'*r 02> >>aS>y3 » »2> >>» >:?t:?>?>>3»> 3 .3' i>;> >5>::>,j 3»:>> > 3» >:>»!:» >>x> ">J>5 >>^« s»^ » :> > -'^i*> 5>»> >>» vs, :>» 5>:>>y:»>i» >::3»>^»»,a>j> :>-^ :^j ■>>:» d's^' >■> » 73> "::: ■^ :?> ~>> -i> ^^m >> , ,_ » :»' ■?> r > » »> ?>> j.)» :; ■ > . > >>^ j» :?» '■>> >^y> "~>y i:^ jv"' > > ;.0»> J!> » >> »» :>r r==^ *' CALIFOrtNIA I SAN DIEGO J !■ o ^^-^ HISTORY PRINCIPAL STATES OF EUROPE FROHr THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. LONDON PRINTED BY S. AND R. bENTLEY, DORSET STREET. John Kwsse// ^^l^s.'^c.li HISTORY PRINCIPAL STATES OF EUROPE FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. Non tamen adeo virtutum sterile sseeculum ut non et bona oxcmpla prodiderit. Tacitus. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL, I. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREE' 1826. CONTENTS. VOL. 1. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. State of France after the Peace of Utrecht. — Disputex of the Jansetiists and Jesuits. — fVill of Lewis XI F. — His Death. — His Character. - jt^floe 3 CHAPTER 11. Absolute power of Letvis. — The Provincial States. — The Parliament. — The Nobility. — The Army. — The Church. — ■ Etiquette. — The Court. — Versailles and Marly. — Madame de la Falliere. — Madame de Mon- tespan. — Madame de Maintenon. — Manners qf the Court during the Reign qf the three Favourites. — Poisoning. - - - 'Jo CHAPTER HI. Administration qf Lewis. — The Army. — The Navy. — Roads. — Buildings. — The Canal qf Langucdoc. — Colbert. — The Finances, — Legislation. — Administra- tion qf Justice. — The Bastille. — Slate of the People. — General Revieiv of the Government of Lewis. 159 BOOK n. CHAPTER L Views qf the English Ministry which came into Office in 1710. — Sanguine Hopes qf the Tory party. — Ques- tion qfthe Succession. — Unpopularity of the Ministry. — Their Divisions. — Oxford and BoUngbroke. — The Jacobites. — Measures of the Whigs. — Debates in Par- liament. — Death qf the Queen. — Succession (f the House qf Hanover. — Proceedings in Parliament. 229 VOL. I. b CONTENTS. VOL. I. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. State of France after the Peace of Utrecht. — Disputes of the Jansenists and Jesuits. — Will of Lewis XIV. — His Death. — His Character. Page 3 Foreign Affairs ------- ib. State of France .------5 The Court 6 Jesuits and Jansenists ----- _ g Port Royal 12 Quesnel - - - - - - - -14 The Bull Unigenitus 15 The Cardinal de Noailles - - - - - 19 Stratagem of MdUe. de Chausseraye - - - 22 Will of Lewis XIV 26 Death of the Dauphin and Dauphiness - - - ib. The Duke of Orleans accused of poisoning them - 28 Previous Life of the Duke of Orleans - - - ib. His conduct - - - - - - 31 CONTENTS. Vll Page Project of Madame de Maintenon - - - - 33 Duke of Maine 34 The Duchess of Maine ------ 38 Edict of 1714 40 The WiU 41 Language of Lewis -------43 Codicils of the Will 44 Decline of Lewis -------45 His Death - - - 46 Joy of the People -------51 Character of Lewis - - - - - - 52 His ruling Ambition - - - - - -56 CKoice of Ministers ------ 58 Personal Character -------62 Fouquet and Lauzun ------ 64 Ignorance of Lewis - -'- - - -66 His Pride and Vanity - - - - - -67 Flattery of the Court 68 Bossuet 72 CHAPTER II. Absolute Power of Lewis. — The Provincial States. — The Parliament. — The Nobility. — The Army. — The Church. — Etiquette. — The Court. — Versailles and Marly. — Madame de la Valliere. — Madame de Mon- tespan. — Madame de Mainteno7i. — Manners of the Court during the reign of the three Favourites. — Poisoning. - _ - _ Page 75 Absolute Power of Lewis ----- ib. Provincial States - - - - - - -76 vill CONTENTS. Page The Parliament - - - - - - -78 His own Notions of his Authority - - - - 79 The Nobility 81 The Army monopolized by the Nobility - - - 86 The Church 89 Etiquette 90 Arrangement of the day - - - - - -96 Distmctions 100 Dependence of the Nobles - - - - - 104 Anecdotes __------ 105 Expensive Habits - - - - - - -107 Unfeeling Policy of Lewis - - - - - 108 Pride of the Nobles 110 They were carefully watched - - - - -111 Character of the Nobility - - - - -113 Grammont - - - - - - - -114 Consequences of the Policy of Lewis - - - 115 Versailles and Marly - - - -.- -116 Manners _____--_ 120 Mistresses - - - - - - - -121 Maria Mancini.— Mdlle. de la :\Iotte - - - 122 Mdlle. de la Valliere 125 Madame de Montespan - - - - - 127 Letter of Madame de Sevigne - - - - 130 Madame de Maintenon - - -- -134 Marriage of the King ------ 137 Character of Madame de Maintenon - - - 139 Influence of the Mistresses - - - - - 143 Manners _____--- 148 Anecdotes __------ ib. Devotion - _.- - - - - -150 Hypocrisy __.----- 153 Poisoning ______-. 155 conte>;ts. CHAPTER III. Adminisiration of Lewis. — The Army. — The Navt/. — Roads. — Buildings. — The Canal of Languedoc. — Colbert. — The Finances. — Legislation. — Administra- tion of Justice. — The Bastille. — State of the People. — General Review of the Government of Leivis. Page 159 The Army _____-_- ib. The Navy 163 Interior Improvements - - - - - -165 Buildings ___-__-- 166 The Canal of Languedoc - - - - -167 Finances - - - - - - - -169 State of the Finances before Colbert - - - ib. Offices 171 Internal Commerce ------ ib. Manufactures - - - - - - -173 Council of Finance - - - - - -175 Taille - ib. TheGabelle 178 Excise --------- 180 Internal Commerce ------ ib. Public Debt -182 Loans - - - - - - - - -183 Offices -- 185 Domains of the Crown - - - - - -187 Corn Trade --------ib. Commerce and Manufactures - - - - 188 X CONTENTS. Page Review of Colbert's Administration - - - 191 Character of Colbert - - - - - -194 Finances after the death of Colbert - _ - 197 Legislation of Lewis - - - - - -199 The Bastille 206 Judgments of Lewis - - - - - -214 State of the Country ------ ib. General result ---____ 220 Literature -------- 223 BOOK IL CHAPTER I. Viepjs the English Ministry which came into Office in 1710. — Sa7iguine Hopes of' the Tory Party. — Qties- tion of the Succession. — Unpopularity of the Ministry. — Their Divisions. — Oxford and Bolingbroke — The Jacobites. — Measures of the Whigs. — Debates in Parliament. — Death of the Queen. — Succession of the House of Hanover. — Proceedings in Parliament. Page 229 Dale Views of the Tory Ministry - - - - ib. June, 1713. Commercial Treaty - - - - 242 Jacobite Intrigues - - - - - -247 1711. Jacobites in Scotland - - - - - 25 5 The Whigs 256 1713. Dissolution of Parliament _ _ - - 258 Queen's lUness _,-_-- ib. 1714, Feb. 16. Meeting of Parliament - - - 260 Pamphlets of Swift and Steele - - - 261 CONTENTS. XI Date P.. 1715. Joins the Pretender _ _ - - - 334 HISTORY PRINCIPAL STATES OF EUROPE, FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. BOOK THE FIRST. [ 3 ] CHAPTER I. State of France after the Peace of Utrecht. Dis- putes of the Jansenists and Jesuits. Will of Lewis the XlFth. His Death. His Character. The period of which I am about to treat, is not one of those remarkable aeras, signalized by bloody wars, or sudden revolutions, by great na- tional changes, or moving feats of individual he- roism. It is a time which, to the superficial ob- server, may appeal* stagnant and uninteresting, abounding with petty intrigues, rather than gene- ral contests, and affording at best more examples of the cautious and pacific temper which provides for the happiness of existing generations, than of the boldness and enterprize which administer food to history. Yet in this tame and tranquil age, are to be found events and circumstances, over which a political observer may meditate not with- out advantage. He may mark the means by which a new dynasty was consolidated, and an ancient throne undermined ; he may trace in one country the slow suicide of arbitrary power, in another the firm growth of rational freedom ; and if the B 2 4 HISTORV OF EUllOl'E FKOM [cHAP. ordinary reader regret the absence of those black crimes and bright virtues, which give to true nar- rative the interest of fiction, he who seeks for im- provement in the study of past ages, will find no period more pregnant with examples of wisdom to imitate, of folly to avoid, and of vice to loathe. The peace of Utrecht put an end to the miseries of war in Europe, and, to use the expression of the Duke of Saint Simon, saved France. Lewis the Fourteenth had no longer to dread the presence of an enemy in his capital, or the cruel alternative of being obliged to dethrone his grandson by his own arms. The foreign affairs of his reign, after this time, may be comprized in a few words. In order to evade the stipulations of the treaty with England, which compelled him to fill up the port of Dunkirk, he made a canal at Mardyke, and persisted in con- tinuing the work in spite of all remonstrance.* * It has been said that when Lord Stair remonstrated on this subject, Lewis replied, "M. I'Ambassadeur, j'ai toujours ete le maitre chez moi, souvent chez les autres, ne m'en faites pas souvenir." Voltaire denies credit to this anecdote, on the authority of M. de Torcy, who said he was always present when the King saw Lord Stair, and could recollect nothing of it. On the other hand, the story is told by Duclos, who had good opportunities of knowing, and who adds, that Lord Stair, on telling the story observed, " La J ] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 5 When Queen Anne died, Lewis with a perseve- rance, which does more honour to his spirit than his good faith, endeavoured to promote the views of the Pretender. All he was able to effect, how- ever, amounted to no more than obtaining a loan of 400,000 crowns from the King of Spain, which helped to furnish means for the rebellion of 1715. Before the issue was known, the King of France was no more. If the short remainder of his life passed with- out foreign war, Lewis had sufficient matter for anxiety in the state of his country, his court, and State of family. The nation was utterly exhausted by the expenses of a ruinous contest, and depressed by the misfortunes which had happened in the course of it. The miseries of the people formed a striking and sad contrast to the magnificence of the court. The war had been marked by the falling off of the revenue, the distress of the merchant, and the grinding of the poor, while the nobility and the clergy, exempt from nearly all the taxes, left the greater burden to be supported by the industrious classes of the community. Recruits for the army vieille machine m'impose." But Lord Stair's Journal, pub- lished in the Hardwicke Papers, does not mention any audience that he had with Lewis the Fourteenth on this, or indeed any other subject,' after his first presentation at court, and thus confirms Voltaire. 6 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. were conducted to the frontier chained together like malefactors.* Peace brought bvit little relief. English travellers who visited France, found no- thing but beggary and rags: deserted towns, ruin- ed houses, and an impoverished people.f The Duke of Argyll declared in the English House of Lords, that' he had traversed France, and had never seen a country so exhausted both of men and money ; he affirmed, that for forty miles together he had not seen a man capable of bearing arms. Two years after the conclusion of the Treaty of Utrecht, none of the benefits of peace had been perceived ; the nation bore their distress with pa- tience, but their apathy was, in the eyes of many, a presage of the decline of the kingdom. | The If the Court exhibited an appearance of splen- dour little in conformity to the state of the people, it, at the same time, formed a melancholy contrast to its former self. While the outward trappings, the hours and the attendance, the journeys and the homage, remained the same, the spirit which had animated Versailles in days of glory was utterly departed. The palace and its precincts no longer * Duclos^ t, i. t Guardian, No. 102. J Forbonnais Recherches et Considerations sur les Finan- ces de France, torn. v. p. 64. Court. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 7 displayed to the admiring eyes of natives and of foreigners, a king elate with pride, which his suc- cesses seemed to justify; a numerous and splen- did family surrounding the throne, and a glorious train of followers, where Conde and Turenne, Bossuet and Fenelon, Racine and Boileau, might be distinguished in a crowd of illustrious courtiers ; the brilliant elements of a society where a mag- nificent sovereign presided, and where Montespan and Sevigne added the lustre of beauty and wit, to the celebrity of arms and letters. Now all was changed : Lewis, deprived in his old age of his son and his grand-children, and shorn of the fame which attended his former wars, divided his time and his power between a clandestine queen and a bigoted confessor. The pomp of the Court ceremonies seemed like wedding dresses upon bodies about to be consigned to their graves; Madame de Maintenon herself was gloomy and unhappy — " I am old," she writes, " sad, and weary of the world. I am nothing but a living skeleton. I can scarcely see ; I hear still worse ; I am not myself understood, for my pronunciation is gone with my teeth ; my memory begins to fail, and our misfortunes, joined to my age, make me cry like all other old women." In the palace, nothing seemed to be attended to but a continual 8 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. and minute devotion ; even that was hollow and affected : nothing was real but weariness, disgust, and misery. In the midst of this general gloom, occasioned by the public and private misfortunes, as well as the declining age and bigoted superstition of the king, there were two causes which contributed to give a deeper hue to the melancholy of Lewis. The first of these was the contest subsisting be- Jesuits tween the Jesuits and Jansenists ; a question which senists." ^^^^ occupied with serious, or rather ridiculous dis- putes, the early part of the reign of Lewis. There are some questions so concealed in the shades of metaphysics, that the wit of man has never yet been able to throw upon them a clear and indisputable light. Like objects seen in a dream, they deceive the mind; and when we imagine that we have grasped them, we find nothing in our hold but images, to which we endeavour in vain to affix an accurate and intelligible shape. Ages pass without approaching nearer to their solution ; generations of men of the highest intellect leave them obscure and unsatisfactory as they found them. Such subjects would seem to be reserved for another state of being, and only opened in part, in order to confound the pride of human understanding, and check the presumption of all- daring science. Of this kind is the problem of I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 9 liberty and necessity ; which, after all that has been said and written, has been left by the wisest metaphysicians to be decided by the internal feel- ing given us by nature, that we are responsible beings ; and however controlled by circumstances, have it always in our own power to avoid the con- sciousness of crime. This great question, so long a subject of dispute in the schools, did not begin to disturb the church of Christ till the commence- ment of the fifth century; when a monk of the name of Morgan Avent from Great Britain to the East, and entered into a controversy with a zealot, newly converted from the Manichaean heresy.* From this time the partisans of the monk, whose name, turned into Greek, became Pelagius, and of the convert, who was the celebrated St. Augustine, divided the Christian world : the names of Molina, the Spanish Jesuit, of the Arminians in Holland, of Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, are familiar to all the readers of modern history. In France the heat of the quarrel seemed to abate, when in the beginning of the year 1709 died Pere la Chaise, Avho had for five-and-thirty years filled the important post of confessor to the king. The revocation of the edict of Nantz, and subsequent persecution of the Pro- testants, disgrace the period of his spiritual direc- • Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History. 10 HISTOllY OF EUJIOPE FROM [cHAP. tion; but he was not the chief mover of those measures ; and it could hardly be expected that a member of the order of Jesuits should oppose them. In the affair of the Jansenists, and all other religious questions, he had shown himself singularly mild ; indeed his faith in religion was of that easy kind denounced by Pascal, which tole- rates every opinion, provided it does not brave the church, and winks at every sin, so long as it wears the cloak of decency, and does not deny the heal- ing power of confession and absolution. " You are too indulgent,''"' Lewis frequently said to him. — " No," answei-ed the reverend father, " it is not I who am too indulgent, but you who are too harsh." It is reported, that when he was dying, he thus addressed the King, " Sire, I beg of you, as a favour, to choose my successor from our body. It is much attached to your Majesty ; but it is very numerous, and composed of men of different characters, all zealous for the glory of the society. In a time of misfortune there is no answering for them, and a single blow is soon struck." * The King, whether influenced or not by this singular speech, which had more the air of a menace than a request, desired to have three Jesuits deputed to him, out of whom he might choose his future confessor. When they were * Diiclos, Menioires SecretS;, t. i. p. HI- I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT, 11 shown into his presence, one of them kept behind his companions, with his eyes fixed on the ground, his hands clenched together, and his countenance neither abashed by the presence in which he stood, nor outwardly affected by the hopes which his situation might have inspired. But the more he seemed unmindful of others, the more deeply he fixed the attention of the King, who presently named him to the vacant post, A more sinister choice could not have been made. When the King heard that his name was Le Tellier, he asked him if he was a relation of Tellier de Lou- vois? " I, Sire !" he answered ; " I am but the son of a poor peasant, and have neither relations nor friends," There are men, of whom it may be said, that it would be well for the world if they were vain or licentious. The exemption from ordinary weaknesses is in some characters an indication that the soul is occupied with darker vices. Prudence, temperance, and fortitude, are sometimes the handmaids of envy, cruelty, and hatred. Thus it was with Father le Tellier, the son of an attorney in Normandy. He was proud, presumptuous, and malignant in disposition, unsocial in his habits, unchanging in his objects, indefatigable in his pur- suit of them. Full of the spirit of persecution, strengthened by a narrow but vigorous zeal for the order to which he belonged, he soon obtained 12 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. a mastery over the mind of a declining King, who, no longer capable of enjoyment in this world, was preparing his plea for the next, by gloomy piety and uncharitable orthodoxy. At the time when Le Tellier thus became possessed of the most im- portant ministry in France, the only one of which Lewis was not jealous, and in which he did not think his own opinion better than that of his adviser, the name of Jesuit had suffered some diminution of its glory. With their usual policy, the Jesuit missionaries of China had complied, in many respects, with the superstitious practices of the natives, in order to obtain an ascendency over their minds : this condescension had been repre- sented in the most odious colours by their enemies, and the Court of Rome had lent a favourable ear to the accusation. A book of Le Tellier himself, on the Chinese Ceremonies, had been condemned by the Papal tribunal at the instigation of the Jansenists. Thus the new confessor was impelled at once by bigotry as a monk, zeal for the glory of his company as a Jesuit, and revenge for his sufferings as an author, to punish the heterodox, but still formidable sect. One of the first acts of the reign of Le Tellier Port was the destruction of the mona"stery of Port Royal. This celebrated school of learning and piety had produced and niu'tured the chief enemies of the Roval. I,] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT, 13 Jesuits. The three Arnauds, Nicole, Lemaitre de Saei, Pascal, the author of the admirable Pro- vincial Letters, and many other men eminent in literature, as well as theology, had issued from this place, and edified the world, no less by the sanctity of their lives, than by the depth of their kiiowledge, and the vigour of their reasoning. The nuns of the society followed the doctrines of these able masters. After many disputes, an order was obtained from the King for the demolition of the convent: every precaution was taken to provide against resistance on the part of the nuns. In the dead of the night, a detachment of French and Swiss guards surrounded the habitation of the sleeping community. In the morning d'Ar- genson, chief of the police, arrived with a body of patrole and archers, ordered the door to be opened, displayed a lettre de cachet to the assembled convent, and gave them, after the manner of a victorious general, only a (juarter of an hour's delay. The nuns were hurried into separate car- riages, each carriage attended by a guard of ar- chers, like a body of conspirators, and they were conveyed to different convents, some to twenty, some fifty, some to an hundred miles distance. The old women being thus secured without any loss to the besiegers, the convent was soon after- wards levelled to the ground, the bodies of the 14 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. dead were disinterred and removed, and the plough passed over the spot. Thus did the troops of his most Christian Majesty achieve the con- quest of a convent, and crush the rebelhon of a polemical sisterhood !* Quesnel. Under the vigorous administration of Le Tel- lier, the church was soon agitated by a new sub- ject. The Jesuits, finding that the practices of their missionaries in China excited much clamour against them, bethought themselves of diverting the storm in some other direction. They fixed upon a book called " Reflections Morales sur le Nouveau 2'estament da Pere QuesneV This book had been published forty years, latterly with the approbation of the Cardinal de Noailles, and was so much esteemed by the Pere La Chaise, that he always kept it on his table, saying, that as he had not time to read much, he was glad to have a book that was a mine of doctrine and exemplary piety. Even the Pope had said to a person who visited him, " Here is an excellent book : we have no body at Rome capable of writing like this. I should be glad to invite the author near me."*!- Uncontradicted reputation, and approved morality, however, formed no de- ■ * St. Simon^ iii. p. 244. t Voltaire, Siecle de L. XIV. Jansenisme. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 15 fence against the arms of the Jesuits. At their earnest sohcitation, the Pope issued what was called the Constitution, or Bull Unigenitus, the The Bull fruitful and never-failing source of schism, of tus!^*^"'' passion, and of party, till the Revolution ab- sorbed all other subjects of dispute. By this bull, issued in 1713, the Head of the Romish 1^13. Church declared, that there were an hundred and one heretical propositions in the book of Pere Quesnel. Among the propositions so con- demned, was the following : " The fear of an unjust excommunication ought never to deter us from doing our duty." If this sentiment be not a just one, it is evident that all Catholic kings are at the mercy of the Pope ; yet so inconsistent is human nature, that Lewis the Fourteenth, the king of all others the most jea- lous of his authority, iised the whole influence of his crown to obtain a condemnation of it from a reluctant and unambitious Pope. A curious anecdote is told relative to this bull. Amelot, Minister of France at Rome, asked the Pope why he was not satisfied with a general censure of some propositions of Quesnel, without entering so far into particulars ? " Ah ! M. Amelot, M. Amelot," answered the Pope, "what could I do.?" Le Tellier had assured the King that there were in the book more than an hundred censurable 16 HISTORV OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. propositions, and he did not choose to pass for a liar ; they held the knife to my throat to make me condemn more than a hundred."* Quesnel, the unfortunate author of this work, whom the Pope had said he wished to invite to reside near him, was obliged to fly from France into the Low Countries ; but even there he was not safe. The Jesuits obtained an order from the King of Spain to arrest him, and he was confined in the prison of Malines. By the assistance of a disciple, he afterwards escaped into Holland, and passed the remainder of his days at Amsterdam, in a zealous endeavour to establish Jansenist churches in that city. The King had become, in the course of a long contest, very warm and eager on the side of the Jesuits. When James the Second medi- tated the appointment of Catholic bishops in England, Lewis wrote to him to take care not to appoint Jansenists, or he would admit a heresy as mischievous as that which he wished to sup- plant.-f- His theological zeal led him sometimes to a ridiculous excess. When the Duke of Orleans was about to take the command of the army in Spain, the King asked him, who he meant to take with him ; and the Duke naming a person of the * St. Simon, t. iv. p. 156. t Appendix to Fox's Hist, of James II. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 17 name of Fontpertuis, he objected that the mother of Fontpertuis was a Jansenist. *^ Ma foi, Sire^' answered the Duke of Orleans, "■ I do not know what the mother was, but as for the son, so far from being a Jansenist, I rather think he is an atheist." " Indeed !" said the King, " are you quite sure of that ? In that case you may take him." * The acceptation of the bull Unigenitus however, notwithstanding the King's bhnd zeal, met with great difficulties in France. Forty-eight bishops, who were at that time at Paris, assembled b}^ order of the Kinof ; after debates which lasted for four entire months, forty of them agreed to accept the bull ; eight, with Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, at their head, required explanations, and suspended their consent. In the Parliament, the bull met with still greater opposition. The ancient defenders of the liberties of the church of France could not easily consent to register a constitution of this kind as an act of supreme authority. The King, ex- horted by his confessor to hold a bed of justice, attempted in lieu of it to accomplish his object, by sending for the chief persons of the judicial body. Of these, De Mesmes, the first president, was in * St. Simon, t. iv. p. 153. Mem. sur Louis XI V^. Extraits de la Correspondance allemande de Madame Mere du Regent. 18 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. favour of the bull, but d'Aguesseau, the procu- reur general, who bore a high character for learn- ing of all kinds, for piety, candour, and integrity, was known to be unfavourable to this increase of the power of the Pope and the Jesuits, at the ex- pense of the King and the Gallican church. The chief, and most conspicuous fault of the character of d'Aguesseau, was a degree of timidity which often obscured and nearly extinguished the lustre of all his noble inclinations. His wife, of the family of Ormesson, knowing this defect, and wish- ing to deprive hiui of the favourite apology of feeble and interested cliaracters, who always put forth a regard for their family, as an excuse for disgracing themselves, exclaimed to him, " Go ; in the presence of the King forget your wife and children ; lose every thing but honour." * The advice of this noble-minded woman for this time prevailed, and d'Aguesseau spoke to the King with the force which a good cause and an eloquent ad- vocate command. Lewis, unaccustomed to find opposition to his will from his subjects, and more especially from his Parliament, was greatly pro- voked at their resistance, and meditated depriving d'Aguesseau and Joly de "Fleury, who seconded him, of their offices. Seeing, however, that this step would not advance their purpose, the Jesuits . * Duclos, t. i. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 19 bethought themselves of other means of overcom- ing all opposition to the bull. The Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, The Car- • -I p ^ dinal de had long been a thorn in the side of those who Noailles. wished to persecute without measure or mercy the vmfortunate Jansenists. His nomination to the see of Paris, through the influence of Madame de Maintenon, had been one of the appointments most creditable to the monarch, and Lewis, conscious of his own merit in the act, had said at the time, " If I had known any one more worthy to fill the post than the bishop of Chalons, I would not have ap- pointed him." Kind and charitable in his disposi- tion, magnificent in his hospitality, attentive to the duties of his see, Noailles had obtained in his dio- cese of Chalons the suflPrages alike of the clergy, the nobility and the poor. In his more important station at Paris, he had continued the same course, and had thus regained for the church the respect of the people, which his predecessor, Harlai de Chauvalon, had much diminished by his known attachment to Madame de Lesdiguieres, and her equally notorious sale of benefices. So far was the Cardinal de Noailles from amassing treasure, that at his death only five hundred livres were found in his house above the sum necessary to pay his debts : the memory of his charity and kindness c je 20 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. lived long in the hearts of the inhabitants of Paris. Yet all these merits did not suffice, nor, even if they had been accompanied by the gifts of an apostle, would they have sufficed, to find pardon for the Cardinal in the eyes of the Jesuits. Even the bitterest of his foes, however, did not accuse him of partaking the opinions of the Jansenists. * All that could be laid to his charge, was that he op- posed them faintly ; that he seemed to pity them ; that he sometimes saved them from oppression ; in short, that he did not enter into the measures of persecution on which the vindictive hearts of their enemies were bent. The approbation of the book of Qucsnel, and his suspending in his see the exe- cution of the constitution Unigenitus, were the two chief facts upon which a stress was laid. In pursuit of his destruction, Le Tellier and his brethren omitted none of those arts and intrigues for which their order has been proverbial in every part of Europe. They excited the bishops in the provinces who belonged to their party, to issue charges in their dioceses against the Archbishop of Paris, which they stuck up on the walls of his palace, and when he attempted to retahate, de- nounced him to the King as a persecutor of or- * See Mad. de Maintenon's letters to him on this subject. Lettres de Maintenorij t. ii. 1.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 21 thodox Catholics. On one occasion they had nearly been caught in their own net. The Abbe de Saron had been employed to write to his uncle the Bishop of Clermont, a man of eighty years old, transmitting a charge against Noailles, which lie was desired to sign, and return to Le Tellier. The emissary employed, from scruples of con- science perhaps, perhaps from a hope of gain, carried the letters to the Cardinal, who had nume- rous copies taken of them, and sent them to the King and Madame de Maintenon. Le Tellier, however, made the Abbe de Saron take the whole blame upon himself, and deny the participation of the Jesuits ; Lewis, grown old and inactive, was now in a state to believe any thing which he heard from his confessor, and, as too frequently hap- pens, the storm fell not upon the guilty, but upon the discoverer of the crime. Noailles sunk into complete disgrace with the King, and was refused admission into his presence. Li this extremity, Madame de Maintenon abandoned him ; she had, indeed, frequently warned liim of his danger, and told him that all the world complained of his lenity to the Jansenists ; but when she saw him falling, she was much too prudent to risk her influence in order to save her friend. This the Cardinal was well aware of. In a letter to her, he says, " No misfortune shall alter my sentiments of venera- 22 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. tion for him who laid heavy his hand upon me, nor for her who might have parried the blow." * Insatiate in their vengeance, Le Tellier and his party now resolved to obtain from the King an order to seize the Cardinal, to carry him to Pierre Encise, and from there to Rome, where he was to be degraded in full consistory ; to procure at the same time the suspension of d''Aguesseau, and give his office by commission to Chauvelin, a mere tool, who was ready to preside over a bed of jus- tice, where the bull should be registered. Stratagem This bold scheme was defeated by the quick- er aiadlle. n ' 1 n " p 1 de Chaus- ness and presence or mind oi a woman oi no rank or note. ]VIademoiselle de Chausseraye was the daughter of a gentleman of Poitou ; having lost her parents, she had been recommended to Ma- dame, and had been admitted into her household. The King, pleased with her manners and sincere devotion to his person, often gave her audiences alone. She made use of this advantage to prevent acts of harshness, and obtain favours for persons whom she thought deserving, even without any personal acquaintance with them. As an intimate friend of the Duchess of Ventadour, she was in the habit of hearing in her apartments, the con- versation of the Jesuit party, and being thought a good-natured harmless person, was allowed to * Letter to Madame de Maintenon. Mai, iTli. serave. 