The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

Indifference of England and Holland.

William did not conceal from himself the fact that to induce England to declare war against Louis XIV., because of his repudiation of the Partition Treaty and his acceptance of the will of Charles II., was wholly out of the question. He had to content himself with urging the Emperor not to recognise the duke of Anjou, and with endeavouring to gain time. Heinsius was in a similar plight. The republican party were overjoyed at the failure of the Partition Treaty. The citizens of Amsterdam, in their delight at the defeat of the House of Orange, would not hear of any possible dangers to their trade or their barrier. It was doubtful if the States-General could be induced to declare war in alliance with England, it was certain they would not do so by themselves. As far as purely political dangers were concerned Louis might accept the will in perfect security. Not a protest was made, not a murmur was openly heard. Louis thought he might go a step further. Their recognition of Philip V. In February 1701 he occupied the frontier towns of the Netherlands, took captive the Dutch garrisons which they contained, and restored the towns to the government of the elector of Bavaria, Max Emanuel, who had been appointed by the Spanish government to that charge. To regain their troops the Dutch recognised the duke of Anjou as king of Spain. William held out longer, but at last he was obliged to submit to the pressure of his ministers. In April 1701 England too recognised Philip V., and Louis had for the moment the satisfaction of seeing that he had calculated the chances rightly, and had placed his grandson on the throne of Spain without striking a blow, or involving France in war. Philip himself was received at Madrid with the liveliest expressions of joy and enthusiasm. The grandiloquent boast had come true, Il n’y a plus de Pyrénées.

But at what cost had this result been achieved? Never since Richelieu had first launched France on her career of territorial aggrandisement, never since sovereigns had consciously or unconsciously adopted the principles of Macchiavelli in their dealings with one another, had any act so deliberately dishonourable been done as the repudiation of the Partition Treaty by Louis XIV. Louis guilty of a deliberate breach of faith. Honesty, public faith, private honour, were words of no meaning in international relations, if kings might make treaties one day and break them the next, because it happened to be to their advantage to do so. Push the principle but a little further, and European nations would be once more in a state of pure savagery, for civilisation and progress depend upon contract, and what contract is possible among nations when public faith is dead? If might is right, treaties and bargains are not merely useless but hypocritical. If ever there was a case in which a sovereign ought to have stuck to the bargain which he had made, it was that of Louis XIV. in relation to the Partition Treaty. The treaty was essentially his own handiwork. It was he who had first suggested it. For two years he had urged it, worked for it, made sacrifices for it. At his instance it had been published to the world and accepted by Europe. He was identified with it far more than were William and Heinsius. For him to repudiate his own offspring, because his calculations proved wrong, was to deal a blow at the public morality of Europe from which it took years to recover. His conduct was as plainly unjustifiable in morals as it was advantageous in politics. And no one knew this better than Louis himself. The arguments which he instructed Tallard to advance to William on his behalf, and all the arguments which his apologists have addressed to the world since in his justification, are arguments against the making of a partition treaty, not in favour of its repudiation. They may prove that Louis was foolish to make a treaty, they do not prove that he was right to tear it up directly it was made. They are arguments which Louis had himself discounted when he began the negotiations, and had himself answered, as far as they admitted of an answer, in his earlier instructions to Tallard. It is true that he could not actually have been certain that the Emperor would refuse to accept the treaty, and undoubtedly the fact of his refusal very seriously diminished the chances of the ultimate success of the policy of partition, but it was a contingency highly to be expected, and had as a matter of fact been most carefully provided for in the treaty itself.

Not guilty of a deeply laid plan of deception.

But among English historians there has been a tendency to make Louis out more culpable than he really was. The whole negotiations for a Partition Treaty have been depicted as an elaborate deception intended to hoodwink the eyes of the maritime powers until the intrigue in Spain should be successful and the will in favour of the duke of Anjou procured. Harcourt at Madrid is described as carrying out the real policy of Louis, while Tallard at London is purposely his dupe, in order that he may with the greater honesty make William and Heinsius his dupes too. The drama is one in which unexampled villainy is everywhere triumphant, dull virtue oppressed and deceived, and retribution lamely limps along full thirteen years behind. Such a theory is opposed both to the facts of history and the limitations of human nature. To keep up a deception planned on such a gigantic scale for two years and a half, without accomplice, or confidant, in the face and to the disadvantage of the ablest intellects of Europe, most of whom were penetrated by suspicion and eager for revenge, is beyond the powers of human villainy and opposed to all that we know of Louis’s character. Louis had often played the hypocrite and broken faith before, but he had done it pompously in the face of Europe with a show of bravado. He had claimed the Netherlands by the law of devolution, and parts of Alsace by virtue of the decisions of the Chambres des Réunions, by sheer audacity not by cunning. He had often been a bully, there is nothing in his long reign, except perhaps his conduct to Fouquet, which could justify the faintest suspicion that he was an accomplished dissembler before whom even Louis XI. must bow the knee. For what does the theory involve? It involves the belief that for two years and a half he was deceiving not merely William and Heinsius, the Emperor, and the king of Spain, but his own most trusted emissaries and friends. He was deceiving Torcy his foreign minister, Tallard his ambassador in London, and Harcourt his ambassador at Madrid. He was to the last assuring the very man, through whose efforts alone he could obtain the whole succession, that he had determined on a different policy; and he was doing this, not in public letters which might see the light, but in his own secret correspondence, which was often sent by special messenger and never went through the foreign office at all. Further he must have carried out this wholesale deception with an elaboration at which the mind sinks back appalled. He wrote hundreds of letters in great detail, held a large number of conferences with his council as a whole, and with individuals by themselves, made numerous speeches to ambassadors, held many and long interviews with Lord Jersey and other envoys, and yet never once in the whole period said or did anything to suggest the slightest suspicion of his good faith! And more than that. He overacted his part terribly. If his real object was to amuse the maritime powers, while his intrigue in Spain was maturing, his obvious course was so to manage the negotiations for the Partition Treaty, as to give as little trouble as possible to himself without exciting the suspicions of William. But on the contrary his private correspondence with Tallard shows that he continually gave himself infinite and unnecessary trouble. His mind was fixed upon the possibilities of the negotiations. He sets out his views at great length on every turn of the diplomatic game. It is he who is continually urging haste, especially when the news of the king of Spain’s health gets more unsatisfactory, the very time when, if he was not in earnest, he might have rested upon his oars without danger. He continued the policy of partition, after he knew that in consequence of it Charles II. had made a will in favour of the Electoral Prince, and that France had become very unpopular in Spain. He even permitted Harcourt to leave Madrid months before Porto Carrero effected his palace revolution, and when all probabilities pointed to a will in favour of the archduke made at the dictation of the queen. Such conduct would have been sheer folly had Louis not been actuated by honest motives.

