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THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE 
 DUKE OF SULLY 
 
 AND 
 
 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 
 
 BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWIN D. MEAD 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF PEACE 
 
 GINN AND COMPANY, BOSTON 
 
 1909 
 

 2. 
 
 HlSTOUfT 
 
 Copyright, 1909, by 
 The International School of Peace 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 G1NN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
 PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 THIS EDITION OF 
 
 "THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 WHICH HE MOST CONSPICUOUSLY 
 
 AND EARNESTLY COMMENDED 
 
 TO THE ATTENTION 
 
 OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 IS DEDICATED 
 
 305383 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction, by Edwin D. Mead vii 
 
 The Great Design of Henry IV i 
 
 Passages Illustrating the History of the Great De- 
 sign 54 
 
 The United States of Europe, by Edward Everett 
 Hale 77 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Great Design " of Henry IV of France was the 
 first practical plan of a comprehensive character in modern 
 history for the federation of Europe. Europe in 1600 was 
 the civilized world ; and this was the great inaugural vision 
 in a series of visions, which, thus beginning, rapidly grew, 
 of an organized and peaceful world. Dante in his Monar- 
 chia had made his fervent plea for a revived and idealized 
 Roman Empire, as the ground and guarantee of European 
 unity ; but the three centuries between Dante and Henry 
 of Navarre had made it plain that the reconstruction of 
 the Roman Empire would never come, and that the unity 
 of which the great poet -patriot dreamed could only come 
 through the federation of independent states. 
 
 A forgotten and almost unknown plan for organizing 
 the European powers for the sake of peace deserves here 
 at least passing notice ; for it antedated by almost a cen- 
 tury the design of the great French king, and by much 
 more than a century the publication of his design. We 
 get the knowledge of it from Erasmus, who was the great- 
 est apostle of peace in his time. 1 There is an old letter 
 from Erasmus to a friend, written probably about 1 5 1 7, or 
 having reference to that period, alluding to an effort at 
 that time in behalf of the peace of Europe, which is so 
 
 1 For more complete notice of this significant historical incident, 
 see article by the present writer on " An Early Scheme to organize 
 the World," in the Independent, August 29, 1907. 
 
 vii 
 
J 
 
 viii THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 comprehensive and definite in its character that it may 
 almost be considered a " Great Design " previous to the 
 famous scheme of Henry IV. Erasmus says in this letter : 
 
 It was a favorite project about that time to assemble a Congress 
 of kings at Cambray. It was to consist of Maximilian the Emperor, 
 Francis the First, King of France, Henry the Eighth of England, 
 and Charles, the sovereign of the Low Countries, of which I am a 
 native. They were to enter, in the most solemn manner, into mutual 
 and indissoluble engagements to preserve peace with each other, and 
 consequently peace throughout Europe. This momentous business 
 was very much promoted by a man of. most excellent character, 
 William of Ciervia ; and by one who seemed to have been born to 
 advance the happiness of his country and of human nature, John 
 Sylvagius, chancellor of Burgundy. But certain persons who get 
 nothing by peace and a great deal by war threw obstacles in the way, 
 which prevented this truly kingly purpose from being carried into 
 execution. After this great disappointment I sat down and wrote, 
 by desire of John Sylvagius, my Querela Pacis. 
 
 The Complaint of Peace, although the most important 
 essay by Erasmus in behalf of international justice and 
 peace, was not his only nor his first impeachment of the 
 war system. He discussed the same subject in his pane- 
 gyric to Philip, Duke of Burgundy, at Brussels, in 1504, 
 and repeatedly afterwards. It is a thing to be remembered 
 that it was from the same land in which, at The Hague, 
 the Parliament of Man was in our own time to hold its 
 first memorable sessions for the definite inauguration of 
 the organization of the world, that the first conspicuous 
 and well-considered plea came for the supplanting of the 
 war system of nations by the methods of reason. 
 
 The world's great plans for order and peace have been 
 born often of the severe experience of disorder and war 
 and the burden of the loss and cost of war. Dante's 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 Monarchia was prompted by the anarchy rife everywhere in 
 Italy in the thirteenth century. The time of Erasmus was 
 the time when the great centralized monarchies were rising 
 upon the ruins of the feudal states, and the standing army, 
 a thing then new in history, was making its appearance as 
 a regular institution. Grotius's Rights of War and Peace 
 was published in the midst of the Thirty Years' War. "The 
 continued danger which lies in the heaping up of war 
 material transforms the armed peace of our time into a 
 crushing burden which peoples find it harder and harder 
 to bear," — to avert "the calamities which threaten the 
 whole world " from this was the necessity which drove 
 the Czar of Russia to call the first Peace Conference at 
 The Hague. The very name of Henry of Navarre sug- 
 gests the long civil conflict between the Catholics and the 
 Huguenots in France ; and the chapters of the history of 
 Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and England which were 
 coincident with his stormy career were chapters no less 
 tragical, and often yet more tragical, than those of the 
 history of France. If ever there was a time to prompt 
 rulers and statesmen to great designs for checking the 
 war system, it was this time. 
 
 Henry was born in 1553, the year that Mary Stuart It 
 became queen of England, three years before Charles V 
 abdicated in favor of Philip II, and when William the 
 Silent was just entering public life. He succeeded to the 
 throne of France in 1589, the year after the destruction 
 of the Invincible Armada, and five years after the assassi- 
 nation of William of Orange ; he fought the battle of Ivry : 
 in 1590, and promulgated the Edict of Nantes in 1598. 
 His illustrious reign — for greatest of all the kings of 
 France Henry surely was — and his life were ended by 
 
x THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 the hand of the assassin in 1610, seven years after the 
 death of Queen Elizabeth. Such is the barest chronology 
 of the life of the author of the " Great Design "; but it is 
 sufficient to recall to the reader with knowledge and im- 
 agination the character of the period in which he worked 
 and thought. 
 
 Henry's great minister was the Duke of Sully. Sully 
 played a part in the reign of the French king hardly in- 
 ferior to that played in the reign of Elizabeth — who, if 
 we may believe S ully, is to be looked o n as joint j iuthor 
 ^ with ^Henryjrfjhe M Great Design' ' itsel f — by Cecil, Lord 
 Burleigh. Unlike Burleigh, he wrote voluminous memoirs ; 
 and it is in these Memoirs of Sully that we are given the 
 account of the M Great Design." The Memoirs cover the 
 whole reign, and indeed almost the whole life, of the great 
 king. Henry was on his way to visit Sully when he was 
 assassinated. Sully lived until 164 1. He began to dictate 
 his Memoirs to his secretaries shortly after Henry's death, 
 these Memoirs being based largely upon journals and notes 
 which he had been preparing for many years. Only the 
 first two volumes, covering the years 1570 to 1605, were 
 completed in his lifetime, being printed in 1634. The un- 
 finished portion was transcribed by his secretaries, and the 
 third and fourth volumes were published at Paris in 1662, 
 more than twenty years after Sully's death. It is at the 
 % /l % »« ( end of the last volume that the special chapter devoted to 
 the M Great Design " appears, although many references 
 to it are scattered through preceding pages, and the two 
 long passages reprinted in the present volume after the 
 " Great Design " itself are of special significance. 
 
 The authenticity of the M Great Design " as the work of 
 Henry himself has been the subject of long and heated 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 controversy, a controversy that still goes on. Many have 
 charged Sully not only with casting the "Great Design " 
 in the shape in which we have it, but with its sheer fabri- 
 cation, for some purpose of his own. To me no adequate 
 motive for this appears ; and the respective qualities of 
 the minds of Henry and Sully make the conception of 
 the scheme the more natural for Henry, while the consid- 
 erable elaboration of it in some respects by Sully — who, 
 in the interview with James I, which he reports, professed 
 to have a leading part in developing it — as he came to 
 put it into literary form seems not unlikely. The settle- 
 ment of this vexed question does not concern us here. 
 Whether Shakespeare or Bacon wrote Hamlet, our chief 
 interest is in the possession of Hamlet. Whether the king 
 or his minister conceived the " Great Design," our chief 
 interest is in the fact that this broad and bold programme 
 of world organization was worked out in that critical period 
 of history. The controversy, however, has been so notable 
 and began so early that I incorporate here, as of probable 
 interest to many, the note relating to the matter appended 
 by the Abbe del' Ecluse to the chapter upon the " Great 
 Design " in his edition of Sully's Memoirs, published in 
 1747: 
 
 The Memoirs of Sully are the only monument which has preserved 
 to posterity an account of the great design of Henry IV. We find 
 no traces of it in any of the historians, authors of memoirs, or other 
 writers, who were contemporary with that prince ; their silence in 
 this matter proceeded, no doubt, from their not knowing enough of 
 it to say anything with certainty about it. The world did not begin 
 to descant upon it till the " Memoirs of Sully," wherein it is so clearly 
 described, were published ; and among all those who have considered 
 it ever since about the middle of the seventeenth century, I find 
 scarcely any who have questioned the possibility of executing it : 
 
Xii THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 doubtless, because they lived near enough to the times in which it 
 was formed to be convinced, even from the mouths of those who 
 had been witnesses of the preparations and dispositions which were 
 made, that all the measures had been taken precisely in the same 
 manner as related by the Duke of Sully ; and consequently, that it 
 would have had but few of those obstacles to encounter which have 
 since been raised against it. The author of a manuscript discourse 
 in the King's Library, which to me appears to be the most ancient 
 memoir we have of that time, seems not in the least to have doubted 
 of success in its execution. And M. de Perefixe, who, in the third 
 part of his history of Henry the Great, has given a short but very 
 accurate account of the scheme, says positively that it would have 
 succeeded ; and further confirms his assertion by proofs, which he 
 gives (p. 388 and following). The continuator of Thuanus, in what 
 little he has said of it (anno 1609-10), does not appear to have been 
 of a different sentiment. The Marshal de Bassompierre also, in his 
 Journal (torn, i.), seems to be in its favour. To these authorities we 
 may also join that of the author of the Life of the Duke of Epernon, 
 and some others, who all seem to be of the same opinion. Indeed, 
 until the beginning of the present century, all authors appear to 
 have been unanimous on this point ; and several of our modern his- 
 torians have joined them herein. Vittorio Siri (Mem. Recond. torn, 
 i. pp. 29, 514; torn. ii. p. 45, &c.) is the first that I know of by 
 whom this great enterprise has been treated as absurd and impossi- 
 ble ; but the ignorance which he shows in the whole affair, even in 
 those points which are the least contested, his attachment to the 
 Spanish politics, and his distance from the persons of Henry IV. 
 and his minister, which is every way apparent in all he says on the 
 subject, render him, in this respect, very justly exceptionable ; his 
 sentiments have been adopted by the author of the History of the 
 Mother and Son (torn. i. p. 44), and for a similar reason of attach- 
 ment to the queen, mother of Louis XIII. But this writer, such as 
 he is, producing no better authority for his opinion than the age of 
 Henry IV., who was then near sixty, appears also to have been so 
 entirely unacquainted with the affair, that we may, without scruple, 
 pronounce he was ignorant of the disposition which had been made 
 for the complete execution of it within the space of three years, and 
 that he condemns the design without understanding it. I have much 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 greater reverence for the authority of some modern politicians, who 
 consider it as a kind of impossibility thus to change the face of all 
 Europe in the manner proposed by Henry IV., and who imagine 
 that in our days a much more happy expedient has been discovered 
 whereby to obtain the equilibrium of Europe, than by reviving the 
 ancient council of the Amphyctions ; what I mean is the precaution 
 now observed of having all the principal powers of Europe accede 
 to, and become the guarantees of, every particular treaty. But all 
 those calamities which we have suffered in consequence of war do 
 but too plainly evince its insufficiency. In regard to the main stress 
 of the question, I agree with them that Europe could not now, but 
 with great difficulty, be constituted in the manner proposed by 
 Henry the Great; nevertheless I believe, without pretending to 
 subject any one to my opinion, that those who treat this prince's 
 design as a chimera do not pay all the necessary attention to the 
 circumstances of those times, wherein Europe, from her frequent 
 dangers of being subjected to the house of Austria, and by the 
 bloody wars which a difference of religion had excited, and continued 
 daily to excite, found herself in a manner compelled to have recourse 
 to extraordinary means to put a period to her miseries. I cannot 
 finish this remark better than in the words of M. l'Abbe de Saint- 
 Pierre, in his Discours sur le Grand Homme : N From hence we 
 may perceive, that if Henry IV., King of France, had executed his 
 celebrated and well-projected design, whereby to render peace per- 
 petual and universal among the sovereigns of Europe, he would 
 have procured the greatest possible benefit, not only to his own sub- 
 jects, but to all the Christian kingdoms, and even, by a necessary 
 consequence, to the world in general ; a benefit of which all genera- 
 tions, present and to come, would have participated down to the lat- 
 est time ; a benefit by which we should have been exempted from 
 those terrible and numerous evils which are the effects of foreign 
 and domestic wars; a benefit which would have been the source 
 of all those sweets which naturally flow from an uninterrupted and 
 universal tranquillity ; — if, I say, he had been so happy as to have 
 executed this great design, it would have rendered him, beyond all 
 comparison, the greatest man the world ever has produced or prob- 
 ably ever will produce." After some further reflections upon the 
 means still more practicable, this judicious author adds : " This prince, 
 
xiv THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 however, has always had the honour of being considered as the 
 author of the most important invention, and most useful discovery 
 for the benefit of mankind, that has yet appeared in the world ; the 
 execution of which may, perhaps, be reserved by Providence for the 
 greatest and most capable of his successors." 
 
 With the great body of controversial literature upon 
 the subject which has followed are associated the names 
 of Cornelius, Ritter, Kukelhaus, Philipson, and Pfister. 
 The critical view is sufficiently stated for the general 
 reader by Kitchin, in his History of France, as follows : 
 
 French historians are much divided respecting the problem of the 
 Christian Republic ; for while they wish to believe in so splendid a 
 conception of the international position of France, as the great cen- 
 tral figure round which all the rest are grouped, their historic sense 
 and judgment compel them to doubt, if not to deny, the genuineness 
 of the document on which it rests. ... No other writer of the age 
 alludes to the scheme. It would have been communicated, more or 
 less fully, to several of the Cabinets of Europe, yet dead silence pre- 
 vails ; no minister, for example, of either Elizabeth or James alludes 
 to it. This, taken with the weakness of the evidence in the (Econo- 
 mies^ is conclusive against the genuineness of the scheme with its 
 magnificent chimera of an European Amphictyonic assembly. . . . 
 It must not be supposed that Henry IV. had any such plan neatly 
 drawn out, and ready for execution, when he made his preparations 
 for appearing in Germany ; on the contrary, he was not at all the 
 man to have worked out any such elaborate design, for he had nei- 
 ther knowledge nor inclination for it. And besides this, there is in- 
 ternal proof which shows that it did not come from his hand. How 
 could he, the tamer of the noblesse, who knew them so well, and 
 was ever on his guard against them, have dreamt of proposing to 
 carve out ten principalities on his northern frontier for ten great 
 Lords of France? 
 
 Yet we must not absolutely deny the existence of any " great de- 
 sign " of the kind. It was an age of political speculations ; men's 
 attention was called to international questions, or invited to study 
 the nature of states within their own borders ; the classical examples 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 were much in vogue ; men asked themselves as to Empires, as to 
 Republics ; the pen kept pace with the sword, and showed its new 
 power in swaying public opinion. " Learning," as Hallam says of this 
 time, " was employed in systematic analyses of ancient or modern 
 forms of government"; these were the days of Bodinus' great work 
 De Republica ; now came out that singular collection of little books, 
 the "Elzevir Republics"; the minds of men had passed from the 
 Utopias of the previous age to more practical speculations as to 
 what State-systems existed, or might exist. They were conscious 
 that Europe had entered on an entirely new phase of being, and 
 were eager to see how she would group herself, what would be the 
 form of equilibrium to which they hoped she was tending. The 
 great struggle of the Thirty Years' War in Germany is heralded by 
 these anxious speculations ; for the true decision of the form of 
 European politics could never be come to, till Germany had fought 
 out the still unsettled questions which vexed her from the Alps to 
 the Baltic. The temper of mind corresponds to that which, in a 
 somewhat similar age, agitated the French nation under Napoleon 
 III., and led to maps of reconstructed Europe, and speculations on 
 the equilibrium of states, and wars made M for an idea." Therefore 
 there is nothing improbable in the existence of the scheme of a 
 Christian Republic before 1 6 1 o ; rather, it is very credible ; and if 
 we may trust Sully (in the earlier part of the (Economies) we may 
 trace the genesis of some plan of the kind, though doubtless not so 
 elaborate, in the sagacious speculations of Queen Elizabeth. Sully 
 states distinctly that he and the Queen discussed the great project in 
 1 60 1 , and that she first sketched out the plan of it, which in outline 
 answers to that of the Christian Republic. On her death the matter 
 seems to have been re-opened to King James, who characteristically 
 shrank from anything so large and decisive; though the young 
 prince Henry, perhaps with an eye to a French marriage, professed 
 his hearty liking for it. But James drew off from the French side, 
 and in 1604 made a separate peace with Spain. 
 
 We shall not be far wrong if we say that during the last years of 
 the life of Henry IV. he cherished hopes of overthrowing the Austro- 
 Spanish dominion in Europe, by means of a combination of French 
 with Dutch and North German interests ; that England failed him, 
 through her insular views, and the temper of her new monarch ; that 
 
xvi THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 this led him all the more to watch the movements in Germany and 
 to strive to settle the outstanding Dutch struggle in favour of the 
 Provinces ; and in the end made him once more buckle on his armour 
 for what might have been a decisive war. We may even go farther, 
 and believe that Henry had formed large plans for the aggrandise- 
 ment of the crown, not in the least plans of the lofty and disinter- 
 ested kind attributed to him by Sully. Of this we have an account, 
 which is probably correct, in Richelieu's Memoirs. The Cardinal de- 
 scribes him as opening out his plans in 1 6 1 o to the Queen : to reduce 
 to his obedience Milan, Montferrat, Genoa, Naples ; to present most 
 of Milan and Montferrat to the Duke of Savoy, taking in exchange 
 Nice and Savoy ; to make Piedmont and the Milanese a kingdom ; 
 to call the Duke of Savoy (having lost his old territories) King of the 
 Alps ; and thus to secure the approaches of France into Italy ; on the 
 other side, having shown himself to the Italian princes as their friend 
 (one fancies one hears the voice of Napoleon the Third !), to pass 
 into Flanders and Germany, in order to wear out his enemies by 
 fanning into flame the smouldering variances between North and 
 South Germany, perhaps to make the Rhine his frontier, with three 
 or four strong fortresses on it. We may conclude, finally, that the 
 Christian Republic is not a formed scheme of Henry's planning, but 
 a romance, based on facts, and encouraged by the bold projects of 
 Queen Elizabeth, and the war-loving energy of the Duke of Sully. 
 
 This is the extreme critical view, and much that might 
 be said to counteract it is obvious. It is not necessary 
 here, however, to say it; for our primary concern is not 
 with the authorship of the u Great Design." The work 
 of the Abbe de l'Ecluse is to Dean Kitchin " audacious." 
 That work was the very bold editing and rearrangement 
 of Sully's Memoirs, to make the work more consecutive 
 and readable. Many liberties were certainly taken with 
 the text, from which confusions have resulted. L' Ecluse's 
 edition was published in 1 747 ; and Mrs. Charlotte Lenox 
 made her English translation in 1755. This was revised 
 in 1 8 10, the text of L'Ecluse being modified through 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 comparison with the original edition of the Memoirs ; and 
 the various editions which have followed in England and 
 America have been reprints of this London work of 1810. 
 The edition used for the present volume is that published 
 in Bohn's Library in 1856. The notes are chiefly the notes 
 of L'Ecluse, although it will be seen that certain notes are 
 those of the English editor. 
 
 The prime object of the '* Great Design," as Sully states, 
 was to reduce the House of Austria. It was therefore es- 
 sentially a political scheme, however great its general vir- 
 tues. The first plan for the federation of Europe which 
 was at once comprehensive and disinterested was that of 
 Wjfliajn_Perui r published in 1693, t hirty-one years after the 
 publication of the " Great Design. " It is noteworthy that 
 at the close of his essay Penn appeals for reinforcement 
 of his plan to Henry's similar scheme : 
 
 I confess I have the passion to wish heartily that the honor of 
 proposing and effecting so great and good a design might be owing 
 to England, of all the countries in Europe, as something of the nature 
 of our expedient was, in design and preparation, to the wisdom, justice 
 and valor of Henry the Fourth of France, whose superior qualities 
 raising his character above those of his ancestors or contemporaries 
 deservedly gave him the style of Henry the Great. For he was upon 
 obliging the princes and estates of Europe to a politic balance, when 
 the Spanish faction, for that reason, contrived and accomplished his 
 murder by the band of Ravilliac. I will not then fear to be censured 
 for proposing an expedient for the present and future peace of Eu- 
 rope, when it was not only the design but glory of one of the greatest 
 princes that ever reigned in it. This great King's example tells us it 
 is fit to be done. 
 
