more happy. The people, amidst their Monarch’s victories, groan under
the weight of the military burden laid on them; and its power depends on
the existence of one single man. When Frederick comes to die, its
political state dies with him.
“It is a question, continued the King, much debated, whether the
English are more powerful, and more happy, than they were before those
volumes of reforming _bills_ were in being: this is a point the nation
itself is not agreed on. There is a party in England which affirms that
the government is intirely ruined, and the political state indebted
beyond what it is able to pay; and that it cannot answer its
necessities. Yet I am inclined to think that England is increased in
strength; but this is rather owing to the inadvertency of other powers,
than to any reformations of its own, which would have profited very
little, had its neighbours followed its example.
“As to the instance of our own country, I have wished that France had
been in the same situation, at my accession to the throne, that Lewis
XIII. left it in. His successor, what with reformations, splendor, and
glory, reduced it so low, that it will be ages before it is thoroughly
recovered.”
Our political discussions were always mixed with politeness and
compliments; never did a word come from Lewis XV’s mouth which had any
thing of asperity in it, &c.
England still kept a watchful eye on the French navy; and, on our side,
the increase of it was the ministry’s chief object. All M. Rouille’s
demands of money were immediately answered, and he lost no time: ships
were daily launched.
France and England were, indeed, at peace; but acted with the same
mistrust as if at open war; the public expences rose high; yet the
French, who are continually complaining, did not in the least murmur, so
convinced was every one of the absolute necessity of having a navy
capable of facing that of Great Britain.
In the mean time, all the ministers continued declaring themselves
against me; the very persons who, through my interest with his Majesty,
had been promoted to the object of their wishes, were the most forward
in promoting my disgrace. Since my living at Versailles, I have often
lamented this flagitiousness, which is, as it were, innate in the human
mind. No sooner is a man invested with honour and power, than he studies
to cut off the hand which raised him. It is not my intention to enter
into all the arts and practices of my enemies; there would be no end of
the allusions, tales, stories, and songs, industriously disseminated
over the kingdom to expose me. However, I was always exactly informed of
what was said about me; but of some of my revilers I took no notice;
others I threatened to complain of to the King. All, however, continued
their abuses: I was a thousand times for leaving the court, had I not
apprehended that the King being now habituated to see me daily, it might
shorten his valuable life.
The Count de Argenson, secretary at war, did not love me, saying, “That
I gave too many military posts; that he had not so much as a lieutenancy
of foot at his disposal.” Now this accusation was so far from being
true, that I never recommended any person to his Majesty, without
previously consulting that Minister. It was purely my favour which
rankled him; he wanted to set the King against me, that he might ingross
the whole royal favour to himself.
Peace being the season for public foundations, a plan of a military
school, for instructing the French nobility in the art of war, was laid
before his Majesty in the year 1751. _The kingdom_, said the author,
_was full of gentlemen who, unable, conveniently, to put themselves
under masters, led an inactive life in the country, instead of spending
it in the service of the state_.
In this school five hundred gentlemen were to be boarded and educated:
the King was pleased to shew me the plan, and asked my thoughts on it.
“Sir, said I, nothing can be better; I could only wish it more
comprehensive. This school will not furnish officers enough for France,
which is so frequently at war. I have heard Marshal Saxe say, That in an
army of two hundred and fifty thousand men, there was seldom less than
twenty thousand officers; so that only one fortieth of that number can
be had from the military-school, which to me appears no small defect in
a foundation, of itself, so excellent.”
A courtier, on reading the plan for this school, jocularly said, _This
martial convent will afford very good military monks_.
The great objection made against it, by some discreet persons, was the
exorbitant expence of it, at a time when every resource of the state had
been drained to defray the extraordinary demands of the war. The
expence, indeed, was not to be furnished from the royal treasury; but
from whatever fund sums are taken on such occasions, they are still
burthensome, as tending to keep the people poor.
It was likewise said, that France stood more in need of a naval than a
military-school; that the King might find a hundred land-officers in his
dominions, for one sea-officer; that the French gentry was naturally
fond of signalizing itself in armies, and had as great an aversion to
fleets; but the plan had been resolved on.
The powers of Europe were at peace, when religious disputes, breaking
out, disturbed France in its political and domestic quiet.
Two parties, who, for forty years past, had been contending for the
superiority, now returned to the charge. Being quite ignorant of the
subject of their quarrels, I had it explained to me. Should ever these
Memoirs be made public, the reader will be so kind as to excuse my
tiring him with the following detail. Never had this evil found a place
in these annals, had it not concerned the King; but his interesting
himself in this dispute, and greatly so, is alone sufficient motive for
my giving some account of it.
A native of Spain, named Molina, in the fullness of his knowledge, took
it into his head to decide, and vindicate, how God acts on mortals, and
in what manner mortals withstand God. The Popes, who know every thing,
and pronounce sentence on every thing, had, till then, been totally
unacquainted with the mechanism of the metaphysical intercourse between
the Creator and creature; and, for their better information, Molina
invented many barbarous words, or scholastic terms, with innumerable
distinctions and divisions.
To proceed in this dispute with some order, and wrangle theologically,
he distinguished between _preventive_ and _co-operating grace_: one of
these graces could do any thing, and the other little or nothing; but
this not being sufficient for understanding what he himself did not
understand, he farther invented the _mediate knowledge_ and _congruism_.
According to him, God held a council of state in Heaven, before which
all men were summoned and interrogated, how they will act after
receiving his grace; and, according to the free use which he saw they
were to make of it, he decreed within himself, either to admit them into
Paradise, or call them down into hell.
