Parties have expressly and necessarily joined them together in the Treaty by some particular Clause. But in this present case these are two things of a different nature, which have nothing of common to both; the one is a Right acquired and present, and the other an uncertain hope; they are derived from two several fountains; they concern different matters, and of great inequality as to their importance; the one doth not destroy the other: the one is a principal, and the other accessary; the one a Domestic, and the other a matter of State: in a word, they cannot be mixed without bringing all things into confusion.  
He citys two Texts upon this Subject which do make absolutely for us: 
Bened. in cap. Ray●ul. in Ver. Duas hab●ns uxores:  Non excluditur per Renunciationem nisi à successione dotantis; unde si de propriis bonis Filia suerit dotata, non est exclusa: His meaning is, that she is not excluded from her Maternal Goods although she have renounced them, but that the Exclusion remains firm as to the Goods of him by whom the Portion is constituted, against whom she hath an Action to make him pay it out of his own Estate.  
The other passage which he allegeth out of Covarr. doth yet better explicate the former: Erit intelligenda haec Conventio in hunc modum, ut mille aurei sint dandi ex bonis Paternis, non ex Maternis. Whereby it is seen that the Renunciation is not annulled, but that the Daughter hath only recourse for the Portion promised her against the Father's Goods. He limits farther even this Decretal, when the Daughter hath confirmed the Renunciation by Oath; unless there be Fraud on the part of the Father, or some notorious Laesion on the part of the Daughter: and we have made it clear that they cannot here oppose to us either the one or the other.  
It would require great Volumes to make appear by parcels the Falsities it matter of Fact, the Allegations out of season, the captious Sophisms, and the continual Cavils which are packed up into this Work: It is a business of more time and leisure than the trouble in which they have put us doth allow. I think I have said enough upon this Subject to convince all reasonable understandings: and to make an end of confounding our Enemies, I will content myself by concluding with this Argument: That if they will reduce, against all manner of Reason, the public Treaties made between Kings to the Forms and Subtleties of litigious Pleading, they ought to follow the same Rules in their Proceeding; if they do intent to make a Process of it, they should not make it a War. Never yet was it seen that Legal Portions or Reliefs were pretended to with a Dagger at the throat, nor Contracts rescinded by stroke of Sword, nor the first Citations made by forty thousand men. Either let us decide this matter by public Right, and by the Faith of a solemn Treaty made betwixt Crown and Crown; or if they have a mind to bring it to the formalities of the Bar, let us not stray from its style, which doth not permit Violence to usurp upon Justice: and that which the Kings of France do not practise towards their own Subjects when there is any Difference between them to be decided by the Civil Laws, they ought not to attempt it against a Monarch who doth not hold of them, and who is ready to refer his Cause to the Judgement of all the Princes of Europe. But they are far from this thought, they'll have no other Arbiter but Arms; and if in appearance they do sometimes call for the assistance of Justice, it is but to make it serve as an instrument of their Violence: They make use of her own Laws against herself; they make her raise Difficulties, but will not suffer her to resolve them; they are content she plead, but not that she decide; and at the same time when they make her enter into Combat, they tie her hands, they shut up all the approaches to her, they will not permit her to pronounce, and do so pervert the whole order of things, that to establish a Chimerical Right, they make it a private Business, and that they may put it in Execution, they make of it a matter of State.   

ARTICLE V.  
That the Succession of the Sovereignty of the Duchy of Brabant, and other Provinces specified in these Libels, ought not to be regulated by particular Customs.  
THE essential Sovereignty is in God, as in its source; those which we do reverence here below are Rivulets that flow from thence: It descends from Heaven to Earth, and spreads itself in divers fashions amongst the Creatures, according to the Subordination which is necessary for the Government of the World. It communicates itself in the ordinary way principally and immediately to Monarches, to Princes, and sometimes unto the whole Body of the People, which remits it voluntarily to those Magistrates whom they choose, and reduces it into the form of Government which seems to be fittest for their happiness. Some of these are absolute, and hold it of God solely; others are Sovereigns in regard of their Subjects, but with some tie of dependency upon a Superior Power: and as those do derive immediately from the Infinite Power above; so these do proceed gradually through the Channel of that Sovereignty to which they are subordinate; this is its Rule and origine, having no other Power nor Jurisdiction then that which is conveyed unto it through this Organ, because being nothing of itself, but according to the will of the Instituters, it can exercise no other Right than what it hath so received from it. If Sovereignties were regulated by Local Customs, it would be as monstrous a thing as if Kings would prescribe limits to the Providence of God, or as to see Streams run back upon their Fountain: The Order of the World, which subsists only by these degrees of dependency of the least upon the greater, must be absolutely overthrown: the Servants would become Masters, the Sovereigns should be Subjects, and the hereditary Sovereignties be in the same condition with Villages and Farms. The Eternal Law, which is the very Wisdom of God, is the rule of all Laws: and as that is properly the Idea of the Law of Sovereigns, so that of Sovereigns is the Model of particular ones, which take from it all their strength and vigour. If an Equal cannot have any command over his Equal, it would be much more unreasonable that the Inferior should have it over him whom he acknowledges for his Master, and that the particular Customs established between Subjects should prescribe unto their Sovereigns the order of their Successions. All that there is of Jurisdiction and Power in subaltern Fiefs, is found in a more excellent manner in the commanding Fief: But all that there is of Servitude, dependency and Subjection in them, regards not the Sovereignty, and cannot reflect upon it from beneath upwards; these are Restrictions and Limitations which cannot proceed but from a more elevated Power. So that the Sovereign Fiefs which hold of a higher Jurisdiction can receive no limits to their Authority but from the direct Lord, who is also to regulate himself therein according to the extent of that Power which he hath over them, and according to their first Institution; for he may not impose new burdens upon them farther than those upon which from the beginning they did agree in the regulating of the Fief.  
To discourse solidly of this matter, two things must be carefully examined and taken from their true foundation.  
The one is the nature and the first Origine of the Duchy of Brabant, and of the other Provinces to which France doth pretend: the other is the Origine, the quality, the end, and the extent of the Local Custom, which hath introduced the Right of Devolution.  
As to the first, it is out of controversy that a part of the Duchy of Brabant, though Sovereign in itself, doth in some sort hold of the Empire; I say, in some sort, because as well by its own nature, as by its Privileges, it is exempt from many Subjections which are proper to other Imperial Fiefs, though Sovereigns and Lording. This than must be considered in two manners; the one in the Dependence which it hath of the Empire, and the other in the Sovereignty which it hath over its Subjects. Touching the first, it cannot extend beyond the terms which are expressly prescribed by the Investiture. So that it cannot receive from any thing else any other restriction of its Power, unless it doth voluntarily impose it upon itself. And for the second, it belongs to it to establish Laws, and communicates its Power to its Inferiors as much as shall be thought good, and restrains it within just limits.  
Moreover, although these be Sovereignties in themselves, they must also be looked upon as chained together by an undissolvible tie, and as annexed to the Body of the Monarchy of which they are the Members and the Parts.  
If we consider them in themselves, we shall find that in their Successions the Males ought to be preferred to the Females; and that this Order hath been so regularly observed in all times, that not so much as one example can be shown where the Daughters have succeeded to the exclusion of the Males of the same Line; as may be seen in the Genealogical Table of the Trophies of the Duchy of Brabant, written by Christopher Butkens. I say more, that the primitive Institution of the particular Fiefs of Brabant was made in favour of the Males, and that the Right of Devolution was afterwards introduced among them for particular Ends; so that if the Devolution doth hinder them from Alienating, it is but an Obstacle introduced by private persons, which hath insensibly gotten the force of a Custom among them; and being only a particular Right, it can neither tie the Prince nor the Sovereignty, because it comes but from a simple Custom and Consent of the Subjects, who have no Jurisdiction over the Superior Power. So that to judge of the Right of Succession of the Lording Fief, one must look into the first Original thereof, and into its proper nature independently of all that is inferior to it.  
If we consider the principal End of this ordinary Custom, which prefers the Males before the Females even in the Succession of particular Fiefs, we shall find that it is for the conservation of Noble Families, for fear their Estates should pass to and be confounded in some other House, to the prejudice of them who are able to uphold the Splendour, maintain the Name, and perpetuate the Line of them. Though this benefit in some sort do redound to the good of the State, it is but by an indirect reflection, and by the relation of the private to the public; and 'tis for this that it may be derogated from in consideration of another private good, if it be esteemed to be equal or of greater importance than the other. But the conservation of Sovereignties is a good which directly concerns the State, against which no private Reason can prevail; otherwise what Disorder would it be in the World, if we did see Sovereignties liable to the change of Masters every moment, and pass under another Dominion? How many causes of War and Revolutions would arise from such a strange Constitution, which could not but offend all Laws and good Polity? How unworthy a spectacle must this be and what an heart-breaking to faithful Subjects, to see their Princes and all their Line reduced to poverty, whilst a Daughter should elevate to their Throne some Stranger-Prince? If these inconveniences be compared with the particular good which arises from the Devolution, it will be found that the one is but an Atom in comparison of the other; and that there is no kind of appearance that the very People, though it had been in their power, would ever have been such enemies to themselves, as to have exposed themselves to all these dangers, by subjecting their Prince to their Custom, and taken pleasure to live under a Dominion suspended in the Air, and exposed to all Winds. On the contrary, Sovereigns in one thing seem to be in a worse condition then private persons; because in the greatest part of States which are well governed, they cannot alienate any parcel of their Dominions, they are in some kind Slaves to the Public good, they cannot do advantage to a younger Brother to the prejudice of the Elder, and are ordinarily so tied to the regular order of Succession, which prefers the Males and the Eldest, that they cannot follow the motions of their Affection to the prejudice of this Rule, which the Safety of the State renders not to be dispensed with: how then can it be overthrown and destroyed by a local Custom, instituted to an End which cannot be put in the balance with the Utilitic which proceeds from this public Law? In effect, If we look upon the order of the Successions of the Dukes of Brabant, and of the Princes of the other Provinces in the Netherlands, it will be found that they have always descended from Father to Son, as long as that could be had, and that in no case they have been divided nor shared among many Children, though there have been often sundry Males of the same Bed. 
Butkens, pag. 107, 113, 133, 204, 270, 232, etc.  As is seen in Godfrey the First, who left two Sons of his first Marriage, Godfrey and Henry; Godfrey his Son succeeded singly to the Duchy: and of three Sons which he had, Godfrey the Elder, styled the Third, succeeded alone: he had two Sons by his first Wife, Henry and Albert; the Elder only succeeded to the Duchy, as Henry the Third had done; and the same throughout the whole Succession. From whence I draw two Consequences: One, That the Sovereign Fief is by its nature indivisible; which shows that the principal end is to conserve it entire in the Family, which were unuseful, if it must descend to the Daughters of the First Bed, to the exclusion of the Males; for in this case it would import very little that it were dismembered, and it would be more just and more convenient to divide it, at least among the Children of the same Bed. The other is, That by this Indivisibility it is different from particular Fiefs, which, according to the Feodal Customs, are partable beyond the Forest at the choice of the Eldest; and on this side, though there were but one Fief, the Eldest hath but two Thirds, and the rest belongs to the Brothers, excepting to the Eldest the Castle, and a Capon's flight: which being unpracticable in a Sovereign Fief, 
Chap. 21. of the Feodal Customs of Brabant.  'tis evident that there is a manifest difference, and that the one hath for its end only the particular good of Families, and the other the good of the State, which chief consists in keeping the Sovereignty as long as is possible in the same Line, that it may not be exposed to continual Changes. So that being of a different nature, we cannot draw any consequence from the Fief to the Crown, nor subject the Lording Fief to the Local Customs, which be of another nature and for other ends. This difference is the more remarkable, by reason that the subservient Fiefs which Princes do possess are of another nature, and subject to other Laws than the Sovereignty, and do not depend of one and the same Jurisdiction; as is to be seen in Butkens, in the Charters of the year 1222. And it is out of doubt that these may be divided, and the other not, as is clear by the XXI. Article itself, which I cited before: and even the Customs of Louvain were decreed with this Clause; Without prejudice to the Rights and the Superiorities of the King. Which clearly demonstrates, that in the toleration or approbation of these particular Customs, the Sovereigns never meant to subject their Sovereignties; and that the Consequence which they draw from the one to the other cannot be of validity betwixt two such disproportionate things. In the Customs of Brabant and the other Provinces, which the King hath approved, this Reservation is ordinarily found, Without prejudice to our Rights and Authorities. A notable difference is yet to be observed here, which is, that private persons may derogate and do daily derogate from the Devolution by their Treaties of Marriage, or by Testaments, to preserve the free disposition of their Goods to themselves, and to hinder the Daughters of the First Bed from coming to exclude the Sons of the Second; which Princes have never practised, though much more concerned in conserving their Successions in the Masculine Line, and would not have failed to use those Precautions as well as private persons do against this Custom, had they believed that they were subject unto it as others are.  
We shall be yet more confirmed in this opinion, if we consider that, far from having a mind to dismember any of those Provinces by virtue of such a Custom, they united them together by an inseparable Concatenation, by a Sanction established by the Supreme Authority, and received by the universal Consent of all the People: so that it hath passed ever since that time, and is still held at present, to be a Fundamental Law. I will satisfy in the following part of this Article some light Scruples which the Author of this Writing forms thereupon: In this place it shall suffice me to deduce from it an evident Argument, that the intention both of the Sovereign and the People hath been much opposite to that of subjecting them to Customs, which would expose them upon all moments to the danger of being dismembered and distracted into other Families.  