 In 1623, in Sully's lifetime, and forty years before the 
 account of the " Great Design" was published in the last 
 volume of his Memoirs, Emeric Cruce published in Paris 
 
xviii THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 his little book entitled Le ^fovecni Cynee, which contained 
 the first distinct proposal for substituting international 
 arbitration for war. It was long believed that the only 
 existing copy of this remarkable work was that in the Bib- 
 liotheque Nationale in Paris. There was a copy, however, 
 in the library of Charles Sumner, bequeathed by him to 
 Harvard University ; and this copy, long overlooked, has, 
 during the last year, been brought to light, and a trans- 
 lation of it will be published immediately in the Interna- 
 tional Library. It is noteworthy as the first flowering of 
 the peace cause on French soil, the creation of one who 
 was living in Paris during the reign of Henry the Fourth. 
 We cannot forget either that it was as an exile in France 
 that Grotius prepared his Rights of War and Peace, and 
 that this appeared at almost the same moment that Cruce 
 published his Nonvean Cynee. 
 \fc ^-Four years before the appearance of the last volume of 
 Sully's Memoirs, containing the account of the "Great 
 Design," was born the Abbe Saint-Pierre, who, not long 
 after the appearance of William Penn's Plan for the Per- 
 manent Peace of Europe, published his famous Project for 
 settling Perpetual Peace in Europe, in three volumes, the 
 most comprehensive and thorough presentation of the sub- 
 ject of the better organization of the world which had ever, 
 up to that time, been made. Saint-Pierre owed the inspira- 
 tion of his effort directly to the "Great Design," viewing 
 his plan as an elaboration of that. "It falls out happily for 
 this project," he wrote, " that I am not the author of it. It 
 was Henry the Great who was the inventor of it." Leib- 
 nitz, who in 171 5 made the "Project" of Saint-Pierre 
 the subject of an important paper in which he developed 
 his own thoughts upon international organization, wrote 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 personally to the author, and took satisfaction in the fact 
 that the project was supported by the practical authority of 
 Henry the Fourth. Later Rousseau revived the project of 
 Saint-Pierre, devoting a book to it ; and in a subsequent 
 pamphlet on Perpetual Peace he wrote : 
 
 I require only, in order to prove that the project of the Christian 
 Republic is not chimerical, to name its first author ; for assuredly 
 Henry IV. was no fool, nor was Sully a visionary. The Abbe' Saint- 
 Pierre felt himself warranted by these great names in reviving their 
 system. But what a difference in the times, the circumstances, the 
 proposal, the manner of doing it, and in the author ! To judge of 
 this difference let us glance at the general situation of affairs at the 
 moment chosen by Henry IV. for the execution of his project. . . . 
 But without anything transpiring of these grand designs, everything 
 marched on in silence towards their execution. Twice Sully went to 
 London ; the party was united in alliance with King James I., and 
 the King of Sweden was pledged on his side; the league was con- 
 cluded with the Protestants of Germany ; they were even sure of the 
 Princes of Italy ; and all contributed towards the great object without 
 being able to say what it was, just like the workmen who labour sep- 
 arately at the parts of a new machine of which they do not know the 
 form or the use. ... To so many preparations add, for the conduct 
 of the enterprise, the same zeal and the same prudence as had gone 
 to its formation, quite as much on the part of Henry's minister as 
 on his own ; at the head of the enterprise a captain such as himself, 
 while his adversary had nothing more to oppose to him, and you will 
 be able to judge whether anything which might be deemed favour- 
 able to success was absent from the promise of his. Without having 
 penetrated his views, Europe, attentive to his immense preparations, 
 awaited their results with a kind of terror. A slight pretext was to 
 give rise to this great revolution ; a war, which was to be the last, was 
 preparing an immortal peace, when an event, whose horrible mystery 
 must deepen the terror of it, banished for ever the last hope of the 
 world. The same blow which cut short the days of the good King 
 plunged Europe anew into the eternal wars which she could no 
 longer hope to see come to an end. Be that as it may, these are the 
 
XX THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 means which Henry IV. collected together for forming the same 
 establishment that the Abbe Saint-Pierre intended to form with a 
 book. Beyond doubt permanent peace is at present but an idle 
 fancy; but given only a Henry IV. and a Sully, and permanent 
 peace will become once more a reasonable project. 
 
 The work of Saint-Pierre and Rousseau met with a 
 wide and warm response throughout Europe. One fruit 
 in Germany was the work of Totze at Gottingen in 1763, 
 entitled Permanent and Universal Peace ', according to the 
 Plan of Henry the Fourth. 
 
 Here in the United States we remember — and we re- 
 member it with peculiar tenderness and gratitude at this 
 hour — that the American who first conspicuously and 
 enthusiastically urged upon his countrymen attention to 
 the "Great Design" of Henry IV. was ^Edward Everett 
 Hale) This was in an article entitled " The United States 
 of Europe," published in his magazine, Old and New, 
 in 1 87 1, the time of the Franco-German war. That article 
 is so interesting, and now so memorable, that it is incorpo- 
 rated in the present volume. 
 
 " Has there ever been a moment," asked Dr. Hale in 
 this historic paper in 1871, "when all true men could act 
 together, as in this sea of troubles they might act to estab- 
 lish the United States of Europe ? And if the great man 
 of Europe, whoever he may be, speaks that great word, 
 and lays the plans for that great harmony, may not this 
 land of ours, which has given the great example, do more 
 than any land to make real the sublime idea ? Our states- 
 manship, our policy, our international science, — they have 
 no object at this moment so noble, nay, they have none so 
 real, as the advance, by one of the great strides of history, 
 of a permanent peace among the States of Christendom." 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 Dr. Hale spoke the same word with power in 1 899, as, 
 at the call of another European monarch, the representa- 
 tives of the nations were gathering, in behalf of the world's 
 organization, at The Hague. He is speaking it to us still 
 to-day, while this struggle for permanent peace among the 
 States of Christendom still goes on. Let us hear his voice 
 as we turn anew the pages of the " Great Design." 
 
 Edwin D. Mead 
 Boston, Massachusetts 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF 
 HENRY IV 
 
 FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE DUKE 
 OF SULLY 
 
 As this part of these Memoirs will be entirely taken up 
 with an account of the great design of Henry IV., or the 
 political scheme by which he proposed to govern, not only 
 France, but all Europe, it may not be improper to begin it 
 with some more general reflections on this monarchy, and 
 on the Roman Empire, upon whose ruins we know it has 
 been formed, as well as all the other powers which at this 
 day compose the Christian world. 
 
 If we consider all those successive changes which Rome 
 has suffered from the year of the world 3064, which is that 
 of its foundation, 1 its infancy, youth, and virility, its declen- 
 sion, fall, and final ruin ; those vicissitudes, which it expe- 
 rienced in common with the great monarchies by which it 
 was preceded, would almost incline one to believe that em- 
 pires, like all other sublunary things, are subject to be the 
 sport, and at last to sink under the pressure, of time. And 
 if we extend this idea still further, we shall, perhaps, per- 
 ceive that they are all liable to be disturbed or interrupted in 
 
 1 The opinion now most generally received is that of Varro, who 
 places the time of the foundation of Rome nearly two hundred years 
 later. 
 
2 ' V THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 their courses by certain extraordinary incidents, which, for 
 anything that we can discover to the contrary, may be termed 
 epidemical distempers, that very frequently hasten their de- 
 struction ; and their cure by this discovery becoming easier, 
 we may at least save some of them from those catastrophies 
 which are so fatal to them. 
 
 But if we endeavour to discover more visible and natural 
 causes of the ruin of this vast and formidable empire, we 
 shall perhaps soon perceive they were produced by a devia- 
 tion from those wise laws and that simplicity of manners, 
 which were the original of all its grandeur, into luxury, ava- 
 rice, and ambition ; yet there was, finally, another cause, the 
 effect of which could hardly have been prevented or fore- 
 seen by the utmost human wisdom ; I mean the irruptions of 
 those vast bodies of barbarous people, Goths, Vandals, Huns, 
 Herulians, Rugians, Lombards, &c, from whom, both sepa- 
 rately and united, the Roman Empire received such violent 
 shocks that it was at last overthrown by them. Rome was 
 three times sacked by these barbarians ; in 4 1 4, under Ho- 
 norius, by Alaric, chief of the Goths; in 455, by Genseric, 
 king of the Vandals, under Martian; and in 546, under 
 Justinian, by Totila and the Goths. 1 Now, if it be true 
 that after this the city retained the shadow of what she 
 had been, if we must regard her as divested of the empire 
 of the world, when her weakness and the abuses of her 
 government made this event to be looked upon, not simply 
 as inevitable, but as very near, and, in fact, already arrived, 
 the epocha of her fall may then be marked long before the 
 reign of Valentinian III., to whom it will be doing a favour 
 
 1 These three epochas are not quite just: the first was in 410, instead 
 of 414; the second in 455 or 456; and the third in 524, under Tegas, 
 successor of Totila, and the last king of the Goths ; the sacking the city 
 this last time lasted forty days. 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 3 
 
 to call the last emperor of the West; 1 for several of those 
 emperors whom he succeeded were, in reality, no better 
 than tyrants, by whom the empire was torn and divided, 
 and the shattered remnants left to be the spoil of the bar- 
 barians, who, indeed, by their conquests, acquired an equal 
 right to them. 
 
 Rome, nevertheless, still beheld, at intervals, some faint 
 appearances of a revival ; those of which she was most sen- 
 sible were under the reign of the great Constantine, whose 
 victories once more united this vast body under one head ; 
 but when he transported the seat of his empire from Rome 
 to Constantinople, he, by that step, without being sensible 
 of it, contributed more to the destruction of a work which 
 had cost him so much labour than all the ill conduct of his 
 predecessors had been able to effect ; and this even he ren- 
 dered irremediable, by dividing his empire equally between 
 his three sons. Theodosius, who, by good fortune, or from 
 an effect of his great valour, found himself in the same 
 circumstances with Constantine, would not, perhaps, have 
 committed the same fault had he not been influenced by 
 the force of Constantine's example; but this, in a manner, 
 necessarily obliged him to divide his empire in two — Arca- 
 dius had the East, Honorius the West; and from that time 
 there never was any hopes or opportunity of reuniting them. 
 
 According to the order of nature, by which the destruc- 
 tion of one thing contributes to the production of others, 
 so, in proportion as the most distant members of the em- 
 pire of the West fell off from it, from thence there arose 
 
 1 It would be unjust surely to refuse the title of Emperors of the 
 West to Valentinian III., to Honorius, &c. The expressions here used 
 by our author should not be understood in their most rigorous sense, 
 but only as meaning an empire weakening, and approaching to its final 
 destruction. 
 
4 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 kingdoms; though indeed they did not at first bear that 
 rank. The most ancient of these (its origin appearing to 
 have been in the eighth year of the empire of Honorius) is, 
 undoubtedly, that which was founded in Gaul by the French, 
 so called from Franconia, from whence they were invited 
 by the Gauls, who inhabited the countries about the Moselle, 
 to assist them in their deliverance from the oppression of 
 the Roman armies. It being a custom among these Franks, 
 or French, to confer the title of king upon whatever person 
 they chose to be their leader, if the first or second of these 
 chiefs did not bear it, it is certain, at least, that the third, 
 which was Merovius, and more particularly Clovis, who 
 was the fifth, were invested with it; 1 and some of them 
 supported it with so much glory — among others Pepin 
 and Charles Martel, to whom it would be doing an injus- 
 tice to refuse them this dignity — that their worthy suc- 
 cessor, Charlemagne, revived in Gaul an imperfect image 
 of the now extinguished empire in the West: this, indeed, 
 was facilitated by those natural advantages France enjoys 
 of numerous inhabitants trained to war, and a great plenty 
 of all things serving the different necessities of life, joined 
 to a very great convenience for commerce, arising from 
 
 1 The whole of what is here said may be allowed to be right; ac- 
 cording to Petau and Sirmond, the chiefs of the French bore the title 
 of kings from the reign of Valentinian II., which was long before the 
 year 445, when Claudian, by the taking of Cambray, &c, first established 
 himself on this side of the Rhine. They first established themselves on 
 the other side of the Rhine about the middle of the third century, and 
 extended themselves nearly from the Texel as far as Frankfort. This 
 revolt of a part of Gaul against the Romans happened in 434, in the 
 twelfth year of the reign of Valentinian III.; and the author's opinion 
 on the establishment of the French in Gaul is confirmed by a learned 
 academician, who has cleared up this critical point as much as it was 
 possible (the late Abbe Du Bois). (Hist. Crit.de PEtab. de la Monarchic 
 Franc, dans les Gaules, torn. i. liv. i. chap. 17; liv. ii. chap. 7, 8.) 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 5 
 
 its situation, which renders it the centre of four of the 
 principal powers of Europe — Germany, Italy, Spain, and 
 Britain, with the Low Countries. 
 
 Let us here just say one word upon the three races which 
 compose the succession of our kings : in the first of them I 
 find only Merovius, Clovis I., and Clotharius II.; Charles 
 Martel, Pepin le Bref, and Charlemagne in the second, who 
 have raised themselves above the common level of their 
 race. Take away these six from the thirty-five which we 
 compute in these two races, and all the rest, from their 
 vices or their incapacity, appear to have been either wicked 
 kings, or but the shadow of kings; though among them 
 we may distinguish some good qualities in Sigibert and 
 Dagobert, and a very great devotion in Louis le Debon- 
 naire, which, however, ended in his repenting the loss of 
 empire and his kingdom, together with his liberty, in a 
 cloister. 
 
 The Carlovingian race having reigned obscurely, and 
 ended so too, the crown then descended upon a third race, 
 the first four kings of which, in my opinion, appear to have 
 been perfect models of wise and good government. The 
 kingdom which came under their dominion had lost much 
 of its original splendour, for, from its immense extent in 
 the time of Charlemagne, it was reduced to very nearly 
 the same bounds which it has at this day, with this differ- 
 ence, that though they might have been desirous to restore 
 its ancient limits, the form of the government, which ren- 
 dered the kings subject to the great men and people of 
 the kingdom, who had a right to choose and even to gov- 
 ern their sovereigns, left them no means by which they 
 could succeed in such an attempt. The conduct, therefore, 
 which they pursued was to condemn arbitrary power to an 
 
6 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 absolute silence, and, in its place, to substitute equity itself, 
 a kind of dominion which never excites envy. Nothing now 
 was done without the consent of the great men and the 
 principal cities, and almost always in consequence of the 
 decision of an assembly of the states. A conduct so mod- 
 erate and prudent put an end to all factions and stifled all 
 conspiracies, which are fatal to the state or the sovereign. 
 Regularity, economy, a distinction of merit, strict observ- 
 ance of justice, all the virtues which we suppose necessary 
 qualifications for the good of a family, were what character- 
 ised this new government, and produced what was never 
 before beheld, and what, perhaps, we may never see again 
 — an uninterrupted peace for one hundred and twenty-two 
 years. What these princes gained by it for themselves in 
 particular, and which all the authority of the Salique law 
 could never have procured them, was the advantage of intro- 
 ducing into this house an hereditary right to the crown. 
 But they, nevertheless, thought it a necessary precaution 
 not to declare their eldest sons their successors till they 
 had modestly asked the consent of the people, preceded it 
 by a kind of election, and usually by having them crowned 
 in their own lifetime, and seated with them upon the throne. 
 Philip II., whom Louis VII., his father, caused to be 
 crowned and to reign with him in this manner, was the 
 first who neglected to observe this ceremony between the 
 sovereign and his people : several victories, obtained over 
 his neighbours and over his own subjects, which gained 
 him the surname of Augustus, served to open him a pas- 
 sage to absolute power; and a notion of the fitness and 
 legality of this power, by the assistance of favourites, minis- 
 ters, and others, became afterwards so strongly imprinted 
 in his successors, that they looked upon it as a mark of 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 7 
 
 the most profound good policy to act contrary to those 
 maxims, the general and particular utility of which had 
 been so effectually confirmed by experience. And this they 
 did without any fear, or, perhaps, without any conception 
 of the fatal consequences which such a proceeding, against 
 a nation that adored its liberty, might, and even necessarily 
 would, incur ; of which they might easily have become sen- 
 sible, from the means to which the people had immediate 
 recourse, to shake off the yoke of tyranny with which they 
 saw themselves menaced. The kings could never obtain of 
 their people any other than that kind of constrained obedi- 
 ence which always inclines them to embrace with eagerness 
 all opportunities of mutiny. This was the source of a thou- 
 sand bloody wars: that by which almost all France was 
 ravaged by the English; that which we carried on with 
 Italy, Burgundy, and Spain ; all of them can be attributed 
 to no other causes than the civil dissensions by which they 
 were preceded : and here the weakest side, stifling the voice 
 of honour and the interest of the nation, constantly called 
 in foreigners to assist them in the support of their tottering 
 liberties. These were shameful and fatal remedies; but 
 from that time they were constantly employed, and even 
 to our days by the house of Lorraine, in a league, for which 
 religion was nothing more than the pretence. Another evil, 
 which may at first appear to be of a different kind, but 
 which, in my opinion, proceeds from the same source, was 
 a general corruption of manners, a thirst for riches, and a 
 most shameful degree of luxury; these, sometimes sepa- 
 rately and sometimes united, were alternate causes and 
 effects of many of our miseries. 
 
 Thus, in a few words, I have exposed the various species 
 of our bad policy with respect both to the form of the 
 
8 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 government, successively subjected to the will of the people, 
 the soldiers, the nobles, the states, and the kings; and in 
 regard to the persons likewise of these last, whether de- 
 pendent, elective, hereditary, or absolute. 
 
 From the picture here laid before us, we may be enabled 
 to form our judgment upon the third race of our kings; we 
 may find a thousand things to admire in Philip Augustus, 
 Saint-Louis, Philip le Bel, Charles le Sage, Charles VII., 
 and Louis XII. But it is to be lamented that so many 
 virtues, or great qualities, have been exercised upon no 
 better principles ; with what pleasure might we bestow upon 
 them the titles of great kings, could we but conceal that 
 their people were miserable; what might we not, in par- 
 ticular, say of Louis IX.? Of the forty-four years which 
 he reigned, the first twenty of them exhibit a scene not un- 
 worthy to be compared with the eleven last of Henry the 
 Great ; but I am afraid all their glory will appear to have 
 been destroyed in the twenty-four following, wherein it ap- 
 pears that the excessive taxes upon the subjects to satisfy 
 an ill-judged and destructive devotion, immense sums trans- 
 ported into the most distant countries for the ransom of 
 prisoners, so many thousand subjects sacrificed, so many 
 • illustrious houses extinguished, caused a universal mourning 
 throughout France, and all together a general calamity. 
 
 Let us for once, if it be possible, fix our principles ; and 
 being from long experience convinced that the happiness 
 of mankind can never arise from war, of which we ought 
 to have been persuaded long ago, let us upon this principle 
 take a cursory view of the history of our monarchy. We 
 will pass by the wars of Clovis and his predecessors, be- 
 cause they seem to have been in some degree necessary to 
 confirm the recent foundations of the monarchy : but what 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 9 
 
 shall we say of those wars in which the four sons of Clovis, 
 the four sons of Clotharius II., and their descendants were 
 engaged, during the uninterrupted course of one hundred 
 and sixty years ? and of those also by which, for the space 
 of one hundred and seventy-two other years, commencing 
 with Louis le Debonnaire, the kingdom was harassed and 
 torn ? What follows is still worse : the slightest knowledge 
 of our history is sufficient to convince any one that there 
 was no real tranquillity in the kingdom from Henry III. 
 to the peace of Vervins ; and, in short, all this long period 
 may be called a war of near four hundred years' duration. 
 After this examination, from whence it incontestably ap- 
 pears that our kings have seldom thought of anything but 
 how to carry on their wars, we cannot but be scrupulous in 
 bestowing on them the title of truly great kings ; though 
 we shall, nevertheless, render them all the justice which 
 appears to have been their due : for I confess (as indeed it 
 would be unjust to attribute to them only a crime which 
 was properly that of all Europe) that several of these princes 
 were sometimes in such circumstances as rendered the wars 
 just, and even necessary; and from hence, when indeed 
 there was no other means to obtain it, they acquired a true 
 and lasting glory. For herein, from the manner in which 
 several of these wars were foreseen, prepared for, and 
 conducted, we may in their councils discover such master- 
 strokes of policy, and in their persons such noble instances 
 of courage, as are deserving of our highest praises. From 
 whence then can proceed the error of so many exploits, 
 in appearance so glorious, though the effect of them has 
 generally been the devastation both of France and all Eu- 
 rope? I repeat it again, of all Europe, which even yet 
 seems scarcely sensible that in her present situation — a 
 
10 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 situation in which she has been for several centuries — 
 every attempt which shall tend to her subjection, or only 
 to the too considerably augmenting of any one of her prin- 
 cipal monarchies at the expense of the others, can never 
 .be any other than a chimerical and impossible enterprise, 
 there are none of these monarchies whose destruction will 
 not require a concurrence of causes infinitely superior to all 
 human force. The whole, therefore, of what seems proper 
 and necessary to be done, is ,to support them all in a kind 
 of equilibrium ; and whatever prince thinks, and in conse- 
 quence acts, otherwise, may indeed cause torrents of blood 
 to flow through all Europe, but he will never be able to 
 change her form. 
 
 When I observed that the extent of France is not now 
 so considerable as it was in the time of Charlemagne, my 
 intention, most certainly, was not that this diminution should 
 be considered as a misfortune. In an age when we feel 
 the sad effects of having had ambitious princes from time 
 to time for our kings, were all to concur in flattering this 
 fatal ambition it would be the cause of still greater evils ; 
 and it may be generally observed that the larger the extent 
 of kingdoms, the more they are subject to great revolutions 
 and misfortunes. The basis of the tranquillity of our own, 
 in particular, depends upon preserving it within its present 
 limits. A climate, laws, manners, and language, different 
 from our own ; seas, and chains of mountains almost inac- 
 cessible, are all so many barriers which we may consider as 
 fixed even by nature. Besides, what is it that France wants ? 
 Will she not always be the richest and most powerful king- 
 dom in Europe ? It must be granted. All, therefore, which 
 the French have to wish or desire is, that Heaven may 
 grant them pious, good, and wise kings; and that these 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV II 
 
 kings may employ their power in preserving the peace of 
 Europe ; for no other enterprise can, truly, be to them either 
 profitable or successful. 
 
