The Duke of Belleisle said, that these reproaches were carried too far; that there were sufficient grounds for the two nations fighting for five hundred years without declaring war.
Count de Argenson asked a foreign minister, in my presence, Which of the two parties was the most equitable? “They are both unjust, said the foreigner. France is in the wrong for having made incursions upon the British dominions in America, and for having fortified Dunkirk; and England has done amiss by seizing the ships of this nation, and for having made prisoners of war in time of peace.”
I related this discourse to the King, who said, that most of the foreign ministers were unacquainted with the origin of the dispute, and that they judged of things only by appearances, or according to the ideas they entertained of their own country.
These private discourses no way altered the general operations. The armaments by sea and land continued going on, and we prepared ourselves for war. The Pope offered his mediation; this was Benedict XIV. The matter might have been referred to him, had it been possible for him to have negotiated the affair in person; but it must have been entrusted to nuncios, who are usually men as ambitious as they are ignorant, and who are acquainted with no other politics than those of the Vatican.
The King of Portugal also offered his service: but as he was incapable of throwing any weight in the scale, he occasioned no alteration in the designs that were formed for pursuing the war.
The duke of Noailles said, he was surprised that petty princes without power, should think of being the arbiters of the power of the first states in Europe.
I shall not conceal to posterity that pacific proposals were made between the two courts; but they were so distant from their respective views, that it may be presumed they were offered only to make the torch of war blaze the more, though the pretext was to extinguish it.
France’s demands were great, and the English required too much. This was the method of succeeding in the design that was formed of not agreeing.
In order to increase the troops, and render the armies more numerous, recourse was had to an expedient which was of very little consequence. The invalids, who, by their services and their wounds, had obtained admission into the hospital, were ordered to bear arms and fight the enemies of the state.
A wit said upon this occasion, that “this was having recourse to the dead to wage war against the living.”