Consistent policy of Louis.

In the face of these facts can any one doubt that the negotiations for the Partition Treaties were conducted by Louis in good faith? The principles on which he acted, if not strictly honourable, were far less dishonourable than it has been the fashion to assert. This policy stands out clear in his private letters to Harcourt and to Tallard. It is consistent throughout and intelligible. He never swerved from the opinion that Europe would not permit him to acquire the whole inheritance for his family. He never thought it probable that Charles II. could be induced to make a will in favour of France. Under these circumstances, his obvious policy was to prevent Austria from gaining the whole inheritance, or so much of it as would threaten the ascendency of France in Europe. The best, if not the only way of securing this without involving Europe in war, was by means of the old device of a partition treaty. But it was always possible, if not probable, that the negotiations for a partition would fail, and Louis accordingly left Harcourt free to act as he thought best in his interests until the Partition Treaty was an accomplished fact. Directly the treaty had been concluded, Harcourt was recalled, and placed at the head of the army on the frontier. He was no longer wanted to push the interests of France at the court of Charles II. The time for diplomacy was over, that for action had come, and his services were required to prevent the archduke from coming into Spain in contravention of the treaty. But the unexpected happened. Louis found himself the possessor of the whole inheritance, at a moment when his knowledge of Europe told him that it was more than probable that he could successfuly seize the prize without bloodshed. The temptation was too great, and after a sincere hesitation of some weeks, he turned his back on the policy of the last three years and deliberately broke faith with his allies.

Difficulties in the way of Louis.

Whatever may have been the motives, the policy of Louis XIV. seemed crowned with success by the spring of 1701. His grandson sat secure upon the throne of Spain, amid the enthusiasm of his people, without a single declared enemy, though it was known that the Emperor was arming. The expulsion of the Dutch from the frontier fortresses placed the Netherlands at the disposal of France. The recognition of Philip V. by the maritime powers seemed to guarantee the peace of Europe in spite of the preparations of the Emperor. None knew better than Louis that the storm was not averted, because for the moment there reigned an ominous calm. It required the most careful and wary tread to avoid the pitfalls open on all sides of him. With or without allies the Emperor would probably declare war. William and Heinsius were working hard to urge the English and the Dutch to action. ‘The only game to play with this nation,’ wrote the king to his confidant, ‘is to engage them in war without their knowing it.’ The princes of Germany were certain to join an alliance against France, were it once set on foot, provided that they received plenty of money and incurred but little risk. Prussia was too nearly interested in the lower Rhineland to stand aloof. Never was it more necessary for Louis to display that spirit of conciliation of which he at times was apt to boast. All his address, all his self-restraint was needed successfully to smooth difficulties, to allay suspicion, to calm prejudice. If one strong power besides the Emperor determined to draw the sword, the fiery cross would run riot over Europe in a moment. Already there had been indications that Tory England and republican Holland had fixed limits to their indifference. Instructions were given to William by the Parliament of 1701 to take such measures as might be needful for the protection of the Dutch. A point might be reached at which distrust of Louis XIV. would get the better of distrust of William III. If the king of France wanted to keep the advantages which he had gained, without running the risks of war, it was essential that he should not excite the suspicions of the English and Dutch.

With a strange infatuation Louis adopted exactly the opposite policy. He formally declared that the rights of the duke of Anjou to the French crown were in no way impaired by the fact of his succession to the throne Of Spain, and early in 1701 he expelled the Dutch troops from the fortresses garrisoned by them in the Spanish Netherlands, and replaced them by French soldiers. His aggressive conduct. He refused to entertain any proposals whatever for granting compensation to the Emperor out of the dominions of Spain, or security to the Dutch by giving them a fortress barrier. He issued commercial decrees which pointed plainly to the exclusion of English and Dutch ships from the Spanish-American trade, and completed the tale of arrogance and blindness by a deliberate and unpardonable violation of the treaty of Ryswick. On the death of the exiled James II. of England in September 1701, Louis recognised his son James, the Chevalier de St. George, as the rightful king of England. The blunder soon brought its own punishment. Louis had succeeded in doing what William with all his craft could never have done. He had inspired all Englishmen, both Whigs and Tories, with an enthusiastic determination to fight. Formation of the Grand Alliance, 1701. Flouted in her national pride, threatened in her commercial interests, directly attacked in her liberties and independence, England joined willingly with the Dutch and the Emperor to bring the haughty tyrant of Europe to his knees. In the winter of 1701–2 the Grand Alliance was concluded between England, the Emperor, the Dutch, the king of Prussia, and the grand duke of Hesse, with the object of destroying the tyranny of Louis XIV. and breaking up the Franco-Spanish monarchy by giving Italy to the Emperor, and the Indies to the maritime powers.