Part 5

Our progresses were very rapid; the King’s presence, and the soldiers confidence in Marshal Saxe’s abilities, made every thing easy. It was otherwise with the Pretender in Scotland, who fled before the enemy, and at length lost a decisive battle against the Duke of Cumberland.

In these circumstances it was that M. d’Argenson wrote, though indirectly, to the English government, in favour of young Edward. A man of wit has since shewed me how extremely ridiculous this was; for had there been a design that Edward should not out-live his temerity, a better method could not have been invented for having him made away with.

That minister represented him to the court as a relation of the King’s, for whose person and qualities this Monarch had the highest value. He insisted that King George was a Prince of too much equity, not to perceive the Pretender’s son’s merit. This manifesto afterwards told the English, that they ought to admire him for those qualities of an eminent patriot, which so conspicuously shone in him. It then proceeded to the dangerous consequences which might result to England, from any severe treatment to young Edward, &c. They did not see that this declaration must have produced a quite contrary effect to that proposed. The Pretender’s crime was not his coming over to Scotland, but in being France’s ally. Consistent people said, either Prince Edward is a rebel, or King George is an usurper; and Sovereigns should not countenance rebels, nor solicit usurpers.

The invention of this intercessory letter is fathered on a Cardinal, who being a member of the sacred college, was for securing the Pretender’s retreat; whereas it was the very way to obstruct it. Accordingly England, making no account of this manifesto, set a price on his head, and some Lords who had taken up arms for him, were publicly beheaded.

Whilst all the Princes of Europe were at war together, their ministers were repairing to Breda, to negociate a peace. This necessarily increased the business of cabinets, having both military and pacific operations on the carpet. The dearth of ministers still continued in France; none could be found capable of healing the public misfortunes. M. d’Argenson, who had the foreign affairs, only increased the confusion. They were committed to M. de Puisieux, who was then at Breda, where he was ordered to feign great zeal and assiduity in bringing about a definitive treaty; this was only a feint, he was in reality employed at Versailles. On his nomination, he said to the King, _Sire, I will do all I can, but I beg your Majesty to believe that I cannot work miracles_.

Marshal Saxe humorously said, _None but a saint or a devil can set the French administration right_. This gave occasion to a courtier afterwards to say, that we must be without friends, both in hell and heaven; this so much warned saint or devil having not yet made his appearance in France.

Marshal Belleisle, having driven the Austrians out of Provence, returned to Versailles, to give the King an account of his operations. He had a strange passion for signal projects; and he proposed several to his Majesty, the least of which was to deliver Genoa, to make Spain mistress of the greater part of Italy, and strip the King of Sardinia of all his dominions, &c.

He was sent again to Provence, where the sum of his exploits amounted only to the taking of the small castle of Saint Margaret’s island. A man of genius was lately saying to me, that if good chimerical projects, and imaginary plans, made a man great, M. Belleisle was indisputably the greatest man in Europe.

In the mean time Holland, having created a Stadtholder, determined on the continuance of the war. I saw that Lewis XV. was manifestly affected with this news, whether from a concern for his people, or that the elevation of the Prince of Orange disconcerted his projects. He said in my presence to a courtier, _These Dutchmen are terrible folks; I wish their republic was a thousand leagues from any of my frontiers; it gives me more trouble than all the rest of Europe put together_.

France having now no hopes of bringing the United Provinces to a neutrality, thought of invading them; and politicians said, that it was the only way left to restore the balance in Europe, which had been lost by the continual advantages of the English at sea.

Effectual measures were taken for the invasion. The King won the battle of Lafeldt. At the same time it was determined to besiege Bergen-op-Zoom. This expedition was committed to count Lowendahl, who merrily promised to make a present of it to the King on St. Lewis’s day. Bergen-op-Zoom was taken, which threw the Dutch into the greatest consternation, as they had all imagined the carrying of that place to be an impossibility. This event shewed, that in war there is no such thing as certainty, its operations being ever subject to the caprice and inconstancy of fortune.

The congress at Breda was removed to Aix-la-Chapelle; but the courts still continued planning sieges and battles. Whilst the plenipotentiaries were settling the preliminaries, the levies for fresh troops went on with all possible vigour, and France prepared for war more than ever; but the difficulty was to procure soldiers. It has been affirmed to me, that there were large country-towns in France, which could not furnish so much as one militia-man, so that it became necessary to make the married men carry arms, though this was hurting posterity. All manner of taxes and imposts were also contrived to supply the want of money. M. Machault, comptroller-general, who had succeeded M. Orry, proposed expedients, but all of a very destructive tendency. The parliament clamoured, and openly declared in its representations, that if all the edicts concerning the finances took place, as proposed, the kingdom was undone; but it received for answer, that great evils required great remedies; and this silenced it.

