The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

This was the first serious rebuff which the diplomacy of Louis had sustained. His minister at the Hague, d’Estrades, had assured him again and again that he need not be under any apprehensions of the formation of a confederation contrary to his interests under the leadership of the Dutch, because by the constitution of the United Provinces every treaty required the sanction of the estates of the different provinces, and it would be quite easy to ensure its publication, and bring about its defeat, when it was proposed for their acceptance. He overlooked the fact that during the war with England the provincial estates, in order to prevent unnecessary delays, had delegated their powers to a small commission of eight members, and had never resumed them. So while d’Estrades was awaiting in confidence the publication of the full text of the proposed treaty before the provincial estates, de Witt quietly procured the consent of the commission of delegates, and the treaty was signed and ratified before the French knew that it had been even discussed. Louis only heard of the secret article from Charles II. himself. He at once saw the gravity of the crisis, and determined to put himself in the best possible position for subsequent action. Though it was the middle of winter Condé received orders to advance into Franche-Comté at the head of 15,000 men. On the 1st of February his soldiers crossed the frontier. In a fortnight the whole country was at his feet, and Louis went in person to Besançon to receive its submission. Beati possidentes is a diplomatic truth which was just as thoroughly understood by Louis XIV. as by Napoleon.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668.

But unlike Napoleon, Louis knew when he had gone far enough. He was not going to stake everything on the chance of success in a war against a combination of European powers, which was certain to grow larger as time went on. He had already a securer foundation on which ultimately to raise the edifice of French domination over the Spanish Netherlands in his secret partition treaty with the Emperor. The terms of the Triple Alliance guaranteed to him the possession of Lille, Tournai, and Charleroi, the three fortresses which would make France impregnable on her north-eastern frontier and open to her the gate of the Netherlands. The show of moderation at this juncture would do much to disarm the suspicion of Europe, would give him time to mature his plans for the future, and enable him to make very substantial additions to his power in the present. So Louis declared himself willing to negotiate for peace, and on May 29th, 1668, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed between France and Spain. By it France gave back Franche Comté, having dismantled the fortresses, and received Charleroi, Binch, Ath, Douai, Tournai, Oudenarde, Lille, Armentiéres, Courtrai, Bergues and Furnes, with their districts. Some of these towns, such as Courtrai, Oudenarde and Ath lay within the Netherlands, but in the line of fortresses which stretched, roughly speaking, along the frontier from Dunkirk to Charleroi, and included Lille, France had now an adequate defence for her capital. Paris was safe and the invasions of the years of the Fronde could never again recur.

The war of devolution added to the ambition of Louis XIV. the passion of revenge. It ministered to his pride by showing him the immense superiority of his armies, and the predominance almost unchallenged of his diplomacy. Hatred of Louis for the Dutch. No soldier had been found to face his troops in the field, no fortress had dared to resist his attack, the success of his diplomacy had even broken the traditional alliance between the Emperor and Spain. Germany had remained unconcerned while Spain was being devoured. There was but one blot on this fair picture. One power had dared to enter the lists with the all-powerful Louis and had given him a fall. The Dutch had been the heart and soul of the Triple Alliance. Without them it would never have been called into existence. The assistance of England and Sweden was merely fortuitous. It was the Dutch who were organising a policy and laying down principles of action. It was galling enough to think that they had ventured to break away from their condition of humble tutelage. To the Huguenots of France and to Henry IV. the Dutch owed their very existence, so every Frenchman believed. That they should be permitted to thwart the cherished schemes of the king of France unpunished, to show to Europe the way by which it could successfully resist French ambition, and yet go scot-free, was impossible. From the day of the signing of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louis set himself to prepare a deadly punishment for the insolent republicans who had dared to thwart his will. Europe should learn by a terrible object-lesson that the vengeance of the king of France was as swift as his spirit was magnanimous.

An additional incentive to the claim of European supremacy.

This determination to punish the Dutch meant for France and for Louis the deliberate adoption of a policy which had for its object supremacy over Europe. After the success of the Triple Alliance Louis could not conceal from himself the probability that an attack upon the Protestant maritime and republican power of the United Provinces would almost certainly lead to a coalition of European powers against him. Germany would never stand aside to permit the destruction of the Dutch. It was more than doubtful if the careless Charles would have the inclination or the firmness to keep England neutral. Every hour that Charles of Spain lived diminished the value of the partition treaty as a bribe to the Emperor. Louis could only wipe the United Provinces from out the map of Europe by making himself the master of Europe. For four years he hesitated before striking the final blow. But everything led him in that direction. In his own court, besides the fulsome atmosphere of adulation in which he lived, which must have weakened his judgment, many influences were urging him on. Lionne, the cautious and trusted minister of foreign affairs, was dead. Louvois, the indefatigable minister of war, had raised the army to a pitch of perfection hitherto unknown, and was anxious to prove its powers. The very success of Colbert’s finance made Louis too easily forget the real limits of the resources upon which he was drawing so lavishly. The nobles, ousted by design from politics, now found their only sphere of activity in the army, and were eager for war and for glory. Abroad diplomatic success contributed its spur to his ambition. The Triple Alliance overthrown, 1670–1672. The Triple Alliance was already a thing of the past. In May 1670 the secret treaty of Dover bound Charles II. hand and foot to France. In November 1671 the Emperor agreed not to assist the enemies of France. In April 1672 Sweden returned to her old alliance, and undertook to attack the Empire if the Emperor helped the Dutch. Finally the bishop of Münster and most of the smaller princes of Germany promised either assistance or neutrality. The Great Elector alone remained stubbornly aloof. These astonishing results of his diplomacy, added to the ceaseless importunities of his court, fired Louis’s ambition and overcame his prudence. Forgetting that promises so easily made can be still more easily revoked, he gave the signal for a war of aggression pure and simple, which brought its appropriate and ultimate reward in the wreck of his ambition and the exhaustion of France.