In fine, they are Members of the Monarchy of Spain; and though they do live under their own Laws and particular Customs, and enjoy peaceably their own Privileges; they are notwithstanding Members of it, and depend upon it as Parts of the Whole: so that if there were no Law nor Custom established for the Succession of their Sovereignties, it would be much more just and convenient to regulate it by the Law of the principal Kingdom whereunto they are Accessories, 
The Dialogue, pag. 39  then by a Local Custom, which hath no place but among Subjects: and if this same Author doth avow, that where there is no Law established for the Succession of a Sovereign Fief, it may be regulated by the Laws of the neighbouring States; we ought here with a far juster title to conform ourselves to the order and practice of other Kingdoms to which they are united, and under the support and the protection of which they are maintained.  
Here may be observed (in passing) the incompatibility which we meet with in the Discourse of this Writer: He will have it that the Sovereign Succession of these Provinces is so to be subject to the Local Custom of the Devolution, that it can no ways be dispensed with, neither for the good of the State, nor by the Renunciation of her to whom the Right is devolved, making a simple Custom of private persons pass for a Fundamental Law of the State: but by the same Discourse it evidently follows, that these Provinces neither can, nor ought ever to fall under the Dominion of France, because the Salic Law, by virtue whereof they do pretend that all their new Acquisitions must be submitted to the same Rule to which the ancient Dominions are subject, would pull up by the root this very Devolution, which at present they will have to be unalterable, and also totally exclude Women from the Right of Succession, though they were the sole Heirs: so that they will establish this particular Right in our Provinces, but only to destroy it by Incorporating them instantly into their Kingdom. They make use of it to acquire them, and will presently overthrow it to conserve them; and do erect this Right in their own favour, but only to annihilate it afterwards to our damage. This is an effect of their Nimbleness, which knows how to apply wittily all the Laws to their own use, that they may make them serve as Instruments to their Ambition.  
It remains now at present that we look into the nature and quality of this Local Custom, which it is certain is not of the first origine of Fiefs, since the disposition of them in favour of Males is directly opposed thereunto.  
It is yet more certain that it doth not flow from the Sovereign, because he himself in many places hath not approved of it, and that the same Approbation which the People have required of him is a sure mark that it hath taken its beginning elsewhere then from him; nor can it be said that it hath been form upon the model of Sovereign Succession, which of its own nature was purely restricted to Males, and hath not been extended to Females, but by a privilege limited only to the deficiency of Males. It is then to be concluded, that it hath insensibly slipped in by a Custom which some particular Conveniences have introduced. Neither is it universal, nor every where uniform, even in Brabant: many Districts are totally exempted from it, and others have received it with divers Limitations. The City of Brussels, that of Antwerp, with the Country of Ryen, the Territory of Turnhout, Hoochstraten with its District, a part of the Country beyond the River of Maese, and the whole Quarter of Nivelle, are not subject to the Devolution. And this proceeds from no other cause, but that they have not received this Custom; which in itself is of such a nature, that it is of no force but in those places where it is approved of by the Consent of the People. How then can any extend to the Sovereignty, without the Consent of the Prince, a Custom which doth not oblige the Subjects but in so fare as they have expressly desired? How can a public and Fundamental Law be made of a Custom which is not universal, nor established by the Sovereign, and which is tied to the particular circumstances of Goods and Places? And if the Authors of the Dialogue and the Treatise of the Queen's Rights do avow the Devolution to be a kind of Penalty, 
Fol. 50.  how can it be conceived that the Prince should be subject thereunto? and that the Fiefs subservient can impose by the example of their Custom a Servitude on the Crown? Never in good Logic can the Argument conclude de minori ad majus, unless it be in matters of Favour.  
This Custom than cannot pass for a Law, because it doth not proceed from the express Ordinance of the Prince, but only from the  Consent of the Subjects, who had no other object therein but their proper Interests. The Prince contributed nothing towards it but a simple Toleration, and, far from intending to oblige his own Sovereignty to it, he hath not absolutely approved of it, nor generally in all places. The Feodal Customs of Brabant, be it either for such Fiefs as are on this side the Forest, or them which are beyond it, and which depend upon the Feodal Court of Lothier or of Genap, were never approved nor decreed, although they were presented to the Governor to that purpose: and in some others which are approved, the Prince, as I said before, doth expressly except his Rights and Preeminences, reserving to himself the power to change, altar, and innovate them as he thinks fit; which he could not do without the consent of the States, if it were a Fundamental Law which did tie up his proper Sovereignty. And though by way of supposition we should acknowledge that this Custom extends itself to the Sovereignty; it were ridiculous to pretend that he may not abrogate it in his Family, since he hath the right both to change and innovate it in those of his Subjects.  
But if it were granted to them that such like Customs do reach unto Sovereignties, they would give us a just Right to pretend unto Bretanny and the Duchy of Burgundy, where Women ought to be admitted to the Succession of Fiefs, not only by the Custom of the people, but expressly also by the Law of the State, in regard of the Sovereignty itself: to which purpose it will avail nothing to allege the Salic Law, which is Apocryphal among the most learned, and which at most cannot transcend the limits of the ancient Domains of France, nor can change but by unjust Violence the nature of the Provinces which they do annex to their Crown; but if that might be done by virtue of the Salic Law, why should it not be lawful for our King to impose on those Provinces which he hath acquired the same Law which he doth practise in Spain?  
Having manifestly proved by so palpable Reasons that the Local Customs as well of Brabant, as of the other Provinces pretended to, cannot be the Rule of Sovereignty; it remains that we take notice by what other legal ways they may be regulated: and this cannot be by any but only the following.  

1. By the nature of the said Sovereign Fiefs, and their first Institution.  
2. By the ordinary Custom of the Sovereign Fiefs of the Empire, of which some of these Provinces do hold.  
3. By the End for which they are established, and by the Reason of State, and the public Interest.  
4. By the ancient and continual Practice in the like Successions.   
As to the first, it is undoubted that the Sovereign Fief of Brabant in its first beginning, and by the Establishment of the Emperors, was only restricted to the Males, to the entire exclusion of the Females; and that since, by the concession of the same Emperors, it was extended unto Daughters, but only in default of Heirs-male, as it is expressly recorded in the Imperial Constitution.  
But that of the Emperor Charles the Vth, made in the year 1549, 
Corst. Phil. Rom. Reg. An. 1204.  doth entirely stop the current of all the Difficulties that could be form on this Subject, by the indivisible Union which he established among all the Provinces of the Low-countrieses. It is here where the Authors of these Libels lose the Card of their Compass, and blunt the points of their darts, endeavouring all in vain to shoot against this Rock. This Constitution is both of the Emperor and of the proprietary Prince; 'tis universal, and comprehends all the Provinces; 'tis solemn and authentic, by the general Consent of all the Estates, and the subscription of all the Grandees, of the principal Officers, and the most illustrious Nobility; it is established, because it was not only received, but also earnestly solicited by the common wishes of the whole People: 'tis a public Law, which proceeds from the Sovereign Authority, it concerns the Crown immediately, it is founded upon the public Utility, and hath for its chief End the Preservation of all these Provinces under one and the same Lord: The terms are clear: Desiring above all things to provide for the Good, Quiet and Tranquillity of our Countries on this side, and to keep them together in one body, and that they may be inseparably possessed by one Prince alone. Behold a public, necessary, and inviolable Cause, which directly regards the Principalities. But, on the contrary, the Custom of the Devolution is conceived in terms that cannot be otherwise applied then to private ones; If either a Man or a Woman have Children, etc. Were the Prince comprehended, it would have been expressed in words of more reverence, and clearer: but the notice of the Custom expressly saith, that it comprehends nothing but the Fiefs which hold of the Duke of Brabant, and (as the Writer himself confesseth) it is made in favour of the First Marriage, and out of the hatred to Second Beds, which ought rather to be favoured then discountenanced in the person of Sovereigns, chief when they are destitute of Heirs-male. But let us go on farther to the terms of the conclusion of this same Sanction: We do enact and decree, that in all our said Country's Representation shall have place in what touches the Succession either of Prince or Princesses being capable to succeed. All this Clause must necessarily be referred to the former, as built upon this foundation, To conserve these Provinces in one Mass together, etc. Both the one and the other do totally exclude the Devolution, if it be to be understood in that form which these Writers do pretend. Moreover, it is evident that this Union of Estates cannot consist with the Devolution, because that this Custom is not generally established in all the Provinces which are comprehended in this Union, whereby it might fall out that the Daughters of the First Bed should carry away a part of them by the Devolution, and the Males of the Second Marriage by the Law of the Country should possess the other; and by this means the order and the end of the Sanction should be absolutely overthrown.  
I do profess that, reflecting upon all these things, I find myself seized with prodigious astonishment, to see that these Writers do not blush at the liberty which they have given to their pens, in contradicting of Truths so manifest and so generally received, and that they are so effronted as to dare vent unto their own King and to the eyes of all Europe these extravagant Propositions: 
Dialogue, pag. 46.  That there is nothing more contrary to History, nor to the desires of all the Provinces, than this Sanction which unites all those Provinces together; That this Emperor had truly thoughts of doing of it, but that he found so open a Repugnancy against it, and so invincible a one in the inclinations of the Country, etc. That he quitted it very soon, etc.  
Nothing can be more falsely alleged: This Sanction was received, and is to be seen still Registered in all the Chambers of Accounts in the Low-countrieses. But the Author takes up a mistake, or else will impose upon the Readers who will rely upon his faith; he confoundeth another Design of Charles the Vth, from whence he desisted, with this of the Pragmatic Sanction, which he finished without contradiction. It is true that this Prince had some thoughts of erecting all these Provinces into a Kingdom, to the same Custom and Polity; but having met with great difficulties about the diversity of Customs, Privileges, Seals, and Measures, he held it not fit to put it in execution: but as to the Union contained in the Pragmatic Sanction, the diversity of Laws not extending itself to the Sovereignty could not hinder the Union, seeing that in France itself, where all the Provinces are inseparably united to the Crown, they do notwithstanding live under their particular Laws, which in many places are very different; and when we say they are united, we do not therefore pretend that they are reduced into one Province, but that they compose all together one aggregate of many Bodies, which cannot be disjoined. So that 'tis properly to distribute Gape-seed, and amuse all Europe with the tricks of Jugglers, in alleging for the proof of the contrary, that the King in his qualities uses all the Titles of these Provinces severally; as if by having united them he had lost those Titles, and were less Count of Hainault for having rendered it inseparable from the Duchy of Brabant. If the Divisibility could be inferred from the difference of the Titles, it is clear that how succinct soever those of the most Christian Kings be, it might be concluded by the same reason, that that part of Navarre which they do possess might be separated from France, whereunto notwithstanding they will never condescend. The passage of Grotius which he alleges, but doth not quote, is not to the purpose, and toucheth not the fact in question, but only the Design of Charles the Vth, which presently I have related. He speaks of the change of the state of the Government of the Country, and not of the Union and Indivisibility of the Provinces, which may be established among them without any alteration in the Form of their Government, and without changing any thing of the particular Customs, unless it be in what they have of inconsistent with this Union.  
It is with the same confidence that he presumes to say, that this Pragmatic doth not contain in its dispositive one word of this Union. And what would then the first Clause which I cited operate, which is not only dispositive, but the ground of all the other Dispositions which are contained in the same Law? It is the Cause and the End of it; and the sole Reason why the Emperor established the Representation is, to preserve the Countries in one Mass, and that they be inseparably possessed by one Prince alone. This Representation, in which he labours to lodge solely all the Dispositive, is but a pursuit and a means to attain to the principal End which he hath proposed to himself of the Indivisibility: but by the discourse of this Author, the Cause would be of less strength than its Effect, the Accessary would have the place of Dispositive, and the Principal serve only as a simple Narration.  
This Truth is confirmed by the Constitution of Charles, An. 1549. whereby though he doth confirm the Succession of the Daughters for want of Heirs-male, he supposes notwithstanding for the ground of the Sanction, Nos per Pragmaticam Sanctionem super Jure Successionis universalis harum Provinciarum Inferioris Germaniae patrimoniali ac haereditario Jure ad nos pertinentium providere velle, quòd scilicet eaedom Provinciae nostrae in una Massa deinceps beneficio Repraesentationis generaliter in Successione Principis locum recipientis serventur, nec ampliùs unquam ab invicem separentur. And to show that it was at the desire of the People, he adds, Id quad jam antea à Statibus Geldriae petitum. Whereby two things are clearly seen: The one, That the Representation was not introduced into this Sanction, but as a means for attaining to the principal End of the Indivisibility: the other, That when he admitted the Daughters in the defect of Heirs-male, he would yet preserve in them the same Indivisibility, and that they might not be divided even among many Daughters, as is certain by the words following: Nè scilicet à Ducatu nostro Brabantiae & Comitatu Hollandiae (in quibus Foeminae ex antiqua consuetudine succederunt) distraherentur. And in the dispositive Clause wherein he confirms the Succession of Women he doth expressly add this Restriction; non exstantibus Masculis haeredibus succedere possint. Whereby it is seen that in no case they can succeed, so long as there are any Heirs-male.  