1.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 23 know all their secret wishes and designs. By this means she became acquainted with the pro- ject of carrying oif the Cardinal, which was to receive the final approbation of the King on the next day. Determined to lose no time, she directly sought and obtained a private audience of the King. " Sire," she said, " you do not look so well as you did yesterday ; you seem melancholy ; I am afraid they vex you." " You are right," answered the King, " there is something that an- noys me; they want me to take a step that is re- pugnant to me, and it vexes me." " I respect your secrets. Sire, but I will lay a wager it is for this bull, of which I do not understand one word. For my part, I am a good christian, and do not trouble myself with their disputes ; but it is too good of you to allow yourself to be harassed ; let them arrange it as they can ; they think neither of your health nor your repose, and that is what interests me, and the whole kingdom." " You do very right," said Lewis, " and I have a great mind to do the same." " Do then. Sire ; leave all these priests'" quarrels alone, regain your health, and all will be well." • The next day, at four in the morning. Made- moiselle de Chausseraye set out alone, had an in- terview with the Archbishop, advised him on no 24 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAF. account to go out of Paris, and returned to Ver- sailles without an}^ one having been aware of her departure. When she saw her friends, she was re- joiced to find that their altered looks, and gloomy manner, attested the bad state of their affairs, and, upon her enquiring if the Archbishop was to be arrested that day, they told her with every mark of consternation, that as soon as Le Tellier began to speak about it, the King cut him short, and told him to be silent, with such evident displea- sure, that they could not venture to return to the subject.* It is impossible not to admire the dexterity with which Mademoiselle de Chausseraye conducted this affair, and above all, her thorough knowledge of the King. Had she pretended to interfere in the particular question ; had she represented that the Cardinal de Noailles was a virtuous and dig- nified prelate, whom no one accused of more than a desire to protect the weaker party from the insa- tiate vengeance of their enemies ; had she ventured to suggest that the Jansenists were among the most moral of all christians, that they paid obedience to the Pope, and differed only on one or two meta- physical questions, of no practical importance ; had she hinted that persecution often propagates the * Duclos, t. i. I ] Tllli PEACE OF UTRECHT. 25 opinion it is meant to suppress ; on all or any of these topics, Lewis would never have listened to her. But when she spoke to him as one who thought only of his welfare, and expressed her fears that the violent and unjust act he was about to commit towards another, might have a bad ef- fect upon his own health, she was heard, attended to, and successful. There is one other reflection that arises upon this matter. Had Madame de Maintenon, with the powerful influence she had acquired over the King, and such constant opportunities of using it, possessed half the charity, and half the courage of the obscure Mademoiselle de Chausseraye, how many persons she might have saved from destruc- tion ; how much might she have softened the last years of the administration of Lewis ! Certain it is, however, that Madame de Main- tenon did not so exert her power, and her timidity cost dear to France. Although the Cardinal de Noailles escaped the punishment intended for him, the prisons were filled with persons suspected of the crime of Jansenism. When a division took place in the Sorbonne, those who voted against re- ceiving the bull, were sent to gaol ; in every part of France priests, nims, nobles, and often whole families, were confined in dungeons, and exposed to every kind of suffering with which confinement 26 HISTORY OF EUROPK FKOM [cHAP. can be attended, because they would not allow tliat there were a hundred and one heretical proposi- tions in the book of Quesnel. But in spite of these severities, the heretical opinions spread, and the virtues of the persons punished contributed to in- crease the odium, which every day more and more attached to the government of Lewis. The foregoing details may seem to many, tri- fling and tiresome ; but they are necessary, in order to understand, as well the feelings of the people towards Lewis at the close of his reign, as the subsequent history of France. The other subject upon which the mind and conscience of the King were tormented by those around him, was the question of the Regency to Will of be established by his will. In order to understand Lewis , . , . . . " XIV. this subject, it is necessary to recur to some events which took place before the period we are now treating of. The Dauphin, the eldest son of Lewis the Fourteenth, died in 1711. His son, the Duke of Burgundy, who succeeded him, h.ad borne the title of Dauphin only for a year, but long enough to obtain the affectionate attachment of France, when, in the space of a single month, he, his wife, and his eldest son, were carried to a premature grave. The manner of their death was not singular : the Dauphiness was attacked by a violent fever, which affected her head, and the Death of the Dau- phin and Dauphi- ness. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 27 Dauphin, after several nights attendance upon her, caught her complaint. But in those times, when men were still familiar with the crime of poisoning, and very imperfectly acquainted with the effects of disease upon the human frame, it Mas not to be expected that the sudden deaths of persons so eminent in rank should be attributed to natural causes. A consultation was held upon the bodies of the Dauphin and Dauphiness. Fagon, first physician to the King, a flatterer of Madame de Maintenon, and Boudin, physician to the Dau- phiness, a vain and ignorant coxcomb, both main- tained that the bodies bore marks of poison, and alleged as a proof of it, that the heart of the Dau- phin was putrid, almost to dissolution. Marechal, first surgeon to the King, on the other hand, though alone, and secretly not quite confident in his opirtion, positively maintained that the bodies bore no marks of poison, and that he had several times seen the same effects produced by putrid fevers of great malignity. The suspicion of poison was rendered still more dreadful by the family relation which subsisted between the King and the person suspected of the crime. Madame de Main- tenon, in the presence of Marechal and the phy- sicians, went so far as to say, that it was well known where the blow came from, and immediately named the Duke of Orleans, the nephew of the 28 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. The Duke King. The King assented, and seemed to have accused of "° doubt of the truth of what she said. Fagon poisoning confirmed their opinions by nods of the head, and Boudin added that he had no doubt of the prince'^s guilt.* Let us pause for a moment to remark on the life and manners of him who was thus boldly accused of one of the most atrocious crimes it is possible for man to commit. Previous Philip, Duke of Orleans, the son of Monsieur, Duke of *^^ King's brother, and a German princess, had Orleans, been married when young to one of the natural daughters of the King by Madame de Montespan. At once ashamed of his marriage, and indignant at the means which had been employed to procure his consent, he fell into a course of licentious con- duct, and passed his time with the most abandoned women, and the most profligate men of the age. This behaviour, at any time reprehensible, was more peculiarly remarked at a period when the Court laid so great a stress upon strictness of morals, and punctuality of devotion ; yet, singular to say, the Duke of Orleans, by the good qualities of his heart, the frankness of his manners, and the benevolence of his nature, preserved the affections of many men of the best and most estimable cha- racter. Among them, the celebrated Fenelon and * St. Simon, vol. vi. p. 94. St. Simon heard all this from Marechal. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 29 the Duke of St. Simon were conspicuous ; but, above all, it was remarkable that no one had shown more friendly anxiety for his welfare, than the late Duke of Burgundy. When serving in Spain, the Duke of Orleans had imprudently entered into an intrigue for placing the Spanish crown upon his own head, in case Philip the Fifth should renounce it. The plot was discovered, and the Dauphin proposed in the council of state that he should be tried for high treason. At this time the Duke of Burgundy interposed, spoke with warmth in favour of his cousin, and saved him from disgrace, if not from death. What probability was there that he should now have turned against his benefactor, and, with singular infatuation, have murdered his friends, while he left his bitter enemies in the full possession of life and power .? But even admitting him to be ca])able of such wickedness, how unlikely that he should be able to poison three persons at the same time without detection ; and that he should succeed in giving to two of them the ap- pearance of a natural fever ! But the story is too full of absurdity to merit refutation. The people, however, quick in their suspicions, and hasty, though generous in their sentiments, were easily induced to look upon the Duke of Orleans as the poisoner of their beloved Dauphin. For, strange as it may appear, mankind have a natural tendency ■SO HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. to believe any thing that is incredible ; and many persons of moderate capacity form their opinion against an accused person, not from the strength of the evidence, but from the atrocity of the crime imputed to him. Some unfortunate circumstances contributed to favour the credulity of the vulgar. Fond of literature and of science, the Duke of Orleans had constructed a laboratory in his palace, and -employed a chemist of celebrity, of the name of Homberg, to assist him in performing expe- riments. This well known fact, together with a foolish avowal that he had attempted to see the devil, and some nonsensical endeavours to guess at futurity, by means of glasses of water, led the ig- norant of all classes to a full persuasion of his gviilt. The feelings of the multitude were speedily shown in a manner not to be mistaken. When the Duke of Orleans went to throw holy water, upon two separate occasions, on the remains of the late Dauphin and Dauphiness, according to the forms of the Court, persons in the streets pointed at him scornfully, and loaded him with the most revolt- ing and injurious epithets. The day of the funeral was attended with still more insult ; and when the procession passed the Palais Royal, the tumult was so violent, that for some minutes it seemed likely to end in an attack on the life of the prince. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECPIT. 31 In this painful situation, the Duke of Orleans, His con- by the advice of the Marquis d'Effiat, went to the King, and asked permission to give himself up as prisoner at the Bastile, praying at the same time that his Majesty would be pleased to give orders that Homberg, and such other persons of his house- hold as the King might think proper, should be arrested. Lewis received him with an air of cold disdain, and immediately refused his request. Upon the pressing instances of the prince, how- ever, he agreed that Homberg should be received at the Bastile, if he chose to go there ; but this consent was soon afterwards retracted: Homberg, upon presenting liimself at the Bastile, was re- fused admittance ; and when the Duke of Orleans again insisted, the King turned his back upon him, and refused to answer. * It is said, that the refusal of the King was owing to the advice of Marechal, who represented that the justification of the Duke of Orleans would still leave a stain upon his character in the eyes of the world, always cre- dulous of accusation, and sceptical of innocence. Besides, in his cooler moments, Lewis himself probably did not believe in the guilt of liis ne- phew. Marechal having once said to him, that if the Duke of Orleans were a private person, he would have ten ways of gaining an honest liveli- * St. Sinipn, Duclos, Voltaire. duct. 32 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. hood, and that he was besides, the best natured man in the world, Lewis rephed, " Do you know what my nephew is ? A braggart of crimes he does not commit."* The conduct of the Duke of Orleans upon this occasion, has been very generally blamed, both by his friend, the Duke of St. Simon, by Voltaire, and by subsequent historians. Yet, what is more natural, or more honourable, than for a man un- justly aspersed, and loaded with the most cruel calumnies, to seek for a fair and open hearing, where he may meet his accusers and dispel the ac- cusation ? It has been said, that it was beneath the dignity of a son of France to put himself in the place of a prisoner for trial ; but surely it is not beneath the dignity of any man, who feels himself innocent, to endeavour, by the most undeniable evidence, and in the most public manner, to shake off the imputation of guilt. It has been said like- wise by St. Simon, and those who blame the Duke of Orleans, that he might have confounded his enemies, by throwing the charge of poison either on the heads of the Duke of Maine, or of the Court of Austria. But, in all probability, the Duke of Orleans did not believe the fact that the late Dauphin had been poisoned, and, in that case, " " Savez-vous ce que c'est que mon neveu ? C'est unfan^ faron de crimes qu'il ne commit pas." Duclos, t. i. St. Simon. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 33 such a defence would have made him guilty of the same crime towards others, which the bitterest and least scrupulous of his enemies had committed against him. A fair trial being refused, however, by the King, the reports of this horrible deed, incapable of being met and refuted, made their way from Paris to the provinces, and over the whole of Europe, In the palace of Lewis, the base train of the Court, gave a singular testimony of their be- lief in these dreadful rumours. The King, bound by etiquette, more sacred in palaces than feeling, continued to ask the Duke of Orleans to Marly, and on all his other excursions ; but wherever he appeared, and which ever way he moved, the courtiers hastily turned from him, and left him standing in an empty circle. Even the Duchess of Orleans, his wife, was abandoned by ail the ladies of the Court.* In this singular and sudden reverse of the for- P«oJ«t of JVIadanie 'O uoii. tunes of the House of Orleans, Madame de Main- deMainte- tenon saw a propitious opening for the advance- ment of a person to whom she was tenderly at- tached, and for the maintenance of her own great- ness. It was evident, that if she allowed the Duke of Orleans to succeed quietly to the Regency, her power and credit were for ever at an end. * St. Simon, t. vi. VOL. I. I) 34 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. She could never hope to have any influence dur- ing the supremacy of a prince who had become her personal enemy, and to whose mother she was an object of undisguised detestation. It has been said, that in order to avoid this evil, the Jesuit, Le Tellier, had once a project of declaring the marriage of Madame de Maintenon, and investing her with the Regency, but I am not inclined to believe even in the proposal of a scheme so evi- dently impracticable. There was another method of excluding the Duke of Orleans, at once more agreeable to the wishes of the favourite, and more easy of execution. The Duke '^^^^ Duke of Maine and the Count of Tou- of Maine, louse were the sons of Lewis and Madame de Montespan. In order to please the King, Har- lay. President of the Parliament, discovered a method of conferring the rights of legitimacy upon children, without mentioning the mother. This process, which was first tried in the case of the Chevalier de Longueville, the son of the Duke of Longueville, who was killed at the passage of the Rhine, and of the Marechale de la Ferte, was employed in favour of the Duke of Maine in ] 673, and of the other children of Madame de Montes- pan in the following year. In 1694, the Duke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse had an inter- I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 35 mediate rank given to them between the princes of the blood and the Dues et Pairs ; they were not to have the privilege of walking across the floor of the Parliament, like princes of the blood, and were to be addressed by the president by the names of their peerage, which princes of the blood were not, but the president was to take off his cap to them, which he did not do to the peers.* In 1710 the same privilege was extended to their children, and St. Simon has carefully recorded, with many additional details, that it was on a Saturday, the 15th of March, that this dreadful innovation was announced. In fact, the distinctions granted to the illegitimate sons excited in the breasts of the princes of the blood, and still more in those of the Dues et Pairs, feelings of the deepest and most lasting * The privilege of walking across the floor, or parquet of the Parliament, took its rise in a trifling circumstance. The parquet was a small square enclosed before the president, where no one ever put his foot. An old prince of Conde having an attack of the gout, one day walked across it to his seat to save himself trouble. Some time after, tlie Duke of Enghien, known as the great Conde, followed liis father, who advised him to desist. " Let me see who will dare to stop me," said the Duke of Enghien. From this time the right of walking across the parquet was a privilege of the princes of the blood. Such are the objects for which men contend ! ,, 9 36 HISTOllV OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. indignation. Valincourt, a member of the Acade- my, perceiving the murmur occasioned by these edicts, said to the Count of Toulouse, " Mon- seigneur, you have got a crown of roses, which when the flowers fall off, I fear will become a crown of thorns."* The Duke of Maine, for whom these things were done, and still further extraordinary favours projected, seems to have been exactly of such a character as we should expect to find in a son of Madame de Montespan, educated by Madame de Maintenon. He was remarkable for the talent of conversation, excelled in relating anecdote, abound- ed in witty and refined observation, and was, when he chose it, an excellent mimic. With these powers, his society was extremely pleasing to the King, who saw in him a person unbiassed by the intrigues of party, and equally removed from those scandalous excesses which, in the Duke of Orleans, excited his displeasure, and from that inclination for business, which in the Duke of Burgundy had sometimes roused his jealousy. Thus trusted, and admitted more than any one, except Madame de Maintenon, into the interior, he was able to give advice in the shape of flattery; to insinuate his own opinions, while he appeared to be applauding * Duclos, t. i. I.J THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 37 those of the King ; and to strike deadly blowa at his enemies, when he seemed to be merely drawing ludicrous pictures for the amusement of his sove- reign and parent. He was, at the same time, appa- rent! / absorbed by his devotions and his domestic duties, and devoid of ambition, envy, or hatred ; his friends called this — apathy, his enemies, hypo- crisy. With much ability and much cunnin;^, he nevertheless seems to have been destitute, both in the cabinet and in the field, of the power of persevering exertion, and of that quality which is so appropriately termed presence of mind. When he should have been employed in suiting his means to the great end at which he aimed he was busy in translating into French verse the Anti-Lucretius of the Abbe de Polignac. When entrusted by his father with the command in Flanders, his conduct made him a subject of mortification to his own army, and a laughing-stock to the enemy. Upon his return, a person of the court gave him a reproof, which at once shows how notorious his misbehaviour had become, and how great was the liberty of speech used at the court of Lewis. The Duke d'Elboeuf begged that he might always ac- company the Duke of Maine in his campaigns: " why so?" asked the Duke; "because," replied the other, " I am sure that where your royal high- 38 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. ness goes, there will be no danger of losing one's life." The The Duchess of Maine was a person of a difFe- MaLe!** " ^^"^ stamp. A grand-daughter of the great Conde, she had all the aspiring ambition and restless spirit of intrigue, which distinguished that remarkable man. She felt with the rooted pride of family, the mortification of being married to an illegitimate .son, and on expressing her thanks to Madame de Main tenon for the honours conferred on her hus- band, the terms she used were, *' I can now show my children without shame."" With these passions, and great quickness of understanding, it is no won- der if the Duchess of Maine felt warmly, when fortune seemed to open to her a prospect of bound- less extent. Her dressing-room became a cabinet council ; her ladies of the bed-chamber negociators and politicians. May, Such were the persons whom Madame de Main- ' tenon endeavoured to place at the head of the go- vernment to be formed after the demise and by the will of Lewis. Some circumstances contributed to aid her project. In May, 171 4, the Duke of Berri, the only grandson of Lewis remaining in France, died after a short illness. It is said, that when the body was opened, his stomach was found to be ul- cerated, and suspicions of poison immediately fell upon his wife, a daughter of the Duke of Orleans, 1.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 39 whose conduct had been so licentious and aban- doned, that her husband at the very time of his death, was about to request an order for her con- finement in the Bastile, from the King. This event awakened in all their former violence, the reports which had prevailed two years before respecting the Duke of Orleans. Another circumstance which emboldened the friends of the Duke of Maine, was the publication of a history of France, by Father Daniel, a Jesuit, in which great pains were taken to show that the kings of the first and second race had often called their illegitimate sons to the suc- cession of the throne. The ladies of the court, with ridiculous learning, said : " Clovis was not so great a man as Lewis the Fourteenth, and yet in a similar case he did more." * It must be confessed that Lewis was in a painful and embarrassing situation. On the one side, he saw the woman whom he most loved, and a son for whom he had a tender affection, entreating hnn, as it were, not to confide the person of his infant heir, and the government of his people, to a prince per- sonally offensive to him by the laxity of his morals, and regarded by the whole of his court, as one whom no scruples, even at the most horrible crimes, could stop in his way to power. On the * The Princess d'Harcourt to Madame de Maintenon. 40 HISTORY OF EUROPli FROM [cHAP. other side, the long practice of the monarchy, and the experience of his own and his father's minority, taught him how little the will of a king could pre- vail over proximity of blood, and the inclinations of the Parliament. His religious strictness like- wise, must have been somewhat shocked at prefer- ring the fruit of an adulterous amour to a prince of the blood ; and his high notions of the privileges belonging to the legitimate branch of the royal fa- mily, must have been startled at the contempla- tion of a project, which disturbed the regularity of succession, and excluded from power the nearest relation to the throne. With his mind full of these and other difficul- Edict of ties, Lewis long hesitated. At length in 1714, he signed an edict, granting to the Duke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse, the power of succeed- ing to the crown after the princes of the blood. In the following year he made them rank in all re- spects as princes of the blood. But the King was himself aware that this stretch of royal power, while it opened to his favourite son more extensive prospects, likewise exposed him to greater dangers. " You have chosen it," he said to him one day ; " I have done for you what I could ; it is for you to confirm it by your merit." * The edict was re- * Duclos, t. i. I,] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 41 gistered by the Parliament without opposition ; but when the King endeavoured to explain his reasons for o'hat he had done to a deputation, to whom he delivered the edict, the first president answered him : " Sire, a disposition of this nature touches a matter so high, and is of so great consequence, that we cannot doubt your majesty has made all the reflections upon it, which your profound wis- dom can inspire." Lewis was obliged to conceal the displeasure which this equivocal compliment gave him.* All was not yet accomplished : the last scene of The Will. this curious drama was the signature and delivery of the King's will. Madame de Maintenon appears to have prompted, and Voisin, her creature, Chan- cellor of the kingdom, to have drawn up this im- portant document. By this instrvmient, a council of regency was named, of which the Duke of Or- leans was to be president, but where every thing- was to be decided by a plurality of voices. The council was to be composed of the Duke of Bour- bon, when he should have attained the age of twenty-four, of the Duke of Maine, of the Count of Toulouse, of the Chancellor, the chief of the royal council, the Marshals Villeroy, Villars, Tal- lard, and Harcourt, the four secretaries of state, and the Comptroller General. All resolutions ap- • St. Simon. 42 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. pertaining to the royal functions were to be taken ; all appointments whatever to be made by this coun- cil. The president was only to have a casting voice in the case of the number of suffrages being equal. The Duke of Maine was entrusted with the care of the education, personal safety, and pre- servation of the young king, with the full com- mand of the household, both civil and military. In case of death, he was to be succeeded by the Count of Toulouse. Marshal Villeroy was named governor of the young king, under the Duke of Maine. * These unwise and futile provisions perfectly reflect the embarrassed and wavering mind of the King. Unable to convince himself that the Duke of Orleans had been actually guilty of the crimes imputed to him, he could not resolve to remove him altogether from the place to which he was entitled, and vainly imagined that by placing him at the head of the council of regency, he preserved to him the rank due to his royal birth. On the other hand, unable to clear entirely from his thoughts the suspicions which those about him were continually pouring into his ear, he attempted to deprive his nephew of all power, and to sur- round him AAith such a number of his most favou- * See a copy of the will. CEuvres tie Louis XIV. t. ii. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 43 rite servants as might be more than sufficient to neutrahze his influence in the council. But this was one of those occasions in which a half measure was peculiarly inexpedient. The Duke of Orleans could be deprived of the regency by no other way than the most determined and unscrupulous hos- tility ; by giving currency and confirmation to the suspicions of his opponents : by excluding him from all participation in the government, as a man who could not be trusted without hazard, and by arming his adversaries with strength and means sufficient to carry that exclusion into effect. To leave him with any part of the regency, was to open his way to the whole, but with this additional inconvenience, that the kingdom was exposed to the risk of civil war, during the contention of two balanced and exasperated competitors for power. With the Duke of Orleans, as with a wild beast, there were only two courses to pursue ; to leave him alone, or to destroy him ; to wound him and leave him loose, Avas to incur needless peril, and make choice of an assured evil. Lewis himself seems to have had little expec- Lan^age tation, and perhaps little wish that his will should be executed. In delivering the sealed packet to the first president and attorney general of the Par- liament, he said to them ; " Gentlemen, this is my will ; no one but myself knows what it contains ; 44 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. the examples of the kings, my predecessors, and that of the will of the king, my father, do not allow me to be ignorant of what may be the fate of this ; but others have chosen it. Happen what may, at least, I shall hear no more about it." At these last words, he shook his head, and went into another room. The next day, seeing the Queen of England, he repeated nearly the same words to her, adding, " I know the uselessness of what I have done ; we can do all that we choose during our life-time, afterwards, less than private persons."* By these expressions, Lewis seemed clearly to foresee that his will would be set aside, and it must be added, that by these public de- clarations of his opinion, he contributed to the event which he prophesied. Perhaps he was not in his heart unwilling that the legitimate rights of birth should prevail even over his own express command and disposition. Codicils of Two codicils were added to the will. By one of the Will. * St. Simon, t. vi. pp. 149, 150. The editor of the works of Lewis the XlVth. doubts the fact of the King having spoken these words ; but the authority of St. Simon is supported by those of Madame, and the Duke of Berwick. This last was told by the Queen of England, that Lewis said, " They insisted absolutely I should do it, but when I am dead, it will be just the same as if I had not done it." Mem. de Berwick, t. ii. Neither is the story improbable in itself. 1.] THE PKACE OF UTRECHT 45 these, tlie King ordered Marshal Villeroy to take the command of the troops, and the charge of the Khig's person, till his will should be opened ; by a second, he appointed Fleury, bishop of Frejus, preceptor to the young king. Fleury had made himself agreeable to the ladies of the court, and was recommended to Madame de Maintenon by two of her friends. In her eyes, and in those of the greater part of the court, it was his strongest recommendation, that he was not devoted to the Jesuits. At the same time, in order to disarm the opposition of this powerful body, he had issued a charge condemning the doctrine of the Jansenists in the strongest terms, which was answered with much sharpness, and some ridicule by Quesnel himself. It has been conjectured with plausibi- lity, that this answer converted a pretended foe into a real one, and that the animosity with which Fleury as a minister afterwards pursued the Jan- senists, is greatly to be attributed to his wounded vanity as an author. * The health of the King was now evidently break- Decline of ing. The rapidity of his decline is said to have been owing to the violence of the remedies which were employed by his physicians : his remaining strength, instead of being supported by gentle cor- * St. Simon, t. vi. p. 210. 