 And this explains to us the nature of the design which 
 Henry IV. was on the point of putting in execution when 
 it pleased God to take him to himself, too soon by some 
 years for the happiness of the world. From hence likewise 
 we may perceive the motives for his pursuing a conduct 
 so opposite to anything that had hitherto been undertaken 
 by crowned heads ; and here we may behold what it was 
 that acquired him the title of " great." (His designs were 
 not inspired by a mean and despicable ambition, nor guided 
 by base and partial interests : to render France happy for 
 ever was his desire ; and as she cannot perfectly enjoy this 
 felicity unless all Europe likewise partakes of it, so it was 
 the happiness of Europe in general which he laboured to 
 procure, and this in a manner so solid and durable that 
 nothing should afterwards be able to shake its foundations. / 
 
 I must confess I am under some apprehensions lest this 
 scheme should at first be considered as one of those darling *   
 chimeras, or idle political speculations, in which a mind 
 susceptible of strange and singular ideas may be so easily 
 engaged ; those who shall think thus of it, must be of that 
 sort of people on whom the first impressions upon a preju- 
 diced imagination have the force of truth ; or those who, 
 by their distance from the times and their ignorance of 
 the circumstances, confound the wisest and noblest enter- 
 prises that have ever been formed, with those chimerical 
 projects which princes, intoxicated with their power, have 
 in all ages amused themselves in forming. I confess that 
 if we attentively examine the designs which have been 
 planned from motives of vanity, confidence in good fortune, 
 
12 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 ignorance, nay, from sloth, and even timidity itself, we 
 must be surprised to behold sovereigns plunged blindly 
 into schemes, specious perhaps in appearance, but which, 
 at bottom, have not the least degree of possibility. The 
 mind of man pursues with so much complacency, nay, 
 even with so much ardour, whatever it fancies great or 
 beautiful, that it is sorry to be made sensible that these 
 objects have frequently nothing real or solid in them. But 
 in this, as well as in other things, there is an opposite ex- 
 treme to be avoided ; which is, that as we usually fail in 
 the execution of great designs from not commencing and 
 continuing them with sufficient vigour and spirit, so like- 
 wise we are defective in the knowledge of their true worth 
 and tendency, because we do not thoroughly and properly 
 consider them in all their dependencies and consequences. 
 I have myself been more difficult to persuade in this matter 
 than perhaps any of those who shall read these Memoirs, 
 and this I consider as an effect of that cold, cautious, and 
 unenterprising temper, which makes so considerable a part 
 of my character. 
 
 I remember the first time the king spoke to me of a 
 political system by which all Europe might be regulated 
 and governed as one great family, I scarcely paid any atten- 
 tion to what he said, imagining that he meant no more by 
 it than merely to divert himself, or perhaps to show that 
 his thoughts on political subjects were greater, and pene- 
 trated deeper, than most others ; my reply was a mixture 
 of pleasantry and compliment. Henry said no more at that 
 time. He often confessed to me afterwards that he had 
 long concealed from me what he meditated on this subject, 
 from a principle of shame, which many labour under, lest 
 they should disclose designs which might appear ridiculous 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 13 
 
 or impossible. I was astonished when, some time after, 
 he renewed our conversation on this head, and continued 
 from year to year to entertain me with new regulations and 
 new improvements in his scheme. 
 
 I had been very far from thinking seriously about it. If 
 by accident it came into my thoughts for a moment, the 
 first view of the design, which supposed a reunion of all 
 the different states of Europe — immense expenses, at a 
 time when France could scarcely supply her own neces- 
 sities — a concatenation of events which to me appeared 
 infinite, — these were considerations which had always made 
 me reject the thought as vain ; I even apprehended there 
 was some illusion in it. I recollected some of those enter- 
 prises in which we had endeavoured to engage Europe. I 
 considered those in particular which had been formed by 
 some of our kings, from much less considerable motives, 
 and I felt myself disgusted with this, from the bad success 
 of all the former. The disposition of the princes of Europe 
 to take umbrage against France, when she would have as- 
 sisted them to dissipate their fears from the too great power 
 of Spain, this alone appeared to me an insurmountable 
 obstacle. 
 
 Strongly prejudiced by this opinion, I used my utmost 
 efforts to undeceive Henry, who, on his side, surprised not 
 to find me of his opinion in any one point, immediately 
 undertook and readily succeeded in convincing me, that my 
 thus indiscriminately condemning all parts of his project, 
 in which he was certain that everything at least was not 
 blamable, could proceed from nothing but strong preju- 
 dices. I could not refuse, at his solicitations, to use my 
 endeavours to gain a thorough comprehension of it: I 
 formed a clearer plan of it in my mind : I collected and 
 
14 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 united all its different branches : I studied all its propor- 
 tions and dimensions, if I may say so ; and I discovered 
 in them a regularity and mutual dependence, of which, 
 when I only considered the design in a confused and care- 
 less manner, I had not been at all sensible. The benefit 
 which would manifestly arise from it to all Europe, was 
 what most immediately struck me, as being in effect the 
 plainest and most evident ; but the means to effect so good 
 a design were, therefore, what I hesitated at the longest. 
 The general situation of the affairs of Europe, and of our 
 own in particular, appeared to me every way contrary to 
 the execution : I did not consider that, as the execution of 
 it might be deferred till a proper opportunity, we had all 
 those resources whereby to prepare ourselves, which time 
 affords those who know how to make the best use of it. 
 I was at last convinced, that however disproportionate the 
 means might appear to the effect, a course of years, during 
 which everything should as much as possible be made sub- 
 servient to the great object in view, would surmount many 
 difficulties. It is indeed somewhat extraordinary, that this 
 point, which appeared to be, and really was, the most diffi- 
 cult of any, should at last become the most easy. 
 
 Having thus seen all parts of the design in their just 
 points of view, having thoroughly considered and calcu- 
 lated, and from thence discovered and prepared for all 
 events which might happen, I found myself confirmed in 
 the opinion, that the design of Henry the Great was, upon 
 the whole, just in its intention, -possible, and even practi- 
 cable in all its parts, and infinitely glorious in all its effects : 
 so that, upon all occasions, I was the first to recall the king 
 to his engagements, and sometimes to convince him by 
 those very arguments which he himself had taught me. 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 15 
 
 The constant attention this prince paid to all affairs trans- 
 acted around him, from an effect of those singularly unhappy 
 circumstances, by which, in almost in every instant of his life, 
 he found himself embarrassed, had been the cause of his 
 forming this design, even from the time when, being called 
 to the crown by the death of Henry III., he considered the 
 humbling of the house of Austria as absolutely necessary 
 for his security; yet, if he was not beholden to Elizabeth 1 ' 
 for his thought of the design, it is, however, certain that this 
 great queen had herself conceived it long before, as a means 
 to revenge Europe for the attempts of its common enemy. 
 The troubles in which all the following years were engaged, 
 the war which succeeded in 1595, and that against Savoy 
 after the peace of Vervins, forced Henry into difficulties 
 which obliged him to lay aside all thoughts of other affairs ; 
 and it was not till after his marriage, and the firm reestab- 
 lishment of peace, that he renewed his thoughts upon his 
 first design, to execute which appeared then more impos- 
 sible, or at least more improbable, than ever. 
 
 1 The present Duke of Sully is possessed of the original of an excel- 
 lent letter of Henry the Great, supposed to have been written by him 
 to Queen Elizabeth, though this princess is not named, either in the 
 body of the letter, or in the superscription, which is in these words: 
 " To her who merits immortal praise." The terms in which Henry herein 
 speaks of a certain political project, which he calls " The most excellent 
 and rare enterprise that ever the human mind conceived — a thought 
 rather divine than human ; " the praises which he bestows upon " this 
 discourse so well connected and demonstrative of what would be neces- 
 sary for the government of empires and kingdoms" — on those "con- 
 ceptions and resolutions " from which nothing less may be hoped than 
 " most remarkable issues both of honour and glory," — all these passages 
 can relate to none but Elizabeth, nor mean any other than the great 
 design in question, concerning which it evidently appears from hence, 
 that the Queen of England had by letters disclosed her thoughts to 
 Henry. The letter from which these extracts are taken is dated from 
 Paris, the nth of July, but without the date of the year. (Lettres d'Henry 
 le Grand.) 
 
 f 
 
16 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 He nevertheless communicated it by letters to Eliza- 
 beth, 1 and this was what inspired them with so strong an 
 inclination to confer together in 1601, when this princess 
 came to Dover, and Henry to Calais. What the ceremony 
 of an interview would not have permitted them to do, I at 
 last began by the voyage which I had made to this prin- 
 cess. I found her deeply engaged in the means .by which 
 this great design might be successfully executed ;(and, not- 
 withstanding the difficulties which she apprehended in its 
 two principal points, namely, the agr eement of rel igions 
 and the equality^ojTthe_rjowers,j she did not appear to me at 
 all to doubt of its success, which she chiefly expected, for 
 a reason the justness of which I have since been well con- 
 vinced of ; and this was, that, as the plan was really only 
 contrary to the design of some princes, whose ambitious 
 views were sufficiently known to Europe, this difficulty, 
 from which the necessity of the design more evidently ap- 
 peared, would rather promote than retard its success. She 
 further said, that its execution by any other means than 
 that of arms, would be very desirable, as this had always 
 something odious in it : but she confessed that indeed it 
 would be hardly possible to begin it any other wise. A 
 very great number of the articles, conditions, and different 
 dispositions are due to this queen, and sufficiently show, 
 that in respect of wisdom, penetration, and all the other 
 perfections of the mind, she was not inferior to any king 
 the most truly deserving of that title. 
 
 It must indeed be considered as a very great misfortune 
 that Henry could not at this time second the intentions 
 of the Queen of England, who wished to have the design 
 put in immediate execution; but when he thus laid the 
 
 1 Compare the above with what is said on p. 61. 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV l J 
 
 foundation of the edifice, he scarcely hoped to see the time 
 when the finishing hand would be put to it. The recovery 
 of his own kingdom from the various maladies by which 
 it was afflicted was a work of several years, and unhappily 
 he had himself seen forty-eight when he began it ; he pur- 
 sued it, nevertheless, with the greatest vigour. The edict 
 of Nantes had been published with this view, and every 
 other means was used which might gain the respect and 
 confidence of the princes of Europe. Henry and I, at the 
 same time, applied ourselves with indefatigable labour to 
 regulate the interior affairs of the kingdom. We consid- 
 ered the death of the King of Spain as the most favourable 
 event that could happen for our design : but it received so 
 violent a shock by the death of Elizabeth, as had like to 
 have made us abandon all our hopes. Henry had no ex- 
 pectation that the powers of the north, nor King James, 
 the successor of Elizabeth (when he was acquainted with 
 his character), would any of them so readily consent to 
 support him in his design as this princess had done? 1 ' How- 
 ever, the new allies which he daily gained in Germany, and 
 even in Italy, consoled him a little for the loss of Elizabeth^ ml*.*-*** 
 The truce between Spain and the Low Countries may also 
 be numbered among incidents favourable to it. 
 
 Yet, if we consider all the obstacles which afterwards 
 arose in his own kingdom, from the Protestants, the Cath- 
 olics, the clergy, nay even from his own council, it will 
 appear as if all things conspired against it. "Will it be be- 
 lieved that Henry could not find in his whole council one 
 person, besides myself, to whom he could, without danger, 
 disclose the whole of his designs ? and that the respect due 
 to him could scarcely restrain those who appeared most de- 
 voted to his service from treating as wild and extravagant 
 
1 8 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 chimeras what he had entrusted to them with the greatest 
 circumspection. But nothing discouraged him : he was an 
 abler politician and a better judge than all his council, and 
 all his kingdom; and when he perceived that, notwith- 
 standing all these obstacles, affairs began, both at home 
 and abroad, to appear in a favourable situation, he then 
 considered the success as infallible. 
 
 ( Nor will this his judgment, when thoroughly considered, 
 be found so presumptuous as, from a slight examination, 
 it may appear to some. For what did he hereby require 
 of Europe? Nothing more than that it should promote 
 the means by which he proposed to fix it in the position, 
 towards which, by his efforts, it had for some time tended. 
 These means he rendered so easy of execution that it would 
 scarcely require what many of the princes of Europe would 
 voluntarily sacrifice for advantages much less real, less cer- 
 tain, and less durable. What they would gain by it, besides 
 the inestimable benefits arising from peace, would greatly 
 exceed all the expenses they would be at. What reason 
 then could any of them have to oppose it? And if they 
 did not oppose it, how could the house of Austria support 
 itself against powers in whom the desire and pleasure of 
 depriving it of that strength which it had used only to op- 
 press them would have raised against it as many open as 
 it had secret enemies — that is, the whole of Europe? 
 Nor would these princes have any reason to be jealous of 
 the restorer of their liberty ; for he was so far from seek- 
 ing to reimburse himself for all the expenses which his 
 generosity would hereby engage him in, that his inten- 
 tion was to relinquish voluntarily and for ever all power of 
 augmenting his dominions ; not only by conquest, but by 
 every other just and lawful means. By this he would have 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 19 
 
 discovered the secret of convincing all his neighbours that 
 his whole design was to save both himself and them those 
 immense sums which the maintenance of so many thousand 
 soldiers, so many fortified places, and so many military 
 expenses require; to free them for ever from the fear of 
 those bloody catastrophes so common in Europe ; to pro- 
 cure them an uninterrupted repose; and finally, to unite 
 them all in an indissoluble bond of security and friendship, 
 after which they might live together like brethren, and 
 reciprocally visit like good neighbours, without the trouble 
 of ceremony, and without the expense of a train cf attend- 
 ants, which princes use at best only for ostentation, and 
 frequently to conceal their misery. Does it not indeed 
 reflect shame and reproach on a people who affect to be 
 so polished and refined in their manners, that all their pre- 
 tended wisdom has not yet, I will not say procured them 
 tranquillity, but only guarded them from those barbarities 
 which they detest in nations the most savage and unculti- 
 vated ? And to destroy these pernicious seeds of confusion 
 and disorder, and to prevent the barbarities of which they 
 are the cause, could any scheme have been more happily 
 and perfectly contrived than that of Henry the Great ? \ 
 Here then is all that could be reasonably expected or 
 required. It is only in the power of man to prepare and 
 act ; success is the work of a more mighty hand. Sensible 
 people cannot be blamed for being prejudiced in favour of 
 the scheme in question, from this circumstance only, that 
 it was formed by the two potentates whom posterity will 
 always consider as the most perfect models of the art of 
 governing. In regard to Henry in particular, I insist that 
 it belongs only to princes who, like him, have had a constant 
 succession of obstacles to encounter in all their designs. 
 
20 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 These, I say, are the princes who alone are privileged to 
 judge what are real obstacles ; and, when we behold them 
 willing to lay down their lives in support of their opinions, 
 surely we may abide by their sentiments, without fear of 
 being deceived. For my own part, I shall always think 
 with regret, that France, by the blow which it received by 
 the loss of this great prince, was deprived of a glory far 
 superior to that which his reign had acquired. 1 ".There 
 remains only to explain the several parts of the design, 
 and the manner in which they were to be executed. We 
 will begin with what relates to religion. 
 / Two religions principally prevail in Christendom, the 
 Roman and the Reformed ; but, as this latter has admitted 
 of several modifications in its worship, which render it, if 
 not as different from itself as from the Roman, at least as 
 far from being reunited, it is therefore necessary to divide 
 it into two, one of which may be called the Reformed, and 
 the other the Protestant religion. The manner in which 
 these three religions prevail in Europe is extremely dif- 
 ferent. Italy and Spain remain in possession of the Roman 
 religion, pure and without mixture of any other. The Re- 
 formed religion subsists in France with the Roman, only 
 under favour of the edicts, and is the weakest. England, 
 Denmark, Sweden, the Low Countries, and Switzerland, 
 have also a mixture of the same kind, but with this differ- 
 ence, that in them the Protestant is the governing religion, 
 the others are only tolerated. Germany unites all these, 
 
 1 From hence we may discover what credit should be given to Siri, 
 when he says that the sole passion of Henry the Great was to amass 
 riches ; that his minister forced him into the design against his incli- 
 nation; and that the Duke of Sully, whom he believes to be the sole 
 author of it, was himself prepossessed in its favour only from mere 
 obstinacy, or perhaps from motives of self-interest. 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 21 
 
 and even in several of its circles, as well as in Poland, 
 shows them equal favour. I say nothing of Muscovy or 
 Russia : these vast countries, which are not less than six 
 hundred leagues in length, and four hundred in breadth, 
 being in great part still idolaters, and in part schismatics, 
 such as Greeks and Armenians, who have introduced so 
 many superstitious practices in their worship, that there 
 scarcely remains any conformity with us among them, 
 besides that they belong to Asia at least as much as to 
 Europe ; we may indeed almost consider them as a barba- 
 rous country, and place them in the same class with Turkey, 
 though for these five hundred years we have ranked them 
 among the Christian powers. 
 
 Each of these three religions being now established in 
 Europe in such a manner that there is not the least appear- 
 ance that any of them can be destroyed, and experience 
 having sufficiently demonstrated the inutility and danger 
 of such an enterprise, the best therefore that can be done 
 is to preserve and even strengthen all of them, in such a 
 manner, nevertheless, that this indulgence may not be- 
 come an encouragement to the production of new sects or 
 opinions, which should carefully be suppressed on their 
 first appearance. God himself, by manifestly supporting 
 what the Catholics were pleased to call the new religion, 
 has taught us this conduct, which is not less conformable 
 to the Holy Scriptures than confirmed by its examples; 
 and, besides, the insurmountable difficulty of forcing the 
 pope's authority to be received in those places where it is 
 now no longer acknowledged, renders what is here proposed 
 absolutely necessary. Several cardinals equally sagacious 
 and zealous, and even some popes, as Clement VIII. and 
 Paul V., were of this opinion. 
 
22 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 fi 
 
 All, therefore, that remains now to be done, is to 
 strengthen the nations, who have made choice of one of 
 these religions, in the principles they profess, as there is 
 nothing in all respects so pernicio us as a libertX -ilL-Dclief ; 
 and those nations, whose inhabitants profess several, or 
 all these religions, should be careful to observe those 
 rules which they find necessary to remedy the ordinary 
 inconveniences of a toleration which, in other respects, 
 they probably experience to be beneficial. Italy, therefore, 
 professing the Roman religion, and being moreover the 
 residence of the popes, should preserve this religion in all 
 its purity, and there would be no hardship in obliging all 
 its inhabitants either to conform to it or quit the country. 
 The same regulation, very nearly, might be observed in 
 regard to Spain. In such states as that of France, where 
 there is at least a governing religion, whoever should think 
 the regulation too severe, by which Calvinism would be 
 always subordinate to the religion of the prince, might be 
 permitted to depart the country. No new regulation would 
 be necessary in any of the other nations ; no violence on 
 this account, but liberty unrestrained, seeing this liberty is 
 become even a fundamental principle in their governments. 
 
 Thus we may perceive that everything on this head might 
 be reduced to a very few maxims, so much the more certain 
 and invariable, as they were not contrary to the sentiments 
 of any one. The Protestants are very far from pretending 
 to force their religion upon any of their neighbours, by whom 
 it is not voluntarily embraced. The Catholics, doubtless, are 
 of the same sentiments, and the pope would receive no in- 
 jury in being deprived of what he confesses himself not to 
 have possessed for a long 1 time. His sacrificing these chi- 
 merical rights would be abundantly compensated by the 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 23 
 
 regal dignity with which it would be proper to invest him, 
 and by the honour of being afterwards the com mon m edi- 
 ator between all the Christian princes, a dignity which he 
 would then enjoy without jealousy, and for which it must 
 be confessed this court, by its sagacious conduct, has shown 
 itself the most proper of any. 
 
 Another point of the political scheme, which also con- 
 cerns religion, relates to the infidel princes of Europe, and 
 consists in forcing those entirely out of it who refuse to 
 conform to any of the Christian doctrines of religion. 
 Should the Grand Duke of Muscovy, or Czar of Russia, 
 who is believed to be the ancient Khan of Scythia, refuse 
 to enter into the association after it is proposed to him, he 
 ought to be treated like the Sultan of Turkey, deprived 
 of his possessions in Europe, and confined to Asia only, 
 where he might, as long as he pleased, without any inter- 
 ruption from us, continue the wars in which he is almost 
 constantly engaged against the Turks and Persians. 
 
