I have elsewhere alluded to Alberoni, and shown what filthy baseness he
stooped to in order to curry favour with the infamous Duc de Vendome.
I have also shown that he accompanied the new Queen of Spain from Parma
to Madrid, after she had been married, by procuration, to Philip V. He
arrived at the Court of Spain at a most opportune moment for his fortune.
Madame des Ursins had just been disgraced; there was no one to take her
place. Alberoni saw his opportunity and was not slow to avail himself of
it. During the journey with the new Queen, he had contrived to
ingratiate himself so completely into her favour, that she was, in a
measure, prepared to see only with his eyes. The King had grown so
accustomed to be shut out from all the world, and to be ruled by others,
that he easily adapted himself to his new chains. The Queen and
Alberoni, then, in a short time had him as completely under their thumb,
as he had before been under that of Madame des Ursins.
Alberoni, unscrupulous and ambitious, stopped at nothing in order to
consolidate his power and pave the way for his future greatness. Having
become prime minister, he kept the King as completely inaccessible to the
courtiers as to the world; would allow no one to approach him whose
influence he had in any way feared. He had Philip completely in his own
hands by means of the Queen, and was always on his guard to keep him
there.
Ever since the Regent's accession to power an intimacy had gradually been
growing up between the two governments of France and England. This was
mainly owing to the intrigues of the Abbe Dubois, who had sold himself to
the English Court, from which he secretly received an enormous pension.
He was, therefore, devoted heart and soul--if such a despicable personage
can be said to have the one or the other--to the interests of King
George, and tried to serve them in every way. He had but little
difficulty--comparatively speaking--in inducing M. le Duc d'Orleans to
fall into his nets, and to declare himself in favour of an English
alliance. Negotiations with this end in view were, in fact, set on foot,
had been for some time; and about the month of September of this year
(1716), assumed a more smiling face than they had yet displayed.
Both France and England, from different motives, wished to draw Spain
into this alliance. The Regent, therefore, in order to further this
desire, obtained from England a promise that she would give up Gibraltar
to its former owners, the Spaniards. The King of England consented to do
so, but on one condition: it was, that in order not to expose himself to
the cries of the party opposed to him, this arrangement should be kept
profoundly secret until executed. In order that this secrecy might be
secured, he stipulated that the negotiation should not in any way pass
through the hands of Alberoni, or any Spanish minister, but be treated
directly between the Regent and the King of Spain, through a confidential
agent chosen by the former.
This confidential agent was to take a letter respecting the treaty to the
King of Spain, a letter full of insignificant trifles, and at the same
time a positive order from the King of England, written and signed by his
hand, to the Governor of Gibraltar, commanding him to surrender the place
to the King of Spain the very moment he received this order, and to
retire with his garrison, etc., to Tangiers. In order to execute this a
Spanish general was suddenly to march to Gibraltar, under pretence of
repressing the incursions of its garrison,--summon the Governor to
appear, deliver to him the King of England's order, and enter into
possession of the place. All this was very weakly contrived; but this
concerned the King of England, not us.
I must not be proud; and must admit that I knew nothing of all this, save
at second-hand. If I had, without pretending to be very clever, I must
say that I should have mistrusted this fine scheme. The King of England
could not be ignorant with what care and with what jealousy the Queen and
Alberoni kept the King of Spain locked up, inaccessible to everybody--and
that the certain way to fail, was to try to speak to him without their
knowledge, in spite of them, or unaided by them. However, my opinion
upon this point was not asked, and accordingly was not given.
Louville was the secret agent whom the Regent determined to send. He had
already been in Spain, had gained the confidence of the King, and knew
him better than any other person who could have been chosen. Precisely
because of all these reasons, I thought him the most unfit person to be
charged with this commission. The more intimate he had been with the
King of Spain, the more firm in his confidence, the more would he be
feared by the Queen and Alberoni; and the more would they do to cover his
embassy with failure, so as to guard their credit and their authority.
I represented my views on this subject to Louville, who acknowledged
there was truth in them, but contented himself with saying, that he had
not in his surprise dared to refuse the mission offered to him; and that
if he succeeded in it, the restitution to Spain of such an important
place as Gibraltar, would doubtless be the means of securing to him large
arrears of pensions due to him from Philip the First: an object of no
small importance in his eyes. Louville, therefore, in due time departed
to Madrid, on his strange and secret embassy.
