Part 10

It was on a Prince who might be looked on as a Lorrainer, that she was conferring the title of presumptive heir; for Charles VI. dying without male-issue, the house of Austria had ended in him. The circles of the empire accounted this measure a greater act of despotism than that of the late emperor; as hereby the empire, from an elective constitution, not only became hereditary, but even escheated to a foreign family: loud complaints were made, and that was all. It is now about a century, that the petty princes in Germany have not been able to shew their resentment against the house of Austria, any farther than by complaints and murmurs.

Maria Theresa, knowing how far her forces were superior to any which the Northern Princes could oppose to her designs, communicated her plan to the other courts of Europe, and to France one of the first. The King shewed me the Austrian ambassador’s reasons, digested into writing by M. de Puisieux, after a conference with that minister. The artful turn given to them by ambition, makes them worthy of being preserved.

“The calamities still recent, said that Ambassador, which the vacancy of the Imperial throne, on the demise of Charles VI. brought on Europe, should move Christian Princes to prevent the like. The Emperor now reigning is in full health, and it may be presumed, that God will grant him length of days: but should one of those many accidents to which human nature is liable, disappoint the public hopes, and shorten his valuable life, Christendom would be plunged in the same abysses, as on the decease of the last Emperor. It is therefore the concern of all the European powers to prevent a war, that scourge which throws every thing into confusion, lays waste whole nations, and thins mankind. The calamities caused by the late vacancy of the empire are not likely to be brought to a speedy end, and what will it be should new disturbances be accumulated on the former?

“Too many precautions cannot be taken against evils, which, when once happened, cannot be averted, or the issue of them determined.

“By the election of a King of the Romans, the views of Princes who may have formed designs, are prevented; and the coronation once over, will suppress all cabals and intrigues about being head of the empire. When a sceptre is vacant, a great stir is made after it; but when once possessed, it is no longer thought of.

“Archduke Joseph, indeed, should the Emperor die, is not of age to govern his dominions; but the evils of minority cannot be compared to those which the want of a head to the empire would occasion.

“Not that the Queen of Hungary is in the least apprehensive of her heirs being deprived of a throne, the legal appenage of her family; her leading motive in this settlement is to prevent the needless effusion of blood.

“On the death of Charles VI. it was seen that all Europe cannot make an Emperor. The Elector of Bavaria, after being placed on that throne by foreign armies, was always in a tottering condition; so that had not death deprived him of the crown, he would have been obliged to resign it, &c.”

I have observed that ambassadors, in cases of personal interest, generally overlook the regard due to Princes by the law of nations. Here the Vienna minister would have France subvert the very foundations of the Imperial constitution, and make that crown hereditary, which had always been elective. He surely forgot that the house of Bourbon, as I have been told, had, at the treaty of Westphalia, made itself a guarantee of the liberties and privileges of the empire. His court seemed not to recollect that the election of a King of the Romans depended on the consent of the electors, in a diet held expressly for such election.

The King, on reading this Memoir, asked M. de Puisieux what he thought of the business. _Sir_, answered the Minister, _you must consent to every thing; it is no longer worth France’s while to meddle with the affairs of Germany; at present the King of Prussia is able to keep up the balance in the North, and hinder the house of Austria from lording it over yours; so that all we have to do now, is to look on_. The council, however, was of a different opinion; but it is not the first time that one man has been wiser than an assembly.

The court of Vienna was likewise busy in bringing the other courts of Europe to countenance this election. That of England represented to the Marquis de Mirepoix, that it was the interest of France to close with the making a King of the Romans; doubtless, because it was theirs. This court afterwards went farther, and George the Second affirmed, that the election of a King of the Romans did not depend on the Electoral college; that is, that the dignity of presumptive heir to the empire might be conferred without any deliberation of the electors, which was making the Imperial crown absolutely hereditary.

I remember all the memoirs of that time agree in the Archduke’s being very young, but they all likewise added, that an Emperor under age was better than a vacancy of the throne, which amounts to an approbation of a regular succession.

A politician of our court, with whom I was talking of this election, told me, that there was an article in the treaty of Westphalia, which formally settled this affair. It is there expressly said, _That no election of a King of the Romans shall be entered on, unless the reigning emperor be out of the empire, and with an intent to be absent a long time, or for ever; or that age should render him incapable of government; or there should manifestly appear some great necessity on which the safety of the empire depended_. But treaties are never followed, and no more was said of this, than if it had never existed.

