The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

Events at Madrid.

For the moment the interest of the struggle veered to the bedside of the dying king. As the autumn sped on there could no longer be any doubt that the end of that troubled life was at hand. All remedies had been tried but had proved unavailing. The angel of death would not surrender his victim to the revolting mixtures of quack doctors, or the superstitious delusions of monkish exorcists. One duty remained to be performed by Charles ere he quitted the world in which he had lived so wearily. He had to choose, as far as the power of choice was left to him, the successor to his throne. If he chose wrongly he might plunge all Europe into a desolating war and bring his country to absolute ruin. The choice was by no means an easy one nor did his advisers make it easier for him. The Spanish people and Charles himself were united on the great principle of doing all that they could to maintain the integrity of the empire, but they differed as to the means to be adopted to achieve this end. Angry as Charles was at the news of the first Partition Treaty, he accepted it so far as to make a will in favour of the Electoral Prince, and he sent for the young prince in order to educate him in Spain as his heir. The act was popular, for both he and his people believed, no doubt rightly, that the Electoral Prince had a better chance than any other candidate of uniting the whole of the Spanish dominions under himself. But on the death of the prince it became very difficult to decide between the representatives of the Dauphin and of the Emperor. If the Emperor was the weaker, he was the nearer by the traditional ties of policy and of race. But was not France the only power in Europe strong enough to seize and keep the whole inheritance from the hand of the spoiler? It was a hard choice for a moribund king to have to make in his last days of extreme physical and mental weakness.

Palace intrigues and revolution.

Gradually it became clearer to those who watched by the bedside that personal influence could alone decide his wavering will. Within the palace the queen was paramount, and she, after some little vacillation, had decided to support the archduke strenuously. Outside the palace the feeling was all in favour of France. It grew in intensity as the conviction spread that the Emperor by himself could never defeat a partition treaty. It was fanned by the news that the Pope had pronounced that a decision in favour of France would not be contrary to the interests of the Church. Even the report of the signature of the Partition Treaty did not stem the advancing tide, for with a willing self-deception the Spaniards ascribed it entirely to the hated Dutchman. The national party determined on a palace revolution. The cardinal Porto Carrero, archbishop of Toledo, accompanied by a few religious established himself in the sick-room, and refused to allow the queen or any of the adherents of the archduke to enter. Signature of a will in favour of France, 1700. He represented to Charles that a will in favour of France was the only way to avoid civil war and a partition of the monarchy. The king freed from the ascendency of his wife gave a tardy assent. On the 7th of October 1700 he signed the will. ‘It is God alone,’ he said as the pen dropped from his nerveless hands, ‘who gives kingdoms, for to Him alone they belong.’ The next day a speedy messenger hurried from Blécourt, Harcourt’s successor, to Paris to acquaint Louis with what had happened. Three weeks afterwards, on the 1st of November, the poor king’s troubles were over, and the last of the line of Arragon was gathered to his fathers. When the will was opened it was found that the whole inheritance of the crown of Spain was given to Philip duke of Anjou, the second son of the Dauphin, and in the event of his death to his younger brother the duc de Berri. If Philip refused to accept the inheritance, the right to it was to pass wholly to the archduke Charles.

The problem before Louis.