I should never have done, if I would stop at each of their Cavils: The Declaration which he doth allege of Philip the Second is one, but so ill fitted to the purpose, that it makes me pity them. He saith that in the Confirmation which he made of the Privileges of Brabant, he declared, that the only Estates that should be united for perpetuity with Brabant were Limbourg, Antwerp, and those beyond the Maese. Here by the way it is to be observed that Limbourg was never united to Brabant, as Stockmans' doth note, fol. 174. But what Union soever there might be, should they be so ill Logicians as to infer from thence, that the other Provinces are not indivisibly united with Brabant? Should it be possible that he should hope to throw dust in our eyes with this petty Equivocation, by the which he confounds and improperly applies the word Union? Antwerp, as he says, was united to Brabant as to a principal Body, to enjoy with it the same Privileges and Seals, and to make up together the Jurisdiction of one Council: We never pretended that by the Sanction of Charles the Vth the other Provinces were united after the same manner, nor that they ought to participate with them in their Privileges. See, I beseech you, what force this Argument hath: Antwerp alone and Limbourg were united to the Duchy of Brabant, to enjoy the same Privileges; therefore the Sanction of Charles the Vth never intended that the other Provinces and Brabant itself should be preserved in a Mass, to be inseparably possessed by one Prince alone. Antwerp and Limbourg only shall enjoy the particular Privileges of Brabant; therefore all the other Provinces shall be untied from all Union, and may pass under different Masters. Philip the Second prohibited the Infanta Isabel to divide the Provinces; therefore they were not united. On the contrary, this very Prohibition must suppose that they were united, since nothing can be divided but what is united. It makes my heart bleed to see poor Aristotle so often buffeted, and the whole form of right Reasoning, which he so ingeniously invented, overthrown, On the contrary, the Prohibition of Philip the IIᵈ is a Confirmation of the Sanction of Charles the Vth. And if the Discourse of this Author could take place, all the Commandments of God and of Kings might be destroyed: When a Father commands his Child not to be a Murderer, it might in the same manner be inferred that God hath not forbidden Murder; when a King exhorts his Subjects to Fidelity, a consequence might be drawn from thence, that they are not obliged to Fidelity by natural Duty and by their Oath; than which nothing can be more irrational.  
He goes astray after the same manner by taking the Effect for the Cause, when he saith that this Sanction was only made to introduce the Representation into the Succession of the Sovereign. Whereas, quite contrary, it appears by the terms before alleged, that the Representation is introduced only to establish the Indivisibility, which he himself acknowledges two lines thereafter, 
Dial. p. 4●.  by a terrible Giddiness of head, when he mentions the Cause which gave occasion to this Representation: To hinder that all these Estates, which the want of Representation exposed to too frequent Changes, should not be so easily separated by the diversity of Customs. We have now no more need of witnesses; habemus fatentem reum: and we ought also to infer thereupon, that the Right of Devolution being much more subject to produce these over frequent Changes then the want of Representation; since that the Sanction would introduce the latter for this cause only, it is not credible that its intention was that the Prince should be subject to the other, 
P●g. 163.  being the same Reason doth more powerfully serve to destroy the Devolution in the Sovereign Succession, than it doth to establish the Representation in it.  
In fine, they stumble at every step, and it would require an Herculean pains to help them up again every time that they fall. It seems that they have had no other care, but to make up a heap of Arguments, without discretion and without choice, to dazzle rather than to persuade, and to obtain by their number that which they can never hope for from the strength of their Reasons.  
The Author of the Rights of the Queen follows the same tract, and loses himself in his own Labyrinth, who is not ashamed to utter this Proposition; That if the Prince be ancienter than the Custom, 
Fol. 168.  nothing can be more glorious for him then to submit himself unto it, etc. since it is certain that, in this case, the Custom is but an Emanation of the particular practice of the Sovereign Family.  
Here are as many Errors as words. It is certain that most of the Customs take their beginning from the desire of the People, and from their private advantage; they do frame to themselves their own Custom, of which afterwards they desire the Prince's Approbation, who grants or refuses it as he thinks good: but by approving it he doth not subject himself to it. Nor is it less evident that divers Customs are convenient for the People, which would be most prejudicial to Sovereign Families; as in effect that of the Devolution would be. It is certain likewise that if the Prince be ancienter than the Custom, he hath already the Right and the Form of his Succession regulated before the Custom, and this Regulation, being a Sovereign Law, can never be altered by a particular and inferior Constitution. He doth profess in another place, 
Pag. 166.  that the Sovereignties have particular attributes which do distinguish them from other Goods. And in what ought they to be more distinguished then in that which regards the Succession, which imports more to the subsistence of Sovereignties than any other thing? He himself doth acknowledge it in the same page, as their being Independents; and yet notwithstanding he will make them to depend upon the Custom: Vnalienables; yet he will subject them to a Right which at every moment would be the occasion of their Alienation: and Indivisibles; yet he denies that the Emperor Charles the Vth had any power to unite them together. He adds, that notwithstanding this difference, they have many things common. I do agree with him; but that which they may have of common doth not proceed from the particular Custom. The Comparison of which he makes use to prove it is ravishing and marvellously well applied, 'tis of a Man, who participates together both of the Animal and Reasonable nature. See then according to my apprehension how he pretends thereupon to form his Argument. As Man, though superior to Animals, doth participate of their Nature, and hath something in him which is common to them: so the Prince, notwithstanding he is elevated above the People, yet doth not cease to be subject to their Local Customs. Risum teneatis Amici? But to demonstrate by this Principle that the Prince is subject to Local Customs, we must by a Moral which is altogether new establish this foundation, That the Senses ought to give law to Reason, and that the Sensual appetite must govern the Will; otherwise all this discourse would prove nothing: this strange Doctrine would make all the Schools rage, and would not take but among the false Sectators and the bad Interpreters of Epicure. Let us say then, the better to conform ourselves to a more regular prudence, that if Man in some occasions ought to raise himself above the Senses, and free himself from the subjection of the inferior part; it is principally in those Actions wherein the eternal Succession is concerned, which is his principal and last End: and that to descend by this Rule from the moral to the politic part, it must be concluded that there is no case wherein the Sovereign ought to be more independent of popular Customs, then in those of the Sovereign Successions, which ought to constitute the Felicity of the State, and to establish a little kind of Eternity in his Family.  
But I perceive that I myself do go astray by playing the Philosopher with these Sophisters, and that I depart insensibly from my first design of destroying their Maxims in one bulk, without tying myself to every parcel of their works. Let us pass then to the second Rule by which those Sovereign Successions are to be measured which do hold of the Empire, to wit, by the usual Custom in the Imperial Fiefs.  
It was never heard of in the Empire that any Sovereign Fief should be regulated by the Local Customs, that it should be subject to the Right of Devolution; and even the greatest part do totally exclude Daughters, and pass to the Collateral Lines in defect of Heirs-male.  
I have already shown that the Cause and the principal End of such Successions is an essential Reason of State, which absolutely requires, for the good of the People, and the conservation of great Families, that the Sovereignties should be maintained as long as possibly may be in the same Line; and that the practice of the contrary would expose the States to continual Revolutions: that this End is incomparably more noble, more elevated, and more necessary, then that which doth prefer in some places among private persons the Daughters of the First Bed before the Males of the Second: that the Reasons which in some sort may make this Custom tolerable among the Subjects, doth no ways concern the Prince nor the Sovereignty: that Second Marriages, which be oftentimes the cause of the ruin of private Families, are ordinarily the prop and sustentation of Prince's Houses: that that which others do voluntarily with an intemperate Incontinency, these are obliged to do it by an absolute necessity, for the good of the State and their Family: that the Reasons which have given occasion to this Custom have no manner of relation to the Sovereignty; from whence it must be concluded that the Custom can take no place in the case where all the causes for which it was introduced cannot concur, and where all the advantages which arise from it are counterbalanced by greater Inconveniences.  
It remains to see what was the ancient practice, and received in all times and without interruption. The Authors of these Libels, having consumed their spirits in seeking from all parts materials to make their Volume big, could not yet find one single Example which is truly comprehended within the fact in question: Let us try if we shall be more successful. The Sieur Stockmans' citys some very convincing, to wit, 
Stockm. de Jure devol. cap. 21. nu. 9  the Surrender which Charles the Vth made to his Son Philip the Second of the Estates of the Low-Countries, calling thereunto, failing of him, the Heirs which he should have of his Second Marriage, to the exclusion of Charles the Son of Philip and Mary of Portugal of the First Bed; to whom nevertheless as well as to his Father, because of the Widowhoods of Charles and Philip, the right of Succession had belonged, if the Devolution could have taken place in the Sovereign Succession. As also the Donation that Philip the Second made to his Daughter, the Infanta Isabel, under Restrictions which were altogether inconsistent with the right of Devolution, and which could not have been inserted to the prejudice of the Duchess of Savoy and her Successors. And if the Devolution had taken place in Sovereignties, the Pretention of the Queen of France would have been at this day annihilated by that of the Duke of Savoy, who would be the true and lawful Successor to it. He citys also other Examples, which the Reader may see in the same Chapter: but, because they are all of Charles the Vth downwards, I will resume the business from a higher source, that I may be the abler to prove the Antiquity and the Continuation of this Custom.  
William, 
Butkens Troph. de Brab. fol. 627.  Son of Godfrey the IIIᵈ Duke of Lothier and Brabant by Imaine de Los his second Wife, and Brother to Henry the Son of the same Godfrey of a former Marriage by Marguerite of Limbourg, had for his share the Lands of Perweys, Ruysbroeck, and others; which Godfrey could not have done if the Devolution had taken place, since by the death of Marguerite all the Right must have entirely been devolved to Henry, the first, and all manner of Alienation prohibited to the Father, to the prejudice of the first Son.  
The same Godfrey, after the death of his Wife, 
Idem, fol. 129, & 130.  the case of the Devolution (if it had taken place in the Sovereignty) having of necessity happened, married Henry his eldest son Duke of Brabant to Matilda the Daughter of Matthew of Flanders, Earl of Boulogne, in the year 1179, and there were inserted into the Contract of Marriage Clauses altogether repugnant to the Devolution: viz. That Godfrey, who then was a Widower, gave to his Son, to endow his Spouse, Brussels, Vilvorde, Vccle, and Ruysbroeck, upon condition that if Henry deceased before Matilda, she should enjoy the use and profit of those Lands during her life, whether she had any Children by him or not; and in case Matilda came to die before the said Henry, without leaving any Issue behind her, than the Earl of Boulogne, her Uncle, should hold Brussels until that he was re-imburst of her Portion. If the Devolution had taken place, the Father could not have disposed of those Lands, nor assigned Portions out of them to the Princess' Uncle, to the prejudice of his Son and of his Children, to whom the Right would have been devolved by the death of Henry, unless that in the same Treaty of Marriage they had expressly renounced the Devolution, of which notwithstanding no mention is made in the Contract.  
Here we must also observe, that in the same Contract the said Godfrey doth appoint his Son Henry to succeed to him as his Heir in the Duchy, and his other Lands and Possessions. This appointment would be superfluous and ridiculous, if the Right had been already fallen to him by Devolution. And, which is yet more remarkable, he doth appoint him with a Reservation too of the District of Dorten and the County of Arescot, and excludes even the Sons which shall be born of this Marriage: which destroys from the very foundation the pretended Devolution in the Sovereignty, and is directly repugnant to the Interpretation which the Authors of these Libels do make of this Custom: because if the Devolution be a true Succession, and do attribute the Right of Propriety to the Children during the Father's life, Godfrey could not have appointed his Son in the Succession as Heir after his decease, because he should have already been so during his life. And much less could he have cut off from a Succession already acquired and devolved to him two Portions so considerable as the District of Dorten and the County of Arescot, nor have reserved to himself the disposition of them in favour of others.  
The same Godfrey consented to a Donation which Gerard his Son of the Second Bed had made to the Abbey of Everbode, 
Butkens, fol. 131.  of certain Lands situated in the Parish of Tessenderlo; and he himself gave to the Abbot of St. Sepulchers at Cambray certain Lands situated in the Land of Bierbeeck, for the founding of a Provostrie; which he could not have done, to the prejudice of the Prince of the former Bed, if the Devolution might have taken place in relation to Sovereigns, and if this Right had been a true Succession: nevertheless the said Donations have remained inviolable, without the intervening Consent of Henry, and without being subject to any Recovery either on his part or his Successors.  
The same Trophies of Butkens will furnish us with other Examples of this nature; which by Consequences and necessary Inductions show that neither Princes nor their Sovereignties were ever subject to this particular Rule, nor that in reference to them the pretended Sentence of the Emperor Henry was put in practice.  
But let us come to the Donation of the Low-countrieses made by Philip the Second in favour of the Infanta Isabel. All its Clauses and all its Circumstances are directly opposed to the Right of Devolution. Philip the Second could not have given what was not his own; a Donation supposes the Propriety to be in him who gives: the Consent of the Prince his Son would not have been required, nor aught to have been passed, as afterwards it was on the 6. of May 1598., if the Right of the Succession and of the Propriety had been fully devolved to the Infanta's his Sisters. This Donation, which was contrary to the Devolution, and also to the prejudice of a third person, would not have been received in that quality by all the Estates, as it was the 21. of August of the same year: Philip could not have assigned them in Portion to his Daughter, as it is certain he did by the same Act, and that the Archduke Albert accepted and possessed them by this Title.  