 To succeed in the execution of this, which will not 
 appear difficult, if we suppose that all Christian princes 
 unanimously concurred in it, it would only be necessary 
 for each of them to contribute, in proportion to their sev- 
 eral abilities, towards the support of the forces, and all the 
 other incidental expenses, which the success of such an 
 enterprise might require. These respective quotas were to 
 have been determined by a general council, of which we 
 shall speak hereafter. The following is what Henry the 
 Great had himself conceived on this head. The pope, for 
 this expedition, should furnish eight thousand foot, twelve 
 hundred horse, ten cannons, and ten galleys ; the emperor 
 and the circles of Germany, sixty thousand foot, twenty 
 thousand horse, five large cannons, and ten galleys or other 
 
24 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 vessels; the King of France twenty thousand foot, four 
 thousand horse, twenty cannons, and ten ships or galleys ; 
 Spain, Britain, Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, the like 
 number with France, observing only, that these powers 
 should together supply what belonged to the sea service 
 in the manner most suitable to their respective conven- 
 iences and abilities therein; the King of Bohemia five 
 thousand foot, fifteen hundred horse, and five cannons; 
 the King of Hungary twelve thousand foot, five thousand 
 horse, twenty cannons, and six ships ; the Duke of Savoy, 
 or King of Lombardy, eight thousand foot, fifteen hundred 
 horse, eight cannons, and six galleys ; the republic of Venice 
 ten thousand foot, twelve hundred horse, ten cannons, and 
 twenty-five galleys ; the republic of the Swiss cantons fifteen 
 thousand foot, five thousand horse, and twelve cannons; 
 the republic of Holland twelve thousand foot, twelve hun- 
 dred horse, twelve cannons, and twelve ships; the Italian 
 republics ten thousand foot, twelve hundred horse, ten 
 cannons, and eight galleys ; the whole together amounting 
 to about two hundred and seventy thousand foot, fifty thou- 
 sand horse, two hundred cannons, and one hundred and 
 twenty ships or galleys, equipped and maintained at the 
 expense of all those powers, each contributing according 
 to his particular proportion. 
 
 This armament of the princes and states of Europe 
 appears so inconsiderable and so little burdensome, when 
 compared with the forces which they usually keep on foot 
 to awe their neighbours, or perhaps their own subjects, 
 that were it to have subsisted, even perpetually, it would 
 not have occasioned any inconvenience, and would have 
 been an excellent military academy : but, besides that the 
 enterprises for which it was destined would not always have 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 25 
 
 continued, the number and expense of it might have been 
 diminished in proportion to the necessities, which would 
 always have been the same. Though I am persuaded such 
 an armament would have been so highly approved of by 
 all these princes, that, after they had conquered with it 
 whatever they would not suffer any stranger should share 
 with them in Europe, they would have sought to join to 
 it such parts of Asia as were most commodiously situated, 
 and particularly the whole coast of Africa, which is too 
 near to our own territories for us not to be frequently 
 incommoded by it. The only precaution to be observed 
 in regard to these additional countries would have been to 
 form them into new kingdoms, declare them united with 
 the rest of the Christian powers, and bestow them on dif- 
 ferent princes, carefully observing to exclude those who 
 before bore rank among the sovereigns of Europe. 
 
 That part of the design which may be considered as purely 
 political, turned almost entirely on a first preliminary, which, 
 I think, would not have met with more difficulty than the 
 preceding article. This was to divest the housej)f^ Austria 
 of the empire, and of all the possessions inj} ermany, Ita ly, 
 and the Low Countries : in a word, to reduce it to the sole 
 kingdom of Spain, bounded by the Ocean, the Mediter- 
 ranean, and the Pyreneean mountains. But that it might, 
 nevertheless, be equally powerful with the other sovereign- 
 ties of Europe, it should have Sardinia, Majorca, Minorca, 
 and the other islands on its own coasts ; the Canaries, the 
 Azores, and Cape Verd, with its possessions in Africa; 
 Mexico, and the American islands which belong to it, 
 countries which alone might suffice to found great king- 
 doms; finally, the Philippines, Goa, the Moluccas, and its 
 other possessions in Asia. 
 
26 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 '/ From hence a method seems to present itself, by which 
 the house of Austria might be indemnified for what it would 
 be deprived of in Europe, which is to increase its dominions 
 in the three other parts of the world, by assisting it to ob- 
 tain, and by declaring it the sole proprietor, both of what 
 we do know, and what we may hereafter discover in those 
 parts. We may suppose that on this occasion it would not 
 have been necessary to use force to bring this house to 
 concur in such a design ; and, indeed, even on this suppo- 
 sition, it was not the prince of this house reigning in Spain 
 to whom these parts of the world were to be subjected, but 
 to different princes of the same, or of different branches, 
 who, in acknowledgment of their possessions, should only 
 have rendered homage to the crown of Spain, or, at most, 
 a tribute, as due to the original conquerors. This house, 
 which is so very desirous of being the most powerful in 
 the world, might hereby have continued to flatter itself 
 with so pleasing a pre-eminence, without the other powers 
 being endangered by its pretended grandeur. 
 
 The steps taken by the house of Austria to arrive at uni- 
 versal monarchy, which evidently appears from the whole 
 conduct of Charles V. and his son, have rendered this 
 severity as just as it is necessary; and I will venture to 
 say that this house would not have had any reasonable 
 cause to complain of it. It is true it would be deprived of 
 the empire ; but when impartially considered, it will appear 
 that all the other princes of Germany, and even of Europe, 
 have an equal right to it. Were it necessary to prove this, 
 we need only recollect on what conditions Charles V. him- 
 self, the most powerful of them all, was acknowledged 
 emperor ; conditions which, at Smalcalde, he solemnly swore 
 to observe, in presence of seven princes or electors, and 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 2J 
 
 the deputies of twenty-four Protestant towns ; the Land- 
 grave of Hesse and the Prince of Anhalt being speakers 
 for all of them. He swore, I say, never to act contrary to 
 the established laws of the empire, particularly the famous 
 golden bull obtained under Charles IV., unless it were to 
 amplify them, and even that only with the express consent 
 and advice of the sovereign princes of Germany; not to 
 infringe nor deprive them of any of their privileges ; not to 
 introduce foreigners into their council ; not to make either 
 war or peace without their consent ; not to bestow honours 
 and employments but on natives of Germany ; not to use 
 any other but the German language in all writings ; not to 
 levy any taxes by his own authority, nor apply any con- 
 quests which might be made to his own particular profit. 
 He, in particular, formally renounced all pretensions to 
 hereditary right in his house to the imperial dignity; and, 
 according to the second article of the golden bull, he swore 
 never in his lifetime to recognise a king of the Romans. 
 When the Protestants of Germany, after they had in a 
 manner driven Ferdinand out of it, consented that the 
 imperial crown should be placed on his head, they were 
 careful to make him renew his engagements in regard to 
 all these articles, and to all these new regulations relative 
 to the free exercise of their religion. 
 
 As to the possessions of the house of Austria in Ger- 
 many, Italy, and the Low Countries, of which it was to be 
 deprived, not to mention here how much it is indebted 
 for them to a tyrannical usurpation, it would, after all, be 
 only depriving it of territories which it keeps at so pro- 
 digious an expense (I speak in particular of Italy and the 
 Low Countries), as all its treasures of the Indies have not 
 been able to defray : and besides, by investing it with the 
 
28 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 exclusive privilege above mentioned, of gaining new estab- 
 lishments, and appropriating to its own use the mines and 
 treasures of the three other parts of the world, it would be 
 abundantly indemnified ; for these new acquisitions would 
 be at least as considerable, and undoubtedly far more rich, 
 than those. But what is here proposed must not be under- 
 stood as if the other nations of Europe were excluded from 
 all commerce to those countries ; on the contrary, it should 
 be free and open to every one, and the house of Austria, 
 instead of considering this stipulation, which is of the 
 greatest consequence, as an infringement of its privileges, 
 would rather have reason to regard it as a further advantage. 
 
 From a further examination and consideration of these 
 dispositions, I do not doubt but the house of Austria would 
 have accepted the proposed conditions without being forced 
 to it. But, supposing the contrary, what would a resistance 
 have signified? The promise made to all the princes of 
 Europe, of enriching themselves by the territories of which 
 this house was to be divested, would deprive it of all hopes 
 of assistance from any of them. 
 
 Upon the whole, then, it appears that all parties would 
 have been gainers by it, and this was what assured Henry 
 the Great of the success of his design : the empire would 
 again become a dignity to which all princes, but particu- 
 larly those of Germany, might aspire : and this dignity 
 would be so much the more desirable, though, according 
 to its original institution, no revenues would be annexed to 
 it, as the emperor would be declared the first and chief 
 magistrate of the whole Christian republic ; and as we may 
 suppose this honour would afterwards be conferred only on 
 the most worthy, all his privileges in this respect, instead 
 of being diminished, would be enlarged, his authority over 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 29 
 
 the Belgic and Helvetic republics would be more consider- 
 able, and upon every new election they would be obliged 
 to render him a respectful homage. The electors would 
 still continue to enjoy the right of electing the emperor, 
 as well as of nominating the King of the Romans, with 
 this restriction only, — that the election should not be made 
 twice successively out of the same family. The first to have 
 been elected in this manner was the Elector of Bavaria, who 
 was also, in consequence of the partition, to have had those 
 territories possessed by the house of Austria which joined 
 to his own on the side of Italy. 
 
 The rest of these territories were to have been divided 
 and equally distributed by the Kings of France, England, 
 Denmark, and Sweden, among the Venetians, the Grisons, 
 the Duke of Wurtemberg, and the Marquis of Baden, Ans- 
 pach, and Dourlach. Bohemia was to have been constituted 
 an elective kingdom, by annexing it to Moravia, Silesia, 
 and Lusatia. Hungary was also to have been an elective 
 kingdom, and the pope, the Emperor, the Kings of France, 
 England, Denmark, Sweden, and Lombardy, were to have 
 had the right of nomination to it ; and because this kingdom 
 may be considered as the barrier of Christendom against 
 the infidels, it was to have been rendered the most powerful 
 and able to resist them ; and this was to have been done 
 by immediately adding to it the Archduchy of Austria, 
 Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and by afterwards incorpo- 
 rating with it whatever might be acquired in Transylvania, 
 Bosnia, Sclavonia, and Croatia. The same electors were to 
 have obliged themselves, by oath, to assist it upon all occa- 
 sions ; and they were to have been particularly careful never 
 to grant their suffrages from partiality, artifice, or intrigue, 
 but always to confer the dignity on a prince who, by his 
 
30 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 great qualifications, particularly for war, should be gener- 
 ally acknowledged as most proper. Poland being, from 
 its nearness to Turkey, Muscovy, and Tartary, in the same 
 situation with Hungary, was also to have been an elective 
 kingdom, by the same eight potentates, and its power 
 was to have been augmented, by annexing to it whatever 
 should be conquered from the infidels adjoining to its own 
 frontiers, and by determining in its favour those disputes 
 which it had with all its other neighbours. Switzerland, 
 when augmented by Franche-Comt£, Alsace, the Tyrol, 
 and other territories, was to have been united into a sover- 
 eign republic, governed by a council or senate, of which 
 the emperor, the princes of Germany, and the Venetians 
 were to have been umpires. 
 
 The changes to be made in Italy were, that the pope_ 
 should be declared a secular prince, and bear rank among 
 the monarchs of Europe, and under this title should pos- 
 sess Naples, Apulia, Calabria, and all their dependencies, 
 which should be indissolubly united to St. Peter's patri- 
 mony ; but in case the holy father had opposed this, which, 
 indeed, could scarcely have been supposed, the disposition 
 must then have been changed, and the kingdom of Naples 
 would have been divided and disposed of as the electoral 
 kings should have determined. Sicily was to have been 
 ceded to the republic of Venice, by letters from the same 
 eight principal potentates, upon condition that it should 
 render homage for it to every pope who should bear the 
 title of Immediate Chief of the whole Italian Republic, 
 otherwise, for this reason, called The Republic of the 
 Church. The other members of this republic were to have 
 been Genoa, Florence, Mantua, Modena, Parma, and Lucca, 
 without any alterations in their government ; Bologna and 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 31 
 
 Ferrara were to have been made free cities ; and all these 
 governments were every twenty years to have rendered 
 homage to the pope their chief, by the gift of a crucifix 
 of the value of ten thousand crowns. 
 
 Of the three great republics of Europe it appears, upon 
 the first glance, that this would have been the most brilliant 
 and the richest. Nevertheless, it would not have been so, 
 for what belonged to the Duke of Savoy was not comprised 
 herein. His territories were to have been constituted one 
 of the great monarchies of Europe, hereditary to males and 
 females, and to have borne the title of the kingdom of Lom- 
 bardy, wherein, beside the territory so called, the Milanese 
 and Montferrat would also have been comprised ; and the 
 Duke of Mantua, in exchange for these, was to have the 
 Duchy of Cremona. An authentic testimony of the insti- 
 tution would have been given by the pope, the emperor, 
 and the other sovereigns of the Christian republic. 
 
 Among all these different dismemberings we may ob- 
 serve that France received nothing for itself but the glory 
 of distributing them with equity. Henry had declared this*' 
 to be his intention long before. He even sometimes said, 
 with equal moderation and good sense, that were these 
 dispositions once firmly established, he would have volun- 
 tarily consented to have the extent of France determined 
 by a majority of suffrages. 1 Nevertheless, as the districts 
 of Artois, Hainault, Cambray, Cambresis, Tournay, Na- 
 mur, and Luxembourg might more suitably be annexed to 
 
 1 What then does Siri mean when he entertains us with the design 
 which he falsely affirms Henry the Great had to join Lorraine to France 
 (torn. i. p. 555), and to get Savoy ceded to him (torn. ii. p. 61)? What 
 he says of the dispositions in regard to the pope and the Venetians, &c. 
 (torn. ii. p. 180), is equally false. This writer seems indeed to have been 
 in the pay of the house of Austria. 
 
4 
 
 32 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 France than to any other nation, they were to have been 
 ceded to Henry, but to have been divided into ten distinct 
 governments, and bestowed on so many French princes or 
 lords, all of them bearing rank as sovereigns. 
 
 In regard to England it was precisely the same : this 
 was a determined point between Elizabeth and Henry, the 
 two princes who were authors of the scheme, probably from 
 an observation made by this queen, that the Britannic Isles, 
 in all the different states through which they had passed, 
 whether under one or several monarchs, elective or heredi- 
 tary, as well in the male as female line, and in all the 
 variations of their laws and policy, had never experienced 
 any great disappointments or misfortunes but when their 
 sovereigns had meddled in affairs out of their little conti- 
 nent. It seems, indeed, as if they were concentred in it 
 even by nature, and their happiness appears to depend 
 entirely on themselves, without having any concerns with 
 their neighbours, provided that they seek only to maintain 
 peace in the three nations subject to them, by governing 
 each according to its own laws and customs. To render 
 everything equal between France and England, Brabant 
 from the Duchy of Limbourg, the jurisdiction of Malines, 
 and the other dependencies on Flemish Flanders, Gallican 
 or imperial, were to have been formed into eight sovereign 
 fiefs, to be given to so many princes or lords of this nation. 
 
 These two parts excepted, all the rest of the seventeen 
 United Provinces, whether belonging to Spain or not, were 
 to have been erected into a free and independent state, 
 under the title of the Belgic republic, though there was 
 one other fief to be formed from them, bearing the title 
 of a principality, to be granted to the Prince of Orange; 
 also some other inconsiderable indemnities for three or four 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 33 
 
 other persons. The succession of Cleves was to have been 
 divided among those princes whom the emperor would have 
 deprived of. it, as the means of gratifying them at the ex- 
 pense of the house of Austria, as well as some other princes 
 of the same district, to whom the imperial towns situated 
 therein would have been granted. Even Sweden and Den- 
 mark, though they were to be considered as under the 
 influence of the same law which England and France had 
 imposed on themselves, would, by this distribution, have 
 enlarged their territories, and acquired other considerable 
 advantages. An end would have been put to the perpetual 
 troubles which agitated these two kingdoms; and this, I 
 think, would have been rendering them no inconsiderable 
 service. All these cessions, exchanges, and transpositions 
 towards the north of Germany were to have been deter- 
 mined by the Kings of France, England, and Lombardy, 
 and the republic of Venice. 
 
 And now, perhaps, the purport of the design may be 
 perceived, which was to divide Europe equally among a 
 certain number of powers, in such a manner that none of 
 them might have cause either of envy or fear from the 
 possessions or power of the others. The number of them 
 was reduced to fifteen, and they *were of three kinds : six 
 great hereditary monarchies, five elective monarchies, and 
 four sovereign republics. The six hereditary monarchies 
 were France, Spain, England or Britain, Denmark, Sweden, 
 and Lombardy ; the five elective monarchies were the Em- 
 pire, the Papacy or Pontificate, Poland, Hungary, and 
 Bohemia ; the four republics were the Venetian, the Italian 
 — or what, from its dukes, may be called the Ducal — the 
 Swiss, Helvetic, or Confederate, and the Belgic, or Pro- 
 vincial republic. \ 
 
 J 
 
34 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 The laws and ordinances proper to cement a union be- 
 tween all these princes, and to maintain that harmony 
 which should be once established among them, the recip- 
 rocal oaths and engagements in regard both to religion and 
 policy, the mutual assurances in respect to the freedom of 
 commerce, and the measures to be taken to make all these 
 partitions with equity and to the general content and satis- 
 faction of the parties ; all these matters are to be understood, 
 nor is it necessary to say anything of the precaution taken 
 by Henry in regard to them. The most that could have 
 happened would have been some trifling difficulties, which 
 would easily have been obviated in the general council, 
 representing all the states of Europe, the establishment of 
 which was certainly the happiest invention that could have 
 been conceived to prevent those innovations which time 
 often introduces in the wisest and most useful institutions. 
 
 The model of this ge neral council of Europe had been 
 formed on that of the ancient Amphyctions of Greece, 
 with such alterations only as rendered it suitable to our 
 customs, climate, and policy. It consisted of a certain 
 number of commissioners, ministers, or plenipotentiaries 
 from all the governments of the Christian republic, who 
 were to be constantly assembled as a senate, to deliberate 
 on any affairs which might occur, to discuss the different 
 interests, pacify the quarrels, clear up and determine all 
 the civil, political, and religious affairs of Europe, whether 
 within itself or with its neighbours. The form and man- 
 ner of proceeding in the senate would have been more 
 particularly determined by the suffrages of the senate itself. 
 Henry was of opinion that it should be composed of four 
 commissioners from each of the following potentates : the 
 Emperor, the Pope, the Kings of France, Spain, England, 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 35 
 
 Denmark, v Sweden, Lombardy, Poland, and the republic 
 of Venice ; and of two only from the other republics and 
 inferior powers, which altogether would have composed a 
 senate of about sixty-six persons, who should have been 
 re-chosen every three years. 
 
 In regard to the place of meeting, it remained to be 
 determined whether it would be better for the council to 
 be fixed or ambulatory, divided into three, or united in 
 one. If it were divided into three, each containing twenty- 
 two magistrates, then each of them must have been fixed 
 in such a centre as should appear to be most commodious, 
 as Paris or Bourges for one, and somewhere about Trente 
 and Cracovia for the two others. If it were judged more 
 expedient not to divide their assembly, whether fixed or 
 ambulatory, it must have been nearly in the centre of 
 Europe, and would consequently have been fixed in some 
 one of the fourteen cities following : Metz, Luxembourg, 
 Nancy, Cologne, Mayence, Treves, Frankfort, Wirtzbourg, 
 Heidelberg, Spire, Worms, Strasbourg, Basle, or Besancon. 
 
 Besides this general council it would, perhaps, have been 
 proper to have constituted some others of an inferior de- 
 gree, for the particular convenience of different districts. 
 For example, were six such created, they might have been 
 placed at Dantzic, Nuremberg, Vienna, Bologna, Con- 
 stance, and the last wherever it should be judged most 
 convenient for the kingdoms of France, Spain, England, 
 and the Belgic republic. But whatever the number or form 
 of these particular councils might have been, it would have 
 been absolutely necessary that they should be subordinate, 
 and -recur, by appeal, to the great general council, whose 
 decisions, when considered as proceeding from the united 
 authority of all the sovereigns, pronounced in a manner 
 
36 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 equally free and absolute, must have been regarded as so 
 many final and irrevocable decrees. 
 
 But let us quit these speculative designs, in which prac- 
 tice and experience would, perhaps, have caused many al- 
 terations ; and let us come to the means actually employed 
 by Henry to facilitate the execution of his great design. 
 
 To gain one of the most powerful princes of Europe, 
 with whom to concert all his designs, was what Henry 
 always considered as of the utmost consequence : and this 
 was the reason that after the death of Elizabeth, who had 
 indissolubly united the interests of the two crowns of France 
 and England, every means was used which might inspire 
 her successor, King James, with all her sentiments. Had 
 I but succeeded in the solemn embassy, the particulars of 
 which I have related already, so far as to have gained 
 this prince's consent to have his name appear openly with 
 Henry's, this military confederacy, especially if it had, in 
 like manner, been strengthened with the names of the 
 Kings of Denmark and Sweden, would have prevented 
 the troubles and difficulties of many negotiations ; but 
 nothing further could be obtained of the King of England 
 than the same promises which were required of the other 
 courts, namely, that he would not only not oppose the con- 
 federacy, but, when Henry had made his designs public, 
 would declare himself in his favour, and contribute towards 
 it in the same manner as the other powers interested 
 therein. A means was, indeed, afterwards found to ob- 
 tain the execution of this promise, in a manner so much 
 the more easy as it did not disturb the natural indolence 
 of this prince ; and this was by getting what he hesitated 
 to undertake in his own name executed by his son, the 
 Prince of Wales, who, as soon as he had obtained his 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 37 
 
 father's promise that he would at least not obstruct his 
 proceedings, anticipated Henry's utmost wishes, being 
 animated with a thirst of glory and desire to rende'r him- 
 self worthy the esteem and alliance of Henry, for he was 
 to marry the eldest of the daughters of France. He wrote 
 me several letters upon this subject, and expressed him- 
 self in the manner I have mentioned. He also further 
 said that the King of France might depend upon having six 
 thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse, which he would 
 oblige himself to bring into his service whenever they 
 should be required : and this number was afterwards aug- 
 mented by two thousand more foot and eight cannons, 
 maintained in all respects at the expense of England for 
 three years at least. The King of Sweden did not show 
 himself less zealous for the common cause ; and the King 
 of Denmark also appeared to be equally well disposed in 
 its favour. 
 