The King of Prussia alone stood up in defence of the Electoral-college; but he had his reasons for this specious conduct. The election of a King of the Romans secured the empire to the house of Austria; and it has been believed by many, that he himself looked that way. There is indeed no ambition, of which a Prince, so powerful in war as to subdue several nations, is not susceptible.

I return to Versailles, from whence the affair of the King of the Romans has carried me too far. Lewis XV. as I have said elsewhere, was now a little relieved from the load of business imposed on him by the war; peace allowed him a leisure, which was the very felicity of my life. Amidst the confusion of sieges and battles, he had no settled residence. Flanders had several times deprived me of him; but the treaty of peace entirely restored him to me, and his confidence in me daily increased; so that he even imparted to me his uneasiness, for kings have their troubles both as men and as Princes.

Lewis XV. would often lament, that he had no friends, and had a thousand times wished to have been a private person, for the sake of cordial friendship and sympathy, to the effects of which Kings are always strangers.

“No sooner have I distinguished a subject by some considerable post, but a hundred others, jealous of the favour, grow out of humour with me; and, at the same time, I do not get the love of him on whom I have conferred the benefit; he complains that I have not done enough for him, and they, for my having done nothing for them. All love favour, and care little for the King. I see about me only sordid souls, slaves to pride and ostentation, acting only from interest; so that were it not for the many favours emaning from the throne, they would not move a finger. Another, and rather worse, inconveniency annexed to the crown, is the impossibility for kings to distinguish honest men from those of a different cast. They are so like each other, as to be generally mistaken; for at court vice and virtue appear in the same colours. The bulk of those about me, I strongly suspect to be void of any one generous principle; but when I am for sifting them, my rank will not allow of the proper measures. Thus they remain impenetrable to me, yet I must employ them in the service of the state; and hence arise those public misfortunes, for which I am answerable both to the present time and to posterity.

“When some important choice is to be made, and I have pitched on the person, all France seems to lay their heads together to deceive me. His talents, his merit and virtue, are cried up to me; not one honest man do I meet with in the kingdom to mention a word of any fault of his; they are afraid of incurring the displeasure of him whom I have so recently distinguished by my favour; and to this mean spirited fear they sacrifice both me and the state.

“When, on the other hand, I withdraw my confidence from a minister, or some other place-man, then I am told that he is deficient in every political quality: those very persons who could never say enough in his praise, now draw him in the most contemptible colours; all his faults and errors, and sinister practices, are laid open to me in full detail. The terrible accounts given of him from all hands set me against him, so that I cannot bring myself to employ him, even though, by the reflections on his past conduct and disgrace, he should afterwards become thoroughly qualified for a public station.

“A patriot King is the most unhappy mortal under the sun; he has his country’s happiness at heart, and is beset by people who cross his good intentions. The ministers are the first in ruining a state, to save themselves the labour of reforming abuses: to leave things as they are, is soonest done; in the mean time, the evils continue, and when a Monarch, tender of the welfare of his subjects, would remedy them, he meets unsurmountable impediments; for the habit of a long and bad administration at length comes to supersede the laws and usages, &c. &c.”

Another time Lewis XV. was pleased to open himself to me on the same subject: “A great misfortune to a King is, that ministers generally conceal the true state of things from them. Sovereigns are always made acquainted with the calamities of their dominions the last; and this, lest such information should put them on taking the reins of government into their own hands; and every one makes it his study to keep them in the dark. The immense variety of concerns in a large monarchy, obliges him to trust to ministers, and these ministers, for the greater part, play false with him. On the last war, I consulted those who were at the head of the administration, whether the advantages of victories would balance the inevitable misfortunes of battles: one and all assured me, that by no other way could the kingdom be retrieved, than by the glory of my arms; and that the lustre and advantages derived from the victories, would be the more lasting and solid, as due only to the nation’s own strength.

“At the peace, I found they had deceived me; my subjects are in the utmost distress, and all owing to the war; so that to recover themselves must be the work of years; and should fresh disturbances happen, it will never be done, &c. &c.”