To get out of this bad way, they have recourse to two Shifts, which serve only but to discover their Weakness. They acknowledge that Philip gave these Provinces to his Daughter, 
Dialogue fol. 55.  but that it was to do himself honour by an Imaginary Liberality. The Duke of Savoy ought not to have liked this Game: whence came it then that he did not oppose himself to this Imaginary Liberality, which was really destroying all his Right? Is it likely that all the Estates of the Country and the Tribunals of the Provinces would have approved a Chimerical Surrender, and connived at this Cheat, and under the sole Title of a false Donation tendered their Oaths for the whole to her who should not have been Heir but of a part?  
The Archduke Albert's Treaty of Marriage with the Infanta Isabel doth not only confirm this Donation, but is also an evident proof, that the sole End of the Pragmatic Sanction of the Emperor Charles the Vth above mentioned was the Union and the Indivisibility of all these Provinces. It may be seen in the 21. Article, And forasmuch, etc. towards the end, where he speaks in these terms: Provided always to be kept and observed inviolably all and every one of the Conditions above specified, and the Pragmatic made by the Emperor, my Lord and Father, of Immortal Memory, who may he rest in Glory, in the month of November Anno 1549. concerning the Union of the said Low-countrieses, without consenting or granting any Division of them, or Separation, for what case soever, nor in any manner of ways whatsoever. And a little beneath this in the same Article he doth oblige both the Archduke and the Infanta, to sustain, carry on, and maintain all and every the Rents, Pensions for life, and all other Gifts whatsoever, which we and our Predecessors have given, assigned, or granted. He speaks all along therein as true Proprietor; he grants these Provinces with those things charged upon them, which he could not have imposed if the Right of Devolution did reach the Sovereignty; and much less oblige the Infanta, to whom the Right had been devolved. In all the other Articles he speaks as absolute Master: Item, upon condition, and not otherwise. How can it be imagined that the States would have approved so many Clauses contrary to the Devolution, if they had believed that it had place in reference to their Princes?  
I believe that they shall have nothing to reply, if I make them see that Henry the Great (whom the most Christian King hath chosen for his Illustrious Model) did authorise this Donation by a solemn Treaty, and did acknowledge that Philip the IIᵈ was the right Proprietor of these Provinces, and could dispose of them, either by last Will, Donation, or in any other manner. This great Monarch and his wise Ministers knew perfectly the nature, the use, and the extent of the Devolution in Provinces so near adjacent to France. If they had conceived that it had had any place in the Sovereignties, they would have been careful not to have treated upon any thing of that kind, which might have prejudged a Right to which the Kings of France might sometime have acquired some Interest. Those who treated in the King's name were too circumspect, and too well versed in the practice, to suffer that any Clause should be inserted in a Treaty contrary to the Customs, and which one day might prejudice their Crown. From whence it is to be concluded, that the previous Acknowledgement which they made of this Donation which Philip the II. designed even at that time to make, is a manifest confession of their real sense, that the Right of Devolution had no place in the Sovereignties, as may be seen by the VI Article of the Treaty of Veruins: 'Tis also mutually agreed and consented to, in case his Catholic Majesty should either give or transfer by Testament, Donation, or in any other way, under any Title whatsoever, to the most Serene Infanta Isabel his eldest Daughter, or to others, all the Provinces of the Low-countrieses, with the Counties of Burgundy and Charolois, that all the said Provinces and Counties shall be comprehended in the present Treaty, etc. In this Article France doth acknowledge that not only Philip the IIᵈ might surrender, give, and transfer them to his eldest Daughter, but also to others. Likewise the said Infanta, or he in favour of whom the said Lord the King should dispose thereof, etc.  
The Authors of these Libels must needs accuse not only one of the greatest Kings that ever reigned amongst them of a most gross Ignorance, but also the ablest Ministers that have governed their Affairs, to wit, Monsieur de Belieure and de Sillery, or they must confess that nothing they have alleged against this Donation hath any subsistence but in their own imagination.  

The same, in the same page.  But the States of the Duchy (as the Authors of these Libels do pretend) did protest that that Donation should not prejudice their Rights, Customs, and Privileges. In these few words there be two evident Untruths. The first is, That there will never be found, neither in the Annals nor the Archives, any Protestation of the States against this Donation; and the very texts which he doth cite do clearly show that they accepted of it in the quality of a Donation. Scripto Ordinibus caveat, duodecimum Cessionis Articulum Belgicarum Provinciarum Libertati & Privilegiis nihil derogatum aut detrimento fore. This cannot be called a Protestation against the Act, but only a simple Reservation of their Privileges, under which they accept the Surrender, and qualify it even by this Title; which they would have taken good heed not to have done, if it had been their intention to except the Right of Devolution, which must have been destroyed by this word of Surrender, and consequently the acceptation would have been contrary and prejudicial to the Reservation.  
The other is, That in the same Declaration there is no mention made of the Customs, as the Writer doth artificially add of his own head, by a privilege which such Authors possess by a prescription of many Ages, to say whatever they please without fear of punishment. Nothing is said in the passage which he citys, but, de Libertatibus & Immunitatibus, and lower, de observandis Patriae Privilegiis. Now he himself confesses that the Right of Devolution is a kind of Penalty introduced out of hatred to Second Marriages. It is not then probable that they meant to comprehend under the name of their Privileges and Liberties a burdensome Restriction which bridles them, and against which they themselves do every day seek after Precautions and remedies in their Testamentary dispositions. The Reservation of the States to preserve their Privileges and Immunities was not done either to oppose or contradict the Surrender, which they did freely accept, but only to hinder lest by that Session they should fall to be in a worse condition then that in which they were under Philip the IIᵈ, and did not go farther than to oblige the person to whom the Surrender was made to the same conditions to which the Surrenderer was bound.  
The Author of the Queen's Rights doth yet run out with more licence upon the same Subject, 
Pag. 206.  by falsely citing of Meterens in his History of the Low-countrieses. To make this Historian speak to his fancy, he adds to his Narrative a mere Fiction, contrary to the sequel and to the sense of his story. Those of Brabant (says he) were so afraid lest it should be thought that the Infanta Isabel, to whom this Duchy belonged by the right of Devolution, should be conceived to hold it by virtue of the Donation, because no mention was made of any Right. In the end he applies to this false Preamble that which Meteren relates of the Protestation made by the States, that this Donation might not hurt nor prejudice their Rights and Privileges; wherein also he doth maliciously change the terms of the Protestation, which speaks not of the Rights of the Duchy, as he alleges with his accustomed ingenuity, but only of their proper Rights and Privileges, de observandis Patriae Privilegiis, as the passage itself expresses, which he hath cited elsewhere. But at the bottom there will nothing be found in Meteren that can either directly or indirectly prove, that the States of Brabant made the least reflection upon the Right of Devolution, nor that they refused to accept the Donation in this quality; but, on the contrary, that they admitted it under the same Title, as also the Consent of the Prince Philip, which was contrary to the Right of Devolution, and that the repugnancy which this Historian saith divers showed in this rencontre was founded on other causes, viz. That it would be held strange, that the Eldest Daughter should be bestowed upon a 
* The Archduke Albert whilst he was a Cardinal.  Prince who was provided of many Ecclesiastical Estates, and to prefer him before the Elder Brothers, as the Emperor was. Which he delivers as discourses and popular Reflections, according to the style of Historians; and would not have omitted to have spoken of the Devolution, if it had been but mentioned among the ordinary reasonings of the people. Even the States of the Province (as this same Author reports) never resolved to mingle the Devolution among those Causes which they alleged for the aversion which they had to the change of a Master, but, 
Meteren l. 9 fo. 412.  on the contrary, they produce other Reasons which seem to destroy the Devolution. Their principal Reason was, Because they had lived so many years under the just and equitable Government of so good a King, and that remembering so many Favours, they conceived that it was not possible to quit their Obedience to him without a continual remorse of Conscience. Which shows that they acknowledged him for their true Proprietor, else what remorse of Conscience could they have had for going to their lawful 
* The Infanta Isabel.  Heir by the Right of a Succession Devolved? of which, according to the French doctrine, the King his Father possessed but the bare use and profits, whereof he might have denuded himself without giving them any cause to think strange of it, since that is ordinarily practised by the Fathers in the Marriages of their Children, to release unto them the enjoying of those Proprieties which they have acquired. What follows renders the business much more evident. They submitted themselves nevertheless (notwithstanding the considerations which they had to the contrary) to the will of the King, & alleged this Reason for their so doing, viz. to give them for their Princess, his most dear Daughter, of whose goodness and Virtue they had heard so much, and withal for coupling her with a Husband, etc. They do consent in consideration of the goodness and Virtue of the Princess, and the great Qualities of the Husband, at the same time when they profess that he gives her unto them for their Princess; they acknowledge her not to have been so before: and if it is the King who gave her unto them, it cannot be the Devolution that placed her in the Throne. It is for this that in the Consent which they gave to it they say, that it was to conform themselves to the will of the King, and provided that his Majesty would command them so to do: which they would never have said, if so be that they had held the Infanta for their lawful Princess by a Right already devolved. This Consent clearly expresses, that it was in the quality of a Portion and Donation that the States did receive the Infanta to be their Mistress, as is manifest by the relation of the said Historian; and that they themselves required the Consent of the Prince her Brother, in which he doth declare that he was induced thereunto for certain great Reasons and respects of the Common good, and to the end that his Sister might he provided for according to her quality and great merit: he he qualifies it also with the title of Donation. All this is so contrary to the Devolution, that I cannot admire enough the blindness of this Writer, in having touched upon this string so palpably out of time.  
But though by an excess of Indulgence all that they allege were granted to be true, they are not able to draw any other consequence from it, but that the States, by accepting of this Surrender, did pretend that they were to remain in their ancient Rights and forms of Government: and this cannot be understood of any but those Rights which relate to themselves, without pretending thereby to touch those of the Prince, nor to subject the Sovereignty to their Customs, since in effect that would have been an unjust and ridiculous Pretention, and which would have made to their own Disadvantage.  
Let us remove from this point to that of the Surrender and perpetual Alienation made in favour of the Estates of the United Provinces, by Philip the IVth, 
Which was done at the Treaty of Munster in the year 1648,  of one part of Brabant and some other Provinces. This Donation ought to be null according to all the Rules of these Writers, not only for what concerns the Lands where the Devolution hath place, but for all the others likewise. As to the first, it is certain that the Case of the Devolution was already come to pass in favour of the Prince Balthasar, and, failing of him, in favour of the Queen of France, when they were surrendered: If this Right be a present and certain Succession, if it be a Propriety which can never validly be renounced, it is the duty of the States of the United Provinces to think either handsomely to restore them, or else to defend their possession by the Sword: the Sentence is already pronounced, The most Christian King, not out of a covetous desire to conquer, but according to the precise obligation of his Duty and Conscience, is reduced to the necessity of entertaining them in the same fashion as he doth us; he cannot abandon the Rights of his Wife, without failing in what he owes unto her, and what his own proper reputation requires of him.  
As to the other Lands, if it be true, as they affirm it to be, that Sovereignties are unalienable; that Princes cannot renounce their Rights in prejudice of their Successors, even by public Treaties; that those are Rights of Blood, inseparably tied to all the posterity; that they may pretend Relief even against Treaties of Peace upon the score of Laesion; in fine, if no consideration neither of Advantage nor of public Faith can prevail against the rules of litigious wrangling; behold the Treaty of Munster, concluded with the States of the United Provinces, reduced to the same inconveniences with the Pyrenean.  
Some Objections remain to be satisfied in particular, which I have not yet touched but very superficially, though they be sufficiently repelled by the Principles which I have established.  
They oppose to us in the first place the Sentence of the Emperor Henry in the year 1230. The same Counsellor Stockmans' hath very pertinently answered it in the 21. Article of his Treatise; to which I will only add, that this Sentence can have no relation to the Right of Devolution, for these following Reasons.  

1. The first is, That the whole Narrative on which he found'st the Decision of the Emperor is merely the Invention of this Scribbler, in regard that neither the Sentence nor the History do mention any such thing, and that it is repugnant to the Text even of the Sentence, which speaks not of the Propriety, but only interdicts the Alienation, which in itself was not permitted to him without the Consent of the States: and what he adds in the Sentence, Matrem habuerit, & illa fit mortua, shows that it ought not to be understood of the Sovereignty, but of some patrimonial Goods belonging to the Prince which might have been affected with the Portion of the deceased Mother. For if this Sentence were founded upon the Right of Devolution, he would have made of it some express mention, as well as have alleged another cause for it: besides that, as I have already made appear, the Devolution doth not absolutely hinder, and does not annul the Alienation, but renders it only subject to be rescinded after the death of the Father, remaining notwithstanding valid in case the Son comes to die before him.  
2. This Sentence would be unjust and contrary to the same Custom, if it were founded upon the Devolution, because this Right doth not give the Children that horrible power presently to seize upon the Goods of the Father in his life-time, because of a simple Alienation, but gives them only a hope to enjoy them after his death, and the right to pretend Relief, and to re-demand what hath been alienated during his life. Otherwise, it were to authorise an unjust Violence, which would stifle the Law of Nature; it were to make Children Curatours to their Fathers, and to give them an opportunity to drive them from their Throne. From whence it is necessarily to be concluded, that the Sentence of the Emperor ought to have some other motive, which can be no other than that which I have related. In effect, seeing that it is not founded but upon the Death of the Duchess, it must needs have had some other cause then that of Devolution, in regard the Emperor's Argument would not be concluding, The Duchess is dead, than her Husband cannot Alienate; it being certain that he may not only in some cases, but that the Duchess also herself might have renounced this Right by a Disposition amongst the living, or by one relating to her death.  
