The King had sent Marshal Belleisle to several German courts in quality of his ambassador, and, as such, he was negociating the affairs of the crown; yet this minister, in his way along the skirts of the country of Hanover, was seized, and sent over to England as a state prisoner.
This general was treated with great regard, and one of the royal seats appointed for his residence; but this splendid hospitality only the more exposed the injustice of that nation.
The Marshal has since told me, that he was not at all sorry for his detention, as it had given him an opportunity of studying the temper of that capricious people in their own country. I have heard him say a hundred times, that a Briton was the riddle of human nature; he would say, it is easy to discern what the bulk of the nation is, but there is no knowing the individuals. According to him, a definition may be given of the English in general, but it is impossible to say what an Englishman is.
Vienna, Berlin, and Versailles, were busied in the same plans which had been concerted in the council, when an unforeseen event brought on some change in the dispositions. Charles VII, that unfortunate emperor, who had not known a moment’s quiet on the august throne of the Cæsars, died. If it be nature only which can make men happy, he was of all men the most miserable. He had long laboured under great pains and sufferings from the badness of his constitution; and ambition, which is ever the predominant distemper in sovereigns, added to his bodily pains: amidst his infirmities, all his thoughts were about securing himself on a throne, which the ill state of his health was soon to deprive him of. Many were the vicissitudes of his reign. He was once very near being without a place to hide his head. He has often been obliged to quit his capital, and shift his abode; so that the successor of the masters of the world was sometimes without either house or home.
He was paid by France for being Emperor. He had an allowance of six millions of livres to support a rank which, for that very reason, did not belong to him. They who are acquainted with the causes of the rise and fall of houses, say, that the misfortunes of that of Bavaria were owing to its alliance with that of Bourbon; and this, it seems, will ever be the case of petty states uniting with the greater.
On the decease of Charles VII. France looked out for an Emperor in Germany; for that Charles’s son could quietly succeed his father, was impossible. He was not of a proper age; neither had he the means to maintain himself on the Imperial throne, even had there been an intention to place him on it: yet was he thought of, but no farther than in appearance; it was only a feigned scheme. A very sensible man was lately saying to me, There is a meanness in princes which I cannot forgive: they feign to wish what they do not intend, and yet act as if they did intend it. This duplicity has cost the lives of multitudes of brave men, and ruins the commonwealth.
Some fruitless strokes were again struck for insuring the Imperial sceptre to a Prince, who was known not to be able to keep it; but the young Elector, with more wisdom than his father, renounced a throne on which his allies could not maintain him, and thereby did more good to France, than could have accrued to her from the most happy successes of her policy.
A tender was then made to the King of Poland; and in this choice, France had the advantage of detaching from the house of Austria a powerful Sovereign. It has been said that the Elector of Saxony declined the empire: but Marshal Belleisle told me, that he could not accept of it, and that he saw the impracticability of such a thing, on the very first mention made to him of it. A King of Poland, Emperor of Germany, would have thrown all the northern courts into a flame; and this double Monarch would have had as many wars on his hands, as there were then Sovereigns in Germany. Thus seeing the impossibility of such an acquisition, he made a merit with the Queen of Hungary of his inability, entering into a closer alliance with her, for placing the great Duke of Tuscany, her spouse, on the throne of the Cæsars. Could it be thought that policy was no motive herein, the King of Poland might be accounted a Prince of eminent probity. He had a defensive treaty with the Queen of Hungary, so that he sacrificed his ambition to that alliance; a very rare procedure in the history of sovereigns!
The Prince of Soubise, talking over these matters with me, said, that the irregularity of the treaties in Germany, after the death of Charles VII. had forced France to be more regular in its conduct relating to the northern affairs; and ever since it has kept itself to a defensive war, which certainly was its only proper policy.
Germany being left to itself, Flanders became the seat of action. Maurice had prepared every thing there for one of those bold strokes which determine the destiny of states. He laid siege to Tournay, the King himself being present in person; this siege endangered Holland, which on this occasion was eager for coming to blows.