I likewise had my complaints. “Sir, said I to the King, my grievances, tho’ of a different nature from yours, are not less painful. The rancour of all France is pointed at me. The royal family inveighs against me; his royal Highness the Dauphin takes all opportunities of affronting me: your ministers look on me as the fatal rock on which all their designs go to wreck. The chief families of the kingdom treat me with contempt; and all this because your Majesty has thought me worthy of your esteem.

“Many carry their malevolence so far, as to impute the disorders of the finances to me, as if the administration of affairs was lodged in my hands. I am accused of having all the money in the kingdom; I am changed with the nation’s debts, as if I myself had contracted them. On any minister’s failing in his duty, the blame is immediately laid on me. I am exclaimed against for his being preferred, and his disgrace is imputed as a crime to me.

“It is I who bear the blame of all political misfortunes; and if I have not been directly accused of having declared war against your enemies, it has been said, that I might have prevented those murderous sieges and battles, as if the fate of Europe was at my beck, and I could model foreign courts.

“I have been reproached with the oversights of your generals; not a battle has been lost, not a siege has been raised, but it is all owing to me. So much as their personal variances and quarrels are laid at my door.

“The public distresses, though the consequence of a bad administration, and the misfortunes of the times, have been attributed to me, as if my doing. The populace has hissed me, and was often for stopping my coach, and has been near coming to those extremities against me, with which they only are treated whose notorious malversation has manifestly ruined a people.

“Yet, Sire, what gives me most pain, is the ingratitude of those who have felt the effects of my favour. I have often sollicited your Majesty for persons, who were no sooner out of the meanness and obscurity from whence I drew them, than they forgot the kind hand by which they had been raised. I can reckon, hitherto, about three thousand persons who owe their subsistence to me. It is through my care that they have been brought into new stations, where they lost sight of me before they were well warm in their places.

“Of such a great number, not one have I found with any due sense of gratitude: nay, the greater the preferment, the less their acknowledgment; some have even busily caballed against me: those whom I thought most my friends, and whom the important services I had done them should have made such, have been the first in deceiving and injuring me. I have discovered treacheries at which I shuddered; so that since my living at court, I am grown sick of mankind. I should have died a thousand times under the anguish which such injurious treatment has caused me, had not the kindness with which your Majesty honours me reconciled me to life, &c.”

The death of the Prince of Wales,[5] eldest son to George II. and as such, presumptive heir to the crown of England, made some impression at Versailles: this Prince is said not to have been remarkable for those eminent qualities with whose brilliancy the world is so much taken: but they who knew him personally, perceived in him the more solid virtues: compassion, goodness, sensibility, tenderness, candour, affability, a readiness to oblige, and delight in doing good; these were his leading dispositions: a Prince, in a word, qualified to make a people happy. He had married a German Princess, intirely deserving to ascend the throne with him. I have often pitied this Lady’s fate, to lose an affectionate husband and a powerful crown at once, is one of those events which elevated souls alone can bear with firmness. His death occasioned a revolution in political affairs. France had great hopes of things going better, when that Prince should have come to the throne: there was no cordial harmony between him and his father King George. The son often crossed the father’s measures, so that they seldom saw, and seldomer spoke to each other. From this disposition it was hoped, that a Prince, who so much disapproved the present system, would be less inveterate against the house of Bourbon than his predecessors had been. It was imagined that his accession would prove a happy turn for France, when, perhaps, it might have only made matters worse. The sons of Kings, at their entrance on regality, leave their ideas as Princes at the foot of the throne, and take up those of Kings.

George II. is said not to have shewn any great concern at the death of his son, appearing as usual in the drawing-room, and, within a few days, giving audience to Ambassadors: in this there might be a little affectation, it being the known character of that Prince to shew himself firm and unshaken, in the midst of the most unfortunate events. The rest of the royal family were in the deepest affliction: he was also greatly lamented by his houshold; and I am told, that his death is still matter of concern to many.

The death of this Prince likewise caused a national uneasiness, his children being very young, and King George advanced in years, which might be productive of the disorders almost inevitable under a minority. In order to prevent them, the Princess Dowager of Wales was nominated guardian to the King’s successor, and regent of the kingdom, till her son should be of age; but the issue of the deliberation was, that this Lady, who had come into England to wear the crown, should be neither Queen nor Regent.