The United Provinces.

Europe must have been craven-hearted indeed if it had stood tamely by, wrapped in the cloak of its own selfishness, to watch the death-throes of the United Provinces. The history of their war of independence was sufficient to stir the emotions of every generous soul, the use which they had made of the liberty which they had won such as to guarantee its continuance in the mind of every prudent statesman. Trained to a rough and hard life by a constant struggle with nature, consecrated to a sturdy individualism of character by the religion of Calvin in its most uncompromising and fatalistic form, the peasants from the marshes of Holland and the fishermen from the sand-banks of Zealand had found in the breath of liberty the elixir of a national life. Under the leadership of the burghers of Amsterdam and Dordrecht, at the initiative of the nobility of Zealand and Guelderland, with the support of the scholars of Leyden, the union of Utrecht, formed in 1579, gave to Europe a new nationality, and planted in the very midst of the great monarchies a confederation of tiny republics. Reasons for the success of the war of independence. Nothing could have preserved their independence at first except a strange combination of national virtues, natural advantages, and political fortune. Persecution had fanned the flame of patriotism till it burned at a white heat. Under the pressure of a long struggle with a superior power even vices turned into virtues. Slowness and obstinacy became refined into patience and endurance, dulness into obedience, sloth into fidelity. Never did men fight with greater heroism, with more complete self-forgetfulness, than these rude sailors and fishermen who wrested their liberty and their religion at the edge of the sword from the pride of Spain. The physical characteristics of the country aided them. Campaigns were difficult in a land which at any moment might be restored to the sea by the cutting of a dyke. Sieges of towns open to the sea by a power which had no navy were fore-doomed to failure. Political complications aided them also. The opposition of France and the jealousy of England made the task of Spain far more difficult. But neither the sympathy of the Huguenots, nor the gold of Elizabeth, nor the marshes of Holland, nor the defeat of the Armada, would have availed one jot to save the confederation from ultimate ruin had it not been for the tenacity, the patriotism, and the self-sacrifice of the nation itself. Never since the days of Miltiades and Themistocles did a people better deserve their freedom than did the patient Dutch under their silent prince when the dagger of the assassin laid him low in 1584. They had not long to wait, for although the formal independence of the United Provinces was not acknowledged by Spain until the peace of Westphalia in 1648, they had ceased to be under any fear of subjugation since the death of Philip II. in 1598, and had been able since the beginning of the century to transfer their attention from the preservation of their liberty to the development of their power.

Constitution of the United Provinces.

The confederation formed by the Union of Utrecht in 1579 was an example of a kind of government seldom found in history to be permanent, namely a loose confederation of sovereign states. The confederated states were seven in number, Holland, Friesland, Zealand, Utrecht, Guelderland, Overyssel, and Gröningen, and a Federal Constitution was gradually developed. Each of these independent provinces had its own government vested in its provincial estates and its stadtholder; but the common affairs of the whole confederation were transacted in the estates general, which was a representative body consisting of delegates from the provincial estates. To them appertained the right of appointing the captain general and the admiral general, who were the heads of the military and naval forces of the confederation. With them was associated a council of state in whom the executive was vested. The stadtholder, for the chief provinces usually elected the same stadtholder, in virtue of his office, was a member of the council of state and of the provincial estates as well as of the estates general. He appointed the burgomasters of the towns, and the principal magistrates, and had the right of acting as arbiter in any matters of difference which arose between the provinces. In theory therefore the constitution of the provinces was that of a confederation of sovereign states, which had intrusted certain functions of government, such as the organisation of defence, to a representative body of delegates and an elective chief magistrate; but had retained to themselves certain others, such as finance and foreign affairs. But in practice the influences which made for unity were very much stronger than the disintegrating forces. The independence of the separate provinces was much more apparent than real, and served rather to increase delay and multiply difficulties than to preserve any real independence of action. This came about from various causes. Supremacy of the burgher aristocracy. Owing to the spirit of republicanism engendered by the war of independence, and the secularisation of Church property and the overthrow of the Church system brought about by the Reformation, the two orders of the nobles and of the clergy lost all share in the government. Political power fell completely into the hands of the citizens of the towns, and was exercised through the municipal councils, which were in fact in each town the nominees of a small burgher aristocracy. Each province therefore was in reality, as far as politics were concerned, nothing more than a federation of towns, and the provincial estates but the delegates of the municipal councils. This limitation of all political power to one class, that of the burgher aristocracy, did much to secure a unity of interest among the different provinces. Unique position of Holland. This was still further developed by the unique position of the province of Holland in the confederation. It was so far superior to the other provinces in wealth, in population and in dignity, that in common talk it has given its name to the whole republic. It contained within its borders the great trading towns of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft and Dordrecht, Leyden the seat of the university, and the Hague the centre of the government. It alone had the right of being represented at the courts of Paris and Vienna. It paid in taxes almost as much as all the other provinces put together. From its ports issued year by year the merchant ships which had acquired for the United Provinces the carrying trade of the world, the navy which at the beginning of the century was the undisputed mistress of the ocean, and the bands of hardy colonists who had planted the Dutch flag in every quarter of the globe. The great city of Amsterdam itself, with its banks, its docks, and its thousands of fishermen and artisans, founded, as it was said, on the carcases of herrings, was the centre of the commerce and the opulence of northern Europe. The Venice of the North, alike in her commercial prosperity and her close oligarchical government, she so far dominated over all her colleagues that in the days of her greatness the United Provinces were little less than Amsterdam writ large. Shorn of the province of Holland, the country certainly could not have maintained its independence for a moment.