3. If this Sentence did concern the Goods of the Sovereignty, it would determine nothing at all, by reason that by their own nature they cannot be Alienated without the Consent of the States, who themselves would have been the first to have opposed this Alienation; unless their Assent had been required, and that they had judged it to be founded on the benefit of the State; in which case the Emperor with Justice could not have hindered the effect thereof.  
4. This Sentence was given in favour of an Heir-male, and does not infer that the Daughters of the First Bed ought to exclude the Sons of the Second. Indeed it is horrible and repugnant to Reason, only to imagine that such a case should ever happen, whereby we might see a Daughter upon the Throne to the exclusion of her Brother, and the Son of a Sovereign become Subject to his Sister: this shocks Nature, which hath given the preeminence to Men, and the rights to command, by reason of the excellency of their Sex. The Author of the Dialogue strives to get out of this difficulty by restricting this general inconvenience to the particular fact which is actually in question: 
Fol. 52.  but he runs from the Lists, and eludes the point in controversy. He speaks thus: The Catholic King shall command in his Estates, and the most Christian Queen in hers, without either of them having any Jurisdiction over the other.   
This Subterfuge is very pleasant and most handsomely fancied; at present he changes the person of an Advocate into that of a Politician, and makes use of the Expedient when he finds not his advantage in litigious wrangling. It is happy that Philip the IVth left unto his Son other Estates: But if he had been only Duke of Brabant, or Prince only of any one of the other Provinces to which France doth pretend, and that the Devolution had place as to Sovereignties, the case had happened wherein the Prince his Son had become a Subject to his Sister. And when we speak of the Monstrousness which this Custom would produce in itself, and the Inconveniences which may generally arise from thence, we do look upon the thing purely in itself, and not in the present circumstance, which is out of the case of the Question, ●nd holds no manner of similitud●●●th it; because if the Duke of ●●abant do possess other Kingdoms, it is a thing merely accidental in respect of the Duchy and of its Customs.  
In fine, all that is to be gathered from this Sentence is, that the Emperor would not permit the Duke to alienate his Goods to the prejudice of his Son. We cannot infer from thence any thing in favour of the Devolution, since there be a thousand Imperial Sentences of the same nature for Fiefs, in which the right of Devolution never reigned.  
The second Objection is drawn out of the alleged and ill-applied Opinion of some Doctors, who do maintain that when any difference about Feodal Customs is in agitation, it is not to be regulated by those of the Lording, but by those of the Serving Fief.  
It is certain that all of them do speak in this place of those Differences which arise upon the Serving Fiefs, which being neither so absolute nor so privileged as the Lording, ought not to be measured by the same Rule: and this makes altogether in our favour, to show the advantageous difference which there is of the greater in regard of the lesser. Meanwhile they turn the Argument to the opposite way, and in stead of acknowledging that this Reason is sufficient to demonstrate the disproportion betwixt the one and the other, and that they cannot be made equal, they will yet make use of it not only to equalise the Lording Fief with the condition of the Serving, but even to subject it to and regulate it by the same Custom; although the contrary doth evidently appear by the very Texts which they cite, and very falsely interpret. The Example is most clear in the Citation which they do produce of Molina in his Treatise of 
* The Majorasque in Spain is the Eldest Son's Title.  Majorasques.  
They wrist this passage many ways; the Dialogue drags it thus by the hair: That the Crown of Spain being the first Majorasque of the Realm, 
Treatise of the Rights of the Queen of France, fol. 170. Dialog. fol. 40.  it ought indispensablie to conform to the Laws which the Customs of the Country have introduced for Majorasques. To discover the false artifice of this Discourse, there needs no more than to confront it with the Text; and than it will be seen that it is far from subjecting the Sovereignty to Local Customs in order to the Majorasques; he wills, on the contrary, that all others should be regulated according to the practice of the Crown: Ab eóque (he speaks of the Kingdom) caetera primogenia tanquam à capite derivari, succedendíque rationem accipere: from whence he concludes, that every Process which arises from the inferior Majorasques, sit secundùm Leges ad Regni Successionem institutas decidenda.  
I cannot wonder enough at the blindness of this Author, who puts into our hands the titles which condemn him, and yet presumes to turn them into a sense altogether opposite. The Sovereign Fief, according to this Text, is the Rule of all the rest: how can he then pretend that the particular Customs of other Fiefs should be the Rule of the Sovereign? The Author of the Treatise of the most Christian Queen's Rights makes use in substance of the same Subterfuge, but with a little more modesty: 
Fol. 171.  he proves by the Authors which he citys, that the Majorasques of Spain were instituted after the example of the Royalty; but he slips in something of his own, that the Rules introduced for the Succession of the one were also introduced for that of the other; though it be certain by all this Text, and by what follows of Covarr. whom he citys, that the Sovereign Fief gives the Law to all inferior ones, and consequently cannot receive it from their particular Customs. But as he doth falsely cite to us the Spanish Authors, to reduce the Sovereignties to the Customs of the Country; let us see whether their own French Authors will agree in this Maxim. Behold what Peter du Puy, 
Du Puy in the Treatise of the Rights of the King t. c. on the Duchy of Bretannie.  very famous and of great credit among them, says upon the Subject of the Succession of the Duchy of Bretannie, which makes altogether for our purpose. If this Difference were among particular persons and inhabitants of a Kingdom, it seems that the Infanta of Spain might have some appearance of Right by means of the Custom, of which she will make use: but it being all public, and all Royal, decided by the public. Rights of France, known to all the World, we may justly be astonished how they have dared to prefer to them Local Customs, which regulate nothing but Differences among private persons. Can any thing be clearer than this? The Counsellor Stockmans' citys Molineus, and other Authors both French and Germans, on this Subject, who confirm the same thing in such express terms, that they leave no matter of doubt. The Reader may see them cited in the 21. Chapter, and have recourse, if he think fit, unto the fountain.  
The Author of the Dialogue is admirable in all, but he surpasses himself in prettiness, when, outvying Pythagoras and Ovid in the changes of Forms, he makes the Sovereignty to appear under divers Metaphysical Abstractions, whereof Lawyers till now have been ignorant. At first he represents it like a Queen, and in a moment after like a mean Citizen: one while he brings it upon the Stage as a married woman, and then again as a Widow: he kills it, and raises it to life again; exalts it, and debases it; and into what posture soever he puts it, he hath the dexterity to make it still act its part handsomely. When 'tis needful to pursue the Cause by Arms, than (forsooth) is it a Sovereignty that holds of none but God, and that may admit of no other Judge: when he will dispute it in the Quiddities of Law, it is a simple Inheritance, subject to the Law of the People. When the Renunciation is treated of or the Testament, he places it above Kings and Reason of State: but when he brings the Devolution into play, he ranks it among Slaves. When it is his pleasure, the Prince must be the Soul of the Customs: and when he finds it more to his advantage, he subjects the Prince to it. And after all these long wind, he finds at the end of his reckoning that he hath fought only against his own Shadow, and that all this Gallimaufry tends to reduce the Sovereign Successions to the low condition of private Fiefs.  
Sovereignties do never die, according to the opinion of all the French Doctors, their Rights and Prerogatives subsist still during the Interregnum, changing of Masters altars nothing in their Jurisdictions and Preeminences. This distinction is of no use where we handle the Right of Devolution, since that it falls even whilst the Father lives: so that if the Devolution hath place in Sovereignties, and if this Right, as they pretend, be a true Succession and Propriety, the Father in effect is no longer Sovereign, because the Right of the Sovereignty is properly and radically affixed to the Propriety, and not to the Prossessour of the Rents and Fruits. So that in reference to the Sovereignty the Prince is to be reckoned of as dead from the first moment in which he is a Widower; he cannot be any more the Soul of the Customs, since he hath no more in him the principle of politic Life, being deprived of the Propriety of his Dominion; and his Life might be called an Interregnum, and his Sovereignty a vacant inheritance. But what would follow upon all this? Would this Sovereignty without Master cease to be a Sovereignty? and though it could not establish new Laws, would it fall from its ancient and natural Prerogatives? shall it be reduced either by the natural or the civil Death of the Prince to the measure of the Successions of Burgesses? would it become inferior to its self? If that were true, it would follow that it is the Person of the Prince only which makes it Sovereign: whereas, on the contrary, it is the other solely which puts him into the Rights of Sovereignty. 
Page 172.  In truth all the discourse which he makes on this Subject is so confused, that it is not possible to comprehend what advantage he seeks from thence.  
The third Objection is founded upon the Instrument of the Treaty of Marriage of the Queen of France, in which Spain hath covenanted a formal and express Derogation to all contrary Customs: from whence he will infer this Consequence, That if the Customs did not affect those Goods, Spain had never sought to be disengaged of that whereby it was not bound. How can men who affect to be thought Wits dare to fill Volumes with such Trifles as these be, without apprehending the censure of honest men? The Derogation which was made to the Customs is reciprocal, as much on France's side as on Spain's: and if the Argument which he takes from it had any kind of force, it would conclude against France, and render subject to the Customs of Bretanny and other Provinces, as well as Spain to those of Brabant. But who does not see that this Derogation does stretch itself only to such Customs which may tie the Sovereigns, or serve as a pretext by right or wrong to form new Pretensions against them? Experience teaches us that we cannot be too circumspect against such turbulent spirits, and that it was not enough to take away the Root and the true Causes of the evil, but that also it was necessary to cut off the Shoots and Branches, and not only remove the Causes, but even the Pretexts and Apparences.  
Although the other Reasons which they do allege to establish their pretended Right to the other Provinces, in which the Devolution is unknown, be entirely ruined by this one Principle, which I think to have sufficiently proved that Sovereign Successions neither ought to be nor can be regulated by Local Customs; I will not omit to add one word more by the way touching this matter, till such time as the Lawyers of those places, who are better versed in the nature of their particular Customs, shall be able to give to the public a more exact account of them.  
He strives to prove by three Titles, that the Seigniourie of Mechlen belongs to the Infanta by this same Right of Devolution. The first is the Custom, which, as he pretends, hath introduced the Devolution into that Land. I have already shown that this doth not concern the Crown. The second is the Union which was made of this Land to the Duchy of Brabant by Philip surnamed the Bold, and confirmed by the Emperor Charles the Vth. This Union doth not render it dependent upon Brabant, as it is really notorious that it doth not. The third is the established Practice, that all movable Fiefs of Brabant are to be regulated by the Feodal Custom of that Duchy. He doth here contradict himself, seeing that a moment after he hath raised this Lordship to the degree of a Sovereignty, he will make it to depend on the Duchy of Brabant; wherein he is grossly mistaken, being it is certain that it doth not hold of it in any kind. After he hath declared it to be inseparable from Brabant, he will make it subject to the Feodal Custom, by virtue whereof it might be alienated as well as all the other particular moving Fiefs of the same Jurisdiction, which are every day parted and divided among the Successors, as I have already made appear. Let us say then, that they are Sovereignties united under the same Privileges, but Independent of one another, which may have, and have in effect different Customs; and that Sovereignties, as I have already proved, not being subject to Devolution, that of Mechlen cannot have been made liable thereunto by this Union, which takes nothing from it of its proper Sovereignty.  
All that he allegeth touching the Upper Gelderland, the County of Namur, and the Duchy of Limbourg, seeing it is only grounded upon the Devolution, and their Union with Brabant, falls of itself, I having before destroyed all the Foundation. But he falls also here into another Error, supposing, either out of a real or an affected Ignorance, that Gelderland and Limbourg are united to Brabant, which will never be found.  
The other Rights upon Hainault, Luxemburg and Burgundy, are almost of the same nature, and founded on this false Principle, That Sovereignties ought to be regulated by the Local Customs: wherein he falls into a new contradiction. For in the Treatise of the Queen's Rights, 
Fol. 166.  in the place above cited, he confesses that the Prerogatives which the Sovereign Fiefs have above others are, that they are unalienable, and indivisible; and yet notwithstanding, by subjecting Luxemburg and Burgundy to the Local Custom, he makes them both liable to division, Burgundy into three parts, and Luxemburg into two: which renders yet more manifest what difference there is betwixt the Lording and the Serving Fiefs, and the Prerogative which the first have over the others by his own confession. And it cannot be comprehended which way he pretends to reconcile these two opposites, that the Sovereign Succession is indivisible in its own nature, and yet subject at the same time to a Custom which would make it divisible. But finally, both in Burgundy and in Luxemburg it is permitted unto Fathers to make Testaments and Substitutions, and the most part of the principal Fiefs are provided to the Eldest Sons by the dispositions of private persons: If then they will reduce the Prince to the condition of a private person, and the Sovereignty to the practice of Local Customs, they should at left do him the favour to make him equal in every thing with his own Subjects, and should not rob him, as they do, of the power which the meanest Citizens enjoy, to dispose of their Goods by Will as they think best themselves, without being obliged to leave any more unto their Daughters then barely their Legal Portion. But the very Reason which they do allege to overthrow the deceased King of Spain's Testament, doth plainly show the preeminence of Sovereign Fiefs, and that they are so unalienable, that the Princes themselves have not the right to dispose of them at their pleasure, to the prejudice of the Supreme Law of the State, which being above the Prince himself, would be too much humbled if it were made inferior to the Custom of Subjects.  