For fifteen days all Europe hung breathless in suspense. What would Louis do? The unexpected, if not the unhoped for, had happened. Harcourt, the able and showy ambassador of France at Madrid, had always maintained that in the end a will in favour of France could certainly be obtained, and Louis, without ever forbidding them, had always quietly put his suggestions aside, and pushed on with all his skill the policy of a partition. And now Harcourt had proved to be right and Louis wrong. The whole of the prize was open to his grasp did he choose to stretch forth his hand and take it. Louis was sorely perplexed. For perhaps the first time in his life he did not see his way clear. His advisers were divided, some of them greatly in doubt. Tallard urged him strongly to keep faith with Europe and maintain the Partition Treaty. Torcy was of the same opinion at first. Beauvilliers was more emphatic even than Tallard. For the moment their advice prevailed, and it was decided to send an envoy to Heinsius to assure him of the good faith of France. But the message was never sent. The wishes of Madame de Maintenon, the earnest remonstrances of the Dauphin, who refused to see his son disinherited without a struggle, reasserted themselves. The feeling of the French court was strongly in favour of a bold policy. Torcy altered his mind as he reflected more carefully upon the state of Europe. The Dauphin insisted with renewed energy on the rights of his son. At last the decision could be put off no longer. The Spanish ambassador reached Paris with the text of the will and required an answer. If it was unfavourable, he was to go straight to Vienna. Acceptance of the will. On the 16th of November a council was called at Versailles to pronounce a final decision. The courtiers assembled in the great gallery of the palace in unprecedented numbers, for even the most frivolous among them could not but feel the unique gravity of the crisis. The minutes and the hours sped on, the excitement grew more vivid, the strain more intense. At last the great folding doors were thrown open, and as every one bowed low to the ground Louis was seen leaning affectionately on the shoulder of his grandson. Advancing to the edge of the daïs with that kingly dignity which was to him a second nature, he said in clear and deliberate accents, which penetrated to the furthest corners of the vast hall, Messieurs, voici le roi d’Espagne!

Political reasons for its acceptance.

The die was cast. What is to be said of the gamester who staked—and lost—his all on the throw? If moral considerations may for the moment be put on one side, honesty and good faith laid on the shelf, no one can doubt that Louis was right. The interests of his country and the interests of his family demanded at that particular juncture of affairs the acceptance of the will. The difficulties attending the enforcement of the Partition Treaty, in spite of the favour with which the powers of Europe had received it were enormous. To impose the archduke Charles upon Spain by French bayonets, while all Spain and half France was loudly demanding the duke of Anjou was an impossibility. To permit the archduke to establish himself in Spain by means of Austrian troops, before he and his father had accepted the treaty, was too dangerous to be thought of. To act upon the secret article, declare the rights of the archduke forfeited, and give Spain and the Indies to some third person, was to commit a greater outrage than ever upon the pride of Spain and the claims of the Emperor, and to ensure the outbreak of war. The determination of the Emperor to resist a treaty which gave him the lion’s share of the spoil made it impossible to enforce it in its entirety when Charles II. was dead. The contracting powers might, it is true, have executed it as far as was possible. They might have effected the conquest of Naples and Sicily for the Dauphin, and handed over the Milanese to the duke of Lorraine. They might have administered Spain and the Netherlands until a decision was eventually arrived at. But to do these things they would have incurred as large an expenditure of both men and money as would have been entailed by open war, and they would not have avoided open war with the Emperor. To execute the treaty in its entirety was impossible, to execute it partially was costly and dangerous.

Remoteness of the dangers of war.

To accept the will, on the contrary, presented difficulties comparatively slight. Such a course guaranteed the loyal support of Spain. It did not necessarily involve the active hostility of the Emperor. There was no reason to think that Prussia or the princes of Germany would attach sufficient importance to the principle of the balance of power in Europe, as to incur on its behalf the risks and responsibilities of war. Danger only threatened from the maritime powers, but however deeply William and Heinsius might feel, however bitterly they might resent, his conduct, Louis well knew that they were powerless to act. In both countries the Partition Treaty was more unpopular than the will in favour of France. The English people fully realised that, as long as they kept out of continental complications, their liberties were safe, their control over their king secure. If once they allowed him to involve their interests with those of the Dutch, they thereby put into his hands military and naval power which he could use to make himself independent of Parliament. All the Tories and many of the Whigs were resolute against allowing a standing army on principle, or conniving at it in fact. They cared far more about keeping their own king weak, than they did about preventing Louis from becoming strong. As William bitterly admitted in his letters to Heinsius: ‘I am troubled to the very bottom of my soul to find now that the business has become public, that nearly everybody congratulates himself that France has preferred the will to the treaty, insisting that it is much better for England and for the whole of Europe.... People here are perfectly unconcerned, and turn their thoughts but little to the great change which is happening in the affairs of the world. It seems as if it was a punishment of heaven that this nation should be so little alive to that which passes outside of its own island, although it ought to have the same interests and the same anxieties as the continental nations.’