46 HlSTOllY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAl'. dials, was exhausted by the frequent and copious use of purgatives and sudorifics. Some have gone so far as to ascribe this treatment to the treachery of Fagon, his physician ; but the supposition is absurd, and the low state of medicine, which at that time, probably, killed as many as it cured, is sufficient to account for the fact. His death. When in nearly the last stage of weakness, how- ever, Lewis was able to receive an ambassador of Persia, with his usual pomp and magnificence ; but it has been conjectured that the importance both of the envoy and of the mission was greatly exaggerated by the courtiers, in order to revive those feelings of pride and ambition in which this ostentatious prince had so long found his chief de- light. This was in August 1 715. In the same month, after his return from Marly, it was dis- covered tliat he had a mortification in his leg, which left him not long to hve. When informed that his disease was without a remedy, he showed not the smallest uneasiness, and calmly said, that in that case he had better be left to die in peace. He asked Marechal, his surgeon, vipon whose sin- cerity he relied, how long he thought he might live: Marechal replied, " till Wednesday:" " My sentence then is for Wednesday," said the King, without the least mark of trouble, disappointment, or alarm. From this time, and indeed, in the I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 47 whole course of his last illness, he displayed a patience, courage, and tranquillity, to which, even those the least inclined to praise him, have borne testimony in terms of the Avarmest admiration. When the members of his family collected around him were melted into tears at the sight of the painful sufferings he endured, he exclaimed, " This is too affecting ; let us separate." To Madame de Maintenon he calmly observed, " I thought it was more difficult to die :" and seeing in the looking-glass diat his attendants were crying, he said to them, " Why do you weep ? did you believe me immortal .?*" Addressing himself to the Cardinals Rohan and Bissy, in a solemn voice he declared, " I die in the faith, and in submission to the church ; I have little knowledge of the sub- jects which disturb it ; I have done entirely what you wished ; if I have done wrong, you will answer for it before God, whom I here call to Avitness." Some of the medical attendants asking one another if he might not see the Cardinal de Noailles, he expressed a desire to that effect ; but Le Tellier had sufficient art to insert conditions with which Noailles could not comply. The King then sent for the Dauphin, and holding him in his arms, ad- dressed to him the following words: " You are going soon to be king of a great kingdom ; what I recommend to you most strongly is, never to forget 48 HISIOKY OF EUROPE FROM [CHAP. your obligations to God ; recollect that you owe to him all that you are. Endeavour to preserve peace with your neighbours. I have been too fond of war ; do not imitate me in that, any more than the excessive expenses I have gone into. Take counsel in every thing, and endeavour to know what is best, that you may always follow it. lle- lieve your people as soon as possible, and do what I have had the misfortune not to be able to do myself." These words were afterwards, by com- mand of Marshal Villeroy, written at the foot of the bed of Lewis the Fifteenth, and remained there during his life. He likewise addressed some words to his officers of state, and those of the nobihty who attended his bed-side ; he told them he was sorry not to have rewarded them better than he had done, but that the adversity of his latter years had not permitted it. " Serve the Dauphin," he con- tinued, " with the same affection you have had for me ; he is a child of five years old, who may meet with many crosses, as I remember to have done, when I was young. Be all united, for union is the force of a state. Follow the orders that my nephew, the Duke of Orleans, will give you ; he is going to govern the kingdom ; I believe that he will do it well. I hope also that you will all do your duty, and that you will sometimes remember me." To the Duke of Orleans, he is reported to I.] THE I'EAOE OF UTRECHT. 49 have said ; " You will see by my last dispositions, the entire confidence that I have in you ; you are Regent of the Kingdom ; your birth gives you this right, and my inclination is in concert with the justice that is due to you. Govern the State well during the minority of this prince ; if he dies, you are the sovereign ; if he lives, try above all to make him a Christian King; let him love his people, and make himself beloved by them." What is still more remarkable, he said to him, speaking of the Dauphin, " I recommend him to you, and die in tranquillity, leaving him in your hands." These expressions of the dying King, seem to prove almost to demonstration, that he did not tlien in the bottom of his heart, believe the horrible accu- sations that had been made against his nephew. He added some words at the desire of Madame de Maintenon, to recommend her to the protection of the Duke of Orleans. " She has never given me any but good counsels ;" he said, " I should have done well to have followed them. She has been useful to me in every thing, but above all, for my salvation. Do every thing that she asks of you for herself, for her relations, her friends, and con- nexions ; she will not abuse this power. Let her address herself directly to you for all she wants.""* * These speeches of Lewis the XlVth are taken from the OEuvres de Louis XIV. Edition of 1806. t. ii. j). +91. VOL. I. K 50 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. In the same spirit of tranquillity which he showed throughout, Lewis gave directions that his heart should be placed in the church of the Jesuits, opposite to that of his father, and that Vincennes should be got ready for the reception of the Dauphin, whom he called the young king. Once or twice, speaking of himself, he said " when I was king." The last days of Lewis were, undoubtedly, passed in a manner to do him honour ; but the persons around him, not having the same imme- diate fear of death before their eyes, continued to display the appropriate vices of their nature. The Jesuits were bitter and persecuting ; the courtiers base and interested ; Madame de Maintenon timid and selfish as usual. The confessor, Le Tellier, nearly to the last continued to vex the King with perpetual solicitations concerning the registration of the bull : the attendants twice refused him ad- mittance into the bed-chamber of the monarch.* The Duke of Orleans, who had been avoided and insulted at Marly, now saw his levee crowded with courtiers, vying with each other to boast their early defection from their dying master. A quack appeared at Versailles with an elixir, with which he promised to cure the King, and Lewis at the request of his nephew was induced to take it. He • Voltaire. Siecle de L. XIV. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 51 seemed a little revived and was able to eat : the courtiers immediately flew back to pay their ho- mage. *' If the King eats a second time," said the Duke of Orleans, " we shall have nobody."" Ma- dame de Maintenon herself, alarmed perhaps at the danger of popular tumults, retired to St. Cyr, on the Wednesday that Marechal had fixed for the King's death, leaving him in a kind of stupor. When he awoke, he found that she was gone, and was obliged to send for her back. This was the last mortification which Lev/is had to experience ; he died on the 1st of September, 1715. ^ept. i, The news of the demise of the sovereign was received with universal joy by the people. On Joy of the the day of his funeral, tents were set up on the roads to St. Denis, where crowds passed the day, shouting whenever the procession appeared, and diinking, laughing, and singing, on the happy oc- casion of the death of their sovereign.* Yet they were the same people, who, in 1686, had shed tears of alarm and anxiety during the king's illness, and who, in 1699, had burst forth in tumultuous joy at a report of the death of William the Third. The misfortunes of the war, the misery of the peo- ple, and the gloomy tyranny which the Jesuits had exercised during the last years of Lewis, were the cliief causes of this revolution of popular feel- • Siecle de Louis XIV., Duclos. Vie de Phil. d'Orleans. E 2 B2 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. ing. It is reported, that when he was very youngs his mother had said to him, " My son, resemble your grandfather, and not your father ;" and the King asking the reason, " because" she answered, "the people cried at the death of Henry the Fourth, and laughed at that of Lewis the Thirteenth." Character There is no man of whom more has been told and of Lewis. written, than Lewis the Fourteenth. Every part of his life has been described and related by per- sons who had excellent opportunities of knowing the truth. Madame de Motteville, a lady attached to the service of his mother, and La Porte, his first valet de chambre^ have left memoirs relating to his infancy and youth. The history of his reign, which he entrusted to the courtly pens of his pensioned men of letters, has been given with more exactness by admirers who had nothing to gain by his favour, and censurers who had nothing to fear from his displeasure. The minutiae of his daily life have been recorded in the servile jour- nal of Dangeau, and the faults of his character strongly painted by the powerful satire of St. Si- mon. The exterior of his court has been admi- rably sketched by the delicate pen of Madame de Sevigne, and the secrets of the interior have been partly revealed to us by the familiar and private communications of Madame de Maintenon. Let us add to all this, the innumerable memoirs written 1.] THE PEACE OF UTHECHT. 5S by persons anxious to hand down the current gos- sip of the day, in a country where notliing remains long concealed ; where the secrets of the State are carried in a few days by the minister to his mi.'^- tress ; by the mistress to her favoured lover ; and by the lover to his friends, who are perhaps the bitter enemies of the minister. On such a theatre, Lewis was a perpetual actor ; ahvays in public ; always watched ; the object of a thousand curious eyes, and the subject of a thousand malicious tongues. A word scarcely passed from his lips, be- fore it was whispered in every circle of the Court, and few hours elapsed before it was recorded in twenty manuscript books, with the comment of the writer, for the instruction of the latest posterity. With such matei-ials in our hands, what has been the fate of the memory of this famous monarch ? It may perhaps be illustrated by a circumstance mentioned by Chardin, in his amusing travels in the East. A tomb near a city was said to contain the body of a celebrated saint : a mausoleum was built to his honour, and the people resorted to it with veneration. Suddenly a report was spread that the body found there, was that of a well- known heretic ; the mausoleum was destroyed and ashes spread upon the spot. At length it was dis- covered that the tomb was neither that of the saint or of the heretic, but of some indifferent person. 54 HISTOKV OF EUROPE 1 ROM [cHAP. The place was then neglected, and men ceased either to crowd to it with reverence, or to pass it by with malediction. Such is, in some respects, the fate of the charac- ter of Lewis the Fourteenth. Admired at first by his country ; the favourite theme of the greatest wits of his age ; and, what is still more wonderful, of the greatest writer of his nation during the suc- ceeding century, he was long considered in France as a model of a great king : and if not endowed with extraordinary genius, or blessed with uniform success, yet, as having acquired altogether as much of military and civil glory, as any sovereign who had ever been the hereditary possessor of a throne. But when, in the days of philosophy, men began to discover that the benefits of his government were illusory, the conquests of his arms pernicious, and the praises of his academicians blind or venal, they turned upon Lewis himself the whole torrent of public opinion, and exposed him to the scorn of the world, as an unfeeling and selfish tyrant. Neither of these opinions deserves the stamp of history. Lewis had not, in his nature, any very odious qualities ; his faults were rather the effect of his station, than of his original character. He was generous, munificent, fond of letters, and the arts ; a good son, an indulgent ma,3ter, happy in his temper, anxious to do justice in his decisions. I,] THE PEACE OF UTKKCHT. 55 Impressed from his youth upwards with a sincere piety, it was his earnest wish to gain the approba- tion both of God and man ; and if, in his bhnd zeal, he thought the favour of the Deity was to be acquired by persecution, and the glory of a great name to be gained by laying waste the territory of his neighbours, we must not blame the error of an ordinary mind, so much as the perversion of a court, Avhich called bigotry religion, and made un- just conquest the basis of reputation. Yet, when these abatements are made on the one side, we shall find that it is impossible ei- ther greatly to admire, or greatly to love, the character of Lewis. If we look to his under- standing, we shall see that he was remarkable chiefly for his great attention to business, and his love of affixing his own name to the designs of others. His capacity was by no means extraordi- nary. He had the mischievous passion of a con- queror, without any of the heroism which excites our sympathy, or the military genius that subdues our reason, in favour of the destroyers of man- kind. He sent forth his thousands to perish on the Rhine or the Danube, that he might rest his head at Versailles upon the soft cushion of vanity, and receive the extravagant compliments of his servile subjects. From a habit of self-indulgence, and a ready belief in flattery, he came to direct all 56 HlbXOlU Ob tUKOPE FKOM [cHAP. his passions to one object, and that object the gra- tification and aggrandizement of himself. If he had mistresses whom he seemed to love, he behaved to them in a manner which showed that he considered their happiness, and even their lives, as of little value, in comparison with the indulgence of his comfort or caprice. If he had friends, whom he appeared to esteem, he left their services for years unrewarded, that he might enjoy their dependance ; and punished their faults without mercy on a cal- culation of political advantages. As for his coun- try, he considered it as centered in his own person; and, with a character the very opposite of that of Henry the Fourth, mistook the magnificence of his own Court for the happiness of his people. His ruling Que who played so great a part in the world, ambition. , , • t • i -i however, deserves to be exammed more in detail. The great and leading ambition of Lewis, was to govern by himself. Nothing was so much the ob- ject of his alarm, as the notion of the influence of a prime minister, who should deprive him at once of power and glory. He was moved to this fear more especially by the example of his father, and by that of his mother during the Regency. Lewis the Thirteenth had been thoroughly subdued by Richelieu ; and Anne of Austria, in like manner, was so entirely subjugated by Mazarin, that she could not obtain from him the smallest office ].] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 5T for any of her friends.* The son spared no pre- caution to escape falHng under the same yoke. As the ministers of Lewis the Thirteenth, and Anne, had been Cardinals, he made a rule to admit no Cardinal into his council. He took care to avoid the common rock of princes, the habit of reposing upon others the burthen of affairs, and in this con- duct he seems to have been guided by the dying advice of Mazarin. With these and other precau- tions, he thought himself to the last so indepen- dent of any governing minister, that he wrote in 1704, to M. de Chateauneuf, " Explain to her (the Queen of Spain) that I decide every thing my- self, and that no one would dare to impose upon me, statements contrary to the truth. "t But for a King to govern by himself, something more is requisite than an attention to business, and a determination not to confer the title of prime minister. He who really governs a great nation, must have a large capacity, or a fjuick invention ; he must have, in short, some power of originating measures, fitted to the emergency on which he is called to decide. Had Lewis this talent ? It is • Mem. de Motteville, t. v. t " Expliquez lui que je decide de toutes choses par moi-m^me, et que personne n'oseroit me supposer des faits contraires a la vdrit^." CEu\res de Louis XIV. t. vi. p. 156. o8 luaroKV of eukopk fkom [ciiai'. clear that he had not. His early plans of finance were evidently the plans of Colbert : his subse- quent wars were projected and conducted by Lou- vois ; the succession war, and the negociations of his latter years, were the work of Torcy. No one can hesitate in attributing these measures to their right authors. Choice of It remains then to be seen, how he proceeded I\liiiisters. . , , . „ , . . . „ , . m the choice ot his ramisters ; a part oi his govern- ment of which he was even more proud than of the rest. With respect to the ministers appointed by Lewis at the beginning of his reign, we have authentic information of the grounds upon which they were selected. Tellier, Lionne, and Colbert, were the creatures of Cardinal Mazarin ; had been brought forward by him out of obscurity, placed in ostensible situations, and recommended with his dying breath to the preference of his sovereign, * Mazarin himself had been a creature of Riche- lieu, who was first employed in political affairs by Queen Mary of Medicis. Lewis maintained in tlieir offices two of the ministers I have mentioned as long as they lived, and afterwards gave the re- version of the places to their relations ; Louvois, the son, and Barbesieux, the grandson of Tellier : Seignelai, and Torcy, the son and nephew of Colbert. In making these promotions, he «eems to * Mem. de Motteville. 1.] THE PEACE OF LTKECHT. 59 have exercised little judgment, for the dissipated and profligate Barbesieux was admitted to the post of Secretary of State in his administration, as well as the skilful and industrious Torcy. Thus Lewis may be said to have owed the greater part of his ministers to the judgments of Mazarin and Richelieu ; or, in other words, to the discrimina- tion of his grandmother. When, after the death of Barbesieux, it became necessary to appoint a new minister of war, the King fixed upon Chamillard, who had been brouglit forward, and made in- tendant at St. Cyr, by Madame de Maintenon. After a short time, it became evident that Cha- millard was totally unfit for his office, and he was at length driven from his post by the incessant raillery of the Court. * The person fixed upon to supply his place was Voisin, who had become known to the King in the following manner. He was intendant at a small town on the frontier, at which Madame de Main- tenon resided during the siege of Lisle. Madame Voisin spared no pains to please her powerful guest, and was fortunate enough to make her a • Especially of the Marechal de Boufflers, who, when Madame de Maintenon asked him who was fit for the post, said, " Fagon." Fagon was the King's physician, as before mentioned; Boufflers sliowed, by a severe satirical com- parison, that he would make a much better minister of war than Chamillard. See St. Simon. 6() HIblORV OF KUKOPE FROM [cHAP. present of a warm lobe-cle-chambre, at the approach of the cold weather, which happened vinusually early that year, and found Madame de Maintenon unprepared to meet it. From this time, the for- tune of the intendant was secured. He rose to be minister of war, and before the death of Lewis, was chancellor of the kingdom, having from first to last had nothing to recommend him but his time-serving temper. Such were the selections of Lewis. The only peculiarity that distinguishes them is, that, fearful of the eclipse of his repu- tation, he never appointed a minister of trans- cendent abilities. Of Colbert, who has the great- est celebrity of all the ministers of this period, I shall speak hereafter. Torcy, who showed consi- derable talents towards the end of the reign, ex- cited such jealousy in the King, that it is said, he Avould not have maintained him in office much longer. * Indeed, Lewis scarcely disguises in his memoirs, his wish to keep away from his councils, any man whose capacity might dim the lustre of his own ; a conduct which resembles more the po- licy of the acting manager of a provincial theatre, than the magnanimity of a great monarch. Yet he is not ashamed to say, when speaking of his fel- low-monarch s, " Exercising here below an office altogether divine, we ought to appear incapable of * Massillon. Minorite de Louis XV. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 61 the agitations whicli might degrade it." * Nay, so convinced was he of his own wisdom in the selec- tion of ministers, that he thus addresses his son. " There are undoubtedly certain functions, in which, holding as it were the place of God, we seem to participate in his knowledge, as well as his authority ; as, for instance, all that regards the discernment of talents, the appointment to offices, and the distribution of rewards." f Pre- sumption can hardly go further. Much has been said by the historians of these times, of the great men who surrounded the throne of Lewis ; but the more we examine the subject, the less we shall be disposed to attribute the appearance of those ornaments of his reign, to the personal protection of the King. The greater part of them had already discovered their talents before Lewis took the reins of government. Their appearance is with much more reason attributed by Montesquieu, to the agitations of the minority, and the troubled times which preceded it. Of the personal talents of Lewis for government, it is impossible to speak highly. Even the quality upon which he most prided himself, the power of attending to the details of business, being unattend- ed by great general views, was more specious than * CEuvres de Louis XIV. vol. ii. p. 34. t Ih. vol. ii. p. 283. 6^ HISTORY OF EUROPK FROM [cHAP. solid. At first, indeed, his determination to see every dispatch, and examine every article of expenditure, may have been politic, as a means of correcting abuses, and quickening the zeal of subordinate agents ; but when this object was ef- fected, a minute attention to every little account of clothing for a troop of horse, showed rather the pedant than the statesman ; and his perseverance in writing his own dispatches to his generals, during the last twenty years of his life, is a proof rather of a puerile vanity, than of a comprehensive mind. In fact, it was by this very fondness for details, that his ministers were enabled to occupy him in minutiae, and to assume the direction of great affairs. Personal j^ \^\^ private character, if private character he t.haracter. ' _ '■ can be said to have had, Lewis was often generous and kind ; often cold and unfeeling ; he had much of the selfishness, but little of the impatience and caprice that unrestrained power is apt to engender. His behaviour to the persons immediately about him, is the best part of his conduct ; and if he can be at all considered a hero, it is with respect to his valet-de-chaf/ibre that such a character must be allowed him. When one of his household was about to scold a servant for having made him wait, the King said, " leave him alone, he already suffers sufficiently .'' Another having hurt him as he was I.] THE PEACE OF UTIJECHT. 63 dressing, he said to him without any anger, " bring me something to heal it." One of the valets-dc- chambre asking him to recommend to tlie judges a cause which he was carrying on against liis father- in-law, said to him, " Sir, you have only to say one word :" " That is not the difficulty," answered the King ; ••' but tell me, if you were in the place of your father-in-law, would you wish me to say that word.""* This saying really does honour to Lewis, and indeed might serve as a maxim to all kings, who are importuned to do a private favour at the public expense. Many other sayings have been recorded, by which he endeavoured to increase the favours that he bestowed, or to relieve the pain of those who had been unfortunate in his service. When the Duke of la Rochefoucauld complained of being pressed by his creditors, he said to him, " why do you not speak to your friends ?" and sent him a large sum to pay his debts. The Marquis d'Uxelles having been obliged to surrender May- ence, after a siege which, although extremely ho- nourable, was yet criticised by the courtiers, Lewis said to him : " Your defence proves your courage, and your capitulation your talents ."-f- Every one knows that he said to James the Se- cond, upon his embarking for England, " I must wish never to see you again ;" and that, on taking * Choisy, vol. i. p. 3'^ ^ Ibid- 64 HTSTOnv OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. leave of Philip the Fifth, he pronounced the famous words, " There is now an end of the Pyrenees." This skill in always choosing the right phrase, the grace and affability of his manner, the kindness with which he tempered dignity, have been attested by his enemies as well as his admirers. It was this external polish, contrasted with the harshness of his ministers, that made the Doge of Genoa say, during his humiliating mission : " The King takes away our hearts, but his ministers give them back to us." Fouquet There is no act of decided Cruelty that can be y„ri " imputed to Lewis ; but his behaviour to Fouquet and Lauzun must be allowed to have the character of unjust severity. Fouquet, who had been con- demned by his judges to banishment for pecula- tion, to which he had been originally tempted by Mazarin, was imprisoned by the King's order in a fortress, where he seems to have remained the whole remainder of his life.* Lauzun, after being raised by the King from the station of a private gen- tleman, to the highest honours, and having even received permission to marry Mademoiselle, the King''s cousin, was sent, without any manifest of- fence, to the same fortress of Pignerol, where * A passage of Gourville is quoted, to show that Fouquet was at liberty before he died ; but had the fact been so, his relations would have known and published it. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 65 Fouquet was confined. The behaviour of this person may, indeed, have afforded grounds for a dislike on the part of Lewis, but his former trans- gressions had been pardoned, and ought to have been forgotten.* It may be here mentioned, how- ever, that upon a particular occasion, the behaviour of Lewis towards Lauzun was at once so digni- fied and so tempeiate, that St. Simon reckons it the finest action of his life. Lauzun called upon the King to perform his promise of making him master of the artillery, and upon his refusal, turned his back, broke the blade of his sword with his foot, and cried out in a passion, " that he never would serve a prince who had so shamefully broken his word." The King opened the window and threw out his cane, saying, that he shoidd be sorry to strike a man of rank. Lewis in this instance cer- tainly showed great command of temper, but his remark might have been more liberal and more humane. It would have been unbecoming in him to have struck any man, though not of rank.-|* * St. Simon, so fertile in court anecdotes^ relates a story of Lauzun hiding himself under Madame de Montespan's bed, and afterwards reproaching her with the conversation he had heard her hold respecting him to the King. The oflfence was a gross one, but surely not sufficient to justify many years of imprisonment. t St. Simon, vol. x. p. 129. See also J. J. Rousseaxi's VOL. I. E 66 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. Ignorance Lewis was throughout his life an ignorant man. e\Ms. jj^^ education in this respect had been purposely neglected by Cardinal Mazarin. La Porte, his first valet-de-chambre, informs us that he used to read to the King, when in bed, the History of France, by Mezerai ;* and that the King took much interest in these readings ; but that the Car- dinal, upon discovering one evening what was passing, was mucli displeased, and said La Porte was acting as tutor to the King. We might have some doubts as to the truth of the narrative of so decided an enemy to Mazarin as La Porte, were not his testimony confirmed by Lewis himself. In relating the events of the year 1666, when he was nearer thirty than twenty, he takes occasion to inform his son, that, at that time, he began to read history, because he thought it a disgrace not to know what the greater part of the world knew.t It does not appear however, nor is it likely, that, after that age, and in the course of a busy life, he made any great progress in knowledge. Of eccle- siastical history and theology he seems to have been totally ignorant. His limited information in this respect is the more to be regretted, as his reli- gious zeal, unenlightened by knowledge, produced remarks on this scene, in his Letter to d'Alembert, Sur les Spectacles. * La Porte, p. 182. t CEuvres de Louis XIV., vol. ii. p. 225. and vanity I.] THE PEACE OF Ul RECHT. 67 some of the greatest calamities of his reign. In- deed, it is singularly unfortunate that his piety was not less fatal to his people than his worldly passions, and that he did at least as much mischief to mankind by his devotion to what he supposed to be the will of heaven, as by the indulgence of his illicit love, his ambition, and vain glory. I cannot omit, in summing up the character of Lewis, what were, perhaps, the most striking of all his qualities, his extreme pride and vanity. His pride These passions were so conspicuous in him, that one of his descendants, himself a king, pronounced them to be the great defect of his character.* To his pride must be attributed much of his poli- tical conduct, his quarrels with Spain and Rome * (Euvres de Louis XIV. t. iii. p. 20. " When Lewis the Sixteenth," says General Grimoard, "ordered nie to prepare an edition of the Works of Lewis the Fourteenth, he told me that I must not conceal his errors or his faults ; that, for instance, he had formed for himself an exaggerated notion of greatness, which kept him in a continual and almost theatrical representation ; that on the other hand, flatter}' had rendered him vain; and that as the work with which he entrusted me, was destined for the in- struction of the human race, he would be obliged to me if I would point out these defects, and show how much greater Lewis the Fourteenth would have been, if, instead of pride, whicli makes men ridiculous, he had possessed real elevation and dignified simplicity." The sentence I have liere abridged, does great honour to Lewis the Sixteenth. F 2 68 HlSTOKY OF EUROrE FROJl [cHAP. about precedence, and in part the war against Hol- land, in 1672. His vanity, on the other hand, made him dehght in the extravagant praises that were bestowed upon him, and beUeve in the most insincere panegyrics of his courtiers. He listened with rapture to the operas in which his own feats were celebrated, and could be seen to repeat, be- tween his teeth, the words of the stanzas which were most full of adulation. He even sung in pri- vate, (although he had neither ear nor voice for music) the parts of lyric poems which abounded in exaggerated description of his actions, and when he did so, his eyes filled with tears.* This well known quality of Lewis exposed him to the ridicule of his enemies. Prince Eugene, upon tak- ing a town in Flanders, caused to be repeated be- fore him the most fulsome prologues of Quinault, in the presence of some French officers ; and William the Third, upon hearing some singers on the stage begin an ode in his praise, rose, and exclaimed : " Turn out those people ; do tliey take me for the King of France .?'"