At length a way being opened into Holland, by taking of Bergen-op-Zoom, and Marshal Saxe threatening to put an end to the republic; on the other hand, the southern provinces of France being reduced to a starving condition; this, with other circumstances, disposed the several powers to sign preliminaries of peace, which was soon followed by a definitive treaty. Such a situation of things promoted the public tranquility more than all the studied harangues of the plenipotentiaries at Aix-la-Chapelle.

I had the treaty read to me at Versailles; all the articles appeared very suitable to the present state of Europe, except that of Canada. It seemed to me that the appointing commissioners to settle that great affair, would only perplex it the more. I spoke of it to Marshal Belleisle, who told me that article was a state secret: we could have given it another turn, but this is best for us; it leaves things in America as they are, and we have twenty Savage nations in Canada who will revenge our loss. This revenge some years after cost us the game.

The Prince de Soubise told me some time after, that this peace had been a child of necessity; that there was not one of all the signing Princes, who could not have wished that the war had continued. Yet I can take upon me to say, that the King of France was of a different mind. He was visibly more gay than usual, and the great joy of his heart displayed itself in his countenance.

Thus at length the public calamities were suspended. Genoa, which under the Duke de Richelieu had continued to defend itself against the Germans, grounded its arms. The Spaniards and French, after being in continual action to settle Don Philip in Italy, discontinued their operations; and it was agreed that every thing should remain quiet till the publication of the definitive treaty. I longed for it more than any minister in Europe. The King had no quiet; the concerns of his crown and personal glory kept him in Flanders, and took up all his thoughts, never returning to Versailles till the campaign was quite over. My private satisfaction I could have willingly sacrificed to the happiness of the state, but sieges and battles only encreased the public distresses.

New lotteries and new taxes were established to raise the means for signing the peace; thus the public ease began with draining them to the last drop.

The Pretender’s son, who seemed quite forgotten, now makes his appearance again. Concluding, as he well might, that nobody would think of him at the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle; he began by protesting against every thing which should be done there. So little regard was paid to the manifesto which he caused to be set up, that all parties signed without minding his protestations. To this opposition he added another still more extravagant at Paris, refusing to comply even with the King’s express orders.

One of the first articles laid down between England and France, had been, that the Chevalier de St. George’s son should quit the kingdom. Lewis XV. several times signified to him the indispensable necessity he was under of adhering to the agreement. Prince Edward plainly told those who first mentioned the King’s pleasure to him, that he would not comply. I have often heard the excuse he gave for this refractoriness. _The King of France_, said he, _promised me that I should always find an asylum in his dominions; for this I have his sign manual in my pocket. A Prince who has a sense of honour, knows what obligations his word lays him under, and how greatly he exposes himself in violating it._

He treated with the King of France as with a private gentleman. He forgot that Sovereigns may fail in their word, without any breach in their honour, the good of their people so requiring. The Pretender’s son was taken into custody, as he was going to the opera. Strange reverse of fortune! On his arrival in France, he had been received with great joy, and marks of consideration. I was something concerned for this young Prince’s fate, and dropped a word or two about him to the King, who answered me with some heat, _What would you have me do, Madam? Should I continue the war with all Europe for Prince Edward? England will not allow him to be in my dominions; it was only on this condition, that she came into the peace. Should I have broke off the conference at Aix-la-Chapelle, and distressed my people more and more, because the Pretender’s son is for living at Paris?_

It must be owned that this Prince shewed an obstinacy beyond example. The King sent all Paris to represent to him the state of affairs, and express the concern it gave him, that he was obliged to remove him from his court. Though these messages were delivered to him in the King’s name, his answers were so many menaces. The Count de Maurepas spoke to him on this occasion, in the following words:

“It is with the greatest grief that the King sees himself obliged to desire your Highness to quit his dominions. I come in his name to assure you that no other consideration than the welfare of his subjects would have prevailed on him to take this step. You would have seen him inflexibly supporting your claim, had not the unhappy turn of the war laid him under a necessity of yielding to the present juncture. The greatest Monarchs cannot always do as they would. There are critical seasons where policy requires them to be pliant. Your Highness knows that; since the unhappy time when the Stuart family lost the crown of England, the Bourbon family has made several efforts for their restoration. You ought to take his intentions kindly, rather than blame his inability. I wish you had been witness to his conversation with me, when he called me into his closet to give me his orders, by which I was to signify to you his desire that you will quit the kingdom; it must have affected you. He sincerely laments your situation, but he cannot turn the tide of fate; and should you force him to take violent measures, it would give him the deepest concern.