Upon arriving he went straight to the house of the Duc de Saint-Aignan,
our ambassador, and took up his quarters there. Saint-Aignan who had
received not the slightest information of his arriving, was surprised
beyond measure at it. Alberoni was something more than surprised.
As fortune would have it, Louville when at some distance from Madrid was
seen by a courier, who straightway told Alberoni of the circumstance.
As may be imagined, tormented as Alberoni was by jealousy and suspicion,
this caused him infinite alarm. He was quite aware who Louville was;
the credit he had attained with the King of Spain; the trouble Madame
des Ursins and the deceased Queen had had to get him out of their way;
the fear, therefore, that he conceived on account of this unexpected
arrival, was so great that he passed all bounds, in order to free himself
from it.
He instantly despatched a courier to meet Louville with an order
prohibiting him to approach any nearer to Madrid. The courier missed
Louville, but a quarter of an hour after this latter had alighted at
Saint-Aignan's, he received a note from Grimaldo inclosing an order from
the King of Spain, commanding him to leave the city that instant!
Louville replied that he was charged with a confidential letter from the
King of France, and with another from M. le Duc d'Orleans, for the King
of Spain; and with a commission for his Catholic Majesty which would not
permit him to leave until he had executed it. In consequence of this
reply, a courier was at once despatched to the Prince de Cellamare,
Spanish ambassador at Paris, ordering him to ask for the recall of
Louville, and to declare that the King of Spain so disliked his person
that he would neither see him, nor allow him to treat with any of the
ministers!
Meanwhile the fatigue of the journey followed by such a reception so
affected Louville, that during the night he had an attack of a disease to
which he was subject, so that he had a bath prepared for him, into which
he got towards the end of the morning.
Alberoni, not satisfied with what he had already done, came himself to
the Duc de Saint-Aignan's, in order to persuade Louville to depart at
once. Despite the representations made to him, he insisted upon
penetrating to the sick-chamber. There he saw Louville in his bath.
Nothing could be more civil than the words of Alberoni, but nothing could
be more dry, more negative, or more absolute than their signification.
He pitied the other's illness and the fatigue of his journey; would have
wished to have known of this journey beforehand, so as to have prevented
it; and had hoped to be able to overcome the repugnance of the King of
Spain to see him, or at least to obtain permission for him to remain some
days in Madrid. He added that he had been unable to shake his Majesty in
any way, or to avoid obeying the very express order he had received from
him, to see that he (Louville) departed at once.
Louville, however, was in a condition which rendered his departure
impossible. Alberoni admitted this, but warned him that his stay must
only last as long as his illness, and that the attack once over, he must
away. Louville insisted upon the confidential letters, of which he was
the bearer, and which gave him an official character, instructed as he
was to execute an important commission from the King of France, nephew of
the King of Spain, such as his Majesty could not refuse to hear direct
from his mouth, and such as he would regret not having listened to.
The dispute was long and warm, despite the illness of Louville, who could
gain nothing. He did not fail to remain five or six days with the Duc de
Saint-Aignan, and to make him act as ambassador in order to obtain an
audience of the King, although Saint-Aignan was hurt at being kept
ignorant of the object of the other's mission.
Louville did not dare to call upon a soul, for fear of committing
himself, and nobody dared to call upon him. He hazarded, however, for
curiosity, to go and see the King of Spain pass through a street, and
ascertain if, on espying him, he would not be tempted to hear him, in
case his arrival, as was very possible, had been kept a secret. But
Alberoni had anticipated everything. Louville saw the King pass,
certainly, but found it was impossible to make himself perceived by his
Majesty. Grimaldo came afterwards to intimate to Louville an absolute
order to depart, and to inform the Duc de Saint-Aignan that the King of
Spain was so angry with the obstinacy of this delay, that he would not
say what might happen if the stay of Louville was protracted; but that he
feared the respect due to a representative minister, and above all an
ambassador of France, would be disregarded.