-|- Flattery It must at the same time be confessed, that Lewis was pursued by flattery in a manner which affords much excuse for his faults of every de- scription. One or two of the most extraordinary * St. Simon, vol. i. p. 33. f Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. 1.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 69 efFects of the common and general spirit may be worth relating. In 1666, La Feuillade, a private gentleman, hearing that St. Aunay, a person who had left the kingdom from discontent, had written a letter, and afterwards adopted a device, dispa- raging to the King of France, went to Madrid and sent him a challenge : upon which St. Aunay made an apology for his conduct.* This gallantry of adulation being found extremely acceptable, the same person erected a statue to Lewis on the Place des Victoires. The statue was inaugurated, or rather consecrated, with music and genuflec- tions : La Feuillade went three times round it, at the head of the regiment of guards, making the same prostrations that were made by the Romans before their deified emperors : the event was cele- brated by illuminations ; the inscription placed on the base was, " Viro immortali ;" and the author of this pompous flattery intended to have kept a lamp burning there by day as well as by night. f The lamp, however, was ordered not to be lighted in the day-time, and an image of the virgin veiled in some degree the gross idolatry of the original intention. After the defeat of Marshal Crequi in 1675, the same La Feuillade came post to Ver- sailles, where he went directly to the King, and * CEuvres de Louis XIV., t. ii. p. 193. t Choisy, 1. ii. p. 9. 70 HlSTORi' OF J.UROPE FROM [^CHAP. said, " Sire, some make their wives come to them to the army ; others come to see them ; for my part, I come to see your Majesty for an hour, and thank you a thousand and a thousand times ; 1 shall see no one but your Majesty, for to your Majesty I owe every thing." He talked for some time, and then said, " Sire, I am now going; I beg of you to make my compliments to the Queen, to the Dauphin, and to my wife and children." He then set off on his return to the army, and left the King much pleased with his adroit flattery.* It may be useful, however, in a moral view, to record the result of this exquisite and inimitable adulation. La Feuillade was left for many years without any reward ; at length he received the highest honours, and was made a Duke. He did not enjoy these honours long however, dying the same year with Louvois. Some time afterwards the King was sitting at supper at Marly, with some ladies; the Count de Marsan was speaking behind the table of the great things his Majesty had done at the siege of Mons. " It is true," said the King, " that was a lucky year for me ; I got rid of three men I could no longer bear, M. de Louvois, Seignelai, and La Feuillade."" " Why then," said the Duchess of Orleans, in her blunt way, " did you not dismiss them .''" The King * S^vignd, 15th August, J 675. i I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 71 looked down on his plate, and Monsieur de Mar- san stammered something about persons disagree- able to the King, and yet useful to the state.* One or two more instances of this gross flattery may be mentioned. When Lewis was old, he was complaining to the Cardinal d'Estrees that he had lost his teeth. " Ah, Sir,"" said the courtier, " who has any teeth .''"" displaying at the same time, by a broad grin, a mouth well provided with the strongest grinders. Another member of the clergy, the Abbe, afterwards Cardinal de Polignac, walking one day with Lewis in the gardens of Marly in a splendid dress, a shower of rain came on. The King observed he would get wet. " Sire," said the Abbe, " the rain of Marly does not wet. ' The bishop of Noyon founded a prize at the academy for a panegyric in perpetuity upon Lewis the Fourteenth. The academy itself, how- ever, was not behind hand in adulation. Upon the death of Corneille, there was some question of electing the Duke of Maine. The academy sent him a message by their secretary, that even if their number were full, there was not one of their body who would not willingly die to make room for him.-f- Of all kinds of praise, however, the most grate- * Choisy, t. ii. p. 95. t Esprit du Mercure de France, t. i. p. 84. 72 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [(IIAP, Eossnet. f^l to the rojal ear must have been that which flowed from the pulpit. What " sweet oblivious antidote" could so tend to lull the conscience of Lewis, as to hear his eulogy issue from those lips that were consecrated to the service of God ; what flattery so insidious, as that which flows from a tongue sworn to pay no respect to per- sons ? Of this species of adulation, Lewis re- ceived an ample offering in the eloquent language of Bossuet. Speaking of the talents of the Duchess of Orleans, he says, " But why dilate upon a sub- ject where every thing can be said in one word? The King, whose judgment is a certain rule, has valued the capacity of the princess, and placed it by his esteem above all our praises.""* In de- scribing the death of the Queen as inevitable, he says, " AVhat could so many faithful servants as- sembled round her bed do to save her? What could the King himself do .''"t In extolling the conquests and bloody wars of his master, he ex- claims, " If the French can do every thing, it is because the King is every where their captain. "":!: " After the King was deprived of these two great commanders (Turenne and Conde), we see him conceive greater designs ; execute greater things ; * Oraison Funebre de la Duchesse d'OiMans. t Oraison Funebi*e de Marie Th. d'Autriche. t Oraison Funebre de Marie Th. d'Autriche. 1.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 73 rise above himself; surpass both the hopes of his subjects, and the expectations of the universe; so high is his courage, so vast his intelligence, so glo- rious his destiny !"* Such was the tone of the ser- mons, of the funeral sermons of Bossuet. It is im- possible to carry adulation further than this. To tell Lewis that he was a great general, was the way of all others to captivate his favour, and the bishop of Meaux must be allowed to be the mos>t skilful of all his flatterers. Yet our admiration of the address of the supple courtier, must give way to our in- dignation at the servility of the Christian bishop. Bold must be the impiety, or grovelling the soul, or strong the delusion of that man, who can venture to adulterate the spiritual food he is ordained to distribute, and pervert, to the purposes of human ambition, the oracles of eternal justice. Scarcely, indeed, was it possible that human nature should resist falsehoods from such a mouth, and so admi- nistered. The perpetual repetition of such language as I have quoted, must in time have corrupted the strongest mind, and rooted out every trace of humility from the heart to which it was address- ed. Thus it is, that Kings come in time to lose all sympathy with their fellow men ; they imagine themselves a kind of superior being, and are fully persuaded that the sacrifice of interest, happiness, * Oraison Funebre du Prince de C'onde. 74 HISTORY OF EUROPE. and even life in their behalf, is no more than what is justly due to the rank in which they have been placed. No wonder then that Lewis always obliged the persons around him to obey his slightest in- clination, at the risk of their health, or with the loss of their whole fortune : he was taught that he was the special favourite of heaven, and he ex- pected to be treated as a delegate of God. [ 75 ] CHAPTER II. Absolute Pozoer of Lewu. The Provincial States. The Parhamoit. The Nobi/iti/. The Army. The Church. Etiquette. The Court. Ver- sailles and Marly. Madame de la Vallihe. Madame de Moulespan. Madame de Maintenon. Manners of the Court during the reign of the three favourites. Poisoning. In the last Chapter we have taken a view of the personal qualities of Lewis the Fourteenth. It is now time to consider the nature of the power he enjoyed, and the use he made of it during his long reign. Lewis was from the year 1660, to his death, Absolute totally absolute and unlimited in the exercise of P"^'^'- sovereignty. Every assembly or body, which had formerly been a check upon the royal prerogative, was humbled or annihilated. The States General had never assembled since the year 1614, and they had at that time been productive of so little ad- vantage to the country, that there was not the slightest wish for their revival. In those provinces called pays d'etats, the States 76 HlSTOllY OF EUllOPE FKOM [cHAP. Provincial continued to be assembled, but having no concert States. ^^|.j^ j.|^g j,ggj. q£ ^j^g kingdoni, and indeed no desire for freedom, their assemblies were rather occasions for granting money, than for discussing grievances; their meeting and dissolution were attended with pomp and parade, but with no real utility to the country. As an instance of the manner in which these assemblies Avere held, I may refer to a description of one of the meetings of the States of Brittany in a letter of Madame de Sevigne. After a very lively account of a great dinner, and the drinking of healths, she says, "The States will not last long; there is only to ask what the King wishes, not a word is said, and all is over. As for the governor, he finds, I know not how, that more than 40,000 crowns come to his share. An infinite number of presents, of pensions, repairs of roads and of towns, fifteen or twenty great tables, continual play, eternal balls, plays three times a week, a great show; such are the States. I forgot, however, three or four hundred pipes of wine that are drunk ; but if I forgot it, others do not, and it is the principal thing.'" * Her subsequent accounts tally completely with this short description ; we find immense presents given at the conclusion of the assembly, and a remark made by a by-stander, * Sevigne, 5th August, 1671, 1. 122. II.] THK PEACE OF UTRECHT. 77 that lie supposes the States are about to die, and are making their will, as they are disposing of all their property. Two thousand louis were given to the Duchess of Chaulnes, the wife of the go- vernor, and in one morning the presents voted by the States amounted to 100,000 crowns. * The behaviour of the States of Languedoc was still more servile. Completely subject to the episcopal body, they never hesitated to grant to the King subsidies which did not weigh upon themselves, and eagerly sought, in the favour of the court, a compensation for sacrifices which they obliged others to undergo. From them came the first experiment of a capitation tax, the obvious in- equality of which is repugnant to all sound ideas of finance. + While such was the general conduct of the Pro- vincial States, their separation from one another rendered perfectly useless any occasional oppo- sition they might make. If once or twice during the reign of Lewis, the states of one province, or the people of another, showed symptoms of discon- tent, the monarch, supported by the rest of France, had strength fully sufficient to subsist without their revenues, and to suppress their partial and Insulated insurrections. Thus Lewis, fortunate in every thing, derived as much advantage from * S^vign^, 30th August 1671, 1. 133. t Duclos, t. i. 78 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. the divided privileges of the subject, as from the concentrated power of the Government. The Par- T^he Parliament opposed as little resistance to liament. _ ^ the will of the monarch as the Provincial States. In 1667, it was ordered that the Parliament should, in the first place, register with obedience the King's edicts, and never make any representation or re- monstrance, but in the course of eight days after. Six weeks were allowed for courts of justice at a distance. This edict was renewed in 1673,* and so exactly obeyed, that Lewis scarcely received a remonstrance from any court of judicature during the course of his reign. A representation from the Parliament of Paris, in 1709, on the arbitrary and fraudulent alterations of the standard of gold and silver, which produced no effect, t may be quoted as a singular exception. In 1669, Lewis even proceeded so far in his dislike to Parliaments, as to revoke the privileges of nobility, which had been granted to the magistracy in 1664. But, not- withstanding this edict, the custom subsisted of allowing nobility to all persons whose fathers had * The words of the edict are; " We desire that our courts register purely and simply our letters patent with- out any modification, restriction, or other clause that may impede or delay their full and entire execution." Mably, Observations sur I'Histoire de France, 1. viii. c. 6. uote. t V^oltaire, c. 30. II.] THE PF.ACE OF UTRECHT. 79 served twenty years, or had died in any judicial office belonging to a superior court.* Lewis was fully conscious of his own extent of His own 1 T 1 ^ -1 1 •! 1 • 1 notions power, and did not lau to build upon it the most of his lofty assumptions, and the most extravagant pre- '^"thonty. tensions, to which a European monarch ever ar- rived. In writing for the instruction of his son, after dilating upon the danger and mischief of po- pular assemblies, he adds, " But I dwell too long upon a reflection that may seem to you to be use- less, or which, at most, can only serve to make you sensible of the misfortune of our neighbours ; since it is certain that, in the state where you are to reign after me, you will find no authority that will not esteem it an honour to derive from you its origin and its character ; no assembly, whose opinions will dare to go beyond the terms of re- spect ; no company, which will not believe itself obliged to place its principal greatness in the good of your service, and its only security in its humble submission."-!: He had the same unbounded notions with re- spect to the right of property. In addressing his son on the subject of the property of the Church, he says, " You must, in the first place, be per- suaded that Kings are absolute masters {seigneurs * Voltaire, c. 60. t CEuvres de Louis XIV., vol. ii. p. 28. 80 HISTOUV OF KUUOPK FROM [cHAP. absolua), and havu; naturally the full and FREE DISPOSITION OF ALL THE PROPERTY THAT IS POSSESSED, AS WELL BY THE CHURCH AS BY LAY'MEN, TO USE IT AT ALL TIMES AS WISE MANAGERS, THAT IS TO SAY, ACCORDING TO THE GENERAL WANTS OF THE STATE.""* Notwith- standing this positive language, it is said that Lewis felt scruples when, in his latter years, it was proposed to him to levy as a tax, the tenth of all the revenues of the kingdom. Le Tellier offered to consult the casuists of his society. In a few days he returned, and told his master he need have no scruples, since he was the true proprietor of all the lands and goods in the kingdom. " You have relieved my mind," said the King ; " I am now easy.''-f- In the former instance, Lewis spoke as an absolute monarch; in the latter, as the slave of the monks. In a course of the public law of France, drawn up under the direction of Torcy for the perusal of the Duke of Burgundy, we find this commence- ment : " France is a monarchical state in the ut- most extent of the term. The King represents the whole nation, and every other person repre- sents only a single individual with respect to the King.... The nation does not constitute a body in * CEuvres, de Louis XIV., vol ii. p. 121. t Duclos, t. i. II. 1 THE I'EACK OF UTRECHT. 81 France. The whole nation resides in the person of the King."* Lewis expressed this last maxim in two words, by saying, in answer to a magistrate who spoke to him of the state, " I am the state." " Vetat c'est moi.'''' The next question that excites our curiosity, is The , , -r . .1 , . • Nol.ility. to know now JLewis contrived to preserve his im- mense power without being disturbed, during his long reign, by any serious insurrection. How was ■ it that, omitting the mad attempt of a Chevalier de Rohan, whom no one seconded, and the troubles on the subject of the Protestants, of which he was himself the sole exciting cause, a general and pas- sive obedience attended him in defeat as well as in victory, in poverty as well as in prosperity, in the days of his humiliation, as in those of his glory .? If the States-general and the Parliaments were neglected as unsuitable to the genius of the na- tion, yet what had become of that selfish and tur- bulent nobility, who, reduced as they had been by Richelieu, still were in strength sufficient to disturb and nearly overpower his minority ? To ^ " La France est iin ^tat monarchique dans toute r^tendue de I'expression. Le Roi y reprdsente la nation entiere, et chaque particulier ne represente qu'un seul in- dividu envers le Roi. La nation ne fait pas corps en France. EUe reside toute entiere dans la personne du Roi." Le- montey in the Nouveaux Mdmoires de Uangeau, p. 327. VOL. 1. G 8£ HISTORY OF EUROPE FHOM [cHAP. solve these questions, we must first lay down as a general rule, that in order to make the French nation of that day live contented under their Government, it was necessary to satisfy two kinds of vanity, the national, and the personal. A Frenchman of that time desired, and almost de- manded with all the energy of his character, first, that the French nation should be distinguished from all other nations; and, secondly, that he him- self should be distinguished, or have hopes of being distinguished from all other Frenchmen, Lewis was formed by nature, as well as disposed from policy, to gratify both ambitions. It was to sa- tisfy the first of these wants, that he entered into wars remarkable for their insolence of pretension, and assumption of superiority over the rest of Eu- rope. If by the haughtiness of his language, and the violence of his aggressions, he roused the spi- rit of all foreign nations to oppose his arms, he, in the same degree, administered fuel to the pride of the French people, and excited them to the support of his throne. The splendour of his court, the encouragement given to the fine arts, the disdain with which the other powers of Europe were treated, the glitter and the glare which at- tended their King in whatever he did, and wher- ever he went, were all subjects of lively gratifi- cation to France. By the protection given at the II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 83 same time to the army and the church, poets, architects and sculptors, manufacturers and mer- chants, every kind of activity was set in motion, and the enterprizing genius of the nation found ample field for exertion and distinction. To satisfy the personal vanity of the nobility, may be supposed to have been a more difficult task. The undertaking became the more neces- sary, and at the same time more delicate, as Lewis was determined to extinguish for ever that old factious aristocracy, which, during the reigns of his predecessors, had disturbed the kingdom, and shaken the throne. The last person who maintained the state and dignity of the Epernons and the Joyeuses, was Villeroi, Archbishop of Lyons, who died in 1693. Long before this time, the character of the great nobility had entirely changed. Instead of being followed, as their ancestors had been, by a train of noble companions in the provinces, over whom they had far more authority than the King, the great lords of the court became entirely separated from the smaller nobility. The measures taken by Lewis in the beginning of his reign, the suppres- sion of disorders, the strict execution of the laws, and the internal peace which followed, entirely dissolved the confederacy which had so long subsist- ed between the supoiior lords and their dependent 84 HISTORY OF EUROPE FKOM [cHAP. gentry. Hence arose the distinctions of nobility of the court, and nobility of the provinces, not only separate in their manner of life, but jealous and hostile in their feelings towards each other. The nobility, or gentry of the country, remained at their castles, without union, without influence, and with no other occupations than to cultivate their lands, follow the King in war, con over their pedigree, and oppress their peasantry. The nobihty of the court, on the other hand, were obliged to look for dis- tinctions from the King, as the only source of illus- tration. It so happened, that the greater part of the old high nobility had been cut off by civil war, or the judicial carnage of Richelieu, and those who now held the first rank in the state, were by no means equally distinguished in blood. Many of them were of recent illustration, and few of them could boast a descent equally splendid with that of the more ancient of the provincial nobles. It therefore became the more easy for Lewis, to de- prive them of any siiare of the royal power. In the fifty-four years which elapsed from the death of Mazarin to that of the King, with the exception of Marshal Villars. who sate only during a few months, the Duke of Beauvilhers was the only no- bleman admitted to his council.* While he thus excluded his nobles, he augmented the great- * St. Simon. II.J THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 85 ness of his ministers, who, from the plain black dress, cloak and band, which had hitherto mark- ed them, became persons of consequence, imitat- ing princes of the blood in riches and splendour. But Lewis knew that he could depress as well as raise them ; they were the creatures of his will, and the submissive organs of his pleasure. From this promotion of men of business to the highest offices of state, and the determination of Lewis to have the gaze of the world wholly fixed upon himself, there came to be certain families in which these offices seemed to be hereditary. Thus, Colbert, originally a creature of Mazarin, as I have before mentioned, was minister of finance ; Colbert de Croissy, his brother, secretary of state for foreign affairs ; Torcy, his nephew, the same ; Seignelai, his son, minister of marine. In the same way Le Tellier, another creature of Mazarin, was chancellor; Louvois, his son, minister of war; Barbesieux, his grandson, the same. Thus like- wise Paul Phelippeaux de Pontchartrain, after being a clerk in the office of M. Villeroy, was made secretary of state by Mary of Medicis. He was succeeded by his younger son, who was followed by his son, the Duke of La VriUiere, secretary of state for sixty-two years, during the reigns of Lewis the Thirteenth and Lewis the Fourteenth. He was again succeeded by his son, known by the 86 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. name of M. de Chateauneuf, who died in 1700. His son, the Duke of La VrilHere, took his place, and was followed in 1725 by his son, the Count of St. Florentin. Another descendant of the original Pontchartrain, after being minister of finance, and minister of marine, became chancellor, and left the marine to his son. The son of this last was M. de Maurepas, who had the singular fate of being in office under the Regent, and afterwards prime minister of Lewis the Sixteenth. In this patri- monial distribution of office, even the family of Fouquet was not omitted. M. de Belleisle, a grandson of Fouquet, obtained, by the favour of Boufflers, a place of considerable importance, dur- ing the life of Lewis the Fourteenth, and became a great personage under the reign of his successor.* Thus France had an hereditary ministry, as well as an hereditary king. The army jj^ order to compensate to the nobility for the monopo- *^ _ •' lized by the loss of all real power, the King of France reserved for them rank in the army, and the greater part of the benefices of the church. But in the army especially, all distinction was monopolized by the nobility. When war was proclaimed, they hastened to fill the commands allotted to them by their monarch, and their valiant spirit well obtained for * See an account of the ministerial families in the Essays of M. d'Argenson, t. i. TI.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT 87 them the high but perilous honours of leading armies, and defending besieged towns. No sooner was a campaign announced, than Paris and the court were utterly deserted by all the nobility ; and if one young man of rank staid behind, he was considered a singular, if not a disgraceful' exception. * It was, indeed, far more easy for Lewis to en- courage and reward, than to moderate and restrain, the valour of his nobility. They still retained the spirit and restlessness of the old leaders of the Franks ; to afford scope for their courage and love of enterprize, was even one of the chief objects of the monarch in entering upon his wars of ambition. " So many brave men whom I saw in arms for my service,"" he says previously to his first war, " seemed to solicit me every hour, to furnish matter for the employment of their valour."t All men of rank at this time, appear to have had com- missions in the army ; but till they rose to the rank of colonel, they did not advance by seniority, and were thus immediately under the influence of the King. It must be confessed, that the monopoly of the * See the Letters of Madame de Maintenon, and those of Madame de S^vigne, especially the remark of the latter on the Duke of Sully. t GEuvres de Louis XIV. 88 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. army by the nobility, was an injustice to a great part of France, who were thereby debarred from the fair chance of promotion, to which their talents might entitle them. Yet the nobility comprehend- ed by far the greater part of the gentry of the country, and the chief result of the practice was, to confine the command of the military force to the general aristocracy of the kingdom. It must be owned, likewise, that as long as the army was in the field, the nobles did their duty well ; but as soon as the campaign was over, or peace was re- stored, these brilliant heroes returned to the court, to receive from their king and their mistresses the meed of well-earned fame. As their love of action was one of the chief motives of Lewis for going to war, so likewise to gratify their love of pleasure and pomp, was one of his chief occupa- tions during peace. The tournaments, the galas, the plays, w^hich he instituted, while they pleased his own pride and vanity, had likewise a politic end, which he himself has avowed in his instruc- tions to his son. They brought his nobles near his person, and accustomed them to look for di- version, as well as for honour and fame, in the presence of their master. The useful hospitality and solid protection of the ancient castles, were ex- changed for the diamond necklaces and glittering equipages of the modern court. The objects of II, j THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 89 ambition of a great lord no longer consisted in the sway he held over his vassals, and his influence with the warlike cavaliers of his neighbourhood, but in the distinction he obtained among his equals in the drawing-room, and in the smiles of a mo- narch, too happy to exchange a gracious manner against a formidable power. With respect to the Church, it was tlie custom The to give benefices to the younger sons of noble families, who pleaded a real, or aftected poverty. Until the year 1687, when Pore La Chaise alarmed the conscience of the King on this subject, laymen even were allowed to hold benefices, and pensions on benefices. But at all times, nobility and family connection were the great reasons for bestowing preferment in the church . * The patronage in the power of the crown seems to have been im- mense. The episcopal body was chiefly formed of the younger sons of the nobility. It is true, in- deed, that the court promoted Massillon, who rose from the ranks of the people by his merit ; but the prodigious amount of ecclesiastical preferment, * " I have read an enormous quantity of letters and petitions to ask for benefices. The necessity of restoring a ruined family, or of supporting brothers and nephews in the ai*my, was urged in all. In a few, the virtues of the candidate were mentioned, but always as a secondary- consideration." Lemontey, 337. 90 HISTORY' OF EUllOPl!; FROM [cHAP. enabled the King to choose some of his church dignitaries from among persons of learning and piety, without prejudice to the general purpose of influencing the nobility. A large class of persons known by the name of Abbes, formed a singular and anomalous part of the church. An Abbe was a person who had re- ceived a tonsure, and belonged to one of the four orders of the church, inferior in rank to sub-dea- cons. This apparently humble situation was at- tended with great advantages. These members of the church might enjoy rich benefices: and they might also at any time renounce the profession, and marry, or enter the army. Indeed, many young men of family were both volunteers in the army, and servants of the altar : at once soldiers and clergymen, they left it to chance to decide whether their fortune might be pursued more ad- vantageously in the military or the ecclesiastical line.* Even ladies were allowed to hold rich ab- beys, and other lucrative preferment in the church. Etiquette. There were other means, however, still more curious than military commissions, rich benefices, * La jeunesse en entrant dans le monde prenoit le parti qui bon lui sembloit. Qui vouloit se faisoit chevalier ; abbe qui pouvoit ; j'entends ahbe a benefice. L'habit ne distin- guoit point le chevalier de I'abbd, et je crois que le cheva- lier de Grammont etoit I'un et I'autre au siege de Trin. Mem. de Grammont, c. 2. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 91 and splendid entertainments, by which Lewis at- tached his nobility to his person. It so happened that at the period of his accession, nothing was es- teemed of more importance than the vain science of etiquette. Two instances will show the ex- treme value attached by the courtiers, and even by Lewis himself, to the honours and distinctions of the royal palace. At the very beginning of the reign, a dispute broke out between the Countess of Soissons, Surintendante of the Queen's household, and the Duchess of Navailles, first Dame d'Honneur. The office of Surintendante being of new creation, the limits of the rights of each had never been accurately fixed ; Lewis, to settle the dispute, de- creed that the Surintendante should present the napkin, and likewise the shift, and that the Dame d'Honneur should have precedence in the car- riage, and a choice of apartments. The Duchess of Navailles conceived herself so much injured by this decision, that she asked permission to resign and leave the court. The King, to console her, gave an explanation, that if she had begun the ser- vice at dinner, she should not be obliged to give up the napkin to her rival. He also represented to her the extreme importance of liaving the first place in the carriage. As for the choice of apart- ments, to which more vulgar disputants would 92 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. have attached some value, neither of the ladies seem to have thought of it a moment. The Coun- tess of Soissons, in her turn, felt herself wronged by the explanation. She was so much hurt, that she obliged the Count of Soissons to send a chal- lenge to the Duke of Navailles. The Duke of Navailles, however, refused to meet him, not be- cause the subject did not deserve it, but because the King had prohibited duels. A more serious occasion, in which Lewis showed the very great importance he himself attached to etiquette, happened in 1666, when his brother, the Duke of Orleans, requested that the Duchess, his wife, might have a chair with a back to it, in the Queen's presence. " The friendship I had for him," says Lewis, " would have made me wish never to deny him any thing, but seeing of what consequence this was, 1 instantly gave him to un- derstand, with all possible mildness, that I could not satisfy him on this point.""* The anxiety and disappointment shown by the Duchess of Orleans on this subject, was such as to lead to a first, but long and almost irreparable coolness between the brothers. Yet so confirmed was Lewis in his opi- nion of the justness of his decision, that in his in- structions to his son, he speaks of the right of having at court a chair w ith a back to it, as one of * CEuvres de Louis XIV. t. ii. p. 64. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 93 the " principal advantages'" of royalty, as belong- ing to the preeminence which forms the " princi- pal beauty'" of his station ; and even as one " of the number of the rights of the crown, which never can be legally alienated."