The French clergy’s affair, though thought to be over, was still going on. The bishops and wealthy incumbents, amidst the privacy of their dwellings, to which they had been ordered, disturbed the state; though ardently desirous of returning to Paris, they were for coming at this privilege as cheap as they could, haggling a long time with the King, who, however, would make no abatement. They insisted on their immunities, they pleaded their solemn promise to the Pope to maintain their rights. This dispute irritated the court, and not a little soured the King. At this juncture, a bishop took it into his head to come and expostulate with me about the clergy’s prerogatives. This certainly was not taking the right time, for as this affair gave so much displeasure to his Majesty, it could not be very pleasing to me. The Prelate made a long-winded harangue, in proof that the church was not to disseize itself of its wealth. He recurred as far back as St. Peter, and through an enumeration of those bulls, by which the church is ordered to keep what it has came down to our times. “My Lord, said I interrupting him, your prerogatives are what I know nothing of, but I know that your chief duty, like that of other subjects, is to obey the King. Say what you will of your bulls and immunities; every body of men declining to conform to its Sovereign’s orders, is guilty of rebellion, and deserves the punishment of high treason.”

A great many bad books came out against the clergy, in vindication of the King’s cause. Among the several writers who, on these occasions, take different parts, one wrote a pamphlet with the title of _An Impartial Inquiry into the Immunities of the Clergy_. This work was full of very judicious reflections, besides a nervous elegancy of stile: it was indeed the only one on the subject which deserves reading.

After all, it became necessary that the plan which had been proposed, and to which I myself had advised the King, should take place. This was to draw up a state of the value of every churchman’s preferments, that each might be taxed in proportion to his real income; and accordingly the court ordered the intendants of the provinces to oblige all the beneficed clergy to deliver in an account of the nature of their several revenues. There was indeed a very hard clause, in case of a refusal; the intendants being expressly enjoined to seize on the several revenues in the King’s name, and leave the beneficiaries only an alimentary pension. This was insuring their compliance; for being used to superfluity, they could but very indifferently shift with no more than was necessary.

The clergy of France had already begun to lower their voice, when the parliament of Paris raised theirs. I could find in my heart to say, that in France the state is ever out of order; no sooner has the Sovereign repaired some weak part of his prerogative, than another appears to be running to ruin.

The parliament, instead of conforming to his pleasure, according to their usual way, sent a deputation with remonstrances. These speeches set out with great protestations of respect and submission, but are seldom without some term which favours of a republican spirit, tending to independency; and not seldom they strike at the prerogative of the crown.

The King, though naturally irresolute, had his intervals of firmness, in which he was immoveable. He gave the deputies to understand, that he would have his edicts enrolled that very day, under penalty of disobedience and immediate punishment.

The parliament were sitting when the deputies returned to Paris; being forbid to deliberate, they registered the edicts. After this act of duty, which they stiled deference, a second deputation was dispatched to Versailles. These gentlemen began their harangue in this manner: _Your Majesty has commanded, and your parliament has obeyed_.

A courtier said, that there they ought to have stopped, all the remainder of their long speech being quite useless and superfluous.

The King was pleased, in the evening, to mention this affair to me; and his having got the better of the parliament, made him much gayer than usual; but this extraordinary chearfulness raised in me some misgivings. To me, a body whose temporary submission excited in its master such a lively joy, appeared dangerous.

FINIS

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] The dukes of Richelieu, Mazarin, and Fleury.

[2] The military school was but just instituted.

[3] The country of Final, which belonged to the Genoese.

[4] 1751.

[5] 1751.

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Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

runs in his viens=> runs in his viens {pg 13}

if the the least=> if the least {pg 17}

Monsieur d’Etrees=> Monsieur d’Estrées {pg 21}

Chales VII. the cause of this general=> Charles VII. the cause of this general {pg 64}

in those impractiable=> in those impracticable {pg 70}

being less estemed=> being less esteemed {pg 74}

the Duke de Richlieu=> the Duke de Richelieu {pg 97}

to M. de Puysieux=> to M. de Puisieux {pg 105}

the Duke de Richlieu=> the Duke de Richelieu {pg 111}

the Marshall de Noailles=> the Marshal de Noailles {pg 132}

view: M. Rouille=> view: M. Rouillé {pg 173}

is an inquitous assessment=> is an iniquitous assessment {pg 179}

frequently with M. de Pusieux=> frequently with M. de Puisieux {pg 183}

great Conde’s enemies=> great Condé’s enemies {pg 210}