It will be found throughout all the Annals, and by the course of Successions in all these Sovereignties which they pretend to, that they were never dismembered nor divided, though there have been frequently many Brothers and Sisters, who, according to the particular Custom, might have had right to pretend to the Division of them, if these Sovereign Fiefs were of the same nature with the others.  
Philip and John, Dukes and Earls of Burgundy, Mary, Charles his Grandchild, Philip the Second, Third, and Fourth, left many Children; and yet this County was never subject to Division, which the Author of this Libel labours to extend from private Fiefs to Sovereignties. And if we will look yet higher into the matter, it will be found that this Rule hath always remained inviolable in the Succession of its Princes.  
Whereupon several Observations may be made. 

The first, That this order of Succession hath been common in all the Provinces to which France doth pretend, and that this shows that of their own nature they have always been indivisible.  
2. That the Males have ever succeeded, to the exclusion of Daughters.  
3. That all the Local Customs which these Authors do allege have never taken place in all these Sovereignties.  
4. That the Right of Devolution never had effect in reference to Princes on any occasion; otherwise Catharine Duchess of Savoy had succeeded Isabel her Sister, and so much the rather because she had not at all renounced.    
It seems that he seeks only to divert himself in all the discourse he makes touching the County of Hainault, 
The Treatise of the Queen's Rights, page 365.  and that by the Examples and Allegations which he produces he will set forth his Memory to the prejudice of his Judgement. It is not here the place to dispute whether Hainault be a Fief or a , since in the one as well as the other Title the Right of the Queen is equally ill founded. The Sentence which he citys in favour of Jaqueline Countess of Hainault against the Bishop of Liege is wholly from the purpose, seeing it is out of controversy that the Daughters do succeed in this County, failing of Heirs-male of the same Line. The Point in question was to prove that the Daughters of the First Bed did exclude the Males of the Second in the Succession of this County: yet of this he is altogether silent, and all the remainder of his discourse is but a straying and a vain Caracole out of his course; and after he hath run himself out of wind, without being able to make any Conclusion upon those Grounds which have cost him so much pains to establish them, he retires like a Cacus into his den of the particular Customs, which is his only refuge.  
But it is here where he hath lost all manner of Modesty, when he dares affirm that the Custom of the place prefers the Daughters of the First Bed before the Males of the Second. If he had consulted the Practitioners of the Country, they would have informed him of the Use inviolably observed among them, and founded upon their Custom, which gives the preference to the Males without any distinction of Bed in the Succession of Fiefs; they would have let him see, in the 13th Chapter Article 6. of their Customs, that the Daughters of the First Bed should remain without any part in the Fiefs of their Fathers, and that the Males of the Second should absolutely carry them by the disposition of the Custom, according to their ordinary Rule; if the same Custom had not permitted the Fathers and Mothers to provide a remedy in this by a special Disposition. These are the very words of the Custom: Two Conjuncts having only one Daughter may make and pass advice to her profit out of their Fiefs and Allodes and main Farms, either wholly or in part of them, even by charging one piece or more of the Rents hereditary, or Viageres, revocable or irrevocable, as if they had many Children; to the end that if from the said Conjuncts, or from other subsequent Marriages, Sons should come, the said Daughter may have a Portion. It is clearer than the day that the End of this Custom is, to give the Fathers a remedy against the practice and the general Custom which prefers the Males of the Second Bed, to hinder that the Daughters may not be left without any part at all, as it would happen if the Parents did make no disposition to the contrary. It is also seen by the same Text, that regularly the Parents had not the power to make even this Disposition, and that they did receive it only by this Custom, may make and pass advice: Therefore they could not do it if this Custom did not give them the power, otherwise it would be superfluous and without effect.  
The 7th Article of the same Custom doth so neatly interpret the preceding, that if the Writer had but taken the pains to read it, he would not have so inconsiderately hazarded upon a Proposition which tends to destroy all his credit, the terms whereof are these: And though by the Law, if there be no advice, the Fiefs patrimonial of the Survivor belong to the Son of the Second Marriage, when there is only a Daughter of the First Bed; nevertheless the said Fiefs being ordained by advice to the Daughter, (as in the preceding Article) or to many of the former Marriage, such an Ordinance shall take place, to the exclusion of the Son of the Second Marriage: which is in the public an universal practice, and without contradiction throughout all this Province.  
As to the Country of Namur, though particular Goods there be subject to the Devolution, it is as true that the Sovereignty is exempt from it; that it is seen at this hour by the Contract of Sale which the Earl John made to the behoof of the Duke of Burgundy in the year 1421. that he parted with the said Country to this Duke upon Conditions which are inconsistent with the Devolution, having sold it to him for himself and his Heirs which should be Earls of Flanders, without ever being able to be separated from that County. This inseparability doth necessarily exclude the Devolution, and the rather, because the County of Flanders to which it is united doth no ways acknowledge this Custom.  
As for what concerns Artois, the Custom which he citys is not received; and the disposition of the 27th Article which he alleges extends no farther than to the Goods that are situated within the Sheriffdom of Arras, as is clear by the preceding Articles, and in the Text of the same Custom, which cannot only not be a Law to the Sovereignty, but cannot so much as be a Rule to the other Lands of the Country, which hath its general and received Customs, failing whereof it hath recourse to the written Law. And though this Custom of Arras gives some right to the Children upon the Goods of the Survivor, it is notwithstanding far different from the Devolution in all its effects, as those may observe who shall have the curiosity to read it. And it is so limited to the place, that though it affects the Movables, yet those cannot be seized on which are out of the Sheriffdom. But by the general and the received Custom of this Province, there is neither Devolution nor Intervestiture, (as they call it:) on the contrary, by the 139. Article the Survivor inherits one half of all the Movables of the first deceased, and by the 134. the Husband hath the Administration of all the Goods of his Wife, and can alienate the Unmovables without her consent; which is altogether opposite to the Intervestiture. The 176. Article, which is urged against us, concerns not the Children of the First Bed, so much the more, because that in the 94. the Eldest carries away all the Fiefs without distinction of the first or second Marriage, and succeeds for his share with the Children both of the one and the other Bed.  
The Texts which he alleges against this drawn from the 4th Article, Chapter 105, and from the 3d Article, Chapter 91, and others, are applied by this Author directly against the true sense, and the ordinary practice of the Custom: For if we consider Hainault as a Fief, it is out of doubt that the Males of the Second Bed do exclude the Daughters of the First; of which the practice is so regularly observed in all the Tribunals of that Province, that it is to go directly against a known Truth to bring this Question so much as in Controversy. From whence it follows, that the Customs which he citys cannot be understood in reference to Fiefs, but where there is a concurrence of Male against Male, or of Daughter against Daughter, of two Beds; in which case the Male of the first Marriage carries it before those of the Second Bed, and the same doth the Daughter of the First Marriage before those of the Latter: But when the Question is betwixt Male and Female, the thing is out of all debate in favour of the Male. But if, on the contrary, they will make Hainault pass for a Freehold, it is indubitable that the Father may dispose of it by Advice and by Testament, and also by Substitution; as is certain by the 6. Article of the same, Chapter 105. The 9 Article of the 94. Chapter which he citys speaks only of those Fiefs that come by Collateral Succession, and cannot be made a Precedent in relation to Free-holds, which the Parents may dispose of: and that which he adds, that according to the same Custom the direct Donations do pass for Purchases, is absolutely false, when the Donation is made under the Title of a Portion: and it is a monstrous thing, that they should offer to make pass for a Purchase the Reversion of those Provinces in the person of Philip the IVth, since it was expressly provided in the said Donation, and that King Philip the Second and the Prince his Son had never consented to it but under this Clause of Reversion: so that in the recovery of these Fiefs they are returned into their first nature, of being the Legal Patrimony of the Line of Philip the IIᵈ; and they did always remain such, notwithstanding the Donation, and chief in what relates to Hainault. For if it be considered as a  having been given with a Clause of Reverting, it stays always in its quality of Patrimony; and if it be a Patrimonial Fief, it is in the same quality likewise that it returns back again to the Giver. We might also say that as being a Fief it could not be legally given away, since it is certain that the Fathers in the County of Hainault may not dispose of them by Advice, but by way of Disinheriting: so that on which side soever it be taken, it is impossible France should find their advantage. But 'tis to dwell too long upon these Customary practices, and to injure Princes, to weigh their Rights in so weak and so unequal a Balance.  
I cannot here omit, in passing, to desire the Reader to observe one notable Artifice by which France would give a false weight to her bad Cause by begged Authorities, and subtly stolen by a witty Surprise. The Author of the Queen of France's Rights makes his great Battery thereof, and thinks to confound the Readers with these specious words, of Universities which France hath consulted, of Doctors from all parts who have subscribed to their Opinions; and, if we will believe him, our Condemnation is decreed by the unanimous consent of all the most renowned Lawyers. But because he is in possession of never reporting matters of fact in their true circumstances, his bad memory ought to be a little helped, and he made remember, that they have indeed attempted some Universities and particular Doctors to maintain these Opinions, of which some have fallen into the Trap, and now detest their inconsiderate Lightness; others have had a sharper sight, and would give no Decision upon so indeterminate a fact and ill explicated: The Question hath been proposed to them under borrowed names, without reducing it to the terms of the true Fact whereof at present we are treating; they never mentioned to them that Sovereignties were the thing in question, whereof some are Fiefs of the Empire, and others independent; they concealed the Act and the Clauses of the Renunciation, as well as its Causes and the End thereof; they never knew that it was covenanted by a Treaty of Peace between two Kings, & agreed to by a Contract of Marriage inseparable from that of the Peace; they were never told of the causes which France had given to the delay of the Payment of the Portion; they took a great deal of care not to make it appear that the Goods which they pretended to were inseparably united among themselves by a Fundamental Law of the State; and without furnishing them with any of those instructions which might have been useful to them in the framing of a solid judgement, they satisfy themselves with the mere questioning them upon the right of Devolution, and with the enquiring of them whether a Father could alienate his Goods to the prejudice of a Right devolved to his Children, If a Daughter might renounce a Succession which was fallen to her, If a Minor might be relieved against an enormous Laesion, If a Renunciation made purely in contemplation of the Portion ought to hold, when the Portion hath not been assigned upon the Goods of the Father, and that the very payment had not its effect; and so of the rest. They have answered to these Propositions according to the disposition of Common Law and the practice of the Local Customs. But from whence comes it that the French Writers, who have stuffed their works with so many unuseful Allegations, durst never produce any of these Consultations, which, no doubt, (had they touched the Case) would have been of more force than all that they have alleged in their works? The cause of this silence is easily to be divined: It is by reason that they could not spread them abroad without discovering at the same time the vain illusion of their captious proceeding, and overturning all the strength of these same Authorities, by detecting that they were all surreptitiously extorted.  
But to put the business home to them, we shall willingly consent that the fact be reduced to its true Species, and that it be referred to the Judgement of the most famous Universities in Europe, excepting only those who by preoccupation of mind, or by the common subjection of their Country, are not in a condition to think that which they ought, nor to utter ingenuously that which they think.  
Let us conclude this Article then with a Dilemma, which proves demonstratively that the Queen of France hath no manner of Right, which way soever this business be looked upon. For either the Devolution hath place as to the Sovereignties, or not. If it be received in them, than the 
* The House of Savoy.  Successors of Catharine are the lawful Lords of all the Lands which are subject to this Custom; this is unquestionable. But if the Devolution be of no force in relation to Lording Fiefs, all the Pretensions which France doth build on this Title are annihilated. So that all this great heap of Titles and inventions, which he hath with so much solicitude gathered together to uphold the Right of the Queen of France, cannot operate (though it were approved of) but in favour of a third party; and thus thinking to plead the Cause of the Queen, he hath acted only for the Duke of Savoy.   

ARTICLE VI.  
A Discourse touching the Interest of Christian Princes in this War, and the precife Obligation of the Estates of the Empire for the Warranty of the Circle of Burgundy etc.  
THere are two Motives of different nature which ought to incite the Princes of Christendom to undertake the defence of our Cause; the one is the Interest of State, the other is a strict Obligation of Justice. The first regards generally all the Potentates of Europe; the second is particular only to the Princes and States of the Empire: the one depends upon their foresight and their wise Conduct; the other is joined to the duty of the last, to the Fundamental Laws of their State, to the Treaties of Peace and Warranty, and to the reciprocal bond which unites all the Members of this vast Body, which makes all its Greatness and Glory, and which is the only foundation of its Quiet and Safety. We will begin with the first, as being more universal, and more considered at this day in the World; and that will guide us insensibly to the second; to let both the one and the other see, that our Business is theirs, that our Commotion is their Trouble, and our Fall their own Ruin. It is our business here to uphold the Law of Nations which is common to all, and to hinder that Maxims may not be introduced into the World which would destroy the whole Commerce of mankind, and render humane Societies as dangerous as the company of Lions and Tigers. Here it is our design to defend the public Faith of Treaties against the Subtleties of litigious Pleading; to preserve the Law of Arms within the Rules and Formalities which the universal Consent of all Nations hath established; and to remove out of the sight of Christendom a scandalous Example, which by its lamentable consequences would expose the weakest to the discretion of the more powerful, and would make Force the sole Arbiter of all Processes. We treat of the way to stop the course of a rapid Torrent, against the Impetuosity whereof Peace, Marriage, Oaths, Blood, Kindred, Friendship, and Condescensions are not Banks strong enough to keep it within its Channel. It is our purpose to defend the common Bulwark against a vast Design, which hath for its cause nothing but the predominant desire of Conquests, for its end Dominion, for its means Arms and Intricacies, nor for its limits any thing but what Chance will prescribe. In fine, we are here to decide the fortune of Europe, and to pronounce the Sentence either of its Freedom or Slaverie.  
