CHAP. I.] MARRIAGE OF LOUIS XV. 309 favourable comments. His religious scruples, however, were removed by the Papal Nuncio; after much apparent reluctance, Philip again ascended the throne, and Elizabeth Farnese reigned once more, to the detriment of the peace of Europe. Meanwhile a congress had been opened at Cambray to decide the questions between Austria and Spain. The Duke of Bourbon was inclined to support the interests of Spain, and to form an intimate alliance with that country; but he was governed by his mistress, Madame de Prie, who had been bought by Walpole-Stanhope was now dead-and inherited Dubois's English policy, together with his pension. The effrontery of this woman brought about a crisis in the policy of Europe. Bourbon had not face enough to make Madame de Prie's complaisant husband a duke and peer of France; but he solicited for him a Spanish grandeeship-a request which was scornfully refused by the Court of Madrid Madame de Prie revenged herself by persuading the Duke of Bourbon to marry Louis XV. at once, instead of waiting till the Spanish infanta should become marriageable; and that princess was sent back to Spain without even a word of apology (April 1725). The French Court at first endeavoured to procure for the young king a granddaughter of George I.; but it was, of course, impossible that a sovereign who held his throne by virtue of his Protestant tenets should consent to such a match. Mary Lescinska, daughter of Stanislaus, the ex-King of Poland, was then selected to be Queen of France. The family of Stanislaus was at that time residing at Weissembourg, in Alsace, on a small pension allowed them by the French Government, and were not a little surprised and delighted at this unexpected turn in their fortunes. Mary, who was nearly seven years older than her husband, was married to the French King September 4th 1725. The dismissal of the Infanta naturally gave the deepest offence to the Spanish Court. Philip immediately recalled his ambassador from Paris, and his ministers from the Congress of Cambray, which was consequently broken up; and he declared that he would never be reconciled with France till Bourbon should come to Madrid and beg pardon on his knees. Yet he had himself been secretly preparing to inflict the very same insult of which he so grievously complained. Philip, when he found it impossible to come to any terms with the French Court, and that nothing was likely to be done at the Congress of Cambray, had reconciled himself with the Emperor, Charles VI. The Baron Ripperda, a Dutchman, who had turned Catholic, and had contrived to replace Alberoni, of whom he was a sort of parody, in the confidence of Queen Eliza 310 THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION. [Book VI. beth, had been despatched, in the autumn of 1724, to Vienna, with secret instructions from her to negociate a marriage between her son, Don Carlos-already affianced, as we have seen, to Madlle. Beaujolais and the eldest Archduchess, Maria Theresa.25 Almost the sole object of the Emperor's policy at that juncture, he being without male heirs, was to secure the succession of his daughters, according to the PRAGMATIC SANCTION which he had promulgated in 1713. By this instrument the Austrian succession was regulated in the order of primogeniture, first in favour of his male descendants, and, in their default, of females. In case these also should be wanting, Charles next appointed the Archduchesses, daughters of the Emperor Joseph; then the Queen of Portugal and other daughters of the Emperor Leopold, and their descendants in perpetuity.26 As he advanced in years, the Emperor, despairing of male issue, had caused the PRAGMATIC SANCTION to be confirmed by the Austrian States, and by those of Silesia, Bohemia, and Hungary. The weak point of it was that Charles's daughters were named to the succession before those of his elder brother, the Emperor Joseph I.; and this in the face of a contrary Act of Succession made by his father, the Emperor Leopold, in 1703, by which it was provided that, in default of male heirs, the Austrian inheritance should first fall to the daughters of Joseph.27 By cancelling this arrangement, Charles VI. indicated that a like fate might overtake his own, nay, made indeed a precedent for such an occurrence; and hence his anxiety to obtain a confirmation of the Pragmatic Sanction from foreign Powers as well as from his own subjects. To procure the guarantee of Spain, he was inclined to meet the advances of that Power; while Philip, after the dismissal of his daughter from France, urged Ripperda to conclude with the Cabinet of Vienna almost at any price. Two treaties, a public and a secret