 In the mean time we were indefatigable in our negotia- 
 tions in the different courts of Europe, particularly in the 
 circles of Germany and the United Provinces, where the 
 king for this purpose had sent Boissise, Fresne-Canaye, 
 Baugy, Ancel, and Bongars. The council of the States 
 were very soon unanimous in their determinations ; the 
 Prince of Orange sent the Sieurs Malderet and Brederode 
 from them to offer the king fifteen thousand foot and 
 three thousand horse. They were soon followed by the 
 Landgrave of Hesse, and the Prince of Anhalt, to whom, 
 as well as to the Prince of Orange, the confederacy was 
 obliged for being increased by the Duke of Savoy ; by all 
 the Reformed religion in Hungary, Bohemia, and Lower 
 Austria ; by many Protestant princes and towns in Ger- 
 many ; in fine, by all the Swiss cantons of this religion. 
 
38 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 And when the succession of Cleves, which the emperor 
 showed himself disposed to usurp, became another incen- 
 tive to the confederacy, there was then scarcely any part 
 of Germany that was not for us ; which evidently appeared 
 from the result of the general assembly at Hall. The 
 Elector of Saxony, who perhaps remained alone of the 
 opposite party, might have been embarrassed in an affair 
 out of which he would probably have found it difficult to 
 extricate himself ; and this was to have been done by sug- 
 gesting to him the branch of John Frederic, deprived of 
 this electorate by Charles V. 
 
 There were several of these powers in regard to whom 
 I am persuaded nothing would have been risked by dis- 
 closing to them the whole intent and scope of the design. 
 On the contrary, they would probably have seconded it 
 with the greater ardour when they found the destruction 
 of the Austrian grandeur was a determined point. These 
 powers were, more particularly, the Venetians, the United 
 Provinces, almost all the Protestants, and especially the 
 Evangelics of Germany. But as too many precautions 
 could not be taken to prevent the Catholic powers from 
 being prejudiced against the new alliance in which they 
 were to be engaged, a too hasty discovery either of the 
 true motives, or the whole intent of the design, was, there- 
 fore, cautiously avoided. It was at first concealed from all 
 without exception, and afterwards revealed but to few per- 
 sons of approved discretion, and those only such as were 
 absolutely necessary to engage others to join the confed- 
 eracy. The association was for a long time spoken of to 
 others only as a kind of general treaty of peace, wherein 
 such methods would be projected as the public benefit and 
 the general service of Europe might suggest as necessary 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 39 
 
 to stop the progress of the excessive powers of the house 
 of Austria. Our ambassadors and agents had orders only 
 to demand of these princes a renewal or commencement 
 of alliance, in order more effectually to succeed in the pro- 
 jected peace ; to consult with them upon the means whereby 
 to effect it ; to appear as if they were sent only in con- 
 junction with them to endeavour the discovery of these 
 means ; but yet to second them, and according to the dis- 
 position in which they were, to insinuate, as if by acciden- 
 tal conjecture, some notion of a new method more proper 
 to maintain the equilibrium of Europe, and to secure to 
 each religion a more undisturbed repose than they had 
 hitherto enjoyed. The proposals made to the Kings of 
 England and Sweden, and the Dukes of Savoy and Lor- 
 raine, for alliances by marriage, proved very successful ; 
 it was absolutely determined that the Dauphin should 
 espouse the heiress of Lorraine, which duchy still con- 
 tinued, as before, to depend on the empire. 
 
 But no precaution appeared so necessary, nor was more 
 strongly recommended to our negotiators, than to con- 
 vince all the princes of Europe of the disinterestedness 
 with which Henry was resolved to act on this occasion. 
 This point was indefatigably laboured, and they were con- 
 vinced of it, when, on the supposition that it would be 
 necessary to have recourse to arms, we strongly protested 
 that the forces, the treasures, and even the person of Henry 
 might be depended on ; and this in a manner so generous 
 on his side, that, instead of expecting to be rewarded, or 
 even indemnified for them, he was voluntarily inclined to 
 give the most positive assurances not to reserve to him- 
 self a single town, nor the smallest district. This modera- 
 tion, of which at last no one doubted, made a suitable 
 
40 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 impression, especially when it was perceived to be so 
 much the more generous, as there was sufficient to excite 
 and satisfy the desires of all. And in the interim, before 
 the solemn publication of this absolute renunciation, which 
 was to have been made in the manifestoes that were pre- 
 paring, Henry gave a proof of it, that was an absolute 
 demonstration, to the pope. 
 
 No one being ignorant that it was at least intended to 
 deprive Spain of those of its usurpations which were the 
 most manifestly unjust, Navarre and Roussillon would in- 
 fallibly revert to France ; the king, therefore, voluntarily 
 offered to exchange them for the two kingdoms of Naples 
 and Sicily ; and at the same time to make a present of 
 both to the pope and the republic of Venice. This, cer- 
 tainly, was renouncing the most incontestable right he 
 could have to any of the territories of which this crown 
 was to be deprived ; and by submitting this affair as he 
 did to the determination of the pope and the Venetians, 
 he the more sensibly obliged them, as both the honour 
 and profit which might arise therefrom would be in their 
 favour. The pope, therefore, on the first proposition made 
 to him, even anticipated Henry's intentions ; he imme- 
 diately demanded, whether, as affairs were then situated, 
 the several powers would approve his taking upon him the 
 office of common mediator, to establish peace in Europe, 
 and convert the continual wars among its several princes 
 into a perpetual war against the Infidels, which was a 
 part of the design he had been very careful to acquaint 
 him with ; and the pope sufficiently showed that he was 
 desirous nothing should be done without his participa- 
 tion, and that he was still less disposed to refuse the 
 advantage offered to him. 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 41 
 
 Paul V., when a favourable opportunity offered, ex- 
 plained himself more openly on this head. Ubaldini, his 
 nuncio, told the king, that his holiness for the. confederacy 
 against the house of Austria, would, on various pretences, 
 engage to raise ten thousand foot, fifteen hundred horse, 
 and ten cannons, provided his majesty would promise to 
 defray the necessary expenses of their subsistence for three 
 years ; would give all possible security for the cession of 
 Naples and the other rights of homage according to 
 promise ; and would sincerely consent to the other con- 
 dition in regard to the treaty which he should think nec- 
 essary to impose. These conditions, at least the principal 
 of them, were, that only Catholics should be elected em- 
 perors ; that the Roman religion should be maintained in 
 all its rights, and the' ecclesiastics in all their privileges 
 and immunities ; and the Protestants should not be per- 
 mitted to establish themselves in places where they were 
 not established before the treaty. The king promised 
 Ubaldini that he would religiously observe all these con- 
 ditions ; and further, he relinquished to the pope the 
 honour of being the arbitrator of all those regulations to 
 be made in the establishment of the new republic. 
 
 The removing of these difficulties in regard to the pope 
 was of no inconsiderable consequence ; for his example 
 would not fail to be of great force in determining the 
 other Catholic powers, especially those of Italy. Nothing 
 was neglected which might promote the favourable dis- 
 positions in which they appeared to be, by punctually 
 paying the cardinals and petty princes of Italy their pen- 
 sions, and even by adding to them several other gratuities. 
 The establishment of a new monarchy in Italy was the 
 only pretence these petty courts had for not joining the 
 
42 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 confederacy ; but this vain apprehension would be easily 
 dissipated. The particular advantages which each would 
 acquire, might alone have satisfied them in this respect ; 
 but if not, all opposers might have been threatened with 
 being declared after a certain time divested of all right to 
 the proposed advantages, and even of all pretensions to 
 the empire, or the elective kingdoms ; and that the repub- 
 lics amongst them should be converted into sovereignties, 
 and sovereignties into republics. There is but little proba- 
 bility that any of them would even have hesitated what 
 to do. The punishment of the first offender would have 
 compelled the submission of all these petty states, who 
 were besides sufficiently sensible of their impotence. But 
 this method was not to be used but on failure of all others ; 
 and even then, no opportunity would have been neglected 
 of showing them favour. 
 
 And now we are arrived at the point to which every- 
 thing was advanced at the fatal moment of the death of 
 Henry the Great ; and the following is a circumstantial 
 detail of the forces for the war which all the parties con- 
 cerned had, in conjunction with him, agreed to furnish : 
 The contingents of the Kings of England, Sweden, and 
 Denmark were each eight thousand foot, fifteen hundred 
 horse, and eight cannons, to be raised and maintained in 
 all respects at their expense at least for three years ; and 
 this expense, reckoning ten livres a month for each foot 
 soldier, thirty livres for each trooper, the pay of the offi- 
 cers included, and the year to be composed of ten 
 months, would amount for each of these states to three 
 million three hundred and seventy thousand livres for three 
 years ; the expense of the artiller/, fifteen hundred livres a 
 month for each piece being also included. The princes of 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 43 
 
 Germany before mentioned were to furnish twenty-five thou- 
 sand foot, ten thousand horse, and forty cannons ; they had 
 themselves computed the expense at nine or ten millions for 
 three years. The United Provinces, twelve thousand foot, 
 two thousand horse, and ten cannons ; the expense twelve 
 millions. Hungary, Bohemia, and the other Evangelics of 
 Germany, the same number, and nearly at the same expense. 
 The pope, ten thousand foot, fifteen hundred horse, and eight 
 cannons. The Duke of Savoy, eighteen thousand foot, two 
 thousand horse and twelve cannons. The Venetians, twelve 
 thousand foot, two thousand horse, and twelve cannons. 
 The expense of these last-mentioned armaments the king 
 himself had engaged to defray. The total of all these for- 
 eign forces, allowing for deficiencies, which might prob- 
 ably have happened, would always have been at least one 
 hundred thousand foot, from twenty to twenty-five thou- 
 sand horse, and about one hundred and twenty cannons. 
 The king on his side had actually on foot two good and 
 well furnished armies ; the first, which he was to have com- 
 manded in person, consisted of twenty thousand foot, all 
 native French, eight thousand Switzers, four thousand 
 lansquenets, or Walloons, five thousand horse, and twenty 
 cannons. The second, to be commanded by Lesdiguieres, 
 in the neighbourhood of the Alps, consisted of ten thousand 
 foot, one thousand horse, and ten cannons ; besides a flying 
 camp of four thousand foot, six hundred horse, and ten 
 cannons ; and a reserve of two thousand foot, to garrison 
 those places where they might be necessary. 1 We will here 
 make a general calculation of all these troops. 
 
 1 There are some variations in our Memoirs in regard to the number 
 of men, both in the royal grand army, which, in different places, is said 
 to be composed of thirty, thirty-two, and thirty-six thousand foot, of four, 
 five, six, and eight thousand horse, and from thirty to fifty cannons ; and 
 
44 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 The twenty thousand foot, at twenty-one livres a month 
 to each man, including the appointments of generals and 
 officers, would by the month require four hundred and 
 twenty thousand livres, and by the year five million 
 and forty thousand livres ; the eight thousand Switzers and 
 four thousand lansquenets, three millions ; the five thousand 
 horse, at sixty livres a month to each, by the month, would 
 require two hundred and forty thousand livres, and by the 
 year, two million eight hundred and forty thousand livres ; 
 this computation is made so high as sixty livres a month 
 to each, because the pay of the officers, and particularly 
 of the king's white troops, composed of a thousand men 
 of the first rank in the kingdom, who served as volunteers, 
 was therein included. The expense of the twenty large 
 cannons, six culverins, and four demi-culverins, supposing 
 all necessary furniture for them provided, would amount 
 to three thousand six hundred livres a month for each 
 piece ; the thirty together would consequently require one 
 hundred and eight thousand livres. Extraordinary expenses 
 and losses in regard to the provisions and ammunition for 
 this army might be computed at one hundred and fifty 
 thousand livres. 
 
 Next, for expenses, whether ordinary or extraordinary, 
 in spies, for the sick and wounded, and other unforeseen 
 contingencies, computing at the highest a like sum of one 
 million eight hundred thousand livres. To supply the de- 
 ficiencies which might happen in the armies of the con- 
 federate princes, to pay the pensions, and to answer other 
 
 in that of the confederate princes of Germany, sometimes computed 
 even at- forty thousand foot, and twelve thousand horse; similar differ- 
 ences often occur in regard to those of Italy, and the other confederate 
 princes ; neither are the calculations of the expense always the same, 
 nor quite just in their estimates. 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 45 
 
 particular exigencies which might arise in the kingdom, 
 three hundred thousand livres a month ; for the year, 
 three million six hundred thousand livres. The army of 
 Lesdiguieres would require three millions a year, and as 
 much for each of the armies of the pope, the Venetians, 
 and the Duke of Savoy. These last four articles together 
 make twelve millions a year, which, added to the preced- 
 ing sums, amount in the whole to about thirty million one 
 hundred and sixty thousand livres a year. 
 
 It remains only to triple this total for the three years 
 during which it was supposed there might be occasion for 
 the forces, and the whole amount will appear to be between 
 ninety and ninety-one millions, which might nearly be 
 necessary to defray the expenses of the intended war ; I 
 say nearly, for in this calculation I have not included the 
 flying camp, nor the two thousand men for garrisons : the 
 first of these two articles, at the rate of eighteen livres a 
 month to each foot soldier, and fifty livres to each trooper, 
 would require a further sum of about one hundred and 
 thirty thousand livres a month, which, for a year, would 
 be one million five hundred thousand livres, and four 
 million five hundred thousand livres for three years ; the 
 second article, for the three years, would require about 
 twelve hundred thousand livres. 
 
 On a supposition that the expense of France on this 
 occasion would not have amounted to more than between 
 ninety and ninety-five millions, which supposition is far 
 from being hazardous, because we have here computed 
 everything at the highest it would bear, it is easy to show 
 that, at the expiration of the three years, Henry would 
 have remaining in his coffers thirty millions, over and 
 above what would be expended. The total amount of all 
 
46 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 the receipts from the several funds, formed and to be 
 formed for these three years, being one hundred and 
 twenty-one million five hundred and forty thousand, livres, 
 as appears from the three estimates which I drew up and 
 presented to his majesty. 
 
 v The first of these estimates, which contained only a list 
 of the sums actually deposited in the Bastille, amounted to 
 twenty-two million four hundred and sixty thousand livres, 
 in several coffers, marked Phelipeaux, Puget, and Bouhier ; 
 the second was another list of the sums actually due from 
 the farmers, partisans, and receivers-general, which might 
 be considered as in possession, and produced another total 
 of eighteen million six hundred and thirteen thousand 
 livres ; these two totals together made forty-one million 
 seventy-three thousand livres, which the king would im- 
 mediately have at his disposal. To acquire the rest of 
 these hundred and twenty-one millions, I had recourse, in 
 the third estimate, to no new taxations : the whole remain- 
 der would arise solely from the offers of augmentation 
 upon the several royal revenues which the farmers and 
 partisans had made for a lease of three years, and from 
 what the officers of justice and the finances had volunta- 
 rily engaged to furnish, provided they might be permitted 
 the free enjoyment of certain privileges ; so that in these 
 one hundred and twenty-one millions I had not compre- 
 hended the three years' receipts of the other royal reve- 
 nues. And in case it were afterwards necessary to have 
 recourse to means somewhat more burdensome, I had 
 given the king another estimate, whereby, instead of these 
 one hundred and twenty-one millions, it appeared that one 
 hundred and seventy-five millions might have been raised. 
 I also demonstrated that, upon any pressing emergency, 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 47 
 
 this kingdom could open itself resources of treasure that 
 are almost innumerable. 
 
 It was very much to be wished that the sums of money 
 and the numbers of men to be furnished by the other con- 
 federates would be equally well secured by such estimates ; 
 but whatever deficiencies might have happened, having 
 forty-one millions to distribute wherever it might be found 
 necessary, what obstacles could Henry have to fear from a 
 power who was known to be destitute of money, and even 
 of troops ? no one being ignorant that the best and most 
 numerous forces which Spain had in its service were 
 drawn from Sicily, Naples, and Lombardy, or else were 
 Germans, Switzers, and Walloons. 
 
 Everything, therefore, concurring to promote success, 
 and good magazines being placed in proper parts of the 
 passage, the king was on the point of marching, at the 
 head of his army, directly to Mezieres, from whence, tak- 
 ing his route by Clinchamp, Orchimont, Beauraign, Offais, 
 Longpre, &c, after having caused five forts to be erected 
 in these quarters, and therein placed his two thousand 
 men destined for that purpose, with the necessary provi- 
 sions and ammunition, he would, near Duren and Stavelo, 
 have joined the two armies which the princes of Germany 
 and the United Provinces would have caused to march 
 thither ; and then, beginning by occupying all those pas- 
 sages through which the enemy might find entrance into 
 the territories of Juliers and Cleves, these principalities, 
 which were a pretext for the armament, would conse- 
 quently have immediately submitted to him, and would 
 have been sequestrated, till it should appear how the 
 emperor and the King of Spain would act, in regard to 
 the designs of the confederate princes. 
 
48 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 This was the moment fixed on to publish and make 
 known throughout Europe the declarations, in form of 
 manifestoes, which were to open the eyes of all in regard 
 to their true interests, and the real motives which had 
 caused Henry and the confederate princes thus to take up 
 arms. These manifestoes were composed with the great- 
 est care ; a spirit of justice, honesty, and good faith, of 
 disinterestedness and good policy, were everywhere appar- 
 ent in them ; and, without wholly discovering the several 
 changes intended to be made in Europe, it was intimated 
 that their common interest had thus compelled its princes 
 to arm themselves, and not only to prevent the house of 
 Austria from getting possession of Cleves, but also to 
 divest her of the United Provinces, and of whatever else 
 she unjustly possessed ; that their intentions were to dis- 
 tribute these territories among such princes and states as 
 were the weakest ; that the design was such as could not 
 surely give occasion to a war in Europe ; that, though 
 armed, the kings of France and the North rather chose 
 to be mediators in the causes of complaint which Europe, 
 through them, made against the house of Austria, and 
 only sought to determine amicably all differences subsist- 
 ing among the several princes ; and that, whatever was done 
 on this occasion, should be not only with the unanimous 
 consent of all these powers, but even of all their people, who 
 were hereby invited to give in their opinions to the confed- 
 erate princes: such also would have been the substance of 
 the circular letters which Henry and the associated princes 
 would at the same time have sent to all places subject to 
 them; that so, the people being informed, and joining their 
 suffrages, a universal cry from all parts of Christendom 
 would have been raised against the house of Austria. 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 49 
 
 As it was determined to avoid with the utmost caution 
 whatever might give umbrage to any one, and Henry being 
 desirous to give still more convincing proofs to his confed- 
 erates that to promote their true interests was his sole 
 study and design, to the letters already mentioned he 
 would have added others to be written to different courts, 
 particularly to the electors of Cologne and Treves, the 
 Bishops of Munster, Liege, and Paderborn, and the Duke 
 and Duchess of Lorraine ; and this conduct would have 
 been pursued, in regard even to our enemies, in the letters 
 which were to be written to the archduke, and the infanta 
 his wife, to the emperor himself, and to all the Austrian 
 princes, requesting them, from the strongest and most 
 pressing motives, to embrace the only right and reasonable 
 party ; in all places, nothing would have been neglected to 
 instruct, convince, and gain confidence ; the execution of 
 all engagements, and the distribution or sequestration of 
 whatever territories might require to be so disposed, would 
 have been strictly, and even scrupulously observed ; force 
 would never have been employed till arguments, entreaties, 
 embassies and negotiations should have failed : finally, 
 even in the use of arms, it would have been not as enemies, 
 but pacifiers ; the queen would have advanced as far as 
 Metz, accompanied by the whole court, and attended by 
 such pomp and equipage as were suitable only to peace. 
 
 Henry had projected a new method of discipline in his 
 camp, which very probably would have produced the good 
 effects intended by it, especially if his example had been 
 imitated by the other princes his allies. He intended to 
 have created four marshals of France, or at least four 
 camp marshals, whose sole care should have been to main- 
 tain universal order, discipline, and subordination. The 
 
50 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 first of these would have had the inspection of the cavalry, 
 the second of the French infantry, the third of the foreign ' 
 forces, and the fourth of whatever concerned the artillery, 
 ammunition, and provisions ; and the king would have 
 required an exact and regular account from these four offi- 
 cers of whatever was transacted by them in their respec- 
 tive divisions. He applied himself with equal ardor to 
 cause all military virtues to be revered and honoured in his 
 army, by granting all employs and places of trust to merit 
 only, by preferring good officers, by rewarding the soldiers, 
 by punishing blasphemies and other impious language, by 
 showing a regard both for his own troops and those of his 
 confederates, by stifling a spirit of discord, caused by a 
 difference of religion ; and, finally, by uniting emulation 
 with that harmony of sentiments which contributes more 
 than all the rest to obtain victory. 
 
 The consequence of this enterprise, with regard to war, 
 would have depended on the manner in which the em- 
 peror and the King of Spain should receive the propo- 
 sitions and reply to the manifestoes of the confederate 
 princes ; it seems probable that the emperor, submitting 
 to force, would have consented to everything. I am even 
 persuaded he would have been the first to demand an 
 amicable interview with the King of France, that he 
 might at least extricate himself with honour from the diffi- 
 culties in which he would have been involved ; and he 
 would probably have been satisfied with assurances that 
 the imperial dignity, with all its rights and prerogatives, 
 should be secured to him for his life. The archdukes had 
 made great advances ; they engaged to permit the king, 
 with all his troops, to enter their territories and towns, 
 provided they committed no hostilities in them, and paid 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 51 
 
 punctually, in all places, for whatever they required. If 
 these appearances were not deceitful, Spain, being aban- 
 doned by all, must, though unwillingly, have submitted to 
 the will of its conquerors. 
 