* How profound ! By means of the value thus affixed to these vain distinctions, Lewis had the skill to form a new magazine of patronage, which, without costing him any thing, excited the desires, occupied the atten- tion, and satisfied the ambition of the dukes and peers of France. By carefully avoiding to make the laws of etiquette too clear, he contrived to have continual appeals to himself: the most so- lemn rights of precedence, as that great worship- per of forms, the Duke of St. Simon, has com- plained, became totally uncertain, and the subjects of Lewis had as little security for their rank at court, as for their properties and persons. When Lewis had once established the opinion, that he was the unlimited lord of the greatest mo- narchy of Europe, the sliglitest marks of favour became objects of ambition to men who, like the French, are eager for all kinds of reputation. It is for this reason we find, in the memoirs of Dan- geau, an assiduous courtier, far more notice of the disputes for little honours at Versailles, than of the rise and fall of the state, the happiness or * CEuvres cle Louis XIV. t. ii. p. fid. 94 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. misery of the nation. Tavo of the most illustri- ous nobihty contend for the honour of giving the King his cloak. An old courtier solicits the per- mission to have the entree, or admittance to the royal apartment at certain hours. He alleges a ground of claim to that extraordinary fortune. It is rejected. He advances another plea which he hopes may be valid. It is rejected. He advances a third plea, with a trembling anxiety and dimi- nished hopes, when the King graciously admits the reason to be good, and crowns his enterprize with success. The King, from some accident, requires a fresh hat when he is out a-walking. The hat is brought by a person called a portemanteau, but the object is by no means accomplished. A dis- pute arises, which of two high officers of state is to present the liat to the King. The Duke of Tresmes presents it : the Duke of La Rochefou- cauld complains, and this grave matter disturbs an old friendship, and destroys the peace and tranquillity of the court.* In 1661 Lewis made a promotion of eight pre- lates, and sixty-three knights of the order of St. Esprit, which had not received any new knights since 1633, and seems to have fallen into neglect, if not contempt. * Dangeau, L^montey, 4. Nov. 1706. II. j THE PEACK OF UTRECHT. 95 On this occasion the King remarks, in his in- structions to his son, that " no recompense costs less to our people, and none touches hearts that are rightly constituted more, than these distinc- tions of rank, which are almost the Jirst motive of all human actions, but especially of the greatest and most noble ; it is, besides, one of the most visible effects of our power to give, when we please, an infinite value to that which in itself is no- thing."* It is indeed one of the most surprising instances of the power of kings, and the fatuity of subjects ! On the same solid grounds, the King afterwards created a new order, and called it by his o^vn name. The just-au-corps a brevet, was another and very peculiar invention for distinc- tion. It was a coat or jacket of blue, embroidered with gold and silver, similar to one used by the King, which entitled the wearer to accompany his Majesty in his promenades at St. Germain, and to belong to his parties to Versailles or Marly, One of these brevets signed by Lewis, and coun- tersigned Guenegaud, is preserved in the collec- tion of the works of Lewis the Fourteenth, f * ffiuvres de Louis XIV. t. i. p. 143. t The editor says, there was no further question of them after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1679. This does not appear to be the case. St. Simon talks of seeinfjf the sons of the Dauphin dressed in them ; and Dangeau mentions 96 HISTOllY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. Only a certain number were allowed; and on the death of a member, his jacket became as great a subject of contention, as the armour of Achilles in the Grecian army. This desirable distinction seems at bottom to have been a hunting-coat. A more importaiit honour was that of having the entrees. There were three principal classes of these, the great entrees, the little entrees, and the brevets d'affaires, which was something less than the entrees of the gentlemen of the chamber, but greater than any other. But we shall understand this better, by giving a moment's attention to the day of Lewis in the later years of his greatness. Arrange- At eight o'clock the valet-de-chambre, who slept ment of , i i , • rT\^ o i • • ^i, the day. m his room, waked mm. ihe nrst physician, the first surgeon, and the nurse came in together ; the two former rubbed him. At a quarter past eight, the great chamberlain and the grandes entrees came in : they staid only a minute. One of these opened the curtain, gave holy water, and a prayer-book. When the King had said his prayers, the same persons returned, and gave him his dressing-gown. After this the secundes entrees came in ; then all persons of distinction ; then all the death of a person who liad the jusi-au-corps rose, long after the period mentioned. The distinction of just-au- corps bleu, and just-au-corps rose, is a mj'stery which my researches do not enable me to explain. II ,] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 9*7 the court; by this time he was putting on his boots or shoes. When he was dressed, he prayed in pubHc at the foot of his bed. He went into his cabinet with those who had the entrees^ gave orders for the day, and saw those whom he wished in private audiences. After this he went to mass ; in going and returning any one might speak to him, provided only that tlie captain of the guards was first informed. After mass, a covmcil was held, except on Thursdays and Fridays. Dinner was at one o'clock ; the King dined alone, and always au petit convert, or trts petit convert ; either of these consisted of three courses, besides fruit. The great chamberlain, or the first gentleman of the chamber, served the King. Every one present stood except Monsieur, to whom the King always offered a chair. The Dau})hin and other princes stood. The grand convert, disused in the latter part of the reign, was a more magnificent spectacle. To see the King eat, seems to have been one of the rights and privileges preserved, though rarely enjoyed, by the great nobility and gentry of France. Every one could not look on this show with the philosophy of Madame de Sevigne, who says, " I have seen this scene. The King and Queen eat in a melancholy way (tristement). Ma- dame de Richelieu* is seated, and then the ladies * Dame d'llonneur to the Queen. VOL. I. H 98 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAT. according to their dignities, some seated, the others standing ; those who have not dined, are ready to snatch the dishes ; those who have, are suffocated by the smell of the meat ; so that the company is all in a state of suffering."* Neither the presence nor the suffering of the courtiers, however, spoilt the appetite of the King. " I have often," says the Duchess of Orleans, " seen the King eat four plates of soup, a whole pheasant, a partridge, a large platefull of salad, mutton with gravy and with garlic, two good slices of ham, and a platefull of pastry, besides fruit and sweet- meats.'"'!' After dinner the King retired for a short time to his room, and then went out a-hunt- ing, or a-shooting, which he was very fond of, and indeed found necessary for his health. He always went to a stag hunt once a week, and at Marly and Fontainebleau much oftener. In his younger days he was very fond of play. Latterly, his evening was spent in the room of Madame de Maintenon. Towards nine o'clock, while the King was doing business with his minis- ters, or conversing, two waiting maids came to undress her. When she was in bed, the King spoke to her for a short time, till his captain of the guards appeared at the door, and told him * 22dJanuary, 1674,1.285. t Memoir es de Madame, p. 51. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 99 supper was ready. He then shut the curtains of her bed and went to supper. The supper was always au grand convert, with music ; at Versailles none but his own family sat down ; at other places the ladies of the court. The most distinguished of the nobility and cour- tiers attended. After supper he spent an hour with his family ; he then wished them good night, which was a signal of a fresh beginning of an audience of the grandes et petites entrees called the concher. When these persons had done discussing business, and he had finished undressing, he got to bed. Thus concluded the day between twelve and one o'clock. To any person not brought up in harness, a life spent so entirely in company, so many hours de- voted to persons whom it was impossible, however desirable, to exclude, and the entire want of pri- vacy and ease, would be insupportable. Lewis the Fourteenth is one of the few men to whom continual representation was agreeable. He was, as Lord Bolingbroke truly said, the best actor of Majesty that ever filled a throne. No part of the state ceremony was without its purpose ; and in the course of a day spent altogether in public, he found numberless occasions of distinguishing the courtiers who best pleased him. Among others the tabouret de grace, or permission for a lady to Distiuc- 100 HISTOHY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAF. sit upon a stool in the Queen's presence, was a tions. matter, which then, as in the time of the Fronde, was a spring to the most lofty ambition, and occu- pied the talents of the most powerful and able men in France. A place in the King''s or Queen's car- riage was another distinction, which occasioned as many jealousies and heart-burnings as the stool itself. The King often used this favour, as a means of satisfying those whom he had otherwise offended or neglected. " A place in the carriage," says Madame de Sevigne, " is a consolation for every thing.'' All these minutia.', all these genera and species of favour, were tlie wheels and pullies by which the great machine of government was moved. We no longer see the nobles retiring to their strong holds, fortifying their towns, and threatening in- surrection. In times of danger they were em- ployed in the army, and found a vent for their high spirit in the perils and glory of war. In time of peace, and during the interval between the campaigns, these same biave and adventu- rous men trembled at the aspect of their King, pined at his frown, and died of his displeasure.* The artificial honours of a vain court, were the * St. Simon attributes the death of the Prince de Conti to his being in disgi-ace at Court. He says the same thing of Boufflers, but with less apparent reason. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 101 objects of the only men in France Avho liad any real talents or natural importance. Even St. Simon, a man of keen and satirical humour, of sharp observation, and rigid morality, who is so capa- ble of destroying the illusion of the court of the great monarch, who leaves no person un satirized, no weakness respected, spent the greater part of his career in a struggle to procure for the Dukes and Peers of France, a precedence over the illegitimate sons of Lewis. When he gained his point during the Regency, and obtained a decree according to his wishes, he thus describes the sensations he ex- perienced : " Impressed with all that joy can give, of what is most keen and most exhilarating, with the most delightful emotion, with the gratification of my most fervent desires, I burnt A\ith anguish at being obliged to restrain my trans])ort ; and this anguish was itself a delight which I have never experienced either before or after this great day. How inferior the pleasures of the senses are to those of the mind !" Who would imagine that this able man was here describing the feelings pro- duced by an edict, which ordered that the Presi- dent of the Parliament should no longer take off his hat to the illegitimate sons of Lewis the Four- teenth ! There is one anecdote, however, that might make us suspect Lewis himself was not ignorant 102 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. of the real value of what he gave. An officer ap- plied for the cross of St. Lewis : the King told him he should have a pension instead. He replied that he would rather have the cross ; " I dare say you would," rejoined Lewis. The Duke of Orleans smiled. The King afterwards calling him into his cabinet, said gravely " My nephew, when I say things of that kind, I beg of you not to smile."* The value of these distinctions is now lost. The admission to the dressinsr-room of Lewis the Four- teenth often decided the most weighty affairs ; created a minister, or disposed of the command of an army. But a King is now obliged to look fur- ther for advice ; he must in some measure consult the interests and pressing wants of the people he governs ; or at the least, he must balance parties, and weigh abilities. Whoever therefore wishes to be profound in the science of etiquette ; to know what great officer was entitled to put on a shirt, or hold a napkin for his master ; what rights were obtained by sitting in the King's coach ; what pre- cedence was due to a Cardinal, and what to a grandee of Spain, must study the history of the court of Lewis the Fourteenth. For my part, I shall conclude this portion of the subject with the remark of Madame de S^vigne, that the deepest metaphysical and theological enquiries, do not so * M^m. de Besenval, t. i. 11. j THJi PEACE OF UTRECHT. 103 exhaust and wear out the faculties, as a life spent in the study of these vain distinctions.* There were many other honours and rewards, however, besides those created by etiquette, which could be conferred by the crown ; and, in fact, there is no end to the list of favours which the King took upon him to bestow. Birth, marriage, funeral, succession, every thing was under the eye of the master. He interposed in all the most pri- vate concerns of his nobility ; he enquired into the means of the old, the happiness of the married, the morals of the young. It must be said to the praise of Lewis, that upon the whole, he seems to have exercised this singular jurisdiction with much good sense, and not unfrequently, good feeling. He reconciled father and son, and often used the weight of his name to compose a domestic quarrel ; thinking it both wise and right to appease, by his mediation, any difference that broke out amongst his nobility. For it appeared to him at once weak and dangerous, to encourage disputes which " dis- turb the service of the crown, create parties, and force the sovereign to undo, for the sake of one, what he had just done at the suggestion of ano- ther-^'t His conduct in this respect seems to have been the reverse of the dark and disingenuous po- licy of Catharine de Medicis ; and we must allow * S^vign^, April 6th, 1680. t CEuvres. ii, 191. 104 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. it to have been both more prudent and more vir- tuous. It must UkeAvise be recorded that he con- ferred a favour with the happiest grace, doubling his gifts by the manner in which he announced them ; and that he behaved to all ranks, especially to women, with a politeness which, in a sovereign, is of itself a virtue. Whenever he met a lady, or even a peasant girl, he never failed to take off his hat ; and it was generally allowed that, in every circumstance, his manners were those of a perfect gentleman. But if Lewis exercised his power over his court with urbanity and generosity, he yet took care that it should neither be neglected nor unfelt. If any one, not of a temper to act the part of a servant, omitted to go to court, Lewis debarred him from all promotion in any department of the state, say- ing, " I do not know him." Nay, even those who were remiss in their attendance, were generally re- buffed when they made any application for favour, Avith the remark, " He is a man whom I never see. Depend- Irksome, however, as the duty must have been, ence of the ... Nobles. the nobility seldom exposed themselves to the re- proach of a too sullen independence. Nothing could exceed the humble submission of their man- ners. Lewis having one day sent a footman to the Duke of Montbazon with a letter, the Duke, who II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 105 happened to be at dinner, made the footman take the highest place at his table, and afterwards ac- companied him as far as the court-yard, because he came from the King. The nobles, indeed, not only accepted with gratitude the benefits, but even refined upon the omnipotence, of the King. The Chevalier de Courcelle, who was tried and acquitt- ed for a duel, went back to his prison, and refused to quit it till he had the King's permission.* Dan- geau tells us of two noblemen who, upon succeed- ing to their fathers, asked the permission of the King before they would assume the titles which they had inherited. The anonymous commentator of Dangeau, it is true, doubts the truth of tliis re- lation, but it is only because such steps were not necessary in law ; a reason equall}^ good for doubt- ing the former fact of an acquitted person remain- ing in prison. One or two incidents, however, that ha]ipened Anecdotes, to Lewis, might have taught him the true value of the praise or approbation of the court. Early in his reign he took a fancy to make verses, and had composed one day a very indifferent madrigal. He showed it to Marshal Granmiont, saying at the same time, " Read, I beg of vou, this little madrigal, and see if you ever read so absurd a one : because people know that I have lately taken to * Dangeau. Lemontey, 120. 106 HISTORY OF F.UROPE FROM [cHAP. verses, they send me all sorts of things." The Marshal, after reading it, replied, " Your Majesty judges divinely of every thing ; this is indeed, the most foolish and ridiculous madrigal I ever read.*" The King laughed, and said, " Must not the author of it be an absurd coxcomb ?" " Sire, he can be nothing else !" " Thank you,"" said the King, " for having spoken so fairly ; I wrote it myself." The Marshal begged to have it back, and declared he had read it hastily ; but the King would not allow him, saying, " No, Marshal, the first impressions are always the most natural." * Many years afterwards another Grammont gave a lesson to the King, with much more credit to himself. Lewis was playing at chess, and had a dispute with his adversary. In order to decide it he called up Count Grammont, who said at once, " Your Majesty is in the wrong." " How.'*" said the King, " you have not looked at the game." " No," answered Grammont; " but is it not evi- dent, that if there had been the least doubt upon the subject, all these gentlemen standing by, would have given it in your Majesty "'s favour ?" He received a rebuke of a still more honourable kind from a nobleman who had long been am- bassador at Constantinople. Lewis, after making him explain one day the power of the Sultans, • Sevign^, 22nd Dec. 1664. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 107 could not conceal his wish for such despotism, and let drop some words, implying that these sovereigns must be immensely powerful, " Yes," said the am- bassador, " but I must likewise say, that I have seen three or four of them strangled." The dependence of the courtiers was greatly Expensive increased by the mode of living prevalent at Ver- ** "^*" sailles. The fashions of the court, during the early part of the reign of Lewis, were expensive and ruinous to the greatest degree. It was com- mon to lose three or four thousand pistoles at play. It is said that Madame de Montespan at one sit- ting lost four million of livres, equal to more than three hundred thousand pounds. * Men of rank and fortune were not unfrequently seen to pledge their carriages, their horses, their estates, and even their clothes. -f- Dress and equipage were likewise heavy burthens upon the courtiers of Lewis ; every one vying with his neighbour, in order to appear with splendour before the monarch. With these habits of expense it must not be wondered at, that the liighest of the nobility, living at a distance from their estates, and taking no interest in the prosperity of their tenants and labourers, should frequently feel the pressure of poverty, and be obliged to resort to unworthy expedients to keep up the appearance of riches. In ** Sevign^, Dec. 18th, 1678. f M^ni. de Goiirville. 108 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAl>, circumstances of embarrassment they always had Cold policy i«ecourse to the King, and by the most humihating supplications, endeavoured to recruit their shattered fortunes. Lewis listened with kindness to these petitions, but at the same time put an affected delay, and often an ostentation in his gifts, which rivetted the dependence of the suppliant noble. Not even his dearest friends were able to snatch from him any relief for their distress, till, by long patience and assiduous service, they had shown that their existence hung on the breath of his favour. We have seen that the Duke of la Roche- foucauld was entitled a friend by Lewis himself; •we have also seen that La Feuillade carried beyond any man of his day the chivalry of flattery. Yet the Duke of la Rochefoucauld had lived fifteen years in poverty, waiting for the reward of his fidelity, when he was suddenly raised from in- digence to wealth; and La Feuillade was for a long time neglected and overlooked. The latter was complaining one day of this treatment to the mother of the Abbe de Choisy, when she replied, " You do not know the King; he is the ablest man in his dominions ; he does not choose that his courtiers should give up the pursuit ; he makes them sometimes wait a long time, but happy are they whose patience he exercises ; he loads them with favours ; wait a little, and you will be re- II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 109 warded." It happened as she said ; La Feuillade obtained a provision far above his deserts. By this artifice, the courtiers of Lewis was kept in con- tinual expectation, and if they found themselves long neglected, they had strong Incitements to pa- tience and submission in the persons of the chief flatterer, and dearest private friend of the King. Yet how cold must be the heart of that man who can keep his friend for many years in want, from motives of state policy ! The modes of providing for the servile nobles of the court, were many and various. Men of family who were poor, often received sums of mo- ney; others, more in favour, were made governors of provinces and towns. Every place in the govern- ment was saleable ; the permission to buy one was accounted a reward. Besides all other methods, personal chattels and real estates were often given by the King out of the goods of persons whose property had been confiscated, or of defaulters against whom they had informed. Even Mon- sieur, the King*'s brother, was not above receiving a present of this last kind. In short, gifts of all kinds were accepted with gratitude ; and during the days of his prosperity, Lewis was courted by all as petitioners for the riches he could dispense. He saw but too well the interested motives of those around him, and he has consigned the dreadful the Nobles 110 HISTORY OF EUKOl'K FROM [CHAP. caution to his son, always to recollect that every one who approached him had an object to gain, an interest in the advice he should give, and a motive for distorting the facts he might relate. Piide of With characters so little calculated to excite respect, the nobility of the court of France car- ried pride as far as any aristocracy in the world. Nothing was so much an object of their horror as a mesalliance, or the marriage of one of their noble shoots with a branch of a plebeian family. Count Bussy Rabutin had the inhumanity to carr}' on a lawsuit for many years to dissolve his daughter"'s marriage, at the risk of ruining her and bastard- izing her issue, merely because she had chosen for her husband one who was not equally noble with himself. Another of these nobles, speaking of a union of this kind, exclaimed, " Better to have ten bastards, than one legitimate child from such a marriage !" Every one has heard probably of the aristocratic reply of Madame de la Meilleraye, to an observation, that a prince who had just died suddenly after a vicious life would scarcely be saved : " I assure you God thinics twice, before he condemns persons of that rank !''* Before I leave this part of the subject, it may be i-ight to mention that Lewis had a system of pu- • Dangeaii, L. p. 82. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. Ill nishments for hi^ nobility, fully as effectual, in its They were . carefully way, as the system of rewards. He exercised a watched. severe inspection over his court. The place of Lieutenant of the Police, which, under former governments, had been no more than a superinten- dence of the watch and ward of the city of Paris, acquired a totally different character under the direction of Lewis the Fourteenth. La Reyniere was the first person who made this office of import- ance, but d'Argenson raised it much higher, and became in this situation one of the principal mi- nisters of the King. He was the first who intro- duced lettres de cachet into the police ; before his time, persons who had committed any disorder were arrested in the form of a legal sentence, which enabled them to obtain their enlargement by an appeal to the Parliament.* The lettres de cachet, a term, the meaning of which shall be hereafter explained, seem before this time to have been resei^ved for state crimes, and issued only by the heads of the government ; but by this innovation, all who offended the police, were subjected to ar- bitrary and indefinite imprisonment. To make this power truly formidable, it was the business of d'Argenson to enquire into the most private con- cerns of all the principal families of the kingdom. He has been praised by his son for the delicacy • St. Simon, t. 9. Additions, p. 212. 112 HISTORY OF EUKOl'E FROM [cHAP. and kindness with which he exercised his duties, and saved the honour of many families ; but how- ever exercised, the power is one that ought not to exist in any civiHzed state. What man worthy of liberty, or indeed what man of spirit and honour, could bear with patience, that his family secrets should be at the disposal of an agent of the police, and then be obliged to express his gratitude that they are not allowed to go further ? Besides the reports of d'Argenson however, formed of course on the report of spies and informers, Lewis had many other secret channels through which the opinions, views, and conversation of his courtiers reached him. There were some persons who re- ported to their friends, without knowing that their relations reached the King, others to Madame de Maintenon, and others to himself. He likewise directed the letters at the post-office to be opened, and extracts to be made of any matter that might interest him ; these were regularly laid before him. Thus provided with intelligence, Lewis was ena- bled to keep his courtiers in continual dread : they discovered, to their dismay, that the most pro- found external homage was insufficient to obtain the royal smiles, if in their hours of relaxation they by chance indulged in any light observations unfavourable to the divinity of the monarch ; and many persons of merit and distinction found them- 1 II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT, 113 selves suddenly stopped in the road of their pro- motion, and shut out from all posts of honour and of trust, without any conception how they had for- feited the good graces of their sovereign. Often he himself did not recollect the nature of their offence, but upon the person being mentioned for advancement, observed, " I have heard something against him; I do not recollect what it was, but it will be safer to take a man against whom I have not heard any thing." This was the first punish- ment inflicted on the courtiers ; the second was an exile from court : the third, imprisonment in the Bastile. As this last punishment is closely con- nected with the criminal jurisprudence of the king- dom, I shall reserve it for the same place ; at pre- sent it will be sufficient to remark, that any one of these penalties might be, and often was inflicted without due enquiry into the case, without exam- ining the accused, and often upon the false in- formation of a meddling gossip, or an envious rival. We may now, taking all the foregoing circum- Character stances into consideration, form a tolerably correct Jj^ notion of the French nobility of the age of Lewis the Fourteenth. On the one hand, they were the most polished gentlemen in Europe, the ornaments of a brilliant and witty society, remarkable for refinement of taste in their conversation, their let- VOL. I. I 114 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. ters, and in their judgments upon the Hterature of the day ; the bravest of an army, where all were distinguished for their courage, and the most bril- liant at a court, which gave the fashion to Europe. On the other side it must be said, that their mili- tary habits made them regardless of laws, and of the wise restraints of civil society ; they asked from their superior no liberty, they granted to their in- feriors no justice. With little learning, and no knowledge of business, they were only anxious to shine for a moment, and disappear : constantly incurring debts by negligence and extravagance, they relieved themselves by acts of meanness and dishonesty; regardless of the virtue of their wives, they were ever impatient to fight duels in defence of what they termed their honour. With many of the quahties of chivalry, their aim was not to redress wrongs and protect the weak, but to com- mit injuries with impunity, and act unjustly by privilege. Better a thousand times to have the imagination distorted like Don Quixote, than to have the heart perverted like some of this vain and vicious nobility ! Grammont. It would be unfair to quote the Count de Grani- mont as a specimen of the race; yet his example may show what was tolerated, and even admired in the French court. Distinguished by the gifts of high birth, a handsome person, and a ready wit. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 115 he found it convenient and profitable to throw off the restraints of morahty, and dispense with the knowledge of religion. He notoriously cheated at play; was a beggar for the King's alms; and yet was always feared and courted in society. When he was dying, his wife, the celebrated Miss Hamilton, a woman of piety and character, was reading the Lord's prayer to him for his edifi- cation ; " Countess," he said, " let me hear that again, it is a beautiful prayer ; who wrote it .?"* From the moral degradation and political abase- Consequen- ces of tile ment of the nobility, sprung consequences of the policy of utmost importance. The strength of society in ^^*' modern nations, whether free or enslaved, consists in the knitting together of all orders of the state ; in their constant union with, and dependence up- on each other. But in France, the nobility were not consulted by the King, nor respected by the nation ; they were the mere creatures of a court ; its instruments in war ; its ornaments in peace. The monarch indeed rejoiced in the sway he had obtained over the sons of those who had bearded his father ; and even the people saw, with pleasure, the subjection of their petty tyrants ; but neither the throne nor the nation were ultimately gainers by the insignificance of the aristocracy. When the people, raised by commerce and agri- * Dangeau. L. p. 76. i2 116 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. culture to importance, asked for the blessing of a free government, they had no leaders among the great proprietors of the land, to whose honesty and wisdom they could confide their cause : when the sovereign sought for a defence among his no- bility against the assault of democracy, he found himself surrounded by a knot of men infatuated with their own birth and privileges ; incapable of conducting a government for a day ; determined not to make concessions when concession was un- avoidable ; despised or hated by the people ; and totally divested of any quality fit to meet a revo- lution, but the courage to fight and die. Such were the consequences to his unhappy successor, of the selfish policy of Lewis the Fourteenth. W'rsailles Intimately connected with the influence of Lewis •ii y- ^^yQY ]^jg courtiers, is the erection of Versailles and Marly. It is said that the day of the barricades, and another day of less public import, but more deeply felt, the day when he lost Madame de la Valllcre, were the causes which induced Lewis to transfer his court to the country. But with- out such peculiar motives, we may easily sup- pose why the country should, in his eyes, be pre- ferable to Paris. Lewis was fond of air and of the chase. It was well known that he suffered from vapours and head-ache if deprived of exer- cise, and that he could bear without complaining, 11.