one, were accordingly signed at Vienna April 30th. By the former, the two sovereigns mutually renounced their claims to each other's dominions; Philip guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction and opened the Spanish ports to German commerce; while Charles promised to use his good offices to procure the restoration of Gibraltar and Minorca to the Spanish Crown, and recognised Don Carlos as heir to Parma and Tuscany. The assent of the Germanic body to this arrangement respecting the 25 Coxe, Spanish Bourbons, vol. iii. p. 101. Ripperda had been the Dutch ambassador at Madrid in 1715; in which capacity he attracted the notice of Alberoni, and gained the confidence of Philip V. by his insinuating manners, who took him into his service. Garden, Traités de Paix, t. iii. p. 135, note. 26 Menzel, Neuere Gesch. der Deutschen, B. v. S. 127. 27 Pfeffel, Abrégé chronol, de l'Histoire d'Allemagne, t. ii. p. 453. CHAP. I.] ALLIANCE OF CHARLES VI. AND PHILIP V. 311 Italian duchies was expressed in a subsequent treaty between the Emperor, the Empire, and Spain, signed June 7th 1725.28 By these treaties Philip renounced all the advantages which he had hoped to attain through the mediating Powers at the Congress of Cambray, and acquiesced in the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht and of the Quadruple Alliance. They contained nothing, therefore, calculated to offend either England or France; but such was not the case with the secret treaty. Nothing of course was certainly known of this except through the imprudent and foolish boasting of Ripperda; but it was believed that marriages had been arranged between the two archduchesses, Maria Theresa and Maria Anna, and Don Carlos and Don Philip, the sons of Philip V. by Elizabeth Farnese; that the contracting parties had agreed to effect the restoration of the Stuarts; and that the Emperor had engaged to assist Philip in the recovery of Gibraltar and Minorca by force. The marriage of Don Carlos might one day revive the empire of Charles V. through the union of Spain and Germany. The exultation displayed by the Court of Madrid, and the honours lavished upon Ripperda, who was made a minister and grandee of Spain, strengthened the alarm of the French and English Cabinets. Their suspicions were soon confirmed by the confessions of Ripperda himself, whose vanity and presumption brought upon him the hatred of the Spanish grandees, and deprived him of the confidence of the Queen. In a few months he was driven from his office, and took refuge in the hotel of Stanhope, the English ambassador, to whom he revealed the whole of the negociations between Spain and the Emperor. Philip dragged him by force from this asylum, and caused him to be confined at Segovia. After these revelations, war seemed inevitable. George I., during his sojourn at Hanover in 1725, engaged Frederick William I. of Prussia to conclude at Herrenhausen an alliance with France and England (Sept. 3rd). 29 The Dutch, in the interests of their commerce, threatened by the establishment of an East India Company by the Emperor at Ostend, acceded to this alliance, known as the Alliance of Hanover, by a treaty signed at the Hague, August 9th 1726.30 Sweden and Denmark, which Powers were to be subsidised by England and France, also acceded in March and April 1727.31 On the other 29 Dumont, t. viii. pt. ii. pp. 106, 113, and 121; Lamberty, t. x. Suite, p. 128. Dumont, t. viii. pt. ii. p. 127; Lamberty, t. x. Suite, p. 159. This treaty affords the first instance of a prince of the Empire entering into a formal engagement with a foreign Power not to execute the obligations imposed on him by the Germanic Constitution, viz. to furnish a contingent of troops, in case the Empire should declare war against France. Garden, Hist. des Traités, t. iii. p. 140. 30 Dumont, t. viii. pt. ii. p. 133. 1 Ibid. p. 141 sqq.; Rousset, Recueil, t. iii. p. 114. 312 ALLIANCES OF VIENNA AND HANOVER. [BOOK VI. hand, the Empress of Russia, incensed by the conduct of George I. in protecting Denmark and Sweden against her designs, as will be explained in a subsequent chapter, joined the Alliance of Vienna August 6th 1726;32 and in the following year Frederick William of Prussia, who had never heartily approved of the Hanoverian League, secretly did the same. Thus all Europe became divided between the alliances of Vienna and Hanover; and though both sides pretended that these treaties were only defensive, yet each made extensive preparations for war. George I. entered into a treaty with the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel for the supply of 12,000 men; manifests were published, ambassadors withdrawn, armies put on foot; the sea