Here I resolve to shake off all manner of interessed thoughts which I may have for my party; I will consider myself in this Article no more then as a simple Citizen of the World: and to shelter myself the better from all suspicions of Partiality, I will found my Discourse on no other Principles but those which I shall draw out of French Authors.  
Since the Providence of God was pleased to raise the most August House of Austria to this high pitch of Greatness which hath dazzled the eyes of Envy, we have seen growing in the heart of France the lamentable seeds of this unjust Emulation, which for so many years together hath produced all the Misfortunes & Troubles of Christendom. The principal Game of the French hath been, to diffuse this Jealousy everywhere, and to render its Jaundice contagious, representing unto all the other Princes the Power of this August House as a fearful Phantasm which would swallow them up, and giving themselves out for the only Perseus' able to deliver fettered Europe from the fury of this Chimerical Monster, whereof they had made to them a vain Bugbear. But experience hath made it known, that they only did render our Power suspected, to raise their own; that they did fright others with us, only to make themselves necessary; and did not offer them their protection, but to become their Masters, and make them the Instruments of their Ends. Many have blindly fallen into this snare, and, to avoid an imaginary Danger, have thrown themselves into a real Precipice. This Artifice was so successful, that a part of Europe put itself in Arms against the Valour and Good fortune of Charles the Vth, and the profound Wisdom of his Successor: and all this Commotion was founded upon one only Principle of State which the French Writers have established with an extraordinary diligence, and upon which the Duke of Rohan had made roll all his Treatise of the Interest of Princes; That there are two Powers in Christendom which be like the two Poles, from whence all the Influences of Peace and War do descend upon the other States.  
From whence he draws this Maxim to regulate the Conduct of all other Princes, That their principal Interest is to hold the Balance so equally betwixt these two Great Monarchies, that neither of them, either by the way of Arms or Negotiation, may ever come to prevail notably; and that in this Equality doth solely consist the Repose and Safety of all the rest. Though he doth apply this Maxim very ill to the particular use of France, and artificially serves his turn with it as of a false Lure, insensibly to draw all the other Potentates into the French nets; it is notwithstanding very wholesome in itself, and if it had been managed with all the vigour and prudence which was necessary to render it useful, Europe at this day should enjoy a perfect Tranquillity. But many have been mistaken by a false supposition, that the Power and the Designs of Spain were more to be apprehended then those of France; and that by this very Reason of State they were obliged to put the Counterpoise into the French Scale of the Balance.  
'Tis easy to believe that at present none will be found not fully undeceived of this error in matter of Fact, which hitherto made them abandon their true Reason of State. But to examine this Question in its fountain, and in every circumstance belonging thereunto, it will be to the purpose to compare the most flourishing State of the House of Austria under the glorious Reigns of Charles the Vth and Philip the IIᵈ, and the Maxims of these two Princes, with the present state and manner of acting of France; and than it will be clearly discerned by this parallel, that all which was apprehended from us at that time by a Panic fear, now is to be feared and prevented in regard of the French, by the solid principles of a true Prudence.  
To discourse well of this, we must consider the Situation both of the one and the other Monarchy, the Genius of the Princes which govern them, and the Inclinations of their People, the Maxims of their Government, and the circumstances of their Conduct both passed and present. This would require a large Discourse; I shall content myself only to touch, in passing by, the Essentials, and leave the Consequences to the consideration of the Readers.  
The Monarchy of Spain is a large Machine which cannot easily be shaken, but which cannot likewise move with the Agility which is necessary to foreign Enterprises. The Situation of this Monarchy is advantageous for its own Defence, being compassed with the Sea and the Pyrenean Mountains: but it is inconvenient for invading other States, because of the defect of a nearer conjunction betwixt the Members thereof, which cannot hold any Communication with one another but by the large Channels of the Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, which do expose their Designs to all the injuries of Wether, and to the inconstancy of an Element on which no just measures can ever be taken. The Union of the Empire to the power of Spain in the person of Charles the Vth was rather a step to the design of becoming greater, than any addition to his power: he espoused with the Empire all the Quarrels of Religion and of State which the conjuncture of those times had stirred up in that great Body, which did take up, in favour of others, the most part of his care and forces. In a word, this powerful Monarchy seems to have been raised by God to be the Bulwark of the rest, against the Turk in Hungary and in Italy, against the Moors in Spain, and against France both in the Low-countrieses and in Italy: But the neighbourhood of these three Powers by which it is environed is a strong bar to stop its Designs, if it should endeavour to form too vast ones.  
The Genius of its Princes is suitable to its Situation; They are naturally Courteous, and inclined to Virtue; and if they have exceeded in any thing, it never was but in Goodness. Charles the Vth loved noble Glory; but he had so little Ambition, that he resigned the Empire to his Brother, and all his Kingdoms to his Son, and used his Victories with so great Moderation, that he reaped no other benefit thereby, than the Honour to have overcome, and the satisfaction to have preserved his Realms.  
Philip the Second, according to the confession of the Duke of Rohan himself, had no inclination at all to Arms, nor ever took them up but for his Defence, or out of necessity to humble those who fomented Rebellions within his Kingdoms.  
It is to join two inconsistent things, to represent him in one and the same time as an enemy to War, and yet ardent to obtain Conquests. His Successors have been endowed with so rare Clemency, that their activeness had never appeared to the eyes of the World, if the necessity of their defence had not excited and in a manner constrained them to show themselves. The people of Spain, and of the other Kingdoms which live under the same Dominion, are naturally friends to Quietness, enemies to Novelty, satisfied with their present Condition, and have not the least propension or itching to trouble their Neighbours. But if we consider the Maxims which these great Princes have followed, we shall find that the principal to which they have most adhered are directly opposite to those of conquerors.  
The first is, To keep inviolably the Faith of public Treaties, which are powerful bridles to the Ambition of a Prince who desires to extend his Limits, and do put great obstacles to his Designs, by making him a Slave to his Word. It cannot be found in all the Lives of these Monarches, since the Emperor Charles the Vth till our time, that ever they have broken or prevaricated in any Treaty, nor began a War for the enlarging of their Limits.  
The second, To prefer Religion always before Reason of State; which is directly contrary to the Rule of conquerors, who do dexterously make use of all sorts of Sects to compass their own Ends.  
The third, Not to make use of their Victories, and the Advantages of their Arms, nor of those of their Allies: for we find that in all the Actions of those 
* Charles the Vth, Philip the IId.  two great Monarches, they never applied any one of their Conquests to their own particular benefit, except what did belong unto them by just Successions.  
The fourth, To rule according to the Laws, and leave their People in the peaceable possession of their Privileges; which amongst Conquerors would pass for an essential fault, against the first Principles of their Politics, which require before all other things, that they make themselves absolute and independent at home, and that they break all the Chains of Domestic Laws which might hinder their actings abroad.  
The fifth, Never to admit neither League, nor Alliance, nor Commerce, nor Peace with the common Enemy of Christendom. This is a bad undertaking of the Design of rendering themselves Masters of Europe, when they draw upon themselves the emulation and the hatred of the Tyrant of Asia. Let us add to all these things the mature Circumspection which they observe in their Counsels, which renders their Resolutions more slow, and less active, then is requisite to a Conqueror, who ought to give more to Fortune then to Prudence. This made a famous French Author say, 
Malherbe in his Epistles.  If it were true that Spain aspired to the Universal Monarchy, he would advise them to desire God to grant a respite of the end of the World.  
France is a Kingdom that hath all its Parts united, abounding with Men, industrious in Commerce, which gains with their Baubles and their Modes the money of all other Nations, which hath considerable Harbours upon the Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and in their neighbourhood no considerable powers to fear but that of the House of Austria,  
The Genius of the Nation is naturally inclined to Arms, full of heat, unquiet, lovers of Novelty, desirous of Conquests, quick, active, and inclinable to all manner of Expedients which they conceive to be advantageous to their particular Ends.  
The Maxims of their Government (according to what may be gathered from their Conduct both passed and present, by their own Writers, and by the same Treatise of the Duke of Rohan) are the following.  
First, To entertain always War abroad, and exercise their young Nobility at the expense of their Neighbours.  
This is a most politic Maxim, and most suiting with their own utility, but most troublesome to all the rest of the World. In effect, it is certain that the Genius of the Nation is such, that it cannot endure to subsist long in the Idleness of Peace; there must: be Aliment for this Fire, and if some were not given it from abroad, it would form to itself matter at home. To this natural Propension must yet be added the Custom of most part of their Provinces, and the particular Dispositions of Noble Families, which give so great advantages to the Elder Brothers, that they leave almost nothing to the younger but their Industry and Sword: and as they do not cultivate Letters, and their Quality suffers them not to apply themselves to Mechanic Trades; there is nothing left to them but the Wars or Robberies, to preserve themselves from Misery. Whence it comes that this Kingdom always finds itself filled with an idle and boiling Youth, ready to undertake all, and which seeks employment for their valour, at whose cost soever it be. The liberty which they had heretofore of voiding this Bilious humour, and of running to supposititious glory by single Combats, is at present taken from them by just Decrees: the little shifts of Industry by which formerly they sheltered themselves from want are now severely prohibited: But at the same time that all ways are shut unto them, whereby to open their spleen in their own Country, the Politicians of France held it necessary to furnish them with another gate by which they might evaporate this Flame, which would gnaw their own Bowels if it did not find another vent.  
Moreover, as the greatest Revenues of the Crown of France consist in the Purse of the People, and that the excessive Contributions cannot be exacted in times of Peace, without making a great many Malcontents; it is necessary to feed them with the smoke of some Conquests, and always to have pretexts to remain in Arms, and maintain by force the Royal Authority, which hath so strangely overflowed the limits of their Fundamental Laws.  
As it is impossible for them to satisfy all the Princes and great men of their Realm, and that ever since the Reign of Henry the IIIᵈ they have taken it for a Rule of their Conduct, to bring them low so far as they can; it is extremely convenient to hold them employed in foreign Wars, and to incite them to glory, that they may be consumed in ruinous undertake.  
Their second Maxim is, To enter into all sorts of Affairs either by right or wrong, and everywhere to make themselves the Arbiters either by violence or by cunning, by Authority or by surprise, by threaten or by friendship, and to get in as Mediators even into those Treaties of Peace wherein they are interessed as Parties; as they pretended to do in that of the Bishop of Munster, and do actually practise in the Assembly at Breda. In all the Differences, either past or present, they have never doubted to take Party; there never yet was Quarrel in which they had not dexterity enough to form unto themselves some kind of Interest, and some Rights; nor did ever any People show the least inclination towards Rebellion, but instantly they made them their Allies. But experience hath made it visible, that they never entered into any War but to exasperate it, nor into any Peace but to sow the seeds of new Disputes. It would be superfluous to number them, since there is no body so little versed in the ancient Story who does not confess this truth, and that the modern Examples have made us know it sufficiently. In the last Troubles of Germany, into which they thrust themselves at first under the colour of Protection, with a thousand specious protestations that they would never pretend any thing for themselves, but barely the satisfaction of their Allies; when the business came to its full Crisis, they dismembered Alsatia from the Body of the Empire, by the same Artifice with which they had dissolved from it 
* Metz, Toul, and Verdun.  three Bishoprics under the Reign of Henry the Third.  
The third Maxim is, To have for their only Rule the Interest of State, so that the Faith of Treaties, the good of Religion, or the ties of Blood and Amity cannot hold them. 'Tis this that the Duke of Rohan puts for the fundamental Principle of all his Work; The Princes command over the People, Interest commands over Princes. All that the Turks have done in Christendom since Francis the First to our time, they own it to the Alliances of the Crown of France with the Ottoman Port, and to the Diversions which they have made in their favour against all those who have desired to undertake something against this Common Enemy. And though that the Protestant Religion is beholding to it for a part of its progress; yet France doth not therefore desist from giving secret intelligences to the Catholics, to make them consider its power, as the only, which being tied by no Capitulation, is therefore in a condition to reduce all Sects under the Obedience of the Church. In a word, for the erection of their Monarchy, they do imitate and apply to ill uses the Maxim which St. Paul practised for the enlarging of the Kingdom of Christ, Factus sum omnibus omnia: and as this Apostle complied with all sorts of spirits to gain them to the Church, weeping with the afflicted, and taking part in the consolation of those which he found to be satisfied; these, by a wrong Imitation of this holy Conduct, conform themselves to the Interests of all the World, to make them serve theirs, and sacrifice Religion as often as it comes in competition with the Interest of State. The examples are so fresh, that we need not make any enumeration of them: and many things might be said on this subject, in reference to the last War against the Turks, if Modesty did not oblige us to suppress them.  
Their fourth Maxim is, To keep as much as they can foreign States occupied and divided at home, or else engaged in some external War. England, the Empire, Italy, Denmark and Spain have had a sad Experience of this; and now both Poland and the States of the United Provinces do resent the deplorable effects thereof.  
