504

SUBMISSION OF BELGIUM.

[BOOK VI. before he left Florence, had declared his disapproval of the innovations of his predecessor, had promised a complete amnesty, confirmed the Joyeuse Entrée, and even extended the privileges of his rebellious subjects; but without effect. An army of 20,000 men was raised, and placed under the command of Van der Noot; but this force, which attacked the Austrians on the Meuse, was beaten in almost every rencounter (autumn of 1790). It had been settled at Reichenbach to hold a congress at the Hague, which was opened in September, and attended by Austrian, Prussian, English, and Dutch ministers. The Belgian provinces also sent deputies; but as they still continued refractory, and demanded that France should be associated in the negociations, the mediating Powers declared, October 31st, that unless they made their submission within three weeks, they would be abandoned to their fate. This declaration was in accordance with a manifest published by Leopold at Frankfort, on the 14th of that month, announcing that if the Netherlanders should not have returned to their duty by November 21st he should cause an army of 30,000 men to enter their provinces. The insurgent states made use of the last moments of their independence to offer the sovereignty to Leopold's third son, the Archduke Charles. This step, however, did not arrest the march of the Austrians, under Field-marshal Bender. They entered Namur November 24th, and Brussels December 2nd, when the rest of the Belgian towns submitted. On December 10th the ministers of the Emperor and the mediating Powers signed, at the Hague, a definitive convention,56 and the provinces sent deputies to tender their submission. The Netherlanders were guaranteed in their ancient rights and privileges, with some new concessions, and a general amnesty, containing only a few exceptions, was proclaimed. The Republic of the Belgian provinces had lasted scarce a year. The Archduchess Christina and her husband, the Duke of Saxe Teschen, made their solemn entry into Brussels, June 15th 1791; but though the aristocratic and more powerful party, which was in favour of kingly government, had submitted, democratic disturbances, in connection with the dominant faction in France, still continued.

The disturbances in Hungary had also been calmed. Leopold was quietly crowned at Pressburg, November 15th 1790. The Emperor's son, Alexander Leopold, whom the Hungarians had unanimously elected their Palatine, assisted in placing the crown upon his father's head. The King of Hungary had, in the previous

56 Martens, t. iii. p. 342.

October, received at Frankfort the Imperial Crown, to which he had been unanimously elected, with the title of Leopold II. Leopold's government in the Austrian dominions was reactionary. One of his most important regulations was the introduction of the secret police, which he had established in Tuscany, principally, it is said, for his amusement. Leopold expired suddenly, March 1st 1792, in consequence of errors in diet, and the use of incentives which he prepared himself. He was forty-five years of age at the time of his death. He had had sixteen children, of whom fourteen survived him. He was succeeded in the Austrian monarchy by his eldest son Francis, then twenty-five years of age, who, in the following July, was elected and crowned Roman Emperor at Frankfort, with the title of Francis II. Leopold had invested his second son, Ferdinand, with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Meanwhile the war had continued between Russia and the Porte. The campaign of 1790 began late. Under Potemkin, Suvaroff, and other generals, the Russians captured Kilia Nova, October 29th, and two or three other places subsequently surrendered. But the grand feat of the year was the taking of Ismail by assault, by Suvaroff, December 22nd. This desperate enterprise was not achieved without great loss on the part of the Russians, who stained their victory by the horrible butchery which they committed. The campaign on the Kuban and in the Caucasus was also favourable to the Russians. Several engagements took place at sea. A bloody but indecisive battle was fought near the Gulf of Jenikale, July 19th 1790, and on September 9th Admiral Ouschakoff entirely defeated the Turkish fleet near Sebastopol.

Fortune also favoured the Russian arms in 1791. The principal event in the campaign of that year was the defeat of the Grand Vizier, Yussuf Pacha, by Prince Repnin, near Maczyn, July 10th. The victory was chiefly due to General Kutusoff, who commanded the Russian left wing. On the third of the same month, General Gudowitsch, with the army of the Caucasus, took Anapa, the key of the Kuban. On August 11th, Admiral Ouschakoff, after a severe engagement, defeated the Turkish fleet off Kara Burium, or the Black Cape. But on that very day the preliminaries of a peace had been signed at Gallacz.

Catherine II. having refused to accede to the Congress of Reichenbach, or to accept the mediation of Prussia with the Porte, Frederick William put a large army on foot; and Great Britain declared to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, that, whether the mediation of the allied Powers were accepted or not, she should demand for the Porte the strict status quo ante bellum. In

506

PEACE OF JASSY.