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 117 a great degree of heat or cold. Neither does an absolute king gain any thing by confining himself in a town. A private person seeks in a capitalr the best society, the best theatres, the best news. But the King of France had all these things in his country house : the whole body of nobility ; the ministers of state, the best plays and actors of the day. Thus at Fontainebleau, on one occasion, we find four pieces of Corneille, four of Racine, two of Moliere acted at the theatre of the court.* Whatever were his motives, however, Lewis es- tablished his court at St. Germain soon after the death of his mother. But not satisfied with this beautiful situation, he was soon seized with the ruinous passion of building ; and having fixed upon Versailles, where his father had a small hunt- ing-seat, he began a palace there before the year 1670. The situation in the middle of the forest, was full of marshes to be drained, of hills to be levelled, and vallies to be raised. For a long time twenty-two thousand men and six thousand horses were employed in working there if and the troops of the line were ordered to perform this disagree- able and unsuitable service. In 1680 the King transferred his court to the new palace, and in 1683 went to reside there entirely. All his friends • S4vigne. 30th August, 1675. t Dangeau, 1. 1684. 118 HISTORY OF EUllOPE FROM [cHAP. and favourites, ministers, and ladies of the court, had apartments in the palace.* Marly was built with the express intention of making a hermitage, where the King might retire for two or three nights at a time, with the few persons necessary for his service. But the love of grandeur got the better of the love of retirement ; and the same work of moving ground and cutting rock took place there that had before transformed Versailles. The machine of Marly for raising wa- ter to the fountains, has been celebrated over the world as the most prodigious engine ever employ- ed for a useless purpose. " I have seen," says St. Simon, " large trees with their branches and leaves brought from Compiegne and other forests ; more than three quarters died, and were immediately replaced by others. I have seen entire avenues disappear in a moment, large masses of thick wood ciianged into lakes, where I have been rowed in a gondola, and again turned into forests, which made • It does not appear that all minds were captivated by the tasteless grandeur of Versailles Madame de Sevigne says, speaking of a hill that had been embellished by a friend of her's, " Si cette montagne etait a Versailles, je ne doute point quelle n'eAt ses parieurs centre les violences dont I'art opprime la pauvre nature." 15th June, 1676. Some one gave Versailles the name of "le favori sans merite." II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 119 a thick shade from the day that they were planted. I have seen basons changed into cascades, water- falls into still ponds, the dwellings of carps adorned with the finest sculpture and gilding, and, when finished, converted again into bowling-greens ; and besides all this, the prodigious machine, with its immense aqueducts, and enormous conduits and reservoirs." To all this, I can add that I have seen Marly, a narrow village confined by a hill on one side and the river on the other, looking upon a large plain of melancholy flatness, and bearing no vestige of having once been the seat of a mo- narch's magnificence. The whole building, and its accompaniments, have disappeared. Of all the works connected with the royal residences, how- ever, the most gigantic and absurd, was the at- tempt to bring water to Versailles. As Lewis had committed the blunder of building in a place with- out water, he proposed to remedy his mistake by conveying the river eight leagues, by a new chan- nel, to adorn his park. To accomplish this, it was necessary to join two mountains at Maintenon, and form an aqueduct. Forty thousand troops were employed in this great work,* and a camp formed expressly for the purpose. From the un- healthiness of the work or of the air, a great mortality ensued ; the dead were carried away in • Sevignc, 13th Dec. 1684. 120 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. the night-time that their companions'inight not be discouraged ; but the loss of many thousand lives to please the wanton caprice of a despot, excited no sympathy, and created no surprise. The war of 1688, however, interrupted the labour, and it was never afterwards resumed. It was considered as a great favour to be al- lowed to accompany the King to Fontainebleau or Marly ; and it was a grave fault not to ask for this favour, however little it might be desired. The journies to Fontainebleau were made at fixed times and seasons, and no consideration induced the King to postpone them. The health of his mis- tresses, of Madame de Maintenon, and his grand- daughters, was often seriously affected by under- taking this journey when they were indisposed, but Lewis pretended not to see, or if he saw, not to regard their complaints. * Manners. We come next to consider the manners of the court of Lewis the Fourteenth. Under a go- vernment so despotic as that of the French mo- narchy, the King has it in his power to give the tone to the manners of the age ; for all the society of high rank being absorbed in that of the sove- reign, where his smiles and frowns are rewards and punishments, his example forms a law, which is * See an anecdote of the Duchess of Burgundy, in St. Simon. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 121 obeyed by all the inferior and provincial societies with as much obedience, as the articles of his civil and criminal code. To direct the morals of the nation, therefore, is a part of the administration of a monarch, placed as Lewis was, at the head of a people with whom admiration is a more powerful motive than fear, and where fashion has a greater influence than the doctrines of philosophy, or even the precepts of religion. The manners of the court partook of the cha- Mistresses. racter of the sovereign, and varied with the as- cendency of his different mistresses. While the Duchess of Orleans and Madame de la Valliere gave the tone to society, nothing was heard of but love and devotion ; love, debased by the contami- nating atmosphere of a court ; and devotion, that seems to have been sought for, either as a relief to, or a retreat from a life of pleasure ; either to give variety to the monotony of sensation, or as a decent veil to the approaches of age, and a tacit avowal of an incapacity for vice. With Madame de Montes- pan came pomp, splendour, rich dresses, and deep play ; even the mistress herself, according to her own opinion, was but a part of the King's furniture. " He does not love me," she said, " but he thinks he owes it to his subjects and to his own greatness, to have for his mistress the handsomest woman in his dominions." With Madame de Maintenon 122 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. arrived the reign of propriety and decorum ; of misery, dullness, and hypocrisy. Let us take a short survey of each of these periods, and the manners which prevailed during the respective reigns of the three favourites. Cardinal Mazarin, as the histories of that time relate, introduced the King to the society of his nieces. They were all persons of some talent, and one of them, the Countess of Soissons, has acquired a name notorious indeed, but less desirable than ?I^^'^. . oblivion. Another of the sisters, Maria Mancini, Mancini. ' _ Madlle. de is supposed to have gained a great influence over the heart of the King. The Cardinal seems at first to have looked on this passion with approba- tion ; and one day mentioned it in a jesting way to the Queen-mother, to see how she would answer. But she spoke so strongly of the disgrace of her son's marriage with such a person, even declaring that she would make the kingdom rise both against the King and himself if the event should take place, that he was obliged to change his policy. * From that time he took every step to obstruct the inter- course between his niece and the King ; and when negociations for the royal marriage were on foot, he obliged her to retire to a convent. At the se- paration, Lewis could not restrain his tears, which • Motteville. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 123 drew from the fair one the well known words, " Vouz pleurez ; vous etes 7'oi, et je pars."" " You weep; you are a king, and I leave you." Her pretensions to the King's affections had been also opposed in a different way, by a successful rival. Mademoiselle de la Motte d'Argencour far ex- ceeded in beauty Maria Mancini, and the King, captivated by her charms, went so far as to offer her an establishment at court. Her mother inform- ed the Cardinal, and promised, if with his consent the proposal should be accepted, to inform him of all that should pass between the King and her daughter. The Cardinal thanked her, and directly told the King all the circumstances he could learn from the mother, pretending that the daughter had disclosed them to more favoured admirers. By this artifice the King was offended, and Made- moiselle la Motte went also to a convent. All other amours being for the time removed, the Cardinal occupied himself with the care of giving a Queen to the Kingdom. By the choice of Maria Thei'esaj he laid a foundation, first, for the acquisition of Flanders, and afterwards, for the inheritance of the whole Spanish monarchy. The court spent the winter in the South of France, where the marriage took place. In the spring the King and Queen came to Paris, and the 124 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAT. day of their entry afforded a spectacle both of pomp and pleasure to their subjects. * The King, however, was not to be satisfied with the possession of a timid and embarrassed wife. The Queen, though a person of some beauty, and deeply in love with the King, led a life of retire- ment and devotion. Lewis frequented the society of Madame de Soissons, where the most agreeable conversation and polished society were found. His person had at this time a great degree of majesty, his carriage was noble, his look commanding, and it was popularly said, that his appearance alone pointed him out as king, t He excelled at all games and exercises, was graceful on horseback, and appeared with distinction at the tilting matches and tournaments, which were then the fashion of the court. He had a taste for magnificence, gal- lantry, and gaiety. It is no wonder, therefore, that he did not resist the attractions of the fair sex. * Among the spectators was Madame de Maintenon, then Madame Scarron, who, describing in a letter the grandeur of the sight, adds, " La reine dut se coucher hier au soir assez contente du mari qu'elle a choisie." The phrase is remarkable enough ; how little did she then dream of succeeding Maria Theresa ! + Every one knows the two lines of the Berenice of Racine, intended for the King : Qu'en quelque obscurite que le sort I'eut fait naitre Le monde en le voyant ehi reconnu son maitre. TI.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 125 Indeed for some years he led a life of extreme debauchery; ladies of rank, their maids and at- tendants, and even peasant girls of the neigh- bourhood, were the objects of his indiscriminate passion. * But the names of some of his mistresses are of historical importance. Not long after his marriage, he became sensible to the charms of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. He was likewise Madlle. de. much struck with the beauty of one of the maids of honour to the Queen ; and Mademoiselle de la Motte Houdancourt received with pleasure the attentions of the monarch. But the Duchess of Navailles, who was entrusted with the charge of the maids of honour, refused to allow any facihty to these amours. The King was angry : Madame de Navailles offered to give up her charge; and throwing herself at the King"'s feet, exclaimed, " I beseech you. Sir, seek elsewhere, and not in the Queen''s household, which is your own, for the objects of your pleasures and your inclinations ; especially as you seem to have already chosen, in the person of Mademoiselle de la Valliere." f The King still persisted ; upon which the lady of the • Memoires de Madame, p 46. t This last branch of the sentence is omitted by An- quetil. It certainly takes off somewhat of our notion of the stiff virtue of Madame de Navailles. Madame de Genlis has ingeniously made the story relate to Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The fact is, Madame de Soissons, and the enemies 126 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. bed-chamber, hearing that persons had been seen on the roofs, placed bars of iron across all the windows which led to the apartments of the maids of honour. Lewis showed no resentment, but de- prived Madame de Navailles of the government of the young ladies, and soon after obliged both her and her husband to leave their offices. They were afterwards restored to favour, but not re- called to court. Perhaps the first serious passion of Lewis was excited by Mademoiselle de la Valliere. She does not appear to have been exceedingly handsome, and was somewhat lame: a marvellous grace, a peculiar softness and gentleness of character, and above all a most tender and unaffected love for the King, seem to have been her chief attrac- tion. Notwithstanding her passion, she felt great scruple in yielding ; and after her seduction, con- tinually lamented and wept over her weakness. When told many years afterwards of the death of the Count de Vermandois, her only son by the King, she exclaimed with anguish, " Must I lament his death before I have yet done lament- ing his birth ?"" Even during the height of her passion, she retired at intervals to the Carme- of Mademoiselle de la Valliere, favoured the King's in- clinations for jNIademoiseUe de la Motte Houdancourt ; but according to Madame de MotteviUe, La "S'^alliere pre\'ailed by yielding sooner. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 127 lites to pray and do penance.* At one time, how- ever, she laid aside her timidity and remorse, brought up pubhcly her son and daughter by the King, accepted the title of Duchess, and during a journey to Flanders, when the Queen had ordered that no carriage should go before her, Madame de la Valliere crossed the fields and took the prece- dence. " For my part," said one of the ladies in the Queen's carriage, " God preserve me from being the King's mistress ; but if I were unfor- de Mou- tunate enough for that, I never should have the effrontery to appear before the Queen." The lady who spoke thus was the Marquise de Montespan, one of the ladies of honour, remarkable both for her beauty and her wit, and a great favourite with her mistress. She usually remained with the Queen in the evening when the King was absent. Not long after the speech just quoted, Le\vis got the ha- bit of talking to her when he came to the Queen's apartment, fell in love with her, and after a re- sistance said to have been obstinate, she became his mistress in all the dignity of that term. She had eight children by the King ; the eldest of them was the Duke of Maine, of whom we have had * Madame de S^vign^ speaking of her in her letters, describes her as, " cette petite violette qui se cachoit sous I'herbe, et qui ^toit honteuse d'etre maitresse, d'etre mere^ d'etre Duchesse ; jamais il n'y en aura sur ce moule." 128 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. occasion to speak. Her manners were haughty and imperious, her style of conversation caustic and satirical, but remarkable for a peculiar grace and flavour, that belonged only to her sisters and herself, and was called in the world Vesprit des Mortemar. She was so much feared by the young courtiers, that walking under the window where she and the King were talking together, was called " going to be shot.""* Yet she does not seem to have been malicious in her actions. Madame de la Valliere perceived, with the great- est pain, this new inclination of the King ; yet she submitted to adorn with her own hands her proud successor, who cruelly continued to ask it, saying that nobody did it so well. Upon re- marking one day the signs of tenderness between Lewis and her rival, this unfortunate victim could not refrain from saying, " when the life I lead at the convent of the Carmelites appears too severe, I will think of the misery these people have made me suffer." But even at the convent she was per- secuted by her successful rival, who went to see her, and asked her if she was happy, and if she had any message to send to the brother of Mon- sieur.f Lewis, with a barbarity it is impossible to excuse, seems also to have enjoyed bringing * Passer par les armes. t Sdvign^. April 26th, 1676. II.] THE PEACE OF UTEECHT. 129 his mistresses together, and forcing them into the company of the Queen. In the journey which he made in 1670, to show the Queen the conquered towns, this poor princess was ohHged to bear the presence of both the mistresses in the same coach with her. La ValHere at length finally retired, and took the veil ; no doubt her life in the convent was happier than her tribulations at court. The triumph of Madame de Montespan was accompanied by every circumstance of pride and glory. The whole court was at her feet ready to obey her wishes.* When she made a journey, she travelled with ten or twelve men on horseback, and a train of forty-five persons.i" When in one of her excursions she passed by Moulins, a splendid boat was prepared for her with gilding, painting, and damask, and adorned with the cyphers of the kingdoms of France and Navarre.]: The best description of the court of France at this period, is given in a letter of Madame de Se- vigne ; and, in despair of being able to abridge it without losing the freshness of the colouring, I venture to insert it entire. * Madame de Sevignd, speaking of a journey of Madame de Montespan, says, " Si elle avoit voulu mener tout ce qu'il y a de dames a la cour elle aurait pu choisir." 6th May, 16T6. t Ibid. 15th May. + Ibid. 8th June. vol. I. K 130 . HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. lietter of " I was on Saturday at Versailles with the Madame de -i /. i Sevgine. Villars. You know the toilette of the Queen, the mass, and the dinner ; but it is not necessary to stifle oneself while their Majesties are at table ; for at three o'clock, the King, the Queen, Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle, all the princes and prin- cesses, Madame de Montespan, all her suite, all the courtiers, all the ladies ; in short, what is called the court of France, are in the beautiful apartment of the King, which you know. The whole is admirably furnished ; every thing is mag- nificent. One does not know what it is to be hot ; and one goes from one place to another without the least crowd. A game of reversi gives the form, and fixes the situation of every thing. The King is near Madame de Montespan, who holds the cards ; Monsieur, the Queen, and Madame de Soubise, Dangeau and company, Langlee and company ; a thousand louis are on the table ; there are no other counters. I saw Dangeau, and I wondered to think how stupid we are at the game in comparison with him. He attends to nothing but his business, and gains where others lose ; he neglects nothing, and profits by every thing ; he is never absent ; in a word, his good management defies fortune, so that two-hundred thousand francs in ten days, a hun- dred thousand crowns in a month, are entered as received in his book of accounts. He said that I It,] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 131 took part in his play, so that I was very agreeably seated. I saluted the King, as you taught me, and he returned my salute as if I had been young and handsome. The Queen spoke to me of my illness, ***** *^ in short, Hitti quanti. You know what it is to have a word from every body one meets. Madame de Montespan spoke to me of Bourbon, and asked me to tell her about Vichi. * * * * Seriously, her beauty is quite surprising ; her figure is not half so large as it was, without having lost any thing in her complexion, her eyes, or her lips. She was dressed in point de France ; her hair in a thousand ringlets; two locks fell down from her temples very low on her cheeks ; she had black ribands on her head, the pearls of the Marechale de VHospital, set off with locks of hair, and pendants of diamonds of the greatest beauty ; three or four pins, no cap ; in short, a triumphant beauty for the ambassadors to admire. She knew that people complained that she hindered all France from seeing the King ; so she has given him back, as you see ; and you would not believe the joy that every body is in, and how beautiful it has made the court. This agreeable confusion, without con- fusion, consisting of all the best society, lasts from three to six. If couriers arrive, the King retire^ a moment to read his letters, and then returns. There is always some music that he listens to, and K 2 ' 132 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAF. which has a very good effect. He converses with the ladies who are accustomed to have that honour. There is perpetual talk, and nothing remains upon the mind. — ' How many hearts have you ?' — ' I have three, two, one, four;'' then, — ' he has only three, four.'' Dangeau is enchanted with this talk : he discovers the play of others, and draws his con- clusions. I was delighted to see his exceeding skill. At six o'clock the King, Madame de Mon- tespan, Monsieur and Madame de Thianges, go out in an open carriage, and the bonne d'Heudicourt in the strapontin. The Queen is in another with the princesses, and the rest as they please. They go on the canal in gondolas, have music, come back at ten, find a play, twelve o'clock strikes, they have media noche, and so the Saturday is past. " To tell you how many times I was asked about you ; how many questions were put to me without waiting for an answer; how many answers I spared myself ; how little they cared, how I cared still less ; all this will picture to you the life, the iniqua corte. However, it was never so agree- able, and I hope it may continue. * * The world has been very unjust about the Brin- villiers;* never were so many crimes so mildly " The Marquise Brinvilliers was burnt for poisoning her father, brothers, and sister. Penautier, mentioned directly II.] THE PEACE OK UTRECHT. 133 treated; she has not been tortured; they were so much afraid she should speak, that hopes were given her of a pardon, and so strong that she did not expect to die • she said on mounting the scaffold, ' Oest done tout de bon V ' It is really in earnest then V At length she is scattered to the winds, and her confessor sa3^s she is a saint. Marshal Villeroy said the other day, ' Penautier will be ruined by this affair ;'' Marshal Gram- mont answered, ' He must lay down his table :' these are epigrams. I suppose you know it is believed, that there are an hundred tJiousand crowns distributed to make things easy : innocence is not so prodigal." It is impossible to give a more lively picture of a court than this letter affords. The mistress and her suite, mentioned immediately after the princes ; the game of cards, at which a crafty player makes sure of winning ; the tender in- quiries, without the smallest grain of sincerity ; the state with which Madame de Montespan ap- pears in all the pride and pomp of prostitution ; the conversation respecting a woman condemned for poison, supposed to be connected with many persons of rank ; the bribes said to be given for betraying the cause of justice; and, in fine, the afterwards, was supposed to be implicated in crimes of the same kind. See the end of this chapter. • Sevigne, 29th of July, 1G76, 1. 4U. 134 IIISTOUY OF I'.UROPE FROM [cUAP. veil of levity which is thrown over the whole, convey a living image of the court of Lewis the Fourteenth, which it would be in vain to hope to imitate by pages of description. The overthrow of Madame de Montespan, when at the summit of her glory, by a woman* whom she had relieved from want, and loaded with favours, forms properly a part of the historical events of a former period. At present, I shall only describe the character displayed by Madame de Maintenon during her elevation, and the effects she produced on the manners of the court. After the death of the Queen, the King re- mained some time at Fontainebleau to comply with decorum, rather than to indulge grief. Ma^ dame de Maintenon affected at first to be in deep affliction at the death of her royal mistress, but the King, who was himself very little moved, laughed at her sorrow, and soon consoled her for the loss. Her niece, who relates the anecdote, says, she will not be sure that Madame de Main- tenon did not answer the King as the Duke of Grammont did Madame Herault, when he con- doled with her in a very melancholy tone on the death of her husband ; " Alas .'"" she said, " the poor man did well to die." " Is that the way you take it, Madame Herault .'''" answered the Duke, II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 135 " then to tell the truth, I don't care any more than you.'"* The character and views of Madame de Main- tenon underwent a great change at this period. For a long time she had suiFered from the vio- lence of Madame de Montespan, and in moments of disgust had often spoken of quitting the court. " Madame de Montespan and I," she writes to her confessor, " have had a very warm conver- sation. As I am the suffering party, I have wept a great deal ; she has given an account of it to the King in her own manner. I own to you, I have great difficulty in remaining in a place, where I am subject every day to such scenes. I have often had a desire to become a nun ; the fear of repenting it has made me neglect feelings, that many others would call vocations. For the last seven months I have had the greatest wish to retire, Madame de Montespan represent? me to the King as she chooses, and makes me lose his esteem. "t At another time she says, " I never wished more ardently to be away from here.*" Yet she adroitly reserves to herself excuses for staying near the King ; she reminds her confes- sor, that he himself had desired her to remain at court; J and explains away, with great plausibility, * Souvenirs de Caylus. f Letters, t. i. p. 338. :j: Letters, t. i. p. 338. 136 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. her desire to become a nun.* But when once the victory over Madame de Montespan was gained, the pious widow finds no longer any difficulty in working out her salvation at court ; and we hear no more of lier persuasion that she cannot serve God in such a place of iniquity. Her whole mind is occupied in governing the King, in converting liim to the service of heaven, and receiving from him in return the greatness of the world. Under a sober exterior and a veil of extreme piety, she conceals a fondness for power, and even for the pomps of life, not less lively than that of her pre- decessor. This mixture of devotion and world- liness is well shown in the following letter to Ma- dame de St. G^ran, her intimate friend : " The works of Maintenon are much admired; the pre- sence of the King does not spoil the work : it is a fine sight to see a whole army employed in the embellishment of a park. The two mountains will be joined by forty-seven arcades solidly built : it is by the confession of every one, a work worthy * " Je me suis mal expliquee si vous avez compris que je songeois a Itre religieuse. Je suis trop vieille pour chan- ger de condition et selon le bien que j'aurai je songerai a m'^tablir en pleine tranquillite. Dans le monde tous les retours sent pour Dieu : dans le convent tous les retours sont pour le monde." Lett. t. i. p. 340. How well ex- pressed! and how ingenious an excuse for a worldly resolution ! II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 137 of the Romans and of the King. All this leads me often to the reflection, ' men are mad to give themselves so much pains to embellish a dwelling, where they have only two days to remain.' "* Such was the spirit which she introduced at court ; a great love of the world at bottom, varnishied over with a few moral or religious sentences, to have the appearance of despising that which occupied the attention and formed the business of life, f Madame de Maintenon, it is well known, so far Marriage of T7" • 1 1 • *^^^ King-. subdued the heart oi the King, as to mduce him to marry her. The marriage, of which there is no doubt, seems to have taken place in 1685 or 6. Not more than four or five persons were present, of whom Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, was one. It is said that Lewis gave a solemn promise to Louvois and Harlay, that he never would declare his marriage ; and, that when afterwards, Madame de Maintenon had succeeded by her intreaties in obtaining a counter promise of a declaration, * Letters, t. i. p. 403. ■j- See a letter from a courtier to a lady, in the works of Lewis the Fourteenth, t. 6, p. 518, beginning with com- plaints of the "neant" of life and the misery of "what are called honours, dignities, and fortune," and proceeding to a very minute account of the person and mapners of Wil- liam the Third. In short, a letter of news written by a hermit. 138 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. Louvois fell on his knees, and presenting his sword to his sovereign, begged rather to die than see his master incur such disgrace. Lewis, it is said, was stopped by this remonstrance ; and when, after the death of Louvois, he resumed his intention, Mas dissuaded by the advice of Fenelon and Bos- suet. In this instance, I think we may say that Madame de Maintenon was more in the right, than the political and spiritual advisers of the monarch. It is impossible to see, in the marriage of Lewis, what St. Simon calls it, " the most profound, the most public, the most lasting, and the most un- heard of humiliation."* He had married the first time for the interest of the state, and that object provided for, he might surely be permitted to marry a second time for his own satisfaction, pro- vided only, that the object of his choice was a wo- man of unblemished reputation. But by conceal- ing his marriage, Lewis in some measure confirmed the opinion of his court. In the world, there are but two motives for keeping a marriage secret : fear of parents and relations, or of public disgrace. Lewis had nothing to apprehend from the first ; it may therefore be inferred that he dreaded the second. But let it be observed, that this secrecy destroyed in great part the advantage of the mar- * " L'humiliation la plus profonde, la plus publique^ la plus diu"able, et la plus inouie." ir.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 139 riage — the moral example. Lewis remained ap- parently living with a favourite mistress ; for Ma- dame de Maintenon, except on one trifling occa- sion, never assumed any privileges of rank whicli had not before been adopted by Madame de Mon- tespan.* She did not leave her arm-chair when the royal family visited her ; but neither did Ma- dame de Montespan. She did not follow any of the princesses to the door ; but no more did Ma- dame de Montespan. In short, the married life of Lewas was as much a public scandal as his former connexions. He endeavoured to avoid the ridicule of the world by the style and carriage of a man of gallantry ; and to save himself at the day of judg- ment, by producing his certificate of marriage, and the relics he wore under his shirt. The chief points in the character of Madame Character 1 -»r • 1 • • J i' of Madame de Mamtenon were devotion, vanity, and want oi de Mainte- feehng. Her devotion, no doubt, was sincere ; it °°"' took root in her mind, and seems to have been her only resource against that total disgust of life, to which a person of so much talent, and so little feeling, was liable. But she always retained much * Once, when going into a retired seat at the convent of the Carmelites, the Abbess said to her, that no one en- tered there but the Queen of France : " Ouvrez, ma mere, ouvrez toujours," was the reply. Vanity in the house of penance ! 