was covered with English fleets; an English squadron under Admiral Hosier annoyed the trade of Spain; and in Feb. 1727 the Spaniards laid siege to Gibraltar, and seized at Vera Cruz a richly laden merchant vessel belonging to the English South Sea Company. But all these vast preparations led to no results of importance. Of all the European Powers, Spain alone had any real desire for war. The mediation of Pope Benedict XIII.,33 the death of Catherine I. Empress of Russia (May 17th 1727), the Emperor's principal ally, and above all the pacific character of Cardinal Fleury, the French minister, prevented the outbreak of a war. In June 1726, Louis XV. had dismissed the Duke of Bourbon and called Fleury to his counsels, who was then seventy-three years of age. He adopted the pacific policy of the two preceding Governments; and nothing can show in a stronger light the necessity of peace for France, which could be maintained only through the entente cordiale with Great Britain, than that three statesmen of such different characters as Orléans, Bourbon, and Fleury should have agreed in maintaining it. The preliminaries of a general pacification were signed at Paris, May 31st 1727, by the ministers of the Emperor, France, Great Britain, and Holland, and a congress was appointed to assemble at Aix-la-Chapelle to arrange a definitive peace. But Spain still held aloof and sought every opportunity to temporise. The hopes of Philip being again awakened by the death of George I. in July 1727, he renewed his intrigues with the Jacobites, and instigated the Pretender to proceed to a port in the Low Countries, and to seize an opportunity to pass over into England. But these unfounded expectations were 34 32 Dumont, t. viii. pt. ii. p. 131. 23 Cardinal Orsini, who had succeeded Innocent XIII. in 1724. Fleury, however, who must not be confounded with the Abbé of the same name, did not obtain a Cardinal's hat till September 1726. CHAP. I.] CONGRESS AT SOISSONS. 313 soon dispelled by the quiet accession of George II. to the throne and policy of his father; and by the readiness manifested by his first Parliament to support him with liberal grants of men and money. The Spanish Queen, however, still held out; till, alarmed by the dangerous state of Philip's health, whose death might frustrate her favourite scheme of obtaining the Italian duchies, and leave her a mere cypher without any political influence, she induced her husband to accept the preliminaries by the Act of the Pardo, March 6th 1728.35 A congress was now opened at Soissons, to which place it had been transferred for the convenience of Fleury, who was bishop of that diocese. But though little remained to be arranged except the satisfaction of Spain in the matter of the Italian duchies, the negociations were tedious and protracted. Spain by her large military preparations seemed still to contemplate a war, and by the conclusion of a double marriage between the Prince of Asturias and the Infanta of Portugal, and the Prince of Brazil and Infanta of Spain (Jan. 1729), was evidently endeavouring to withdraw Portugal from the English alliance. The Spanish Queen still entertained an implacable resentment against France and England, and spared no exertion to bring the Emperor into her views. But the conduct of that sovereign at length undeceived her. In order to obtain the guarantee of all the Powers to the Pragmatic Sanction, the sum of all his policy, he raised every obstacle to the negociations. He thwarted the Spanish interests with regard to the Italian duchies, by objecting to the introduction of Spanish garrisons, and by reviving obsolete pretensions of the Empire to Parmesan and Tuscan fiefs, so as to diminish the value of those inheritances. Thus the negociations at Soissons became a mere farce, and the various plenipotentiaries gradually withdrew from. the Congress. Meanwhile the birth of a Dauphin (Sept. 4th 1729) having dissipated the hopes of Philip V. and his Queen as to the French succession, Elizabeth devoted herself all the more warmly to the prosecution of her Italian schemes; and finding all her efforts to separate France and England unavailing, she at length determined to accept what they offered. She had previously tested the Emperor's sincerity by demanding that the Italian fortresses should be occupied by Spanish, instead of neutral troops, and by requiring a categorical answer with regard to the projected marriage between the Archduchess and Don Carlos. The Emperor having returned an evasive answer, she persuaded Philip to enter into a separate treaty with France and England, which was con 35 Dumont, t. viii. pt. ii. p. 146, 150; Coxe, Spanish Bourbons, vol. iii. p. 219. |