[Book VI. pursuance of this declaration a large fleet, destined for the Baltic, was equipped in the English harbours, and the Dutch were called upon to furnish their contingent. But a war with Russia was very unpopular in England, on account of the lucrative commerce with that country. It was warmly opposed by Fox and Burke; Pitt himself was not anxious for it; and the retirement of the Duke of Leeds, the foreign secretary, who was succeeded by Lord Grenville (April 1791), marked the adoption of a more pacific policy. Shortly before, the allies had obtained the consent of Denmark to act as mediator between Russia and the Porte; a mediation which Catherine accepted. She continued, however, to reject the strict status quo, though she was not unwilling to accept a modified one, which should give her Oczakoff and its territory; and in this demand she was supported by Count Bernstorff, who, as Danish minister, conducted the mediation; but on condition that the fortifications of Oczakoff should be razed. The allies consented; new propositions were made to Catherine on this base, and, after considerable negociation, preliminaries were signed, August 11th, at Gallacz, between Prince Repnin and the Grand Vizier. The negociations for a peace were transferred to Jassy, whither Prince Potemkin hastened from St. Petersburg to conduct them. The idea of a Peace was very distasteful to Potemkin, who was in hopes of obtaining Moldavia and Wallachia for himself, as an independent principality; nor did he altogether despair of attaining that object by his negociations. But the sittings of the Congress had scarcely begun when he was seized with a malignant fever then raging in those parts; and to which, perhaps, the agitation of his spirits contributed to give a fatal result. He left Jassy, October 15th, for his favourite residence Nicolajeff. But it was not permitted him to reach it. He died on the road the following day, in the arms of his favourite niece, the Countess Branicka. The PEACE OF JASSY was signed January 9th 1792. The Dniestr was now established as the boundary between the Russian and Turkish Empires, and thus Oczakoff was tacitly assigned to Russia; which Power restored to the Porte its other conquests.57

57 Martens, t. v. p. 67. Also in Wilkinson's Moldavia and Wallachia, p. 230 sq.

CHAPTER IX.

In the events that agitated Eastern Europe since the Peace of 1763, and which have been recorded in the two preceding chapters, we cannot help observing the decline of the political influence of France. That Power seemed to be no longer the same that had dictated the Peace of Westphalia, and terrified all Europe during the reign of Louis XIV. by her arms and negociations. An abstinence so repugnant to her natural temper, was imposed upon her only by the necessities of her internal condition, and especially by the disorder of her finances. So great was her need of repose, that one object alone, the desire of striking a blow at England, might tempt her to draw the sword. The Peace of Paris was felt as a humiliating blow by both the Bourbon Courts, and especially by that of Versailles. The Duke de Choiseul, in conjunction with Grimaldi, minister of Charles III. of Spain, made some endeavours to reopen the treaty of 1763 and renew the war with England. Circumstances, however, were not yet ripe for such an undertaking, and they deemed it prudent to defer their projects of revenge to a more favourable opportunity. A diabolical scheme which they had formed (1764) to burn the dockyards at Portsmouth and Plymouth, was fortunately discovered in time by Lord Rochford, our ambassador at Madrid, and happily frustrated.'

As the financial embarrassments of France paralyzed her foreign policy, so the profligate conduct of Louis XV. and his court was daily alienating the people and producing in their minds that disgust and aversion which ultimately overthrew the monarchy. The death of Louis's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, in April 1764, was only followed by a deeper plunge into vice and shame on the part of the now elderly monarch. He seemed, indeed, for a while, to be awakened to a sense of repentance and amendment by the death of his ill-used consort, Maria Leczynska, in June 1768; but these symptoms were of short duration. In the autumn of that year, his valet de chambre Lebel, the purveyor of his infamous pleasures, introduced to his notice one Jeanne Vaubernier, a woman of abandoned character, the mistress of the proprietor of a tennis

Coxe, Spanish Bourbons, vol. iv. p. 317.

508

INFAMY OF LOUIS XV.

[BOOK VI. court. This creature at once acquired a complete ascendancy over the sensual monarch. He married her to an elder brother of her former keeper, created her Countess du Barri, and introduced her at court, nay, even to his own daughters.

It might be derogatory to history to narrate these particulars, but for the fact that, under the ancient régime, the reigning mistress too often controlled the destinies of France. Such was the case in the present instance. The pride of Choiseul forbade him to court the infamous and base-born favourite; and he even tried to awaken Louis to a sense of his disgrace in "succeeding all France." His indignation appears to have been sharpened by disappointment. His sister, the Duchess de Grammont, had failed to attract the notice of the King, and found herself supplanted not only by a woman without reputation, but even a roturière. The new mistress, however, was supported by the Chancellor Maupeou, and by the Duke d'Aiguillon, ex-governor of Brittany, a bitter enemy of Choiseul's, who had formerly purchased the King's favour by sacrificing to him his mistress, Madame de la Tournelle, afterwards Duchess of Châteauroux. In about a year the intrigues of this faction effected the overthrow of Choiseul. Louis dismissed that minister December 24th 1770, on the ground that he had nearly involved France with Spain in a war against England, and in a letter brutally abrupt, directed him to proceed within twentyfour hours to his château of Chanteloup.

The annexation of Corsica to France had been among the last acts of Choiseul's administration. That island had been under the dominion of the Genoese since the year 1284, when they had conquered it from the Pisans. The government of the Genoese Republic had been harsh and tyrannical. The cruelty exercised by its agents in collecting the taxes had occasioned an insurrection in 1729; since which time the island had been in a constant state of anarchy and semi-independence. They elected their own chiefs, and in 1755 they had chosen for their general the celebrated Pascal Paoli, second son of Hyacinth Paoli, one of their former leaders. Pascal Paoli, whose father was still alive, was now in his thirtieth year. He held a command in the military service of Naples, and was distinguished by his handsome person as well as by his abilities and courage. Having established himself at Corte, in the centre of the island, he organised something like a regular government, and diverted the ferocious energy of the Corsicans from the family feuds in which it found a vent, to a disciplined resistance against the common enemy. The French had assumed the part of mediators between the Genoese and their