140 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. of the stain of earth. In a letter to her confessor, after giving an account of her prayers and her reading, she reproaches herself with " very human motives, great vanity ;""* and she seems in this instance to have known herself. When her niece came to court, she told her she had refused a place of honour near the person of the Dauphiness, and asked her if she would rather be the person who had obtained it, or her who had refused it. The court, says Madame de Caylus, saw more ostenta- tion than humility in this refusal, f In the same spirit of vanity, when the King died, she could not help exclaiming as she wept, to a nun of St. Cyr, " It is a fine thing to weep for a king."J Her want of strong feeling is abundantly shown by the chief events of her life. She did not he- sitate, when in the prime of youth and beauty, to accept Scarron for a husband, in spite of his age and his disgusting figure. When estabhshed at court by the favour of Madame de Montespan, she found reasons satisfactory to her own mind, for expelling her benefactress and taking her place. When Fenelon, to whom she seems to have been * Letters, t. i. 347. t " Cela s'appelle jouir de son refus," is the lively ob- servation of this not over-partial niece. X " II est beau de pleurer un roi." TI.l THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 141 greatly attached, was banished in consequence of his controversy with Bossuet, she never interfered in his favour. When the Cardinal de Noailles, whom she greatly esteemed, was ruined in charac- ter and fortune by the Jesuits, whom she disliked, she never said a word on his behalf. When Ra- cine, encouraged by her, took a step which threw him into disgrace, she, who was the author of his misfortune, left him to his fate, and he died the victim of her timidity and prudence. Her policy was always directed to one object — to please the Kins, and maintain herself at court. To effect this purpose she disguised all her tastes, suppressed all her partialities ; she even imposed upon her- self the rule never to apply in favour of her own relations, who owed their advance entirely to the wish of the ministers to pay their court to her. They were always indignant at the neglect she showed them ; one of her nieces, Madame de Vil- lette, afterwards married to Lord Bolingbroke, who never could obtain her interference, said to her one day in a passion, " You wish to have a reputation for moderation, and you make your family the victims of it." Her own brother, the Count d'Aubigne, received nothing but a blue ri- band, and sums of money from time to time out of the taxes ; which gave occasion to his saying to the Marshal de Vivonne, the brother of Madame 142 HISTORY OF EUROPE h ROM [cHAP. de Montespan, " I have taken out my Marshal's staff in money."" * It is a natural question to ask whether Madame de Maintenon was happy. We see so much mi- sery occasioned by an indulgence of passion and feeling, that one is curious to know whether a per- son who conquered all feelings, who overcame all ties of blood, who resisted the temptations of love, smothered the partialities of friendship, and who rose thereby to a height of fortune that seems al- most miraculous, was rewarded by the attainment of happiness. We have it under her own hand that she was not. Some part of her uneasiness, it will be thought, may easily be accounted for. During the early part of her life she had to strug- gle with rigour ; then with poverty ; and after- wards with the imperious humour of Madame de Montespan. These portions of her career, it will readily be imagined, Avere not altogether bright ; but was she not happy, it will be said, when the first King of Europe was at her feet, and the court of France paid her homage as their Queen ? Alas, no ! Of her whole life this part seems to have been the least happy. It is at this time of * " J'ai eu mon baton en argent." It was the same brother who, hearing Madame de Maintenon one day ex- press a disgust at life, said to her, " Vous avez done parole d'epouser Dieu le pei'e." II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 143 her life, that her letters are the most full of com- plaints of the emptiness of grandeur, and the sla- very of rank. " What a torment," she said, " to have to amuse a King who is no longer amuse- able." " 1 find in looking back upon my life," she writes to her niece, " that from the age of thirty-two, which was the beginning of my fortune, I have not been a moment without troubles, and that they have always been increasing." * She was one day looking at some carp that had been put into a marble basin in the gardens of Ver- sailles : " These carp are like me," she said, " they regi'et their mud ." f Voltaire has said, that the mistresses of Lewis Infliience the Fourteenth had scarcely any influence over the pubhc acts of the reign. With respect to Madame de Montespan, we have the evidence of Madame de Maintenon : " that she knew all the secrets of the state, and gave very good, or very bad advice, according to her passions." J With respect to Madame de Maintenon herself, we have every reason to svippose that she exercised a ver}^ great influence in all the patronage of the state,. * Lettres de Maintenon, t. iii. p. 1 70. t Vie de Maintenon. ■;}: " Elle savoit tous les secrets de I'dtat, et donnoit de tres bons conseils et de tres mauvais, selon ses passions." Lettres de Maintenon, iii. p. 283. of the mis- tresses* 144} HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. even in the command of armies. Catinat, it is well known, was deprived of a command in which he distinguished himself, because she thought him remiss in religious duties. The celebrated Mas- sillon says in his memoirs ; " Madame de Mainte- non was the only person who had a powerful in- fluence with the King. She had great talents, but at the same time all the faults of a woman jealous of her power. She had a minute knowledge of all business. She had an influence even in the choice of ministers."* The manner in which Lewis transacted business, is a proof of her influence. The minister came to her room, where he made his report to Lewis, while Madame de Maintenon sate in another part working or reading. Now and then the King turned round to her, and asked her her opinion. It is even said, that the whole portfolio of the minister was arranged before-hand with the clan- destine Queen. Sometimes indeed the King took a pleasure in contradicting her wishes, and refusing to name the person she desired to promote. But * "■ Madame de Maintenon ^toit la seule personne qui eut un credit puissant aupres du Roi. Elle avoit beaucoup d'esprit, mais en meme temps tous les defauts d'une femme jalouse de son influence. Elle avoit une connoissance d^- taUlee de toutes les affaires. Elle influoit meme sur le choix des ministres." Mem. de Massillon. II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 145 he did the same thing with his ministers. Old Le TelHer said, that after agreeing to nineteen appointments, he would often refuse the twentieth, to show he was not led. This was called by the old minister, taking his bisque. To return to the influence of Madame de Maintenon : what seems to put the question beyond all doubt, is the ac- count given by herself. Speaking of these coun- cils, she says, " when I was not wanted, which hap- pened very seldom."* Now it is clear, she could be wanted for no other purpose than to give her advice. It is said that when her opinion was re- quired, the King, turning round to her, used to ask, " Quen pense voire solidUe V "■ What does your solidity say ?"" The deference of this great King, to a lady older than himself, who held no ostensible situation, exposed him to the laughter of the world ; and William the Third, at the time when Barbe- sieux, the dissipated son of Louvois, was secretary of state, said with some humour, that most kings chose old ministers and young mistresses, but that Lewis had chosen a young minister and an old mistress.-f- * Entretiens. Lettres de Maintenon, t. iii, t Burnet, Hist, of his Own Time. Montesquieu has the same observation in his Lettres Persane's. Duclos tells the story differently. Madame Cornuel made the same obser- VOL. I, L 146 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. It was not from his enemies alone, however, that sarcasms and jests pfoceeded. The Duchess of Burgundy, the favourite both of the monarch and the mistress, said to them one day, hearing them praise the government of Queen Anne, " Ma tante (addressing Madame de Maintenon by the title she always gave her), one must allow that queens govern better than kings ; and do you know why, ma tante ? It is because under kings women govern, and under queens men govern."* It is to the credit of Lewis and Madame de Maintenon, that neither of them was offended by this sally. The character of Madame de Maintenon was at- tacked by nearly all parties ; by the friends of the Dauphin, and of the Duke of Orleans ; by the Jan- senists, the Protestants, and finally by the whole nation, at the time when the arms of France were unsuccessful, and loyalty sought for a scape-goat near the King, that might bear his sins away from his sacred person. It may be said in her favour, that as the wife and widow of Scarron, she seems vation with her usual felicity of expression. Having gone to Versailles soon after the appointment of Seignelai and Torcy, she was asked on her retui*n what she had seen at court: " J'ai vu a la cour," she replied, " ce que je n'eusse jamais cru y voir, c'est I'amour au tombeau et le ministere au berceau." M^m. de Madame, p. 294. * St. Simon. ]I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 147 to have obtained general esteem ; that her rcDu- tation was very httle attacked, even by scandal, in an age when beauty, youth, poverty, and chastity, were seldom found in the same woman ; that she remembered, with the exception of those of Ma- dame de Montespan, the benefits she had received in the days of her distress ; that she was incapable of rancour ; and that she enJeavoured, in a diffi- cult situation, to perform what she thought her duty. On the other hand it must be said, that she had no passion for good, any more than for evil : that she supplanted her benefactress ; that she had no moral courage ; that she lost many opportunities of doing essential benefit ; and con- verted a great King, soiled with human vices, into a bigoted monk without any virtues. The three chief mistresses of Lewis were suited to the time of life at which they were chosen. Madame de la Valliere had beauty and tenderness to captivate his youth ; Madame de Montespan had beauty and wit to attract his middle age ; Madame de Maintenon had the remains of beauty, with great talent, great insinuation, great devo- tion, great powers of pleasing, to charm and oc- cupy the mind in his declining age. She formed a repose, to which he gladly retired from the fatigues of stormy passion, and the caprices of imperious ambition. l2 148 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. Manners. The mannei's of the court varied, as I have said^ with the ascendency of these different mistresses. The licentiousness that prevailed at the beginning of the reign, will be better described by two or three anecdotes, than by any quantity of declama- tion or of reasoning. Anecdotes. A child of Mademoiselle de Fouilloux, maid of honour to the Duchess of Orleans, was brought up publicly by Madame d'Armagnac with her own children.* The Chevalier de Lorraine, who was the father of this child, went one day to the mo- ther, and said, " Mademoiselle, what is the matter with you .? Why are you melancholy ? What is there extraordinary in all that has happened to us ? We loved one another ; we do so no longer ; constancy is not a virtue of our age : it is much better that we should forget the past, and resume our ordinary manner. What a pretty little dog you have got ; who gave it you .'^"•f* From the same excellent authority we have another story illustrative of manners. Madame de R. and Madame de B. quarrelled at play about a sum of twelve pistoles ; Madame de B. at length tired of disputing, yielded. " Ah, Madame," said the other, " that is well for you, who have lovers • S^vignd, 30th March, 1672. f S^vign^, 1st Aprils 1672. Madame de S^vigne only adds^ " et voila le denouement de cette belle passion." . II.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 149 that give you money." " Madame,'"' said Madame de B. " I am not obliged to explain to you how that matter is, but I well know that when I entered the world ten years ago, you were giving money to yours." * Another anecdote will speak for the morals of the men. A gentleman well known at court, of the name of Villarceaux, when speaking to the King of another subject, took occasion to say, that there were persons who told his niece (Madame de Grancei), that his Majesty had designs upon her ; that if it were so, he begged him to make use of him ; that the affair would be safe in his hands, and he would answer for success. The King- laughed, and turned it off with a joke. -f- In those days any conduct was tolerated in society. Everj'^ one knows that the celebrated Ninon de TEnclos, Avho was never married, lived for several years with Villarceaux at his house ; that she had many children by different lovers, and that the paternity of one of these being disputed between two gen- tleman, was decided by throwing lots. There is nothing singular in this career; what is extraor- dinary is, that Ninon de TEnclos was the bosom friend of Madame de Maintenon, and the admira- tion of all Paris. * Sevign^, 2nd Nov. 1673. t Ibid. ' thp I have made httle mention of Lewis, it is because jgj,j]i ^f he appears to have had little to do with the mea- Colbert. sures proposed, except the original merit of bring- ing forward, by the advice of Mazarin, the mi- nister who conceived them. He began the task of reform, indeed, in the most exemplary manner. He looked over the accounts every month, and ordered no money to be issued from the treasury without his signature. But the death of Colbert was a test of the capacity of Lewis, which he was not able to bear, and he seems to have been quite incapable of following the path that this able man had traced out for him. The finances ever after depended on the will of the minister of the day ; and in the whole history of France, there is not a period of greater mismanagement than the last thirty years of the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth. The three resources upon which his government relied, were loans at an extravagant rate of inte- rest ; the creation of a multitude of exemptions from taxes, under the title of offices, with ridicu- lous names ; such as measurers of hay, inspectors 198 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. of wigs, &c. and a depreciation of the currency, frequently renewed. When, by the carelessness or corruption of the administration, the contract- ors for loans and warlike stores had heaped to- gether a mass of ill-gotten wealth, the government had no better resource than to appoint a commis- sion, which, with little enquiry, confiscated three or four millions sterling of the property of these persons ; thus imitating the disorder, rapacity, and injustice of a Turkish Sultan, rather than the deliberate and legal forms of a Christian state. It was in vain that some of the persons taxed, pretended they had never been concerned in buy- ing stock ; the order was irrevocable ; and those supposed to be the most culpable were sent to the Bastille. * Desmarets, who took the management of the finances in 1 709, has been praised for clear perceptions, and enlarged views ; nor does he seem totally unworthy of the character he has received . Yet what were his financial measures ? A national bankruptcy ; depreciation of the cur- rency ; and a too rapid attempt to restore it to its former value. Of the general system of taxation in France, and the evils it produced, I shall speak on another occasion. Suffice it to say at present, that Lewis the Fourteenth, by expending eighteen thousand * Dangeau, 12th and 20th of November, 1710. IIJ.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 199 millions of francs, in the course of his reign,* but especially by his fraudulent bankruptcies, and still more fraudulent alterations of the value of the coin, made the beginning of that mighty de- ficit, that great breach, through which the patriots of 1789 marched to the capture and destruction of the monarchy. We have now to consider Lewis in the charac- liegislation 1 . 1 • . 1 of Lewis. ter of a legislator. Very early in his reign, he re- solved to form new codes or ordinances of civil and criminal law ; to consolidate the various laws of his predecessors; to reform what was amiss; and to make the statutes of his kingdom consistent and intelligible. For this purpose, he appointed a commission to digest and prepare the work ; the Chancellor Seguier, Lamoignon, Talon, Pus- sort, and Bignon, were the chief members. In 1667 the civil code was published ; the criminal code, one for commerce, one for the navy, ano- ther for manufactures, another for forests and fisheries, followed. The design of Lewis was laudable and even grand, but the success was not equal to it ; of all his objects he succeeded only in one of the least importance. The ordinances of this reign are allowed to be written in a clear, simple style, superior to that of more recent laws ; * At the rate of about fourteen million pounds stei-ling a year. 200 HISTORY OF EUROPE mOM [cHAP. but if we look beyond this, we find that they au- thorize an unjust mode of trial, preserve nearly all the barbarities of ancient times, and leave un- touched the evil of having a separate system of laws in every separate province. The mode of trial, or what is now called the code of procedure, was grounded upon an ordinance of 1539; and that code instituted forms and regulations rigorous and unfair in the extreme. Lamoignon protested against it in the council ; he showed that it was more severe than that of the Roman law, or of any neighbouring nation ; but bigotry and an- cient habits prevailed, and the edict was renewed. According to this code, the witnesses against a prisoner were first examined secretly, without al- lowing the accused to be confronted with them. This provision was founded upon the words of the Roman law, testes intrare judicii secretum, which were thus, perhaps falsely, interpreted. The witnesses left alone, one after the other with the judge, were interrogated by him in the man- ner most likely to criminate the prisoner, and if ignorant witnesses were led too far in their first depositions, they could not afterwards retract without being tried for perjury, a crime punished with death. This custom was a fertile source of false testimony and unjust convictions. III.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 201 Let US add to this, that the prisoner himself was, according to the French mode of trial, closely examined by the judge to furnish y)roofs of his own guilt. Far from adopting the humane max- im of English law, that no person is obliged to criminate himself, the whole aim of the French proceeding was to obtain by any means, from the person accused, an avowal of his criminality. But an ignorant and frightened prisoner interrogated by a judge, who does not hesitate to employ all the skill of an advocate for the purpose of obtain- ing a conviction, can hardly fail to betray some hesitation, to fall into some contradiction, to mis- take some circumstance, which may strengthen the suspicion of his guilt. And it is found by expe- rience, that when the accused is placed in the si- tuation of a witness, a guilty person endowed with sagacity and presence of mind is more likely to escape, than an innocent man, embarrassed by ig- norance and timidity. But the examination of the French judges did not confine itself then, as it does now, to questioning orily : the means of tor- ture were employed, and the incoherent rhapsodies extorted by physical suffering, from weak frames and agitated nerves, were consideretrict economy ; a virtue which indeed is often sel- fish in a private person, but always meritorious in a king. So far did the Elector of Hanover carry his parsimony, that he would raise no troops to secure his succession; and the principal Whigs were obliged to advance from their own purses the sums ne- I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 303 cessai'v to gain some ignoble men of rank, whom 1714. nothing else could induce to join them. If we reflect on the means by which tliis great Reflections event was brought about, we shall see, it was al- Hanover most entirely effected by skilful management on succession. the one side, and the want of it on the other. The perpetual activity of the Whigs, their vigorous appeals to the nation, and their admirable party discipline, made it extremely difficult for the Jaco- bites to form any extensive combination, or to pre- pare the mind of the nation for the change they meditated. On the other hand, the indecision and insincerity of Harley broke his followers into di- visions, insomuch that, after four years of power, the Tory party was declared, by one of its leaders, to be dissolved.* Perhaps there never was an instance which so clearly demonstrated the impor- tance of political union, and the value of a few able chiefs. Circumstances, it is true, favoured their efforts ; but when men act with consummate skill, fortune seldom fails to befriend them : the reason of which is, perhaps, that they make the most of every happy trifle, and that on the other hand it requires a long continuance of untoward events to defeat them. It may be asked, however, whether the object Bolingbroke. See Swift's Correspondence. 304 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROAI [cHAP. 1714. were worth the hazard, at which it was procured ; whether the rehgion and liberties of England might not have been equally well secured, by good laws, under the hereditary descendant of the Stuarts ; and whether it were wise and prudent to incur the risk of civil war, and the certainty of long and bitter dissension, in order to exclude one royal family and admit another ? Surely, it may be said, if your limitations on monarchy are of any real value, they must be good to bind one king as well as another ; as efficient for preventing a Stuart from invading ovu' religion, as for preventing a Brunswick from overturning our political consti- tution. To these objections a short answer might be given, by appealing to experience and referring to the reign of James the Second. The securities enacted by the jealousy of the Parliament, cele- brated for tlieir prosecution of the Popish plot, and their votes on the Exclusion bill, were then found of little avail against a Prince who was de- termined to throw prerogative into the scale against law. But, even without q\>oting this decisive ex- periment, I think it may be shown, that the ad- mission of the Son of James the Second could not fail to be attended with the greatest perils and misfortunes. If we look, in the first place, to religion, it is I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 305 evident that a bigoted Roman Catholic King, and 1714. a zealous Protestant people, could hardly fail to disagree. It is easy for the Prince to promise that he will do nothing against the security of the Pro- testant church, but even if his professions are sin- cere, it is almost impossible, when the minds of men are in a state of irritation, to agree in practice on the definition of these words. The slightest alleviation of the sufferings of the Roman Catholics, the smallest relaxation of the penal code, would be considered by a jealous people, as the com- mencement of a scheme to restore the supremacy of the Pope. Besides, it must be considered that, the Pretender was not only a Roman Catholic, but a bigoted Papist ; he had been bred up by poli- tical priests, and priestly politicians, in a country where Protestants had been hunted down, and slaughtered like wild beasts. There cannot be a greater difference between one civilized man and another, than between such a bigot as this, and a mild tolerant Roman Catholic. The very profes- sions of liberality which came from the Pretender, flowed from the poisoned sources of Jesuitical counsel. In a political view, the danger of disagreement was no less imminent ; and the chance of the triumph of the restored King over the nation, much greater. Calculate, as we mav, on the ad- VOL. I. X 306 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 1714. vantages of limited monarchy, it is impossible to carry on the machinery of such a government with an unwilling sovereign. A chief magistrate, in- vested with the power of the sword, the distribu- tion of all honours and rewards, and the choice of foreign alliances, may always disturb the execution of the laws, and derange the operation of the wisest constitution. Let us suppose, for instance, that James the Third had claimed the dispensing power; that the Parliament had resisted, and that he had called in a French army to support his authority. What check could then have been put in force against him ? To stop the supphes ? That would have been to disarm the country, at the moment when its strength was required against a foreign enemy. To impeach the Ministers ? the King would have dissolved the Parliament, and never have called another till he had reduced the people to passive obedience under his sway. It is neces- sary, therefore, for the working of a limited mo- narchy, that the King should himself be willing to be limited, and unless he is so, the machinery must soon stop of itself. But, in order to have a king, with so moderate a disposition, the best, if not the only security is, that he should reign by a national, and not a personal title. For the King, who inherits an ancient crown, from a race of sovereigns pretending to be absolute, will always I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 307 be uneasy till he obtain the power which was 1714. claimed by his ancestors, and the safeguards for the people's liberties will ever be considered by him, as encroachments on his right. But he who is placed on the throne, by the summons of the people, cannot complain that he is defrauded of his lawful power, for it is only from the will of the nation that he derives any power what- ever; he cannot say that his authority is incom- plete, because all that he has is the free gift of his subjects. Let us add to this, that he is withheld from attempting to become absolute by the existence of a Pretender, whose claim, in this respect, is better grounded than his, and who is only excluded because the nation will not submit to arbitrary power, in any king whatsoever. The first attempt, on his part, therefore, to revive an exorbitant authority, would be followed by the recal of a family whose ancient guilt would be forgotten, in comparison with his more recent offence. Besides this, however, such an attempt is rendered almost impossible, at least for a long time, by the want of any party or set of men in the nation, capable of supporting his pretensions. For those who are in favour of unlimited authority, would give it to another person, and those who are in favour of his person are against an vmlimited authority. Thus, the sovereign is obliged, ulti- X 2 308 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 1714. mately, to confide in those who brought him in, but brought him in with conditions ; and the only party zealous in supporting his title, is at the same time, the most concerned in placing checks upon his prerogative. The Lords The Lords Justices named by the new King, Justices. ^gj,g chiefly Whigs, with the addition of those Tor)^ peers who had appeared the most zealous for the succession. Yet it excited some surprise, to find that neither Somers, Marlborough, or Sun- derland were in the list. The reasons of these exclusions it would be diflficult to assign. The spirit of the new goverimient was however soon perceptible. Addison was appointed their Secre- tary, and Bolingbroke, who had so long labour- ed to attain supreme power, and had so lately reached it, was now seen waiting with his papers at the door of the council; where many. passed him with scorn, who a few days before would have given half their fortunes for his smile. Still fur- Aug. 28. ther disgrace attended him. On the 28th of Au- gust letters arrived from the King, ordering his removal from his post ; Shrewsbury, Somerset, and Cowper immediately took the seals, and locked the door of his office. Meeting of The Parliament met on Sunday, the day of menr ^^^ Queen's decease. Sir Thomas Hanmer, the ^^^S- 1- Speaker, being absent. Secretary Bromley proposed I 1.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 309 that the House should adjourn to Wednesday, but 1714. Sir Richard Onslow opposing this delay, as an unnecessary waste of time, it was agreed to ad- journ only till the following morning. Three days were occupied in taking the oaths; on the Thurs- day the Chancellor made a speech to both Houses, in the name of the Lords Justices, announcing the accession, desiring the House of Commons to pro- vide for the several branches of revenue which had expired by the Queen"'s death, and excusing themselves from saying more, on the ground that they had not received the King's commands. The Commons now took their tone from Wal- pole and Onslow, two of the chief Whig members. When Secretary Bromley moved an address to the King, and enlarged on the great loss the nation had sustained, Walpole proposed to add " some- thing more substantial than words, by giving as- surances of making good all parliamentary funds." An addition to this effect was accordingly made. When the civil hst came to be voted, the Tories, under pretence of zeal, proposed to give the King Civil List. 1,000,000/., instead of 700,000Z., the revenue en- joyed by Queen Anne ; but the Whigs refusing to support the proposition, it was dropped. It is cu- rious that a similar artifice was resorted to by the Tories at the commencement of the reign of King William, when they maintained that be had a 310 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 1714; right to the revenue settled on James the Second. In neither case does this shallow stratagem appear to have had any success. The bill for the revenue passed with two new clauses ; one for paying the arrears of the Hanover troops, formerly a great bone of contention between Harley and St. John ; and the other for granting 100,000/. to any one who should apprehend the Pretender, if he should attempt to land in the British dominions. Parlia- ment was then prorogued. All eyes were now turned towards Hanover. The Elector had so far acted wisely, that he had not given any discouragement to either party. The two ministers Bernsdorf and Gortz, the former of whom had been in favour of the succession, and the latter against it, espoused, after the demise, the former the Whig, and the latter the Tory side.* Lord Strafford had always kept up a cor- respondence with Hanover, and Lord Clarendon, a person of the meanest capacity, who was sent as envoy extraordinary, just before the death of the Queen, was received by the Elector with assur- ances of his full confidence in the Queen"'s promises, and his total ignorance of the demand of a writ for the Duke of Cambridge. By language of this kind, the hopes of the Tories had been kept " Walpole Papers. Horace Walpole to Mr. Etough. [ I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 311 up, and when the death of the Queen came hke a 1714. thunderbolt falHng upon their party, they clung, in the total absence of method and preparation, to the kind words of the court of Hanover, as a foundation for their dependence on real credit and substantial power under the new government.* Halifax is said to have kept alive these expecta- tions, by projecting a kind of mixed administration, in which Mr. Bromley and Sir Thomas Hanmer were to have had high situations. But all such projects were soon scattered into air. The new King, on his arrival at the Hague, upon the sug- gestion of Both mar, appointed Lord Townshend Secretary of State, with the power of naming his colleague. Mr. Stanhope was chosen, by the ad- vice of Horace Walpole, for this situation. Lord Townshend, who was thus raised to so conspicuous a situation, was of a Tory family ; his father had been created a peer by Charles the Second. On first coming into the House of Lords, in 1696, he had voted with the Tories, but soon attached him- self to Somers, and became a warm partizan of the Whigs. He was named joint-plenipotentiary with the Duke of Marlborough to open the conferences at Gertruydenberg, and afterwards concluded the barrier treaty at the Hague, for which he was attacked by the Tory ministers. He had the cha- " Letter to Wyndham. 