“Lewis XV. has sent me to you, not as a King, not as a master, but as an ally, and as a friend; and, what is more, he directed me to ask it of you as a favour, that you would leave his dominions.”

Prince Edward was very laconic in his answer, drawing a pistol out of his pocket, and vowing to shoot the first man that should offer to lay hands on him. The archbishop of Paris likewise conjured him in the name of God and the Pope, but with no greater effect; religion had no more weight with him than politics, so that the extremity which the King would have avoided, became necessary. The Chevalier de St. George’s son was arrested as he was going to the opera.

The enemies of France failed not to exclaim against this violence, exaggerating it with the most odious appellations.

On searching his house, it was found turned into an Arsenal. He had arms enough to stand a siege in form. It was talked at court that he had determined to fight singly himself against a whole regiment, and then set fire to a barrel of powder, which communicated with others, and thus blow up himself, with all that belonged to him. The King, on being told this, said, “A very ill-timed bravery, indeed!”

The peace, however, spread an universal joy through all ranks. There were only two men in the kingdom who were not satisfied with it, the Marshals Saxe and Lowendahl. The former expressed his discontent to the secretary of war in this manner: “After the battle of Fontenoy, said he, we were in a fair way of making ourselves masters of Holland, and putting an end to that troublesome republic; for these merchants, with their shipping and their wealth, are the mischief-makers of Europe; they are the necessary allies of our natural enemies the English. The great work of their destruction was nearly finished; why did we not go through with it? If we again give the republicans time to fortify themselves, they will be as daring as before; and the time may come when France with all its forces will not be able to bring them to reason. Destroying Holland is cutting off England’s right arm; and every body knows, that all France’s policy should center in weakening Great Britain.

“Of what consequence has the victory of Fontenoy been? What is France the better for the taking of Bergen-op-Zoom? All those efforts of courage, all the lives of so many gallant officers who fell in Flanders, were purely thrown away. If these places were to be restored, and the Dutch and the house of Austria to be put on the same footing as each of them was before the war, it had been much better there had been no war at all. France’s giving back its conquests, was making war against herself; her very victories have ruined her; her enemies have retained all their former strength, whilst she alone has weakened herself. Her subjects are fewer by a million, and her finances reduced to little or nothing.”

These speeches reaching the King’s ears, he said, “I understand the language of those generalissimos; they are for ever dwelling on red-hot bullets.”

The count de St. Severin d’Arragon, who had made the peace, undertook to demonstrate the fallacy of such reasonings; and the King has often repeated to me his arguments. “Sire, said he, the conquest of Holland made no part of the plan of this war. All France aimed at, was to keep the Dutch from declaring. The end of our many sieges and battles, was not to destroy their republic, but only to bring it to pacific terms; so that in forcing them to lay aside their arms, the council of state’s view is fully answered.

“Your Generals will have it, that after the battle of Fontenoy, and the taking of Bergen-op-Zoom, the United Provinces might easily have been overrun, and the States-General have been brought under the dominion of France. They are mistaken; the weapons of despair are invincible. To compel a people to the necessity of being conquered, is the ready way to lose a conquest. The sovereignties once settled, are no longer subject to destruction; they are reciprocal counterpoizes; should only one fall under the power of another, the whole balance of Europe would be destroyed. It is long since war has afforded any of those decisive blows, which, in the time of the Romans, changed the face of the political world. A province may be mastered, but the invading of kingdoms is out of date.

“Granting, Sir, that the ardour of your troops, breaking through the common ways, had reduced Holland, it would have been a conquest not only useless, but have thrown France into fresh troubles; all Europe, in a body, would have declared war against you. The great powers, jealous of the house of Bourbon, have long been watching an opportunity of giving it a decisive blow.

“Right policy, instead of making a noise, silently takes a bye-way to its ends; let us insensibly weaken the Dutch, but never think of destroying them. They are a barrier against the great northern powers. They secure us from the incursions of the Germans, whom the Romans themselves could not check, and who at last overthrew the empire of the Cæsars.

“But a great deal is said about the easiness of our conquering, and not a word how easy it was to conquer us. What induced me, Sire, to put the finishing hand to the great work of the peace, is the disorder of the finances, the depopulation of the state, and the scarcity of provisions.

“The Comptroller-general has acquainted me that he knows not where to find any more money. The intendants of the provinces have wrote to the war-office, that it is utterly impossible to raise another militia; to which the intendant of Guienne adds, that in his province the people are starving; those, Sire, were my motives for hastening the conclusion of the peace.”

