While the preliminaries were being signed at Turin, the reverses of Prince Charles Edward freed the English Government from a pressing embarrassment; and on the very day (December 26th), the conclusion of the Treaty of Dresden enabled Maria Theresa to detach thirty thousand men for the army of Italy. The Sardinian ministers began to repent of the haste with which they had listened to the French overtures; they saw that they had embarked upon a desperate venture, in which it would be folly to persist; and henceforth their only care was to obtain an armistice which might enable them to relieve Alessandria and to improve their military position. Finding that in the proposals upon which Champeaux was demanding a final answer, the preliminaries of the 26th of December had been extended, they refused to accept the extension, and they demanded that in case the Spanish Government failed to accede to the treaty, the menace with which Louis XV. had tried to influence it should be made a definite stipulation, and the French troops withdrawn from Italy at the end of two months.
The news of the proposed treaty was received at Madrid with passionate outcries. So far from consenting within forty-eight hours, Philip V. addressed to his nephew an indignant letter of remonstrance; and a special ambassador was despatched to Paris with orders to check the progress of the negotiation. At first the treaty had been kept an absolute secret between d'Argenson and the King; but it was now a subject of popular rumour, and it became necessary to communicate it to the Council.
A storm of opposition was at once let loose, and feeling the King's resolution wavering, d'Argenson resolved upon a decisive step. On the 17th of February, relying upon the good faith of the Court of Turin, he signed the armistice between France and Sardinia.
Meanwhile the Sardinian plans were complete. The great Austrian reinforcement was approaching Mantua; the Piedmontese army was ready to march, while Maillebois, trusting to his instructions, remained inactive, and without a suspicion of the event which was preparing. He was soon undeceived. His son, who was in charge of the armistice, received a letter warning him not to approach Turin unless he was prepared to make the concessions demanded by the King of Sardinia, to raise the siege of Alessandria, and to declare the armistice immediately. This Maillebois was unable to do; he was supplied with passports, and informed that on the following morning (March 5th) the Piedmontese army would be put in motion. A few days afterwards eleven French battalions were surprised at Asti, and their surrender opened to the Sardinian troops the road to Alessandria.
Exactly two days before, the prolonged resistance of the Spanish Court yielded to the determination of d'Argenson; and Philip V. and Elisabeth Farnese accepted the Treaty of Turin. They were soon to hear that the plan they had striven so obstinately to frustrate had been destroyed by the perfidy of Sardinia itself.
The news of the fall of Asti created consternation at Paris; and a host of d'Argenson's enemies, headed by Noailles and Maurepas, were only too eager to fasten the blame upon the Foreign Minister. The King was carried away by the tide of reaction; and after the fashion of weak men, he rushed to the opposite extreme. Everything was done to propitiate Spain. Noailles was charged with a special mission to the Spanish Court, where he used his opportunities to decry the Minister; and most fatal step of all, the commander in Italy, Maillebois, was instructed, for the rest of the campaign, to yield the initiative to the Spanish generals. The two armies were divided by jealousies and suspicions; the Austro-Sardinians pushed their advantage; and by the end of the year the French were driven to the borders of Provence and the Austrians entered Genoa.
Such was the famous fiasco of Turin. The project was doomed from the beginning. The whole history of diplomacy could afford no more intricate play of cross-purposes. Not one of the parties to the negotiation understood the position of the rest; and it was only by a masterly comprehension of its own that the Sardinian Government escaped with success. Upon the conditions of the attempt and the causes of its failure it is unnecessary further to enlarge. For the present purposes it is principally important as perhaps the one event in the whole course of d'Argenson's ministry for which his responsibility is clear and decided; and it is the one event which plainly reveals his greatness and weakness as a practical statesman, and displays the very qualities and defects a previous knowledge of him might have led us to expect. That matter may be dealt with more conveniently when our impressions of his ministry have to be reviewed.
It was one of d'Argenson's political convictions that French influence in Germany was to be best established by refraining from provocation of the German powers. Throughout the winter of 1745 he was engaged in a series of tedious negotiations with the various Electoral Courts, designed to secure the neutrality of the Empire. His plans were successful; and he was able, with the co-operation of Frederick and of Maurice de Saxe, to banish the war entirely from Germany, and to confine it to Italy and Flanders. The conduct of these measures has secured the commendation of his most critical historian.
There remains to be considered a curious series of events, which serves to illustrate the peculiar relations subsisting in the French Government, and the embarrassments by which statesmanship was beset.
In July, 1746, Philip V. of Spain died; and the event was followed immediately afterwards by the death of his daughter, the Dauphine of France. The new king, Ferdinand, was strongly desirous that the young French prince should espouse the sister of the late Dauphine; and the proposal was supported by a powerful party at the French Court, at the head of which were Noailles and Maurepas. The project was distasteful to Louis XV., and it was rejected, ostensibly upon religious grounds. It is suggested that d'Argenson's qualms were occasioned, not by an access of unwonted scrupulosity, but by the hope of repairing the disaster of Turin by the betrothal of the Dauphin to a daughter of the King of Sardinia.[367] Louis was favourable to the scheme, and negotiations were actively begun; but the determination of Sardinia to press her advantage in Italy led to their suspension.