312 HISTORY OK EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 1714. racter of being an able man of business, well versed in negotiations, an ungraceful and perplex- ed, but sensible speaker, rough in manners, hot in temper, too fond of bold experiments in politics, but honest and honourable in the extreme. He had lately married the sister of Mr. Robert Walpole. Landing of On the 1 8th of September, about seven weeks George the 1 i 1 r. 1 /^ r^ 1 tt First. after the death of the Queen, George the rirst bept 18. jg^j^jgjj g^j. Greenwich. The chief persons in the kingdom crowded to pay their court, and explore in the countenance and manner of their new sove- reign, the stamp of their fate, and the termination of their hopes and fears. Lord Harcourt, who arrived with a patent for the peerage of the Prince of Wales, was abruptly dismissed ; the Duke of Ormond, who was hastening to Greenwich, was forbidden to appear in the royal presence, and Lord Oxford, who had shown more joy in pro- claiming the King, than his friends thought re- spectful towards the late Queen, was barely ad- mitted in the crowd to kiss the King^^s hand. New mi- 1^'^^ "^^^ administration, which had been pre- mstry ap- yiougly arranffed by Townshend, was now officially pointed. -' . ... announced. Lord Halifax was appointed First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancel- lor of the Exchequer ; Lord Cowper, Chancellor; Nottingham, President of the Council; Marlbo- rough, Commander in Chief and Master General l.J THE PEACE OF UTRECHT, 313 of the Ordnance; Wharton, who was made a 1714. Marquis, Lord Privy Seal ; Orford, First Lord of the Admiralty ; Shrewsbury, Loi-d Chamberlain and Groom of the Stole ; the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Steward of the Household ; Somerset, Master of the Horse ; Sunderland, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; Walpole, Paymaster of the Forces, with the management of the House of Commons. In this arrangement it will be seen, that nearly all the principal offices, both of the ministry and of the household, were occupied by the Whigs. Shrewsbury was the only one of the late Queen's ministers who was retained by the King, and Not- tingham, the only decided Tory, who was placed in a high office. The new cabinet consisted of the principal members of the administration, with the addition of Somers, whose infirmities did not per- mit him to take any active department. Lord Sunderland was much disappointed at being ex- cluded from the management of affairs at home, and his father-in-law, Marlborough, was scarcely less displeased at finding himself of little weight in the administration.* * His Duchess, whose opinions on political matters were always much sounder than his own, had strongly advised him not to take any part in the new government. See an admirable letter of her's on this subject in Coxe's Marl- borough, vol. iii. 314 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 1714. The policy of George the First, in putting his government so completely in the hands of the Whigs, has formed a fruitful theme of invective, especially on the part of those who were excluded, against the blindness of the Prince, and the per- secution of party. But these invectives have little solid foundation. The Elector of Hanover knew perfectly well that the Whigs were the unchange- able friends of his succession ; and what could be more natural than to assemble them round his throne, and arm them with the means of defending it ? On the other hand, he knew equally well, that half the Tories had been wavering between his title and that of his rival ; to entrust his govern- ment to their hands, therefore, would clearly have been a mark of singular imprudence. Indeed it could scarcely have been insisted upon, even by the Tories, that they, the friends of hereditary succession, should have been called to the councils of the elective Sovereign, while the Whigs, the strenuous defenders of a parliamentary title, were excluded. As to the plan of forming an admi- nistration composed of the two parties, the violence of the late disputes in Parliament, the indignation of the Whigs at the Treaty of Utrecht, and the opposite principles of government on which the two parties acted, made it totally impossible. If the King had seriously attempted such a coalition, I.] THE PEACE OF UTUECHT. 315 he would have been abandoned by the whole 1715. Whig party. So far then, George the First may be consid- ered as having acted wisely. Whether the Tory leaders should have been prosecuted, is another, and very different question. The intentions of the ministers on this subject, were partly made known by the King's proclamation for calling a new Parliament. After expressing his concern at the difficulties in which he found the public affairs, the King openly avows a hope, that the people will elect such persons " as siiovved a firm- ness to the Protestant succession when it was in danger." This language could not be mistaken. The elections went greatly in favour of the Elections. Whigs, and a large majority of that party were returned. It will appear singular, that such should have been the result of an appeal to the people two years after a general election, at which five- sixths of the successful candidates had been Tories. The influence of the crown, the discredit which had attached to the late ministry, and the loyal disposition of the people, aflbrd, however, a suffi- cient solution of this problem. The new Parliament met on the 19th of March, March 1715, when Mr. Spencer Compton, proposed by Meeting ot the ministers, was chosen Speaker. The King, in menu his speech, lamented that many essential conditions ^"&'* ^ -' Speech. 316 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 17I0. of the late peace had not been performed, and pointed out the necessity of defensive alHances, in order to insure their execution ; he regretted the injuries suffered by trade, and observed with sur- prise, that the public debt had been increased since the peace. He likewise remarked, that the Pre- tender boasted of the assistance he expected to derive from England, and that he was still per- mitted to reside in Lorraine. He concluded, by declaring his resolution to make the constitution in church and state the rule of his government, and to devote the chief care of his life to the happiness, ease, and prosperity of his people. Address of The addresses of both houses spoke in strong the Com- /» 1 i- 1 mons. terms of the dishonour of the peace, and the de- linquency of the late ministers. But the address of the Commons was by far the stronger of the two. " We are sensibly touched," they declared, " not only with the disappointment, but the re- proach brought upon the nation, by the unsuitable conclusion of a war which was carried on at so vast an expence, and was attended with such unparal- leled successes : but as that dishonour cannot in justice be imputed to the whole nation, so we firmly hope and believe, that through your Ma- jesty"'s great wisdom, and the faithful endeavours of your Commons, the reputation of your kingdoms will, in due time, be vindicated and restored." I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 317 Speaking of the Pretender, they said, " It is with 171'» just resentment we observe, that tlie Pretender still lives in Lorraine, and that he has the pre- sumption, by declarations from thence, to stir up your Majesty's subjects to rebellion. But that which raises the utmost indignation of your Com- mons is, that it appears therein that his hopes were built upon the measxires that had been taken for some time past in Great Britain. It shall be our business to trace out those measures, wherein he places his hopes, and to bring the authors of them to condign punishment.'" The passages in the King's speech, and in the ^^ajufesto addresses, speaking of the assistance which the tender. Pretender expected to receive from England, alluded to a paragraph in a manifesto issued by him, dated August 29, 1714, and sent to some of Aug, 29, the principal ministers in England, expressed in these words : " Upon the death of the Princess, our sister, of whose good intentions towards us, we could not, for sometime past, well doubt ; and this was the reason we then sate still, expecting the good effects thereof, which were unfortunately prevented by her deplorable death." It must be admitted that, whether true or false, nothing could be more cruel to his adherents, or more impru- dent, for his own sake, than the publication of 318 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 1715. such a paper, without any attempt to support it by deeds. Soon after the meeting of parhament, Sir Wil- liam Wyndham attacked the proclamation for calling a new Parliament, which he said, " Avas not only unprecedented and unwarrantable, but dangerous to the very being of Parliaments."" Being called upon to explam himself more fully, he said, " Every member was free to speak his thoughts." Upon his again refusing to explain himself, some members cried out, " The Tower, the Tower r But Walpole getting up, said, " Mr. Speaker, I am not for gratifying the de- sire which the member who occasions this debate shows, of being sent to the Tower, It would make him too considerable."" After this sensible speech, the house having first obliged Sir Wilham Wynd- ham to withdraw, resolved that he should be re- primanded by the Speaker. The menaces held forth in the address of the House of Commons were not long suffered to sleep. The papers of Bolingbroke, Strafford, and Prior having been seized, Secretary Stanhope pre- sented to the House of Commons those which were deemed of importance, and a Committee of Secrecy was appointed to examine if they afforded any just cause of impeachment. Sometime after- I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 319 wards Shippen, an honest and consistent friend of 1715- the exiled family, having insinuated that, not- withstanding the clamour which had been raised against the late ministry, the secret committee would never be able to bring any proof of their guilt, Walpole, who was their chairman, replied, that so far was this from being true, that he wanted words to express the villainy of the late Frenchified ministry. On the 9th of June, two Report of months after the appointment of the committee, mittee of Walpole presented the report, which he continued Secrecy. reading without interruption for five hours. When he had concluded. Sir T. Hanmer and his friends moved tliat the report be printed, and the farther consideration postponed to the 21st, But Wal- pole opposed this proposal; and being support- ed by Secretary Stanhope, the motion of Sir T. Hanmer was negatived on a division, by two hun- dred and eighty to one hundred and sixty. It must be confessed that the rejection of this rea- sonable motion showed a desire to precipitate accusation, which savoured more of passion than of justice. Walpole then rose again to impeach Lord Bolingbroke of high treason, and other high crimes and misdemeanours; saying at the same time, that if any member had any thing to say in his behalf, he had no doubt the House was ready 320 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [chap. ni5- to hear him. A deep silence ensued for some minutes, upon which Mr. Hungerford said, that in his opinion nothing was mentioned in the re- port relating to Lord Bolingbroke, amounting to the crime of high treason. After a short remark mento^f Bo- ^^^^ another member, the vote for an impeachment ^ "f^n '''' passed without a division. Thus unsupported was ford. Bolingbroke, in the House of Commons, which he had triumphantly led when pursuing that very course of conduct for which he was noAv impeach- ed ! Lord Coningsby then rose and said^ *' The worthy chairman of the committee has impeached the hand, but I impeach the head; he has im- peached the clerk, and I the justice ; he has im- peached the scholar, and I the master : I impeach Robert Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer of high treason, and other high crimes and misde- meanours." Mr. Auditor Harley and Mr. Foley, Lord Oxford's brother-in-law, spoke in favour of their relation ; and Sir Joseph Jekyll, who had been on the committee of secrecy, said, that al- though they had more than sufficient evidence to convict Lord Bolingbroke of high treason, he doubted whether they had sufficient to convict Lord Oxford. Another member however, stat- ing, that they had besides the papers some viva voce evidence to bring forward, the vote passed, and the committee of secrecy were ordered to I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 321 prepare articles of impeachment against the two 1715. lords accused. The report of the secret committee consisted ahnost entirely of details relating to the peace of Utrecht. As these details belong properly to the history of a former period, I shall only say that the report, supported by papers now first brought to light, affirmed that, in contravention of the article of the treaty of the general alliance, which stipulated that no treaty should be made with France, except in conjunction with all the allies, the late ministers had negotiated and signed separate preliminaries of peace, while they pre- tended in Holland that they were observing the terms of the alliance. In proof of this charge were brought forward the clandestine negotia- tions with Menager ; the separate articles signed by Lord Bolingbroke and Lord Dartmouth ; the suspension of arms ; the seizure of Ghent and Bruges ; the Duke of Ormond's acting in concert with the French general ; Lord Bolingbroke"'s journey to France ; and the precipitate conclusion of the peace of Utrecht, by which the Spanish monarchy was delivered into the hands of a prince of the House of Bourbon. The affairs of Dun- kirk and the Assiento were reserved by the com- mittee for a separate report. To say whether or no the ministers were justi- VOL. I. Y 322 HISTOllY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 1715. fied in this extreme prosecution of their prede- cessors, is a question of some difficulty. On the one hand it might be urged, that the negotiations bore decisive testimony of a collusion existing between the late ministry and the French, to the prejudice of the allies, at whose side we had so long fought ; that the nation demanded some atonement for the hasty sacrifice, by the cessation of arms, of the glory and honour we had ac- quired by so many victories ; that the allies, whom the late ministry had betrayed, would never more put any faith in us, unless the ministry were care- fully distinguished from the nation, and made to afford, by their signal punishment, a proof that the people of England abhorred their conduct; that as the prerogative of making peace and war gave a discretion to the ministers almost unbound- ed, so much the more necessary was it to punish every instance of abuse ; that it could hardly be denied, many of the late ministry were prepared to bring in the Pretender, and might still attempt it, if a check were not put to their machinations, by a strict and fearless exercise of the ancient right of punishing wicked and pernicious coun- sellors. On the other hand it might be said, that even granting the conduct of the late ministers to have I.J THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 323 been blameable, yet the approbation of two sue- 1715. cessive parliaments, and the tacit acquiescence of the nation, gave them a title to indemnity. The negotiations, which were now blazoned forth in the report of the secret committee, had been tolerably well known from the time of their taking place, and the alleged intercourse with the Pretender was by no means proved, in a manner to afford solid ground of accusation. Peace, it was well known, was the desire of a great part of the na- tion; and in giving effect to those wishes, the ministers had honestly and conscientiously pur- sued what they, and the ruling party in parlia- ment, thought the true interest of the kingdom. If every ministry were thus to prosecute their predecessors, because they did not agree in their opinions, the country would soon become a scene of disorder and vengeance, similar to the wildest and most tuibule.it democracies. Allowing, how- ever, still further, that cases may sometimes occur where measures approved by successive parlia- ments may become matter of accusation, nothing short of the strongest necessity can justify such a proceeding. But in this case soun. policy, far from urging the prosecution, was decicletlly opposed to it. The Tories, evidently routed and discom- fited, were broken, disheartened, and divided. y2 324 HISTORY OF KUROPK FROM [cHAP. I7l'>. 't^liey had permitted every office and authority to fall into the hands of the Whigs without a shadow of resistance. To throw the fire of a prosecution into this dead mass, would be to rekindle flames that were extinct, and rouse a spirit which re- quired only vigour and concentration, to become once more formidable. The reasons against the prosecution, which I confess appear to me the strongest, were not however sufficient to moderate the course of the Whig ministry. The violence of party feeling at so critical a moment, and the recollection of the danger they had just escaped, were probably their ruling motives ; less charitable observers, however, attributed their conduct to a desire of pushing their adversaries into the arms of the Pretender, and secui'ing their own favour with the King, as the exclusive friends of the House of Hanover* The behaviour of the two principal persons under accusation at this juncture, was very dif- Flight of ferent. Bolingbroke, who, on the Queen's death, Boliiig- broke. had been very confident ; who had boasted to one of his friends that in two months he would make the Whigs pass for Jacobites,* and who, by the * Lettei" to Swift^ in Swift's Worlis. I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 325 advice of Lord Trevor, had appeared very forward 1715. in Parliament, found his boldness greatly diminish when the strength of the new ministry became manifest. As things assumed a more threatening aspect, his resolution began still more to fail, and at length, considering the accusation against him might take a serious turn, he determined upon retiring to France. In pursuance of this scheme, after appearing one evening publicly at Drury Lane theatre, and bespeaking a play for the next night, he went off in the disguise of servant of one of the French messengers, to Dover, and there hired a vessel which carried him to Calais. He wrote from Dover a letter to a friend, in which he says, " I had certain and repeated informations from some, who are in the secret of affairs, that a resolution was taken, by those who have power to execute it, to pursue me to the scaffold. My blood was to have been the cement of a new alli- ance. Had there been the least reason to hope for a fair and open trial, ifter having been already prejudged, unheard, b}^ the two Houses of Par- liament, I should not have declined the strictest examination. I challenge the most inveterate of my enemies to produce any one instance of crimi- nal correspondence, or the least corruption in any part of the administration in which I was con- 326 HISTORY OF FATKOPE FKOM [chap, 1715. Conduct of Oxford. Articles of impeach- ment against him, July 8. cerned. It is a comfort that will remain with me, in all misfortunes, that I served her Majesty faith- fully and dutifully, in that especially, which she had most at heart, relieving her people from a bloody and expensive war ; and that I have always been too much an Englishman to sacrifice the in- terest of my country to any foreign ally what- soever." The Earl of Oxford, on the other hand, who had skulked about uneasy and alarmed, from the time of the King"'s landing, appeared, and took his seat in the House of Lords two days after the appointment of the Secret Committee. The day after the resolution to impeach him, he attended in his place, and seemed at first undisturbed, but finding that most of the peers avoided him, and that even Lord Poulett was shy of exchanging a few words with him, he left the House. On the 8th of July, the articles of impeach- ment against Lord Oxford, being prepared by the Committee of Secrecy, were read in the House of Commons. The first ten, which related to the negotiations for a separate peace, deceiving the Dutch, and the suspension of arms, were agreed to by the House. The eleventh article charged Lord Oxford with " traiterously aiding, assisting, and adhering to the French King," while the war 1.] THE I'EACR OF UTRECHT. 327 Still continued between France and England, and 1715. averred, that he " maliciously, falsely, and trai- terously, did counsel and advise the said enemy in what manner, and by what methods the im- portant town of Tournay, then in possession of the States General, might be gained from them to the French King." The other articles had been voted to be high crimes and misdemeanours, but this was charged as high treason. Upon this question a great de- bate arose. Sir Robert Raymond, Mr. Bromley, Sir William Wyndham, Auditors Harley and Foley, Mr. Ward and Mr. Hungerford, main- tained that the offence, if proved, did not amount to high treason, and were supported by Sir Joseph Jekyll, who being a member of the Committee of Secrecy, a lawyer, and a Whig, great weight at- tached to his opinion. Walpole answered him with some warmth, that there were, both in and out of the Committee of Secrecy, several persons who did not in the least yield to the member who spoke last, in point of honesty, and who, without dero- gating from his merit, were superior to him in the knowledge of the laws, but who at the same time were satisfied, that the charge specified in the eleventh article amounted to treason. The vote was agreed to by a majority of 247 to 147 ; and 328 HisToiiv or EuiiorE i-rom [ciiai*. J 7 15. the rest of the articles being carried, Lord Co- ningsby and a great number of members went with the impeachment to the House of Lords. His speech Upon the question that the Earl of Oxford be House of committed to safe custody in the Tower, Lord Lords. Oxford himself rose, and spoke in his own defence as follows : " My Lords ; It is a very great mis- fortune for any man to fall under the displeasure of so great and powerful a body as the Commons of Great Britain ; and this misfortune is the heavier upon me, because I had the honour to be placed at the head of the late ministry, and must now, it seems, be made accountable for all the measures that were then pursued. But, on the other hand, it is a very great comfort to me under this misfortune, that I have the honour to be a member of this august assembly ; an assembly, which always squares their proceedings and judg- ments by the rules of honour, justice, and equity; and is not to be biassed by a spirit of party. " My Lords ; I could say a great deal to clear myself of the charge which is brought against me ; but as I now labour under an indisposition of body, besides the fatigue of this long sitting, I shall contract what I have to say in a narrow compass. This whole accusation may, it seems, be reduced to the negotiation and conclusion of 1.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 329 the peace. That the nation wanted a peace, nobody 1715. will deny ; and, I hope it will be as easily made out, that the conditions of this peace are as good as could be expected, considering the circumstances wherein it was made, and the backwardness and reluctancy which some of the alhes showed to come into the Queen's measures. This is certain, that this peace, as bad as it is now represented, was approved by two successive parliaments. It is, indeed, suggested against this peace, that it was a separate one ; but I hope, my Lords, it will be made appear, that it was general ; and that it was France, and not Great Britain, that made the first step towards a negotiation. And, my Lords, I will be bold to say, that during my whole admi- nistration, the sovereign upon the throne was loved at home, and feared abroad. " As to the business of Tournay, which is made a capital charge, I can safely aver, that I had no manner of share in it ; and that the same wa? wholly transacted by that unfortunate nobleman who thought fit to step aside ; but I dare say in his behalf, that if this charge could be proved, it would not amount to treason. For my own part, as I have always acted by the immediate directions and commands of the late Queen, and never of- fended against any known law, I am justified in 330 HisrouY oi' kuropk from [chap. 1715. my own conscience, and unconcerned for the life of an insignificant old man. But I cannot, without the highest ingratitude, be unconcerned for the best of Queens ; a Queen who heaped upon me honours and preferments, though I never asked for them ; and therefore I think myself under an obligation to vindicate her memory, and the measures she pursued, with my dying breath. " My Lords ; If ministers of state, acting by the immediate commands of their sovereign, are after- wards to be made accountable for their proceed- ings, it may one day or other be the case of all the members of this august assembly : I do not doubt, therefore, that out of regard to yourselves, your Lordships will give me an equitable hearing ; and I hope that, in the prosecution of this inquiry, it will appear, that I have merited not only the in- dulgence, but likewise the favour of the govern- ment. " My Lords ; I am now to take my leave of your Lordships, and of this honourable House, perhaps for ever ! I shall lay down my life with pleasure, in a cause favoured by my late dear royal mistress. And, when I consider that I am to be judged by the justice, honour, and virtue of my peers, I shall acquiesce, and retire with great con- tent : and, my Lords, God's will be done." I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 331 Lord Oxford, when he had finished his speech, 1715'. was allowed to go to his own house, on account of indisposition. On his way home he was attended by a mob, who cried out, " High Church, Ormond and Oxford for ever !"" The question, whether the accusation against Oxford, respecting Tournay, amounted to treason, is one of some interest and curiosity. Technically speaking, undoubtedly, a charge of assisting a power, with whom England was then at war, in obtaining possession of a town held by an ally, may be said to come within the statute of Edward the Third ; but if we pass from the letter to the spirit of that law, the question to be asked is, whether Lord Oxford really intended to serve the French against his ovvn country, or whether, he conceived the surrender of Tournny beneficial to the iiiterests of the crown and of the nation ? And if this latter interpretation be adopted, which I think it ought to be, it must then be considered as a very unfair construction of the statute of treason, to impeach Lord Oxford of that criine. It has been said, that AValpole privately entert9.ined an opinion against the proceeding, but for his honour it is to be hoped this report was false. On the next day, Lord Oxford was allowed a month to 332 HISTORY OF EUROPE I'ROM [cHAP. 1715. answer the articles of the impeachment. Dr. Mead, one of his physicians, made an affidavit, that if the Earl was sent to the Tower, his life would be in danger ; notwithstanding which it was voted that he should be sent to the Tower the following mornincr. He is sent Lord Oxford was the next day carried to the Tower. Tower in his own carriage, followed by two hack- ney coaches, containing Lady Oxford, his son Lord Harley, and some others of his relations. They were attended by great numbers of the com- mon people ; and on the return of the carriages a tumult ensued, and three or four persons were carried by the constables to the round-house. Sept. 3d. Lord Oxford did not give in his answer to the articles of impeachment till the 3rd of September. It consisted chiefly of a long and laboured de- fence of the peace of Utrecht from the censures which had been cast upon it. At the same time, an endeavour was made to prove that the Dutch had not been misled by any false representations on the part of the English ministry ; and that the preliminaries, which had been signed with the French government, were not in truth the ar- rangements for a separate peace, but merely arti- cles of agreement between the belligerent powers, intended to take efl'ect only in the case of the con- I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 333 elusion of a general peace. Walpole attacked thi.s 1/15. answer with great warmth in the House of Com- mons, and a replication on the part of the Com- mons was carried up to the House of Lords. In the mean time the ministers had proceeded The Duke to other impeachments. The Duke of Ormond, who, as we have seen, entered during the latter part of the reign of Queen Anne into the cabals for bringing in the Pretender, rendered himself obnoxious to prosecution at this time by his im- prudent and vain conduct. He affected to have his levee crowded with people of rank ; he coun- tenanced the mob in crying Ormond for ever ; he dispersed a printed paper to justify his conduct before he was attacked ; and he endeavoured to excite an interest by spreading a report, that three persons in disguise, had stopt the Duchess of Or- mond in her carriage, and seemed to have a design upon his life. Excited by these bravadoes, Secre- tary Stanhope on the 21st of June, moved an im- peachment against him. The reputation of the Impeached. Duke of Ormond for unsullied honour procured him warmer defenders than had appeared for Bo- lingbroke and Oxford ; General Lumley in par- ticular, reminded the House of his gallant beha- viour at the battle of Landon, where he had been wounded, and adduced the testimony of King 334 HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM [cHAP. 1715. William in his behalf. He was supported by Sir J. Jekyll, who said, that " if there was room for mercy, he hoped it would be shown to that noble, generous, and courageous peer, who for many years exerted those accomplishments for the good of his country." But his encouragement of the late riots was urged in reply, to all that could be said of his former conduct, and after a long debate, it was resolved to impeach him of high treason; but by a majority of no more than forty-seven. It is said that at this moment Ormond wrote a submissive letter to the King, who agreed to give him a private audience ; and it is probable, that with the general feeling in his favour, the impeach- ment would not have been persisted in, if he had consented to remain quiet ; but instigated by an inordinate sense of his own importance, and the inflaming counsels of Bishop Atterbury and other Joins the Jacobites, he left England and immediately joined the Pretender. On the day following the impeachment of Or- mond, the House of Commons, on the motion of Mr. Aislabie, agreed to impeach Lord Strafford of high crimes and misdemeanours. In the course of the debate. General Cadogan, speaking of the cessation of arms, said the confederates had thereby lost the fairest opportunity they ever had had, of I.] THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 335 destroying the eriemy''s army, and penetrating into the very heart of France. It should ever be kept in mind that the remembrance of the glory missed at that time, was deeply engraved in the hearts of the Whigs, and, more than any thing else, ani- mated their present proceedings. END OF VOL. I. LONDON : fKI.N'Ti;!) BY S. ANIJ R. BtNTLEy, UOKSliT STKtliT. 2k UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 883 596 9 "^ U -y ' ■ r,fi *i'iwW '* r CtCCCcof< (?:*-€ <: Cvj'-'^"' «Xc:' <:c' <«>.«^cctrf '<1<7- <.c«<' <: ^ ^ <^^ ^<^^' ''-^-^ * ^ <^ c. 'cc ..v<«ic-'.<:c -<--<:'■<«:« <. < ^S5^<(icc<:'cr>c»cc<:^ ccc: tcc<:<'^«<:^.vC<: «i:Sd«iCG'Cc c c << CC ccc c c <:c << ^c? ■ c^: c<_ cr^ccr < «: lgj^f«ecc'XCc: c Cc^ ^c C^c' oe^^ 1-cc c c .c 4KF*- c<: --t CCiCJ^i^ccc: cc^^cc- ^c < c:«?' «&'^ ^c e c^m^t. Di<<«Ci^cc<:'cc occccc ■ ^c u CC '<;«c:C( cC'-^-CCC^i-'^C "' " -^^4C<;'.C#:CCX t-;C« rcc«c' <5-..^ J S' ^"tj^f'^cc ^tf.r «- ' c _^^:<- -^ ^ E^ ^,d 'C«c