 But it may be supposed that all the branches of the 
 house of Austria would, on this occasion, have united, 
 and, in defence of their common interests, would have 
 used all the efforts of which they were capable. In this 
 case, Henry and the confederate princes, by declaring war 
 in form against their enemies, and depriving the Span- 
 iards of all communications, especially with the Low Coun- 
 tries, and having, as we have said, united all their forces, 
 given audience to the princes of Germany, promised assist- 
 ance to the people of Hungary and Bohemia who should 
 come to implore it of them, and finally secured the terri- 
 tory of Cleves, — these princes, I say, would then have 
 caused their three armies to advance towards Basle and 
 Strasbourg to support the Switzers, who, after having, fpr 
 form's sake, asked leave of the emperor, would have de- 
 clared for the union. The United Provinces, though at a 
 considerable distance from these armies, would yet have 
 been sufficiently defended by the flying camp, which 
 Henry would have caused to advance towards them ; by 
 the arms of England and the North, to whose protection 
 they would be entrusted ; by the care which at first would 
 have been taken to get possession of Charlemont, Maes- 
 tricht, Namur, and other places near the Meuse, and 
 finally by the naval forces of these provinces, which, in 
 conjunction with those of England, would have reigned 
 absolute masters at sea. 
 
 These measures being taken, the war could have been 
 waged only in Italy or Germany ; and supposing it to have 
 
52 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 been in the former, the three armies of Henry, the Prince 
 of Orange, and the Princes of Germany, quitting Franche- 
 Comte, after having fortified it in the same manner as the 
 Low Countries, by a small body of troops, would have 
 marched with their forces towards the Alps, ' where they 
 would have been joined by those of Lesdiguieres, the 
 pope, the Venetians, and the Duke of Savoy, who then 
 would have declared themselves openly, — the Duke of 
 Savoy, by requiring a portion for his duchess, equal to 
 what had been given to the Infanta Isabella, and the other 
 powers by demanding the execution of the agreement in 
 regard to Navarre, Naples, and Sicily, and thus, from all 
 parts of Europe, war would be declared against Spain. If 
 the enemy should appear inclined to draw the war into 
 Germany, then the confederates, having left a considerable 
 number of troops in Italy, would have penetrated even 
 into the heart of Germany, where, from Hungary and 
 Bohemia, they would have been strengthened by those 
 powerful succours which were there preparing. 
 
 The other events, in consequence of these dispositions, 
 can only be conjectured, because they would greatly de- 
 pend on the degree of alacrity with which the enemy 
 should oppose the rapidity of our conquests, and on the 
 readiness with which the confederates, especially those at 
 the extremity of Germany, should make good their engage- 
 ments. Nevertheless, I am persuaded, that from the dis- 
 positions, as here laid down, there are none but must 
 regard the house of Austria as struck by the blow whose 
 force was for ever to annihilate its power, and open a pas- 
 sage to the execution of the other projected designs, to 
 which this attack could only be considered as the prelim- 
 inary. I will add, too (and here the voice of all Europe 
 
THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 53 
 
 will vindicate me from the imputation of partiality), that 
 if the force necessary to render such an enterprise success- 
 ful does always depend on the person of the chief who 
 conducts it, this could not have been better conferred than 
 upon Henry the Great. With a valour alone capable of 
 surmounting the greatest difficulties, and a presence of 
 mind which neither neglected nor lost any opportunities 
 of advantage ; with a prudence which, without precipi- 
 tating anything, or attempting too many things at a time, 
 could regularly connect them together, and perfectly knew 
 what might and what might not be the result of time ; 
 with a consummate experience ; and, finally, with all those 
 other great qualifications, whether as a warrior or politi- 
 cian, which were so remarkable in this prince, — what is 
 there which might not have been obtained ? This was the 
 meaning of that modest device which this great king 
 caused to be inscribed on some of the last medals that 
 were struck under his reign : Nil sine concilio. 
 
PASSAGES FROM SULLY'S MEMOIRS ILLUS- 
 TRATING THE HISTORY OF THE 
 GREAT DESIGN 
 
 I 
 
 Conference between Sully and Queen Elizabeth, 
 at Dover, in 1601 1 
 
 The Queen of England hearing the king was at Calais, 
 thought it a favourable opportunity to satisfy her impatience 
 of seeing and embracing her best friend. Henry was not 
 less desirous of this interview, that he might confer with 
 the queen upon the affairs of Europe in general, as well 
 as on their own in particular, especially those which had 
 been hinted to him by the English and Dutch ambassa- 
 dors when he was at Nantes. Elizabeth first wrote him a 
 letter equally polite and full of offers of service ; she after- 
 wards made him the usual compliments, and repeated 
 those assurances by the Lord Edmond, 2 whom she des- 
 patched to Calais, till she herself could arrive at Dover, 
 from whence she sent M. de Stafford Lord Sidney, 3 with 
 other letters. 
 
 1 From the Twelfth Book of Sully's Memoirs. 
 
 2 He means Sir Thomas Edmondes. (See Birch's Negotiations, 
 p. 200 ; Camden, &c.) — Ed. 
 
 3 The person here styled " Stafford Lord Sidney," was Sir Robert 
 Sydney, the younger brother of the illustrious Sir Philip. He was not a 
 peer till after the accession of James, who first created him Baron Syd- 
 ney of Penshurst, next Viscount Lisle, and lastly Earl of Leicester. 
 Why he is called Stafford in the text it is not easy to say, unless we 
 could suppose the author has confounded him with Sir Edward Stafford, 
 ambassador in France in 1 588. — Ed. 
 
 54 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH ELIZABETH 55 
 
 Henry resolving not to be outdone in complaisance, 
 answered these advances in a manner that showed at once 
 his respect for Elizabeth, and his esteem and admiration 
 for her character. This intercourse continued a long time, 
 to the great mortification of the Spaniards, whose jealousy 
 was strongly excited by the proximity and close correspond- 
 ence of the two sovereigns. Of all the letters written by 
 them on this occasion, I possess only one of those which 
 Elizabeth wrote to the king : this, because it was the occa- 
 sion of the voyage I made to this princess, I have kept in 
 my hands ; it was as follows : 
 
 " My very dear and well-beloved Brother, — I had 
 always considered the condition of sovereigns to be the 
 most happy, and that they were the least subject to meet 
 with obstacles in the way of their just and legitimate 
 desires ; but our residence in two places so near each 
 other makes me begin to think, that those of high as well 
 as of middle rank often meet with thorns and difficulties, 
 since from certain causes and considerations, rather to 
 satisfy others than ourselves, we are both prevented from 
 crossing the sea ; for I had promised myself* the happi- 
 ness of embracing you, as being your very loyal sister and 
 faithful ally, and you my very dear brother whom I love 
 and honour above everything in this world, whose incom- 
 parable virtues (to tell you my real sentiments) I admire, 
 and particularly your valour in arms, and politeness and 
 gallantry amongst the fair sex. I have something of con- 
 sequence to communicate to you, which I can neither write 
 nor confide to any of your ministers, nor my own at pres- 
 ent, so that, in expectation of a more convenient opportu- 
 nity, I shall return to London in a few days. That God may 
 
56 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 continue to you, my very dear and well-beloved brother, 
 his holy favours and blessing, is the prayer of your most 
 affectionate sister and loyal ally — Elizabeth." 1 
 
 When the king received this letter, he read it over two 
 or three times with great satisfaction, and took particular 
 notice of the latter part of it ; but being at a loss how to 
 interpret it, he sent Secretary Feret for me, and as soon 
 as I went to him, he said to me, " I have just received a 
 letter from my good sister the Queen of England, whom 
 you esteem so highly, more full of cajoleries than ever ; 
 pray see if, from your knowledge of her character, you can 
 comprehend better than I can what she means by the con- 
 clusion of this letter." Having read it over several times, 
 
 1 This letter, and this whole relation of the Duke of Sully's concern- 
 ing Henry the Fourth's journey to Calais, and Elizabeth's to Dover, 
 appear sufficient, without any other reflections, to show the error of all 
 those various judgments current at that time, and which have been 
 mentioned by different historians concerning these two potentates. It 
 was said Elizabeth proposed to Henry, either that he should come to 
 Dover, or at least confer with her in a vessel half-way between these 
 two towns, and that this proposal concealed a snare in which Elizabeth 
 hoped to entrap Henry, by seizing upon his person in the interview, 
 and keeping him prisoner till he restored Calais, and that Henry ex- 
 cused himself from complying with her request, only because he sus- 
 pected the design ; others say, because his fears of the sea were so 
 great, that he durst not venture into a vessel. No one suspected the 
 true motive for proposing this interview, which was the occasion of all 
 those letters that passed between them, and caused the Duke of Sully 
 to make the secret voyage to Dover, of which he here gives an account. 
 Siri, on this occasion, builds up the resentment which he supposes 
 Elizabeth always preserved, both at the peace of Vervins and the sur- 
 render of Calais, as well as her fear lest Henry should aggrandise him- 
 self too much, and on the jealousy which the English entertained of 
 the French. (Mem. Recond. vol. i. pp. 130, 150, &c.) But this writer, so 
 well acquainted with foreign negotiations, especially those of Italy and 
 Spain, is not right, neither in the facts nor the opinions which he pro- 
 duces concerning the interior of our court and councils under the reign 
 of Henry IV. He knew neither this prince nor the Duke of Sully. 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH ELIZABETH 57 
 
 but being obliged to confess I could not comprehend it, 
 ''Well, my friend," said his majesty, " I will not conceal 
 from you that I am very anxious to know what this prin- 
 cess has in view by these expressions, for, in my opinion, 
 she has not employed them without very particular reasons : 
 I have therefore thought of an expedient by which, per- 
 haps, we may come to a knowledge of her meaning, with- 
 out doing anything that can give offence to either party ; 
 this is, for you to set out to-morrow morning for Dover, 
 as if by your own inclination, and on your arrival there, to 
 make show of not wishing to stop, but of passing on to 
 London, for the purpose of seeing the country ; so that, 
 should you meet with any person of your acquaintance, 
 the queen may be informed that you are in Dover to watch 
 what she will do ; and should she send for you, it is prob- 
 able you may discover some part of her sentiments in the 
 course of your conversation together." 
 
 I accordingly embarked early next morning, in a small 
 boat, with very few attendants, without mentioning my 
 journey to any one, and reached Dover about ten o'clock, 
 where I saw a great number of people, some embarking, 
 others landing, and many walking upon the beach ; six or 
 seven of the latter advanced towards me, one of whom was 
 Lord Sidney, who, having five or six days before seen me 
 at Calais, immediately recognised me, and ran to embrace 
 me : with him were Cobham, Raleigh, and Griffin, and 
 they were soon after joined by the Earls of Devonshire 
 and Pembroke, who, after mutual civilities and compli- 
 ments, asked me if I were come to see the queen on 
 the part of my master. I told them I was not, and even 
 assured them that the king knew nothing of my voyage ; 
 I likewise entreated them not to mention it to the queen, 
 
58 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 for not having had any intention of paying my respects to 
 her, I had no letter to present, my desire being only to 
 make a short tour incognito to London. These gentlemen 
 replied, smiling, that I had taken a useless precaution, for 
 that probably the guardship had already given a signal of 
 my arrival, and that I might quickly expect to see a mes- 
 senger from the queen, who would not suffer me to pass 
 in this manner, she having but three days ago spoke of 
 me publicly, and in very obliging terms. I affected to be 
 extremely concerned at this unlucky accident, but to hope, 
 nevertheless, that I might still pass undiscovered, provided 
 that these gentlemen would be secret as to the place where 
 I was to lodge ; from whence, I assured them, I would 
 immediately depart as soon as I had taken a little refresh- 
 ment : saying this, I left them abruptly, and had but just 
 entered my apartment, and spoke a few words to one of 
 my secretaries, when I heard somebody behind me tell me 
 that he arrested me as a prisoner to the queen. This was 
 the captain of her majesty's guards, whom I embraced, and 
 answered, smiling, that I should esteem such imprisonment 
 a great honour. He had orders to conduct me directly to 
 the queen ; I therefore followed him. As soon as Elizabeth 
 perceived me, she exclaimed, " Well ! Monsieur de Rosny, 
 and do you thus break our fences and pass on without 
 coming to see me ? I am greatly surprised at it, for I 
 thought you bore me more affection than any of my own 
 servants, and I am persuaded that I have given you no 
 cause to change those sentiments." I replied, that her 
 majesty had always so highly honoured me, and testified so 
 much good-will towards me, that I loved and honoured her 
 for her excellent virtues, and would always serve her most 
 humbly, not merely from my own inclination, but also from 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH ELIZABETH 59 
 
 knowing that in doing so I was rendering an acceptable 
 service to my king. After many more expressions of this 
 sort, the queen replied, "Well, Monsieur de Rosny, to 
 give you a proof that I believe all you have told me of the 
 good-will of the king my brother, and of your own, I will 
 speak with you on the subject of the last letter I wrote to 
 him ; though, perhaps, you have seen it, for Stafford x and 
 Edmondes tell me that the king conceals few of his se- 
 crets from you." On telling her I was not ignorant of the 
 letter, she immediately answered that she was glad of it, 
 and also that I had crossed the sea, because she had no 
 difficulty to tell me freely what she hinted at in the con- 
 clusion of her letter. She then drew me aside, and con- 
 versed with me a long time on the greater part of the 
 events which had happened since the peace of Vervins 
 (too long to be repeated here), and concluded with asking 
 if her good brother the king's affairs were now in a better 
 state than in 1598, and if he were in a condition to begin, 
 in good earnest, the great design which she had proposed 
 from that time ? To this I replied, that, although since 
 that period the king had had many weighty affairs to settle, 
 as well in relation to the war in Savoy as to several plots 
 in the heart of his kingdom, which were not yet entirely 
 destroyed, all which had occasioned very heavy expenses, 
 yet I had nevertheless so managed the revenue, and other 
 departments of the state, that a numerous artillery had 
 been provided, as well as abundance of stores and provi- 
 sions, and even of money ; but that all this, however, was 
 not sufficient to advise him to bear alone the burthen of an 
 open war against the whole house of Austria, which was 
 so powerful, that it would be in vain to attack it partially ; 
 
 1 This must be a mistake for Sydney. (See note, p. 54.) 
 
60 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 that it even appeared to me that the assistance of Eng- 
 land and the States only was by no means sufficient for 
 the commencement of so great a work, but that it was 
 absolutely necessary to endeavour to form a coalition of 
 all the other kings, princes, republics, and people, who 
 dreaded the tyranny of that house, or would profit by its 
 humiliation. The queen here told me she was very happy 
 she had heard my sentiments on this subject, and the 
 more so as she believed that I had not said so much with- 
 out knowing something of the intentions of the king her 
 brother, with which, in this case, hers would perfectly 
 agree, by only adding certain conditions, which she con- 
 sidered as absolutely necessary to prevent misunderstand- 
 ing and distrust among the coalesced powers ; these, in 
 her opinion, would be, to proportion so well the desires of 
 each, that none might be entertained either prejudicial or 
 disagreeable to any of the rest, which would inevitably 
 happen if the more powerful wished to take the greatest 
 share of the conquests and the distribution of them ; and 
 that above all things it was necessary that neither her 
 brother the King of France, nor the King of Scotland, 
 who would certainly inherit her crown, nor those of Den- 
 mark and Sweden, who might become very powerful both 
 by land and sea, nor herself, consequently, should pretend 
 to claim any portion of the seventeen provinces of the 
 Low Countries, nor any place in their neighbourhood ; 
 " For, to conceal nothing from you," continued the queen, 
 " if my brother the King of France should think of mak- 
 ing himself proprietor, or even only feudal-lord of the 
 United Provinces, I should never consent to it, but enter- 
 tain a most violent jealousy of him ; nor should I blame 
 him if, giving him the same occasion, he should have the 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH ELIZABETH 6l 
 
 same fears of me : and so of all the other states and 
 dignities of which the ambitious house of Austria may 
 be deprived." 
 
 These were not the only reflections made by the Queen 
 of England ; she said many other things, which appeared 
 to me so just and sensible, that I was filled with astonish- 
 ment and admiration. It is not unusual to behold princes 
 form great designs ; their sphere of action so forcibly in- 
 clines them to this, that it is only necessary to warn them 
 of the extreme, which is, the projecting what their powers 
 are so little proportioned to perform, that they scarce ever 
 find themselves able to execute the half of what they pur- 
 pose ; but to be able to distinguish and form only such as 
 are reasonable ; wisely to regulate the conduct of them ; 
 to foresee and guard against all obstacles in such a man- 
 ner that, when they happen, nothing more will be neces- 
 sary than to apply the remedies prepared long before ; 
 this is what few princes are capable of. Ignorance, pros- 
 perity, luxury, vanity, nay, even fear and indolence, daily 
 produce schemes, to execute which there is not the least 
 possibility. Another cause of surprise to me was, that 
 Elizabeth and Henry, having never conferred together on 
 their political project, should agree so exactly in all their 
 ideas as not to differ even in the most minute particulars. 1 
 
 1 As Hume has quoted the above passage, I will here show what 
 authority the modern compiler of these Memoirs had for inserting it, 
 by giving the words as they stand in the original Memoirs of Sully ; 
 they will, moreover, afford another instance how strangely that work 
 has been in many instances garbled and misrepresented : Sully {i.e. his 
 secretaries) says, that, after Elizabeth had asked him if, from his silence, 
 he did not comprehend, or approve of her schemes, he replied in the 
 following words : M Madam, my silence does not proceed from disap- 
 probation of what you have told me, but, on the contrary, from my 
 admiration of the excellence of your mind, your exalted courage, your 
 foresight, and your judgment; nor can I deny that I have frequently made 
 
62 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 The queen observing my eyes were attentively fixed on 
 her without speaking, imagined she had expressed herself so 
 confusedly in something she had said, that I was unable 
 to comprehend her meaning. But when I ingenuously con- 
 fessed to her the true cause of my silence and surprise, she 
 then, without scruple, entered into the most minute parts 
 of the design : but as I shall have an ample occasion to 
 treat of this, in relating the great schemes which were pre- 
 vented by the untimely death of Henry IV., I shall not 
 trouble the reader with useless repetitions, but in this place 
 just show the five principal points to which her majesty 
 reduced so extensive a scheme, as from the sequel of these 
 Memoirs this will appear to have been. The first was, to 
 restore Germany to its ancient liberty, in respect to the 
 election of its emperors, and the nomination of a king of 
 the Romans. The second, to render the United Provinces 
 absolutely independent of Spain ; and to form them into 
 a republic, by annexing to them, if necessary, some prov- 
 inces dismembered from Germany. The third, to do the 
 same in regard to Switzerland, by incorporating with it 
 some of the adjacent provinces, particularly Alsace and 
 Franche-Comte. The fourth, to divide all Christendom 
 into a certain number of powers, as equal as might be. 
 The fifth, to reduce all the various religions in it under 
 
 similar propositions to the king my master, and that I have often found 
 him disposed to adopt plans conformable to those your majesty has just 
 mentioned to me." This is all the authority for the passage in the text, 
 which, to say nothing of its improbability, the compiler ought to have 
 seen was in some degree contradicted by what goes before, where the 
 queen, at the beginning of her conversation, asks Sully if the king's 
 affairs were in a better state than in 1598, and if he were in a condition 
 to begin, in good earnest, the great design which she had proposed 
 ever since that period. This certainly implies that Henry knew what 
 that great design was, and that some communications had been made 
 respecting it. — Ed. 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH JAMES I 63 
 
 those three which should appear to be most numerous and 
 considerable in Europe. 
 
 Our conference was very long : I cannot bestow praises 
 upon the Queen of England that would be equal to the 
 merit which I discovered in her in this short time, both as 
 to the qualities of the heart and the understanding. I gave 
 an exact relation of everything that passed between us to 
 the king, who very highly approved of all she had said to 
 me. Their majesties corresponded by letter during the 
 rest of the time they stayed at Dover and Calais. All pre- 
 liminaries were agreed on ; measures were taken even on 
 the grand object of the design, but with such secrecy, that 
 the whole of this affair remained to the death of the king, 
 and even much longer, among the number of those on 
 which only various and uncertain conjectures were formed. 1 
 
 II 
 
 Conference between Sully and James I, 
 at London, in 1603 2 
 
 I embraced this opportunity to introduce into our con- 
 versation some general hints of a project, by which, with 
 the assistance of his Britannic majesty, the tranquillity of 
 all Europe might be secured. Having said this, I remained 
 silent, as though I had been apprehensive of fatiguing him 
 by too long a discourse : but I knew the curiosity of James 
 would be excited by the little I had said ; accordingly, he 
 
 1 Camden and other writers of this period seem not to have known 
 of the Marquis of Rosny's visit : the former says, when the queen heard 
 that Henry was at Calais, she sent over to him Sir Thomas Edmondes to 
 see him, and congratulate him upon his health ; he again, to acknowledge 
 this courtesy, sent to the queen Marshal Biron, &c. — Ed. 
 
 2 From the Fifteenth Book of Sully's Memoirs. 
 
64 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 replied that my discourse had not appeared tedious to him, 
 but that it would be proper to know what o'clock it was. 
 He went out, and asked some of his courtiers whom he 
 found at the end of the gallery, and they telling him that 
 it was not yet three, "Well, Sir," said the king to me, 
 returning, " I will break off the party for the chase which 
 I had made for this day, that I may hear you to the end, 
 and this employment will, I am persuaded, be of more 
 service to me than the other." 
 