All these Maxims are proper to Conquerors, and as many infallible marks of a vast and profound Design long ago contrived. The Predecessors of the most Christian King could not bring it to perfection, because the Civil Wars, the power of Spain, and the just Limits which the Royal Authority then acknowledged, were powerful Barrs to stop them: but at present, having imposed at home an absolute Law over all their Subjects, and having put Dissension amongst all Strangers, there remains nothing but that they overcome the third Impediment, by completing the overthrow of the Monarchy of Spain, that they may pass upon our Ruins to the Conquest of all the other States. To attain this, it was necessary they should full us asleep with the Assurances of Peace, and Propositions of Leagues and Union: The War of Portugal was carefully to be nourished, to consume by a slow fire this Monarchy, and keep at the same time Portugal in their dependency, by the necessity of their Assistance: A War must be raised between England and Holland, and prolonged by a thousand Artifices, to get themselves elbow-room to Invade the Low-Countries, whilst these two great Powers should be drowned in Blood to their reciprocal Ruin. It was held requisite to sow the Seeds of Division in the Empire by the means of particular Leagues, which, under colour of the Good of the Peace of Germany, have no other End then to facilitate the Invasion of it, and hinder Assistance to be given to one of its most precious Members. A powerful Faction likewise was to be raised in Poland, to keep all the Princes of the North under check, and a part of the Emperor's Forces unusefully employed in the Guard of his Frontiers. To seem indifferent to both Religions, it was necessary one while to assist the Elector of Mentz against those of Erfort, and then the Elector Palatine against Mentz; and to seek everywhere their Advantages in the Troubles of others.  
I cannot here omit one fresh Example which makes much to my purpose, though I foresee that it will occasion as much horror in the Reader as it hath done to my own Pen. France, by virtue of a Treaty of Warranty with the States of the United Provinces, after divers unuseful Requisitions made by the said States, found herself at last obliged, by her Interest, to make some show of an inclination to embrace their Defence against England. This Treaty of reciprocal Warranty expressly contains, that the Allies should not so much as treat, and much less conclude any Peace with the Common Enemy, or Truce, without the consent of the other, and without procuring the same Satisfaction for their Ally which he should obtain for himself. The States of the United Provinces did so scrupulously adhere to this Obligation, that notwithstanding the little Reality of the French Succours against England, and the considerable Advantages which they could have found by Treating apart, they would never lend an ear unto any Proposition of this nature. France, on the contrary, always held a Negotiation open by the means of the Earl of S. Alban: and upon the just Suspicions which they gave unto the said States, by the frequent go and come, and the flux and reflux of Courriers, continually passing betwixt Paris and London, the Court of France did so authentically confirm to them their Faith, and gave them so positive words, that they would never hearken to any Proposition but in the common Assembly for the General Peace between all the Allies, that even they ordained the Count de l'Estrade, that in case credit were not given to what he assured in the quality of Ambassador, so good an opinion have they of the honesty of their Ministry) he might divest himself of his Character, to assure them of it in his own name. A great honour indeed for Monsieur de l'Estrade, which shows that he is not capable of deceiving but in the quality of a Minister of France, and that the Probity of his Person exalts the Dignity of his Charge. Notwithstanding, if he had been so unadvised as to have engaged himself in this Surety, he would at this day have found himself liable both to the Principal and the Interest; it being out of doubt that England hath had the dexterity to engage France in this Quagmire, to conclude a secret Treaty of Peace with them without the Consent, nay without the Knowledge, of their Allies, without making any mention of them or of their Interests, and without any reservation of or relation to the General Peace. But that which is yet more astonishing is, that after this Peace was concluded, notwithstanding the Promise made to the English not to use any Hostility against them, France used all its endeavours with the States of the United Provinces to put out their Fleet speedily to Sea, binding themselves to join their own Fleet with it, and agreeing with them upon all the Conditions necessary for this effect. If this proceeding doth not open the eyes or all Europe, they'll have no cause to complain of the Calamities which they are to suffer by France, which takes so much pains to undeceive them.  
All the Maxims which I have above related are those of Conquerors; but their manner of executing them is so much the more to be feared, as it consists altogether in Quickness and Activity, and that no Reason of Justice, nor any Condescension to the Interposition of Neighbours, and of their own Allies, is able to stop the current of it. It is no more now the fear nor the jealousy of the Power of the House of Austria, which served them for a Pretext in their former Wars, that makes them act at this day; they dare no longer make use of that ridiculous Scarecrow of the Universal Monarchy aimed at by the Spaniards; they have no occasion from the Discontents of the Protestants of Germany, and their Alliances with the United Provinces; they can no longer cloak with the Interest of others the Itch which they have to conquer: there remained nothing else for them to do, but to go seek the occasions of War in the very Sanctuary of Peace, and to form the project of it upon a Marriage, which they themselves do avow was made for no other End but to render the Union eternal and inseparable.  
It may be judged by all this discourse, that these great Designs must needs have a vaster Idea than the Conquest of the Low-Countries; that they are the first attaqued as the Outworks, to the end they may lodge themselves without impediment in the Body of the place they have Pretensions to, the greatest part of Gemanie, as an ancient Domain of France, which could not be alienated. They are going to form to themselves a Precedent against the States of Holland, by the Annulling of all the Royal Surrenders, and the Establishment of the Devolution. They covet Harbours in Spain, Leagues in the Empire, Factions in Poland, Wars in England, and Holland, Passes into Italy, and the Sovereign Arbitrage . Their Quiet consists in the Trouble of all others, their Glory in Conquests, and their Advantage in the public Calamities. In this they follow their sole and supreme Rule of Interest. It is the part of all others to take their measures from this, and to think seriously of prosecuting their own.  
There remains something to be said of the particular Obligation of the Empire for the Defence of the Circle of Burgundy. I shall pass but lightly over this matter, because it is already decided by a solemn Act of the Chancery of the Empire; and that he who hath written on this Point at Ratisbon hath penetrated in few words so throughly into the Bottom of this Affair, and so drained it, that he hath left nothing to be added, no more then to be replied thereto. In effect, I never read any thing more cold nor weak than the Answer which was long since published on the behalf of France against this solid Writing: It is filled with an unuseful heap of words, shuns the Lists everywhere, strays from the Question, omits the principal Objections, and supposes the Point still in controversy to be a thing already proved. It enlarges itself into great complaints, because by this Writing it appears as if people would doubt that the most Christian King had a design to Invade the Circle of Burgundy. They could not more palpably manifest the Injustice of this War, then by taking for an Injury the bare Suspicion which we conceived thereof. But what will he say at present, when all Europe sees that our Fears were a prudent Foresight, and that the Event hath verified our Conjectures? Can he to day make that pass for an act of Justice, which he detested before as an Attempt which we could not so much as foresee without offending them? Will he not blush for shame at the Exclamation which he hath made, Aut quasi Christianissima Regia Majestas in animo haberet eundem Circulum denuo Armis aggredi, & invadere? It was then a Crime but to think that this could happen; and now it is a greater, it seems, with them, to wonder that it is come to pass.  
But in the end, no man doubts but that the Circle of Burgundy is a Member of the Empire: the Author of this Answer grants it to be so himself, and thus dispenses with my pains to prove it.  
He knoweth also that as such it is obliged to assist the Body in case of necessity, and all the Members of the Empire, and to furnish its proportion of the Contributions which are necessary to the Defence thereof; which the King hath exactly and superabundantly accomplished on all sorts of occasions, both before and after the Treaty of Munster. And by the rule of Law, he that is obliged to all the Charges, ought likewise to participate of all the Advantages: otherwise the Union of this Circle with the Empire would be a Leonine Society. All the World knows that this Warranty is reciprocal, and that it must equally hold on both sides; so that he who is bound to secure the Empire against all, and on all manner of occasions, ought also to receive the mutual Assistance of the Empire against all those who do invade him.  
It is likewise certain, that by the Treaty of Munster it is included in that Peace as a Circle of the Empire, and that by this inclusion it ought to enjoy all the Rights and Prerogatives which appertain to the other Circles, and all the effects of the Peace, by which the common and reciprocal Defence is established.  
Against which they have nothing to oppose but an Article ill understood, and worse interpreted, of the Treaty of Munster, de mutuis Hostibus non juvandis, by which the Empire and France do reciprocally oblige themselves not to give any Assistance to their respective Enemies.  
France hath directly contravened this Article by the Assistance which she sent against the Bishop of Munster, which effectually did enter into the Lands of the Empire; and by the Counsel she gave to reduce this Bishopric into Ashes,  
But for the better understanding of this Article, we must observe that it is concluded betwixt the Body of the Empire indivisibly on the one part, & France on the other, which do reciprocally promise not to assist the Enemies of each other. Here the Empire with all its Members is reckoned but one Party contracting, and France the other: so that when it is said that it shall not assist the Enemies of France, it should be understood of Enemies abroad, and cannot concern the Members of the Empire, which in one Body are the same Parties which have treated with her, and to which all the Body owes defence, by an original, natural, and undispensable obligation. Were this otherwise understood, it might be inferred by the same Argument, that in case the Empire did assault any Province belonging to the Crown of France, the other Provinces of the same Realm could not go to their Assistance without violating the Article de non juvandis Hostibus. If France doth reply, that those Provinces make up but one Kingdom, we shall also say, that the Ten Circles do constitute but one Empire; so that when France hath War with any one Circle of the Empire, it is a War made against the whole Body: And the word mutui hosts cannot be interpreted but of Strangers; else the Body of the Empire had obliged itself not to assist its Members against France, and by consequence to abandon itself, and to see itself dismembered by parcels, while the Parts of this great Body should not dare to stretch forth their hands to the help of one another. But in this case it is not to give Assistance to the Enemies of France, but it is to defend the Empire against France, which doth invade it. If this Clause, de mutuis Hostibus non juvandis, be universal, and do comprehend all those with whom France hath any debate, it would operate against all the other Circles, as well as that of Burgundy, and there shall be no Member of the Empire which may hope for any Relief from the other Circles in opposition to the Invasions of France. But if they will apply it particularly to the Circle of Burgundy, they must prove, by the same Instrument of Peace, that although it be a Member of the Empire, it is of the number of those Enemies which it cannot assist against France; and that the other Circles are excepted out of this general Rule, or that they have some particular Privilege above that of Burgundy. But neither the Treaty of Peace nor the Imperial Constitutions making it to be in a worse condition than the others, and on the contrary including it in the same Peace and the same Rights which the other Circles do enjoy; it follows, that the Clause de non juvandis Hostibus ought to be extended to the Ten Circles, or that it ought not to comprehend that of Burgundy. The Imperial Capitulation, which is form upon the Idea of the same Treaty of Peace, doth yet more clearly explicate all the Doubts which may be raised touching a truth so palpable, by the reservation of the Article of Warranty contained in the Instrument of Peace: which shows clearly that the Obligation not to assist the Enemies of France cannot derogate from that which all the Circles of the Empire have reciprocally to assist each other. All that the Writer of France alleges against this in his Answer is but a frothed Cream, and is so strongly refuted in the Reply which of late hath come to light, that it were lost labour to endeavour to give it any farther clearing.  
The Electors, Princes and States of the Empire, are fully persuaded of these Truths; they are not unsensible of the Contempt done to their Jurisdiction openly violated by this Attempt; they are not blind to the Dangers which threaten them by our Oppression: but as they never go from the ways of Moderation, they would not imitate France, by beginning, after their Example, the Process by the Execution, judging that it behoved them to try the means of Gentleness, Reason, and Remonstrances, first, before they should recurre to the last remedy. But they are too sharp-sighted to suffer themselves to be dazzled any longer with void and undetermined Answers, by which France, under the general expression of a seeming desire of Peace, obstructs all the passages by which they might enter to an exact discussing of the Business. In effect, to the Suspension of Arms which they have proposed, they have had no Return but that of a disdainful Refusal; to the Mediation which they offered, a doubtful Hope; and to the Time and Place of the Treaty, a Silence full of Artifice. They will see full Commissions before they declare themselves as to other circumstances, which (according to the order of all Treaties) necessarily ought to precede the sending of Plenipotentiaries: They take great care to persuade that our Queen hath cut off all kind of approaches to an Accommodation: They do of purpose conceal from their Deputies her last Answer, by which she offers to send her Ambassadors to the place which shall be agreed on, and to refer all to the Arbitration of the Mediators which should be chosen. They will have nothing of all this: a full Power must needs precede, without knowing whither the Plenipotentiaries shall be sent, or to whom they will refer themselves. So soon as this shall be consigned, they'll form Scruples upon every syllable; if there wants only a Comma, Spain shall be presently judged as an enemy to the Peace. In the mean time they go on always gaining ground, they render from day to day the Calamity more incurable; and whilst they labour by this Juggling to stop the just Assistance of the Empire and of the other Princes, the progress of their Arms advances without check, and they labour to put themselves in a condition to render all those Helps unprofitable which justly we may expect, and to deal so, that our Friends shall not be undeceived, till their Succours can no longer hinder our Ruin.  
The only Remedy is, quickly to embrace Maxims proper for countermining theirs. They have a Kingdom united in all the Parts of it; let us unite our Affections and Powers. Their Quietness depends upon our Trouble; let us seek our Safety by the abating of their Pride. They act by way of Fact; let us repel Force by Force. They dally with us by vain hopes of Peace; let us put ourselves in a condition to make them desire it seriously. In a word, they have a design upon us all: let us make then of this Cause a Common Interest, and not anchor all our Delivery upon the favour of the Cyclops; which was indeed profitable to Ulysses, but by a good fortune which in reason he ought not to have expected.   
FINIS.