These reasons, however, did not prevail with the great men of the army, who still wanted to be fighting. They were big with hopes, which the peace seemed to quash. I remember Lewis XV. one day talking on this subject, said to me, _that he had not a general officer in his troops who cared what became of the state, if he could but get a Marshal’s staff_.

The King, who had rewarded Marshal Saxe, did not forget the Count St. Severin, making him a minister of state. This Count, though not a great genius, had good rational sense, which he made to answer as well as a superior understanding. He was slow in business, but sure; and his phlegmatic disposition was better adapted to surmount those difficulties, which ever put fervid and eager minds to a full stand. He was a stranger to agitations; his passions moved in subordination to political laws. Resentment, anger, sallies of passion, spirit of party, with all the other prepossessing foibles which ruled most ministers, were never seen in him. Those he used to call the reverse of the medal of plenipotentiaries. In a negociation he moved straight on to his drift, without stopping by the way. He had a natural love for peace, and thus the more chearfully applied himself to forward a definitive treaty.

M. de Belleisle told me, that he found one great fault in him, which was the want of a proper regard to military men, however illustrious by their rank or merit; for after all, added he, there is no making a good peace but by dint of victories; and it is the general, and not the plenipotentiary, who gains battles.

France however was quite spent; the means made use of for supporting the war had been so violent as to break all the springs of power. The ministers complained greatly of the state of France, and openly said, at the peace, that they did not know where to begin the administration.

Paris is not the place where the general distress most manifests itself. The luxury, such as it is, prevailing there conceals the public indigence. There poverty itself appears in embroidery and ribbons, whilst in all the other parts of France it goes quite bare. The court had written into the provinces for a report of the state of things. M. de Belleisle has shewn me several memoirs of those times, transmitted to Versailles by the intendants of the provinces. The tenour of the first way this:

“MY LORD,

“You ask me for a state of the finances in this province; that is soon done: there are none. I don’t believe that the whole province could produce a hundred thousand livres in specie: the poverty is so general, that all distinction of ranks is at an end. The louis d’ors are like to become scarce pieces, so as soon to be seen only in the cabinets of the curious.”

The other is from the intendant of a province naturally very fertile, but which could not be cultivated for want of money. His report to the minister was as follows:

“MY LORD,

“There is no representing to your Excellency the present distress of this province; the land yields little or nothing; most of the farmers, unable to live by the produce of their farms, have quitted them; some are gone a begging, others have lifted in the army, and not a few have escaped into foreign countries; the gentry and nobility are little better off, being put to the utmost difficulty to answer the taxes and impositions on them.

“Of fifteen hundred thousand acres of arable land, which used to support this people, at present six hundred lie fallow; what a diminution this must be to the general subsistence, your Excellency readily sees. A village which, before the war, supported fifteen hundred inhabitants, can now scarce support six hundred; and a particular family, which was able to feed six children, and as many labourers, can now provide food only for five. The cattle are diminished no less than the men, so as not to be sufficient for tillage; and in most of the villages men do the work of oxen.

“I have traced this calamity to its source, and I find the evil proceeds from the general want of cash: to prevent the consequences of this diminution, I could wish that the court would be pleased to advance to this province, by way of loan, the sum of fifteen hundred thousand livres, to be geometrically distributed among the industrious poor. This, in my opinion, is the only remedy left to avert greater evils.”

The third of these memoirs was from another intendant, who paints the depopulation in these sad colours.

“MY LORD,

“The king’s subjects are daily decreasing in this province; it will soon be without inhabitants. Having directed the parish-priests to bring in lists of the christenings and burials, I find that the number of the dead exceeds that of the living; so that, should this depopulation go on twenty years longer, and God continues my life during that time, by my calculation, I shall be the only living creature, of the human species, in this province. Fifteen years before the last revolution of the finances, this district contained fifteen hundred thousand souls, and now if there are nine hundred thousand, it is the most. Yet how, my Lord, can it be otherwise? Of fifty of the king’s subjects, scarce two have any thing of a subsistence; the others must necessarily perish. A marriage is seldom heard of; so that all the new-born children are the fruits of debauchery.

“I cannot point out any remedy to these distresses. In the present crisis of the monarchy, it is God alone who can rescue it out of the abyss into which the misfortunes of the times have cast it.”

The fourth was from a sea-port, whose deputy thus delivered himself before the ministry.

“Trade, which had been declining for several years, is now fallen into a total stagnation. Our ships lie in the harbours, useless both to the state and their owners. We have little or nothing for exportation; the produce of the country scarce affords a very scanty subsistence; and our manufactures are at the lowest ebb. All our trade is in the hands of the English and Dutch.