Florida Blanca (upon the very day that Burgoyne’s troops piled arms) was writing from Madrid to Vergennes that “the two Courts” (of France and Spain) “should do all to avoid cause of complaint on the part of Great Britain at such a time.”
Vergennes himself, gloomily alone amid the foolish noise of Fontainebleau, in the sweat of late hours and gaming, thus abandoned by Spain and seeing his hopes of a Spanish alliance going down, wrote (on that same 16th of October, the day that Burgoyne’s troops piled arms!): “The Ministers of England think her the mistress of the world.... My patience has been hard tried ... true, the two (Bourbon) Crowns must go warily.... I hope the constraint may end, but I have no wish for war.... I only ask that England shall not compel us to do what she dares not do herself, that is, to treat these Americans as pirates and outlaws.”
In such a mood of despondence and of anxiety the French Foreign Office awaited the first blow England might choose to deliver; in such a mood of reluctance and fear Spain refused to declare herself on the side of the French should England choose to strike; and in such a tension Western Europe stood for one week, another, and a third, when, early in November, came the first rumours of the truth. How they came it is impossible to determine. They came before known or common methods could have brought them; they came before true news, like a shadow or a presage. On the 7th of November Vergennes had written to Noailles of a hint of some English defeat, “not too much to be trusted.” On the 15th he was wondering at the insistence of the English Ministers upon their Pennsylvanian successes, at the English silence upon the Hudson march. As the month wore on, as the English insistence grew gentler, the English silence more profound, Vergennes determined his final policy; but even as he was drawing up his memorandum in favour of recognition to be granted to, and of alliance to be concluded with, the United States, on the 4th of December, and before this document was signed, full news came and all was known.[[6]] The 4th of December is a day propitious for arms; it is the gunners’ festival.
[6]. It is important to remember that Vergennes’ report in favour of recognising the United States was drawn up before, signed after, the news of Saratoga had reached Versailles.
The issue was not long in doubt. Upon the 5th the story and consequence of Saratoga were drawn up and despatched on every side. Upon the 6th the fateful document calling the American delegates to an audience with Louis was submitted to that King, and he wrote in his little sloping hand at the foot of it that word “approuvé,” which you may still read.
Upon the 8th, Franklin at Passy drafted, Deane, Lee, and he also signed, their memorable acceptance. The days that followed, to the end of ’77 and beyond it, were occupied in nothing more than the confirmation of this revolution in policy, and it was certain that by the New Year the French Crown would support the Rebellion in arms.
Such were the three years in which the seeds of the Queen’s tragedy were sown: they were sown deep. The stock of her disaster was established in a vigorous soil; but during the silent period of its growth, before the plant had come to its evil maturity, a few deceitful years were still to hide from her the sequence of her fate. For the two glories of life were upon her—victory and the birth of children.
In common with all her Court the Queen could now, in the hale winter of ’77-’78, imagine herself upon the threshold of a new and fruitful life. Her chief anxiety was now dispelled, for she might await securely the advent of an heir. Her vivacity and her distractions seemed now as harmless as her habit of changing pleasures was now fixed; her casual but active excursions into public affairs had now in her husband’s eyes an excuse or motive they formerly had lacked, and her political interference, though utterly without plan, was even destined to achieve for a moment a peculiar, if deceptive, success.
This period of her life ends with a scene which the reader may well retain, for it sums up the change; a scene which forms the happy conclusion of so much unrest and the introduction to a brief, a most uncertain, but—while it lasted—an enlarged and a conquering time.