Both Louville and Saint-Aignan clearly saw that all audience was
impossible, and that in consequence a longer stay could only lead to
disturbances which might embroil the two crowns; so that, at the end of
seven or eight days, Louville departed, returning as he came. Alberoni
began then to breathe again after the extreme fear he had had. He was
consoled by this proof of his power, which showed he need no longer fear
that any one could approach the King without his aid, or that any
business could be conducted without him. Thus Spain lost Gibraltar, and
she has never been able to recover it since.
Such is the utility of prime ministers!
Alberoni spread the report in Spain and in France, that Philip V. had
taken a mortal aversion against Louville, since he had driven him out of
the country for his insolence and his scheming; that he would never see
him, and was offended because he had passed the Pyrenees; that Louville
had no proposition to make, or commission to execute; that he had
deceived the Regent, in making him believe that if once he found a
pretext for appearing before the King of Spain, knowing him so well as he
did, that prince would be ravished by the memory of his former affection,
would reinstate him in his former credit, and thus France would be able
to make Spain do all she wished. In a word, Alberoni declared that
Louville had only come into the country to try and obtain some of the
pensions he had been promised on quitting the King of Spain, but that he
had not gone the right way to work to be so soon paid.
Nothing short of the effrontery of Alberoni would have been enough for
the purpose of spreading these impostures. No one had forgotten in Spain
what Madame des Ursins had done to get rid of Louville, how the King of
Spain had resisted; that she was not able to succeed without the aid of
France and her intrigues with Madame de Maintenon; and that the King,
afflicted to the utmost, yielding to the orders given by France to
Louville, had doubled the pensions which had for a long time been paid to
him, given him a sum of money in addition, and the government of
Courtray, which he lost only by the misfortune of the war that followed
the loss of the battle of Ramillies. With respect to the commission, to
deny it was an extreme piece of impudence, a man being concerned so well
known as Louville, who descends at the house of the ambassador of France,
says he has letters of trust from the King and the Regent, and an
important mission which he can only confide to the King of Spain, the
self-same ambassador striving to obtain an audience for him. Nothing was
so easy as to cover Louville with confusion, if he had spoken falsely,
by making him show his letters; if he had none he would have been struck
dumb, and having no official character, Alberoni would have been free to
punish him. Even if with confidential letters, he had only a complaint
to utter in order to introduce himself and to solicit his pay, Alberoni
would very easily have been able to dishonour him, because he had no
commission after having roundly asserted that he was charged with one of
great importance. But omnipotence says and does with impunity whatever
it pleases.
Louville having returned, it was necessary to send word to the King of
England of all he had done in Spain; and this business came to nothing,
except that it set Alberoni against the Regent for trying to execute a
secret commission without his knowledge; and that it set the Regent
against Alberoni for frustrating a project so openly, and for showing the
full force of his power. Neither of the two ever forgot this matter; and
the dislike of Alberoni to the Regent led, as will be seen, to some
strange results.
I will add here, that the treaty of alliance between France and England
was signed a short time after this event. I did my utmost to prevent it,
representing to the Regent that his best policy was to favour the cause
of the Pretender, and thus by keeping the attention of Great Britain
continually fixed upon her domestic concerns, he would effectually
prevent her from influencing the affairs of the continent, and long were
the conversations I had with him, insisting upon this point. But
although, while he was with me, my arguments might appear to have some
weight with him, they were forgotten, clean swept from his mind, directly
the Abbe Dubois, who had begun to obtain a most complete and pernicious
influence over him, brought his persuasiveness to bear. Dubois' palm had
been so well greased by the English that he was afraid of nothing.
He succeeded then in inducing the Regent to sign a treaty with England,
in every way, it may safely be said, advantageous to that power, and in
no way advantageous to France. Amongst other conditions, the Regent
agreed to send the so-called Pretender out of the realm, and to force him
to seek an asylum in Italy. This was, in fact, executed to the letter.
King James, who for some time had retired to Avignon, crossed the Alps
and settled in Rome, where he lived ever afterwards. I could not but
deplore the adoption of a policy so contrary to the true interests of
France; but the business being done I held my peace, and let matters take
their course. It was the only course of conduct open to me.