 The reason that induced me to hazard a step of such 
 consequence as that of communicating to King James the 
 great designs upon Spain and all Europe, which had been 
 concerted between Henry and Elizabeth, was, that being 
 persuaded this prince was already of himself inclined to 
 the alliance with France, he only wanted to be determined 
 in this resolution from some great and noble motive ; and 
 because, on the other side, his ministers constantly brought 
 him back to their manner of thinking, apparently because 
 he could not support himself against them, from a persua- 
 sion that they opposed his sentiments only through igno- 
 rance of them. However, this did not prevent my taking the 
 following precaution, which I judged to be very necessary. 
 
 I resumed the discourse, and told his majesty that, with- 
 out doubt, he had sometimes thought, and with good rea- 
 son, that a man in possession of the places and honours 
 with which I was known to be invested, never quitted his 
 post but on very urgent occasions ; that this was my case ; 
 that though my commission was only to require a union 
 between France and England, yet, nevertheless, from the 
 opinion I had conceived of his genius and abilities, which 
 fame had not been silent in reporting, I had resolved, be- 
 fore I quitted the kingdom, to discourse with his Britannic 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH JAMES I 65 
 
 majesty on something infinitely more considerable ; but 
 that what I had to acquaint him with was of such a 
 nature that I could not reveal it to him without exposing 
 myself to ruin, unless he would engage by the most sol- 
 emn oath to keep it a secret. James, who listened to me 
 with a profound attention, hesitated, however, at taking 
 the oath which I required ; and, to render it unnecessary, 
 he endeavoured himself to discover what I could have so 
 interesting to communicate to him. But finding that my 
 answers to the different questions which he successively 
 asked me gave him not the least intimation of the affair, 
 he satisfied me at last by the most sacred and solemn of 
 all oaths : I mean that of the holy sacrament. 
 
 Though I had now nothing to fear from his indiscre- 
 tion, I however carefully weighed all my words ; and, be- 
 ginning with an article in which I knew the King of 
 England was most interested — I mean religion, — I told 
 him, that, however I might appear to him engaged in 
 worldly honours and affairs, and how indifferent soever he 
 might perhaps have supposed me to be in matters of reli- 
 gion, yet it was no less certain that I was attached to mine, 
 even so much as to prefer it to my family, fortune, coun- 
 try, and even king ; that I had neglected nothing which 
 might incline the king my master to establish it in France 
 upon solid foundations, being under great apprehensions 
 lest it might one day be overwhelmed by so powerful a 
 faction as that of a union of the pope, the Emperor, Spain, 
 the archdukes, the Catholic princes of Germany, and so 
 many other states and communities interested in its sup- 
 pression ; that my success hitherto had been tolerable ; 
 but that, perhaps, I was indebted for it only to junctures 
 purely political, which had engaged Henry in a party 
 
66 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 opposed to the house of Austria. That because these cir- 
 cumstances might change, or because I, who was the only 
 person that would use any endeavours to make Henry con- 
 tinue firm in this political plan, might lose my place and 
 his favour, I did not see how the King of France could 
 resist a party which both his religion and the example of 
 others would call upon him to embrace. That this consid- 
 eration had long inspired me with the thoughts of finding 
 a person for the execution of this design, who, by his rank 
 and power, would be more proper than myself to accom- 
 plish it, and fix Henry in his sentiments. That having 
 found all that I had sought for in the prince to whom I 
 had the honour of speaking, it had not been difficult to 
 make my choice. In a word, that it depended only upon 
 himself to immortalise his memory, and become the arbiter 
 of the fate of Europe, by a design to which he would always 
 appear to have put the finishing hand, though he might 
 not be more concerned in the execution than his most 
 Christian majesty. 
 
 There remained only to explain to James the nature of 
 this design, of which, at first, I gave nothing further than 
 a general idea, under that of a project for an association 
 of all the princes and states in Europe, whose interest it 
 was to diminish the power of the house of Austria, the 
 foundation of which should be an offensive and defensive 
 alliance between France, England, and Holland, cemented 
 by the closest union of the two royal houses of Bourbon 
 and Stuart. I represented this association in a light which 
 showed it might be very easily formed. There was not the 
 least difficulty in regard to Denmark, Sweden, in a word, 
 to all the Protestant princes and states ; and it might be 
 rendered sufficiently advantageous for the Catholic princes 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH JAMES I 67 
 
 also to induce them to engage in it : for example, the tur- 
 bulent and ambitious disposition of the Duke of Savoy 
 might be soothed with hopes of obtaining the title of king ; 
 and the princes of Germany, with promises to distribute 
 among them those parts of it which the house of Austria 
 possessed, as Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, Moravia, Sile- 
 sia, &c, and to reestablish their ancient privileges : even 
 the pope himself might be gained, by granting him the 
 property of those countries of which he only possessed the 
 feodality. In regard to the King of France, though I en- 
 deavoured to persuade James that hitherto he had had no 
 concern in this project, which I pretended was entirely of 
 my own forming, I, however, said, that when I should 
 have communicated it to him, I could safely engage he 
 would have no thoughts either of retaining any conquests 
 which might be made, or being recompensed for them ; 
 though, according to all appearances, the greatest part of 
 the burden would fall upon him, as well by the expenses 
 necessary for carrying on the enterprise, as by his own 
 personal services. I imagined it was most proper to give 
 the affair this turn in regard to Henry, that he might not 
 be under too absolute an obligation. 
 
 The King of England immediately started some objec- 
 tions upon the difficulty of uniting so many different princes 
 so differently disposed ; the same nearly which Henry had 
 made when we had last discoursed upon it at Montglat, 
 upon his return from Metz : though, from the slight sketch 
 which I had given him of the design, he, however, appeared 
 highly to approve it, and expressed a desire of being more 
 circumstantially informed of it. In conformity with this 
 desire, the following is the substance of what I said to his 
 Britannic majesty. 
 
68 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 Europe is divided into two factions, which are not so 
 justly distinguished by their different religions (because 
 the Catholics and Protestants are confounded together in 
 almost all places) as they are by their political interests ; 
 the first is composed of the Pope, the Emperor, Spain, 
 Spanish Flanders, part of the princes and towns of Ger- 
 many and Switzerland, Savoy, the Catholic States of Italy, 
 namely, Florence, Ferrara, Mantua, Modena, Parma, Genoa, 
 Lucca, &c. Herein likewise must be comprised the Cath- 
 olics dispersed in other parts of Europe, at the head of 
 which may be placed the turbulent order of Jesuits, whose 
 views, no doubt, are to subject everything to the Spanish 
 monarchy. The second includes the Kings of France, 
 England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, and Sweden ; the 
 Republic of Venice, the United Provinces, and the other 
 part of the princes and towns of Germany and Switzerland : 
 I do not take in Poland, Prussia, Livonia, Muscovy and 
 Transylvania, though these countries are subject to the 
 Christian religion, because the wars in which they are al- 
 most continually engaged with the Turks and Tartars, 
 render them in some manner foreign in regard to those of 
 the western part of Europe. 
 
 Were the power to be estimated in proportion to the 
 pomp of titles, the extent of territories, and the number of 
 inhabitants, it appears, on the slightest glance, not very 
 favourable to the second of these factions, and the superi- 
 ority would apparently be determined in favour of the first ; 
 nevertheless, nothing is more erroneous than such an opin- 
 ion, which may thus be proved : Spain, which must here 
 be named the first of her faction (though in rank and dig- 
 nity she is only the third), because she is in reality the 
 soul of it — Spain, I say, including her dominions in the 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH JAMES I 69 
 
 East and West Indies, docs indeed possess an extent of 
 territory as large as Turkey and Persia together. But if it 
 be true (and it cannot be doubted) that the New World, in 
 recompense of its gold and other riches, deprives Spain 
 both of her ships and inhabitants, this immense extent of 
 territory, instead of being serviceable, is burthensome. 
 
 If we consider the other powers of this party, we shall 
 everywhere find reason to diminish our ordinary ideas. The 
 pope seems firmly attached to Spain ; and, surrounded as 
 he is on all sides by this formidable power, and having no 
 reason to expect succours from any of the other Catholic 
 princes, it is, no doubt, his interest to be so. But as he does, 
 in fact, consider his situation as but little different from real 
 servitude ; and as he is not ignorant that Spain and the 
 Jesuits only make a vain appearance of supporting his 
 authority, it may, doubtless, be concluded, he only wants 
 an opportunity to free himself from the Spanish yoke, and 
 that he would readily embrace cC party which should offer 
 to render him their service, without running any great risk ; 
 and Spain has in reality this opinion of him. 
 
 In regard to the Emperor, he has nothing in common 
 with Spain except his name, which seems only to increase 
 the jealousies and quarrels which so frequently arise be- 
 tween these two branches of the Austrian power : besides, 
 what is his power ? It consists merely in his title. Hungary, 
 Bohemia, Austria, and other neighbouring countries, are 
 little better than empty names. Exposed as he is, on one 
 side, to the incursions of the formidable armies of the Grand 
 Seignior ; liable, on the other, to see the territories under 
 his dominion tear themselves in pieces, by the multiplicity 
 and diversity of the religions which they contain ; under 
 continual apprehensions, also, lest the electoral princes 
 
JO THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 should rise and make an attempt to regain their ancient 
 privileges. Indeed, the Emperor, at the present day, all 
 things justly considered, might perhaps be classed among 
 the most inconsiderable of the European Powers : besides, 
 this Austrian branch appears to me so destitute of good 
 subjects, that if it hath not soon a prince, either brave or 
 wise enough to unite the different members of which Ger- 
 many is composed, it will have everything to fear from the 
 princes of its circles, whose only aim is to procure the 
 restoration of their liberty in religion and election. I do 
 not except even the Elector of Saxony, though he appears 
 the more sincerely attached to the Emperor, as to him of 
 whom he holds his principality, because it is evident his 
 religion must, sooner or later, set him at variance with his 
 benefactor. But supposing the Emperor to receive all the 
 returns of gratitude which he can expect from this Elector, 
 it will amount to nothing, or but very little, so long as he 
 shall be under apprehensions from the branch of John 
 Frederick, whom he has deprived of this electorate. 
 
 Thus, from a thorough examination of all particulars, it 
 appears, that almost all the powers on which Spain seems 
 to depend for aid, are either but little attached to her, or 
 capable of doing her but little service. No one is ignorant 
 that the general view of the princes and cities both of Ger- 
 many and Switzerland is to deliver themselves from the 
 dominion of the Emperor, and even to aggrandise them- 
 selves at his expense. Nor has he any greater dependance 
 on the ecclesiastical princes than on the others. A foreign 
 emperor is what they most wish, provided he is not a Prot- 
 estant. Nothing could give the archdukes, though Span- 
 iards, a greater pleasure than a regulation by which they 
 should become sovereigns in Flanders, independent of 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH JAMES I 7 1 
 
 Spain ; weary at length of being only her servants. It 
 is the fear of France alone that binds the Duke of Savoy 
 to the Spaniards ; for he naturally hates them, and has 
 never forgiven the King of Spain for doing so much less 
 for the daughter which he bestowed upon him than for her 
 younger sister. As to Italy, it need only be observed, that 
 it will be obliged to acquiesce in the will of the stronger 
 party. 
 
 It is therefore certain, that the second of the factions 
 here described has nothing to fear, provided it understands 
 its own interests well enough to continue in a constant 
 state of union. Now it is also certain, that in this scheme 
 these so natural motives to disunion do not occur ; and 
 that all of them, even that caused by the difference of 
 religion, which in some sort is the only one, ought to 
 give place to the hatred against Spain, which is the great 
 and common motive by which these powers are animated. 
 Where is the prince, in the least jealous of his glory, who 
 would refuse to enter into an association strengthened by 
 four such powerful kings as those of France, England, 
 Sweden, and Denmark, closely united ? It was a saying 
 of Elizabeth, that nothing could resist these four powers, 
 when in strict alliance with each other. 
 
 These truths being admitted, it only remains to examine 
 by what methods the house of Austria may be reduced to 
 the monarchy of Spain, and to that monarchy only. These 
 methods consist either in artifice or force, and I have two 
 for each of them. The first of the secret methods is, to 
 divest the house of Austria of the Indies, Spain having no 
 more right to prohibit the rest of the Europeans from an 
 intercourse with those countries, than she has to destroy 
 their natural inhabitants ; and all the nations of Europe 
 
72 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 having also a liberty to make establishments in the newly 
 discovered countries as soon as they have passed the line, 
 this enterprise would therefore be easily executed, only by 
 equipping three fleets, each containing eight thousand men, 
 all provided and victualled for six months : England to 
 furnish the ships, Flanders the artillery and ammunition, 
 and France, as the most powerful, the money and soldiers. 
 There would be no occasion for any other agreement than 
 that the conquered countries should be equally divided. 
 
 During this, the second of these means should be se- 
 cretly prepared, upon occasion of the succession to Cleves, 
 and the death of the Emperor, which cannot be far dis- 
 tant, in such manner, that under favour of the opportu- 
 nities which these two incidents might furnish, reasons 
 might be found to divest the house of Austria of the 
 empire, and her other dependencies in Germany, and 
 therein to restore the ancient freedom of election. 
 
 The first of the two open and declared means is, in 
 conjunction to take up arms, and drive the Spaniards en- 
 tirely out of Flanders, in order to erect this State into a 
 free and independent republic, bearing only the title of a 
 member of the empire ; and this, when the forces of the 
 allies are considered, will not be found difficult. The Uni- 
 ted Provinces, comprehending in them Liege, Juliers, and 
 Cleves, form a triangle : the first side of which, from Calais 
 to Embden, is entirely towards the sea ; the second is 
 bounded by France, viz., by Picardy, as far as the Somme, 
 and by the country of Messin as far as Mezieres ; the third 
 extends from Metz, by Triers, Cologne, and Metz, as far 
 as Dusseldorf. It is only necessary to secure these three 
 sides in such manner that they may be inaccessible to Spain, 
 which may be done without difficulty, England taking upon 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH JAMES I 73 
 
 herself the first, France the second, the Electors and other 
 interested princes the third. All the towns which should 
 happen to be upon this line, except, perhaps, Thionville, 
 which might require to be forced, would, upon a menace 
 to be put under contribution, immediately submit. 
 
 The second of the last two means, is for the league 
 above mentioned generally and in concert to declare war 
 against Spain and the whole house of Austria. What is 
 most essential to observe in regard to this war, is, that 
 France and England should renounce all pretensions to 
 any share of the conquest, and relinquish them to those 
 powers who were not of themselves capable of giving um- 
 brage to the others. Thus Franche-Comte, Alsace, and the 
 Tyrol, naturally fall to the Switzers. The Duke of Savoy 
 ought to have Lombardy, to be erected, with his other do- 
 minions, into a kingdom ; the kingdom of Naples falls to 
 the pope, as being most convenient for him ; Sicily to the 
 Venetians, with what may be convenient for them in I stria 
 and Friuli. Thus, it appears, the most solid foundation of 
 this confederacy would arise from all the parties being gain- 
 ers by it. The rest of Italy, subject to its petty princes, 
 might perhaps be suffered to continue under its present 
 form of government, provided that these little states were 
 altogether considered as composing only one body or re- 
 public, of which they should be so many members. 
 
 This is a pretty just account of the manner in which I 
 acquainted his Britannic majesty with the design to which 
 I endeavoured to gain his approbation. I further added 
 whatever I thought might tend to obviate his doubts, and 
 confirm him in favour of it. I confessed that I was not my- 
 self able to elucidate the design ; that I was not surprised 
 that his majesty had at first perceived great difficulties 
 
74 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 in it; that Henry would, no doubt, find many in it also, 
 but that they only proceeded from my own weakness, and 
 the impossibility of showing clearly what, to be perfectly 
 explained, required much time and long discourses ; that 
 I was convinced in my own mind the design was not only 
 possible, but that also the success of it was infallible ; that 
 if anything was found defective in the scheme as I had 
 conceived it, it might easily be rectified by the genius and 
 abilities of four great kings, and some of the best generals 
 in Europe, to whom the execution of it would be entrusted. 
 
 I then returned to the alliance between the two Kings 
 of France and England, and I told his Britannic majesty 
 that this alliance being the chief and necessary foundation 
 of the confederacy which I had proposed to him, it must 
 therefore necessarily begin it, without paying any regard 
 to the discourses of prejudiced persons, or being affected 
 by such frivolous considerations as those of the debts of 
 France and Flanders to England. I assured him that Eng- 
 land had nothing to fear from France, for that Henry's great 
 preparations of arms and ammunition, 'and his amassing such 
 vast sums, were only designed to enable him hereafter of 
 himself to accomplish the greatest part of this important 
 design ; at least, that I could flatter myself with success in 
 engaging him in it, from motives of glory and the public 
 service, which operated so powerfully upon the mind of 
 this prince. I touched James in his most sensible part, 
 his ambition to immortalise his memory, and his desire 
 of being brought into comparison with Henry, and of shar- 
 ing his praises. 
 
 My earnestness to succeed gave such force and clear- 
 ness to my expressions, that this prince, entering into 
 my full meaning, embraced me with a kind of transport 
 
SULLY'S CONFERENCE WITH JAMES I 75 
 
 proceeding from his friendship for me, and his indignation 
 at the evil councils which they had hitherto endeavoured to 
 make him follow. " No, Sir," said he, "do not fear that 
 I shall ever fail in what we have together agreed upon." 
 He protested with the same ardour, that he would not, on 
 any consideration, have remained ignorant of what I had 
 told him ; that he would never forfeit the good opinion 
 which the King of France and I had conceived of him ; 
 that he really was what I thought him ; that his reflections 
 upon what I had said would yet further confirm him in the 
 sentiments with which I had inspired him ; that he would 
 even now engage to sign the plan of alliance which I had 
 presented to him on Sunday, and wherein he had himself 
 made some inconsiderable alterations ; that I should also 
 sign it in the name of the King of France, unless I rather 
 chose to carry it with me unsigned, to show it to his most 
 Christian majesty, in which case he gave me his royal word, 
 that, upon my bringing or sending it back at the end of a 
 month or six weeks, approved and signed by Henry, he 
 would immediately, and without the least difficulty, join to 
 it his own signature. He concluded, by obligingly assuring 
 me, that for the future he would do nothing but in concert 
 with the King of France. He made me promise the same 
 secrecy in regard to all persons, except the king my master, 
 which I had been so free as to require of him ; and this 
 he extended so far, as to forbid me ever putting upon paper 
 certain things which upon this occasion he revealed to me, 
 and which I therefore suppress. 
 
 Our conference had begun about one o'clock, and con- 
 tinued upwards of four hours. The king called in Admiral 
 Howard, the Earls of Northumberland, Southampton, 
 Mar, Lord Mountjoy, and Cecil, and declared to them, that, 
 
y6 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 having deliberately considered my reasons, he was resolved 
 to enter into a close alliance with France against Spain. He 
 reproached Cecil in very strong terms for having, both in 
 his words and actions, acted contrary to his commands ; 
 which declaration the secretary received very awkwardly. 
 " Cecil," said James to him, " I command you without any 
 reply or objection, in conformity to this my design, to pre- 
 pare the necessary writings, according to which, I will then 
 give the dexter} and all assurances to the ambassadors of 
 the States." This was the first time he had distinguished 
 them by this title. Then turning to me, and taking me by 
 the hand, he said, " Well, Mr. Ambassador, are you now 
 perfectly satisfied with me ? " I replied by a profound rev- 
 erence, and by making his majesty the same protestations 
 of fidelity and attachment as if it had been to my own king ; 
 and I desired he would let me confirm it to him by kissing 
 his hand. He embraced me, and demanded my friendship 
 with an air of goodness and confidence which very much 
 displeased several of his councillors who were present. 
 Upon my departure, he gave orders to the Earl of Nor- 
 thumberland to accompany me to the Thames, and to 
 Sydney to escort me to London. 
 
 1 This expression signifies an oath, or promise of alliance, made by 
 presenting the right hand. 
 
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 
 By Edward Everett Hale 1 
 
 In the midst of war, this phrase begins to assume its 
 importance as the promise of peace. It embodies the 
 policy which the Republican leaders of Europe propose. 
 More than this, although most of the Republics of Europe 
 are yet to be born, still the phrase " The United States 
 of Europe " begins to be spoken among princes and in 
 their cabinets. For three hundred years, at the very least, 
 every war in Europe, and every treaty, has prepared the 
 way for such a union. For the last five and fifty years, 
 the advance has been more rapid and sure. 
 
