His pleasure at the event is only qualified by the pitiful contrast presented by the King upon whom his hopes had so long been built.
Such are the principal features of this delightful correspondence. It was continued with more or less intermission until the end of 1744, when d'Argenson found occasion to exercise his friend's pen in matters of more than epistolary weight. Throughout the difficulties of an arduous ministry, his task was lightened and his efforts cheered by the encouragement and co-operation of Voltaire.
[IV.]
NOVEMBER, 1744—JANUARY, 1747.
Foreign Politics—D'Argenson's Ministry—1745: The Convention of
Augsburg—The Convention of Hanover—The Imperial Election—The
Treaty of Dresden—1746: The Negotiation of Turin—The Saxon
Marriage—Review.
At the end of 1740, d'Argenson had succeeded his brother as chancellor of the Orleans household;[257] in November 1744, he was invited to accept a place in the Government as Minister of Foreign Affairs.[258] His brother, Count d'Argenson, was already Minister of War, and since the dismissal of Amelot in April, had been signing the despatches of the Foreign Office.
The appointment of a man without any diplomatic experience or high official knowledge to what was, in the circumstances of the moment, the most important position in the Ministry, might well, at any other period, have given occasion for remark. At this time, however, the Government was peculiarly constituted; its policy was dictated by Marshal de Noailles, who had no official position; and all that was required of the new Minister was not plans or policies of action, but the dutiful deference and docility of his predecessor. The eyes of Noailles would have opened widely could he have read some of the pages which the new Secretary had already devoted to the principles and conduct of French foreign policy.
D'Argenson's ministry lasted rather more than two years, and came to a close in January 1747. The period was an eventful one; and our knowledge of it is derived from diplomatic correspondence in every capital in Europe. The evidence has been digested in several important works, notably the elaborate study in four volumes by the Duc de Broglie,[259] and the comprehensive monograph by M. Edgar Zevort.
These works are valuable and authoritative, but their conclusiveness may be disputed. There are many suggestions with which any one who has made a close personal study of d'Argenson may find it difficult to agree; while the divergencies of detail, and sometimes of conclusion, between the two writers, the admirably chosen series of documents given by M. Zevort, and, above all, a careful acquaintance with d'Argenson's own Journal for ten years before, suggest the necessity and afford ample scope for some independent criticism. It would seem, indeed, that these works have been undertaken primarily with a view to the general history of France; and that no adequate effort has been made to determine d'Argenson's real share in the events for which he bears the official responsibility. There is only too good reason to know that in many critical conjunctures, the foreign policy of France was only pursued because the Foreign Minister was powerless to avert it. Indeed there is reasonable ground for suspecting that no pains have been spared in comprehending everything but the Marquis d'Argenson himself; and that, if the perusal of his official despatches had been illumined by the study of his unofficial memoirs, the character of his action might have been explained more naturally than by the suggestion of stupidity or confusion of mind.
It is true that M. Zevort endeavours to illustrate d'Argenson's political principles from his own "Essai de l'exercice du tribunal européen par la France seule;" but it may very well be doubted whether this piece possesses the importance which has been attached to it. It was written shortly after, or possibly before, the fall of Chauvelin, and at least seven years before d'Argenson's accession to the Ministry. In November 1737, when it appeared in manuscript, France was at peace, Fleury was still Minister, the war between Spain and England had not broken out, the old House of Austria was not yet extinct, and Frederick was still Prince Royal of Prussia. In the interval the face of Europe had wholly changed. Moreover the "Essai" consists of no more than half-a-dozen widely printed pages, placed at the end of the 1764 edition of the "Considérations,"[260] and omitted altogether from that of 1784. It contains a few loose remarks about Russia and the northern powers, with some views upon Spain and Austria which are the commonplaces of d'Argenson's Journal. Almost the only remarkable feature are some significant words upon the position of England, which show that the shadow of 1763 was already falling across the path of France.[261] Indeed the piece appears to be really nothing more than a brief academic essay, written, as we learn from the title-page of the manuscripts in the Library of the Arsenal, as a note upon St. Pierre's "Projet de la Paix Perpétuelle."[262] That the author regarded it as of small importance is clear from his failure to exhibit in his Journal any further affection for its leading idea, the exercise of international arbitration by France alone; his subsequent criticism of Fleury is little more than a consistent denial of it; and we can point to at least one passage where its central principle is categorically rejected.[263] It is true that the conception of a benevolent arbitration exercised by France remained as a shadowy and distant ideal before d'Argenson's mind; but that it had ever any serious influence upon his practical ideas of policy there is no evidence to suggest. Even if it be admitted, with M. Zevort, that these were "the ideas, some ingenious, others chimerical, almost all beyond realisation, which d'Argenson nourished in 1737," it may be denied, with some distinctness, that "he brought them to the ministry in 1744."[264]