 It is very true, that, as the proposal for such a union has 
 been discussed in the literature of Europe, as in the essays 
 of St. Pierre, Rousseau, Emmanuel Kant, Bentham, or de 
 Maistre, the burden of proof has been always against it. 
 Men speak of it now, whenever it turns up, as if it were a 
 part of the dreamer's store of visions, belonging with Ovid's 
 Golden Age, or with the fabled knights of the Round 
 Table ; and, as the world goes, to say that we shall have 
 The United States of Europe only when all princes are 
 as pure as King Arthur, all ladies as lovely as the peer- 
 less Oriana, all knights as brave as Amadis, is to put it 
 off indefinitely to the perfect world. But it happens, very 
 fortunately, that over a part of another continent, which 
 
 1 This paper upon " The Great Design," by Dr. Hale, first appeared 
 in his magazine, Old and New, March, 1871. 
 
 77 
 
78 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 is, for practical purposes, larger than Europe, this system, 
 which it is so easy to call a dream, is already extended. 
 It happens that the transitory vision has lasted as a sober 
 reality in America for eighty years. It happens, that, in 
 that eighty years, it has twice met the shock of foreign 
 war, and come out only the stronger for the conflict ; nay, 
 in the course of that eighty years, The United States of 
 America has been threatened once by terrible internal con- 
 vulsion. The question was then brought to the test of 
 arms, whether, as Mr. Lincoln says, " A system light and 
 easy enough for the freedom of the people, must of neces- 
 sity be too weak for its own preservation." And, in that 
 terrible test, The United States of America stood the rack 
 and the convulsion. After that terrible test, The United 
 States of America was stronger than ever ; and it seemed 
 more certain that it would abide for another century the 
 greatest Peace Society that the sun ever looked down upon. 
 The real question, then, for Europe at this hour is, 
 whether there is any fatality in that continent which pre- 
 vents such a union among her sixteen States, as has proved 
 possible, though not easy, among seven and thirty States 
 in America. History has changed the Saxon Heptarchy 
 of seven kingdoms into one England. History has united 
 that England with Wales. History has knit England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland into The United Empire of Great 
 Britain. History has knit all the Russias into the Empire 
 of Russia. History has united Normandy, Brittany, France, 
 Navarre, Lorraine, and Alsace into the Empire of France. 
 History has united Arragon, Leon, and Castile into the 
 Kingdom of Spain. History has woven a dozen States of 
 yesterday into the Kingdom of Italy of to-day. Even in 
 the last summer and autumn, history has transformed the 
 
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 79 
 
 confederation of Northern Germany into a union close and 
 sure. The question for Europe is, whether this is all ? Must 
 the process stop here ? Is there any reason why America 
 should be the only continent for permanent peace ? Is Eu- 
 rope to be given over to permanent war ? Or may Europe, 
 in the future, learn its great lesson from this side of the 
 water, and The United States of America point the funda- 
 mental system for The United States of Europe ? 
 
 The public writers of Europe, when they look across 
 the ocean, are wholly deceived even by our great success. 
 They write and speak as if mutual peace were of course 
 here, as if we had been always one nation. They forget 
 that the Spaniard in Florida and the Englishman in Georgia 
 hated each other and fought each other as cordially as ever 
 Queen Elizabeth hated King Philip of Spain, till the United 
 States of America compelled Georgia and Florida to be 
 as one. Such writers forget that between Louisiana and 
 Kentucky there was as little natural love as between the 
 France whose children were in Louisiana, and the Eng- 
 land whose children were in Kentucky. They do not 
 choose to remember that the Catholic who planted Mary- 
 land, and the Puritan who planted Massachusetts, had just 
 the same causes for mutual hatred as had the Catholic 
 and Roundhead in Ireland, who fought there in the days 
 of Cromwell. 
 
 The truth is, that, at the period when the Constitution 
 of the United States was formed, there was not one of the 
 old thirteen States but had serious questions of contro- 
 versy with its neighbors. Massachusetts had by charter a 
 right to a strip of country as wide as Massachusetts, run- 
 ning to the Pacific Ocean. The State of Connecticut had 
 rights similar, though not so large. Each of those States 
 
80 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 had a controversy with each other, both of them with New 
 York, and all of them with Virginia. These are only illus- 
 trations of open questions, just like the questions which 
 once and again deluge Europe with blood. What settled 
 these questions ? Nothing in the nature of things. They 
 were settled simply and only by the establishment of the 
 nation — one out of many — which we call "The United 
 States of America." 
 
 And, unless all coming history is to be the record of 
 blood, a lesson is in that history which is to be learned 
 and wrought out in practice in the establishment of The 
 United States of Europe. The experiment has been tried 
 here under some signal advantages ; but, meanwhile, the 
 preparations for a like experiment have been going for- 
 ward there. It is nearly three centuries since the diplo- 
 macy of Europe began to meditate upon the plan. The 
 accomplishment of that plan is easier than ever now that 
 these three centuries have worked towards its fulfilment. 
 
 It seems worth while, just now, to examine the history 
 of that diplomacy ; because it seems possible that this 
 country, with an example so admirable, of peace secured 
 in face of every difficulty, may at this moment speak the 
 word of the great pacification : " Let us have peace." The 
 most sublime expression that has yet fallen from the lips 
 of the taciturn president is the great word which United 
 America has a right to speak to disunited Europe. I do 
 not know whether, at this moment, there are any states- 
 men in the world. If there are, is not this very moment 
 of war, of defeat of the proud, and victory of the prudent, 
 the very moment to bring forward again the hope which 
 two centuries and a half ago seemed so near accomplish- 
 ment ? Has not the time come for a power so strong as 
 
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 8 1 
 
 ours to speak in the interests of permanent peace in 
 Christendom ? Has not the time come for us all to be 
 ready to say the right word, and to do the right thing, 
 when the great man of to-day, whoever he may prove to 
 be, speaks the great word, which the greatest king of 
 France spoke before this country was born ? Has there 
 ever been a moment when all true men could act together, 
 as in this sea of troubles they might act to establish The 
 United States of Europe ? And if the great man of Europe, 
 whoever he may be, speaks that great word, and lays the 
 plans for that great harmony, may not this land of ours, 
 which has given the great example, do more than any land 
 to make real the sublime idea ? Our statesmanship, our 
 policy, our international science, — they have no object at 
 this moment so noble, nay, they have none so real, as the 
 advance, by one of the great strides of history, of a per- 
 manent peace among the States of Christendom. 
 
 With this conviction, I ask the reader's attention to the 
 first appearance in diplomacy of this " Great Design." 
 
 Henry of Navarre, the first sovereign of his time as 
 he was its first soldier, had been born almost in poverty, 
 and had been trained in misfortune. It would be fair to 
 say almost that he had been nursed on the battle-field. 
 Protestants have looked askance on him, because he per- 
 mitted himself to be received in form into the Roman 
 Church ; but probably the severest critic will admit that 
 Henry, in this apostacy, if it were such, acted with the 
 noblest motive, in the hope, which was well founded, of 
 securing France from civil war. This is certain, that he 
 earned the eager love of his Protestant followers, and the 
 complete respect of his Catholic subjects. Through the 
 
82 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 poverty, persecution, bloodshed, and struggle of youth, he 
 wrought his way at last to the united throne of France 
 and Navarre, and founded that dynasty which came to its 
 end in 1830. 
 
 His friend and minister, de Rosny, afterwards Duke of 
 Sully, has left us in his memoirs better material for the 
 real life of this great sovereign than we often have for 
 such history. Once and again in those memoirs is allusion 
 made to the king's "ten wishes." Some of them were such 
 as any man may share. Some were peculiar to kings. 
 
 The first wish of the king is for divine grace, and the 
 safety of his soul. 
 
 The second is, that his Protestant subjects may live in 
 peace. 
 
 The third, that France may hold her own against all 
 enemies ; and 
 
 The fourth, alas ! that he may be rid of his wife forever. 
 
 One of the ten wishes is, that he may win a battle in 
 person over the King of Spain in person. And so they 
 vary, now personal and now political, till nine of the ten 
 are named. These nine, it seems, were well known at 
 court, — matters, perhaps, of conversation and amuse- 
 ment there. The king had ten wishes, and the courtiers 
 knew nine of them. The tenth was more secret ; he only 
 spoke of it with statesmen and his wisest counsellors. The 
 tenth wish was always spoken of as " The Great Design ; " 
 and it would seem that unless one were well trained in 
 the secrets of diplomacy in those days one knew nothing 
 more of it. 
 
 This tenth wish of the soldier-king, this great design, 
 which was to crown all his laurels with a new wreath of 
 glory, was his design for The United States of Europe. 
 
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 83. 
 
 It is convenient now to speak of such a project as a 
 dream ; but, as we have seen, it is a dream which has 
 proved a living reality here in America. And when in 
 America even ten States rebelled, which had been per- 
 mitted to nurse one institution false to every principle of 
 a Republic, when they tried the strength of the dream, 
 they found that the Christian commonwealth was what it 
 was said to be eighteen centuries ago ; they found it was 
 strong with the strength of a divine builder ; they found 
 it was reared upon the Rock of Ages. " Whosoever shall 
 fall on that stone shall be broken ; on whomsoever it shall 
 fall, it shall grind him to powder." They tried the experi- 
 ment ; and now they know the meaning of the prophecy. 
 It is convenient for people who distrust God's power and 
 Christ's kingdom to look on such a project as a dream ; 
 but that is not the way it was considered when it was last 
 brought forward, when the condition of Europe seemed 
 ripe for it, and it needed only, one would say, two or three 
 great men to carry it through. Are there possibly two or 
 three such men at the helm of affairs in America or in 
 Europe now ? 
 
 It was a little before the first planting of Virginia, 
 nearly twenty years before the landing at Plymouth, that 
 Henry, acting in concert with Queen Elizabeth in her old 
 age, conceived this plan of what he called the Christian 
 commonwealth, to be formed among the powers of Europe. 
 No man called this a dream then, when such a soldier as 
 Henry agreed to it, and such statesmen as Sully and Cecil 
 planned for it. The death of Elizabeth, and the elevation 
 of a fool to the throne of England, was its first misfor- 
 tune. But Henry IV. was not born to be crossed by fools ; 
 and to the moment of rTis murder, in 16 10, he persevered. 
 
84 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 The diplomacy of France and of Northern Europe for 
 more than ten years seconded his endeavors. His plan in 
 brief was this, to reduce the number of European States, 
 much as the Congress of Vienna eventually did two hun- 
 dred years afterwards, or so that all Europe should be 
 divided among fifteen powers. Russia did not then count 
 as part of Europe ; and Prussia was not then born. Of 
 these powers, six were trie kingdoms of England, France, 
 Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and Lombardy. Five were to 
 be elective monarchies, viz., The German Empire, The 
 Papacy, Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia; and there were 
 to be four Republics, — Switzerland, Venice, The States 
 of Holland and Belgium, and The Republic of 'Italy, made 
 up somewhat as the kingdom of Italy is now. These fif- 
 teen powers were to maintain but one standing army. The 
 chief business of this army was to keep the peace among 
 the States, and to prevent any sovereign from interfering 
 with any other, from enlarging his borders, or other usur- 
 pations. This army and the navy were also to be ready to 
 repel invasions of Mussulmans and other barbarians. For 
 the arrangement of commerce, and other mutual interests, 
 a Senate was to be appointed of four members from each 
 of the larger, and two from each, of the smaller States, 
 who should serve three years, and be in constant session. 
 It was supposed, that, for affairs local in their character, 
 a part of these senators might meet separately from the 
 others. On occasions of universal importance, they would 
 meet together. Smaller Congresses, for more trivial cir- 
 cumstances, were also provided for. 
 
 The plan contemplated a grand army of Europe, of 
 320,000 men, and a navy of 120 vessels, to be provided 
 in quotas agreed upon by the respective members of the 
 
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 85 
 
 association ; and, from the beginning, the members of 
 the association announced that no secession was to be 
 possible or to be permitted. 
 
 With generosity such as few princes have shown, Henry 
 proposed that the executive which should carry out the 
 decisions of the senate should be the elected emperor of 
 Germany, for the time. This was probably the weakest 
 part of the plan, the point to be secured, being, of course, 
 then or now, the most difficult. But, as the Emperor was 
 chosen in an assembly in which so many of the several 
 powers had a voice, this seemed the simplest adjustment. 
 
 What gave the practical character, in its very outset, to a 
 scheme so bold, was the absolute disclaimer, both on Henry's 
 part and Elizabeth's, of any desire to increase their own ter- 
 ritories or power. Henry satisfied even the jealousy of the 
 pope in this regard ; and so loyal was he in his diplomacy, 
 always looking forward with this " Great Design," that, ac- 
 cording to Sully, at the moment of Henry's murder, he had 
 secured the practical active c o-operation of twelve o f the 
 fifteen powers, who wer e^tojin ite in this confederation. They 
 had avouched this co-ol wba by raising their contingents 
 for the army, by which tn?y5)roposed to crush the preten- 
 sions of the house of AustrMand the king of Spain. The 
 co-operation of Switzerland also would be secured at any 
 moment it was wanted : so th^arally Austria and Spain had 
 at that moment all Europe I lis against them ; and the 
 leader of all Europe was this cmvalrous Henry, in whom the 
 pope had confidence, and with whom the Protestants were 
 all allied, — Protestant at heart, Catholic in ritual, a man 
 possessed with this great design, still in the very prime of 
 life, in command of an admirable army, with a treasury full, 
 a people prosperous, himself the first real, soldier of his time. 
 
86 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 No man said that "the Great Design" was a dream 
 then! 
 
 It is easy to see that the central wish which bound these 
 powers together was the wish to humble Austria. Under 
 Charles the Fifth, Austria and Spain, with all the new 
 wealth of the Indias at their command, had domineered 
 over all Europe. Philip the Second would have been glad 
 to do the same thing. The great design of Henry offered, 
 therefore, to the various powers this immediate prize, that 
 they would humble the emperor of Austria, and tie his 
 hands. This was just as the great alliance of the nations 
 of Europe against the first Napoleon was animated by a 
 determination to humble him, and the power of France. 
 But, beyond this immediate purpose, Henry and Elizabeth 
 and the king of Sweden looked to such a control by the 
 allied powers that no single sovereign should so claim the 
 lion's share again. The Great Design looked beyond the 
 immediate purpose to the permanent peace of Europe. 
 
 The very jealousy with which Austria was regarded was 
 the strong support of Henry's diplomacy. He was enough 
 of a Catholic to obtain even the pope's secret support in 
 his negotiations. The scheme, therefore, had the advan- 
 tage which such a scheme could hardly have had from 
 that time to this, that it was not a mere sectarian alliance 
 of Protestant against Papist. It proposed a combination 
 of Catholic Italy and Catholic France with Protestant Eng- 
 land and Protestant Sweden and Germany. This was its 
 element of strength. 
 
 Its weakness was, that, before it could even be set in 
 motion, the separate States of Europe had to be re-organ- 
 ized within. Thus the Republic of Belgium was to be 
 created ; the Kingdom of Lombardy was to be created ; 
 
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 87 
 
 the Republic of Italy was to be created ; and so on : and 
 every petty prince, who, in this process, had been turned 
 out of the crumbling owl-hole which he called a palace, 
 would be grunting and scolding, and doing his little best 
 to stop the progress of the Great Design. Nay, every scul- 
 lion that washed the dishes in the courts of such a poten- 
 tate, and every beggar-boy that screamed at his horse's 
 tail, would consider that their perquisites and honors were 
 stolen from them. The Great Design was encumbered 
 from the beginning with such difficulty of detail. 
 
 But it was not left, alas ! to any fair test of its allies or 
 of its enemies. Just as Henry was maturing his last prepa- 
 rations for that great campaign, in which, at the head of 
 united Europe, he would offer Austria peace and the 
 Great Design, or war against all the world beside, another 
 issue came. Henry entered his lumbering carriage of state, 
 to make Sully a last visit at the arsenal. They turned 
 from the Louvre into one of the narrow streets of Paris, 
 when some obstacle stopped the progress. At the moment, 
 a very tall man, in a cloak, muffled heavily, and with a 
 broad-brimmed hat over his eyes, stepped upon the wheel 
 of the coach, dashed his arm into the window, and struck 
 the king with a knife ; to make certain, he drew back the 
 knife, and struck again at the heart, — the most loving 
 and gallant heart in all Christendom : and the king fell 
 dead. With that blow, the Great Design died. It was to 
 have made real, perhaps for centuries, the dying prayer 
 of Ihe Saviour of the world, that " they all may be one ; " 
 and, at the blow of a crazed fanatic, this hope vanished 
 for well nigh three centuries. 
 
 How like another stroke by another fanatic, which 
 stopped the beating of the most loving heart in America, 
 
88 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 at the moment when that heart was seeking the pacifica- 
 tion of our warring States, full of kind wishes and kind 
 hopes for all ! 
 
 That scrap from the history of courts is a proper illus- 
 tration of the duties, the hopes, and the fjrayers of the 
 citizens of this Republic. It is one of the few illustrations 
 in history where the kings of the world have distinctly 
 chosen peace, permanent peace, as the great object of 
 policy. Such is not the habit of kings. No : but it should 
 be the habit of peoples ; it should be the habit of repub- 
 lics. The diplomacy of a Republic, because it is a Re- 
 public should look to the strengthening and maintaining 
 peace among the nations of mankind. 
 
 We are constantly misled in this matter, because we 
 go to school, and study the histories of mere families, — 
 of Bourbons, of Tudors, of Hapsburgs, — and their wars. 
 We get excited over these wars. Unconsciously, we come 
 to think that there is no great nation but a nation which 
 is great in war. We might as rightly wish to have our 
 nation great in earthquakes, or great in pestilences, or 
 great in conflagrations. To do our duty in war when it 
 comes, that is one thing ; to enjoy war, or to seek it, that 
 is another. The great soldiers have always been great paci- 
 ficators. The great Napoleon is no exception. But we 
 are deceived by the books. Because an old feudal nation 
 followed war, and has war written all over its history, we 
 take a notion that we, though we are not a feudal nation, 
 must repeat that history. On the other hand, the whole 
 being and nature of our nation is different. This Repub- 
 lic exists simply that so many men and women may have 
 happy homes. That is what it is for. It is not for the 
 
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 89 
 
 extension of any boundary, it is not for the propagation 
 of any theory, it is not for the glory of any leader, that 
 our States are founded, or our Union set in order. No : 
 it is that forty million men and women may live in happy 
 homes. George Frisbie Hoar said the other day, that the 
 business of the people of this country is to see that " no 
 more history is written." He alluded to Montesquieu's 
 maxim, that that people is happy whose history is not writ- 
 ten. Well, that is our duty. To keep outside of the sensation 
 life, — the poor life of the scene-shifter in the melo-drama, 
 which makes up the common record of the vulgar histories. 
 It is our duty to cultivate and to illustrate those relations of 
 peace in which, and in which only, come in the true pros- 
 perity of nations. 
 
 As it happens, this great necessity of keeping the peace 
 at home has cost us one great civil war. Very fortunately 
 for us, that great duty of ruling out of our own affairs, 
 once for all, the one relic of feudalism we found here, has 
 shown to the world that there is no such military strength, 
 where strength is needed, as the strength in arms of a 
 free people. That has been happily proved for a century. 
 That being known, our policy is, and our duty is, to watch 
 this blessed moment which, after three centuries, may be 
 sweeping round even now upon the dial, for securing the 
 permanent peace of Christendom. It sometimes seems as 
 if, in statesmanship, we were living on the reputation of 
 the fathers ; but, whenever we shall have a statesman at the 
 front worthy of that name, he will actively, and with steady 
 system, carry forward plans which look to a pacification 
 of Europe, as sure and as well-founded as the pacification 
 which the fathers wrought out for America. The plans 
 of Henry are already half carried through. The jarring 
 
90 THE GREAT DESIGN OF HENRY IV 
 
 duchies and electorates and principalities of Europe are 
 already reduced to a lesser number than he proposed; 
 and in the present position of the pope, in the union of 
 Italy, in the very weakness of France, in the asserted 
 strength of Germany, in the anxiety of Austria, in the 
 .change of dynasty of Spain, in the new institutions of 
 Russia, and in the overthrow of landed rights of England, 
 the moment has come which some great man will certainly 
 choose for trying to work out the other half of Henry's 
 problem, — for establishing The United States of Europe. 
 
 If we have any statesmen, and if we have any diplomacy, 
 the men will guide the policy toward the solution of this 
 problem. 
 
 Does any man say that we have a quarrel of our own 
 with England to be adjusted first ? This is not. so, as we 
 have said before. There was an England with which we 
 had a quarrel ; but not with this England, not with the 
 England of to-day. There was an England once, the Eng- 
 land of the Tudors and Stuarts, the England of George 
 the Third, of Bute and North and Grenville, with which 
 our fathers had a quarrel. That England still survived in 
 its dotage nine years ago; and some dregs of that quarrel 
 were ours then. But five years past have wrought a revo- 
 lution. That old England has been swept away as thor- 
 oughly as old Virginia is swept away, and ought to be 
 forgotten as Jefferson Davis is forgotten. The government 
 of England has been taken from the land-holders of Eng- 
 land, and given to the people of England. The feudal 
 aristocracy has been bidden to take its place. The working- 
 men of England have stepped to the front to take theirs. 
 They are willing to pay us what they owe us. Let them 
 pay us. They are willing to give us security for the future. 
 
THE UNITED STATES ;OF EUROPE 91 
 
 Let them give it ; and then, while they wage their war in 
 England with what are left of the old Warwicks and 
 Stuarts, barons and cavaliers, and all such standard-bear- 
 ers of the past, let our statesmen see to it that we are the 
 friends of the free institutions of the new-born England. 
 We must not trip the feet and hold the hands of our own 
 allies, — of such men as John Bright and Thomas Hughes 
 and the working-men of Lancashire, — who never once 
 failed in their loyalty to truth and freedom. 
 
 This Republic is founded for the happiness of home. 
 When once that truth can be understood, both by noisy 
 politicians and by quiet statesmen, the great victory of 
 truth will be nearly won. Not for the record of slaughter, 
 but for the happiness of unmolested homes ; for this the 
 true statesman resolves, as the true Christian prays. And 
 this nation works out its destiny, and its public officers 
 achieve their own true honor, as its word is spoken in the 
 great plea for the Christian commonwealth. At the present 
 moment, the next step in the advance towards it is the up- 
 building of The United States of Europe. 
 
 The United States of Europe and the United States of 
 America would not quarrel ; and they would hold the power 
 of the world in their hands. The international policy of 
 the world would be developed as in the vision 
 
 "Where the war-drums throbbed no longer, and 
 
 the battle-flags were furled 
 In the parliament of man, the federation of the 
 
 world : 
 There the common sense of most shall hold a 
 
 fretful realm in awe; 
 And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in 
 
 universal law. 
 

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