Unluckily for the Christian world, this Molina was a Jesuit; an order
little beloved by the others: the Dominicans, especially, raised an
outcry against his congruism.
These things being transacted in Spain, the Inquisition took cognizance
of the altercation; and had they burned Molina, and a few Dominicans,
there would have been an end of the matter, and, for once, this tribunal
had done a good piece of service to Christendom. _Concomitant
concurrence_ and _co-operating grace_ had a trial at Rome; but the more
the parties disputed, the less understood they one another. A monk
offered his mediation: but this mediator was less intelligible than the
controversists.
The difficulty was not so much the putting an end to the dispute, as to
know what the dispute was about. Neither party understood themselves or
the other, and, in the mean time, with their free-will, mediate
knowledge, complement of active virtue, &c. they ran themselves more and
more into darkness.
The bickerings, at length, ceased for want of disputants, there being
times when monks sacrifice every thing to indolence. All remained quiet,
till one Cornelius Jansenius renewed the contest; yet, instead of
inventing any thing, he only disputed behind a huge book, the author of
which was named Baius. The Jesuits sollicited the Pope to condemn
Cornelius, and by the dexterity of their agents at Rome, carried their
point there; but in other parts of Europe, it went against them. The
universities, the parliaments, and chiefly the women, profound judges
of such things, sided with Jansenius.
A paper war commenced with great acrimony; congruism, by dint of bulky
volumes, worsted predestination in some pitched battles: yet the war
went on undecided; both parties being now grown powerful, and fighting
merely for the honour of victory.
Till then, only private persons had appeared in the field; but now
universities declaring themselves, the action became general. No
accommodation was so much as talked of, there being no body, or society,
in the state, of a power sufficient to compel the two parties to accept
of its mediation.
In the mean time, the Molinist bishops drew up a condemnation of
Jansenius’s five articles, though, in the opinion of his party, they
were no more than what St. Augustine himself had advanced. Several
communities of men signed the condemnation; but the nuns, who have
nothing to do, and eagerly catch at every opportunity which may bring
them into the world again, protested against subscribing; and those of
Port Royal distinguished themselves by their firmness, or obstinacy.
I do not wonder that they refused subscribing, but am surprised that
their subscription should have been required; it was shewing them a
regard, on this affair, which ought not to have been shewn them: on
their pertinacious refusal, they were forcibly removed, and dispersed
into other convents; whereas the real punishment would have been to have
kept them always in the same spot.
The Popes, likewise, from time to time, issued new formularies, which
gave an air of greater moment to the quarrel; but they had done much
better to have left it to itself, and then Molina and Jansenius would
soon have sunk into oblivion; but the court of Rome is ever for being
absolute.
In the midst of this war, however, a truce was brought about. Clement
IX. a man of good sense and prudence, drew up a set of articles of
capitulation, had them signed by the Jansenists, and thus, brought about
a peace; but, unhappily, when religion is in the case, war soon kindles
again.
A father of the oratory, named Quesnel, is said, this time, to have been
the instrument of discord. He wrote a book which, after being applauded
throughout all Europe, France censured. It was not very easy to point
out wherein this book was to be found fault with; but religious cabals
were then in fashion. The Molinist party, in the mean time, carried it
with a high hand, having the King’s ear.
The confessor to Lewis XIV. was a Jesuit, who formed parties both at
court and in town, against the Jansenists, who keenly revenged
themselves with their pens; thus, though there was a prevailing party,
the war still continued.
Hitherto no manifestos had passed between the Molinists and the
Jansenists, both parties, in the heat of their zeal, having taken up
arms without any declaration of war. Lewis XIV. procured from Rome a
bull, whereby a fire was kindled, which has not since been quenched. The
Pope, the bishops, the King, the religious orders, in short, people of
all ranks gradually engaged in the quarrel, to the great disturbance of
the nation and families; all plotting and caballing one against the
other.
The principal object of public hatred was father Le Tellier, who
over-ruled the King’s conscience: this was a hot and ambitious man, who
wanted to revenge some personal offences given him by the Jansenists,
and, in pursuit of his drift, alarmed both the King’s conscience and
the kingdom.
Lewis XIV. towards the decline of his life, was grown weak and
irresolute, and often harrassed with terrible fears of the devil. The
hard-hearted Jesuit had possessed him with a persuasion, that the affair
of the Molinists was the cause of God. His resentment chiefly aimed at
the cardinal de Noailles, and he had the confidence to move his penitent
to depose him judicially. The death of this Prince brought on a
suspension of this bustle, which was called the constitution.
The Duke of Orleans, who loved neither popes nor bishops, and despised
bulls, in order to rid himself both of the Molinists and Jansenists,
appointed commissioners for hearing their broils, separately from the
other affairs of the monarchy; with an intent to deprive them of their
public importance: but the wisdom of this precaution was frustrated;
those people still were for figuring in the state. They appealed to a
national council, which was nothing less than throwing off the yoke of
the administration, to erect another independent of it. The regent
banished and exiled both bishops and priests; but this remedy only
inflamed the disease, hardening both parties in their obstinacy. The
Jansenists and Molinists then formed themselves into two factions, under
the names of _acceptants_ and _recusants_. The Acceptants called the
Recusants heretics, and the Recusants gave the appellation of
schismatics to the Acceptants.
The frenzy for efficacious grace was bursting out with greater violence
than ever, when the Missisippi scheme was set on foot; then avarice did
what neither the Pope nor King could: all the people’s thoughts now ran
only on getting money. The names of Jansenists and Molinists were
almost forgotten, though to this nothing perhaps contributed more than
the contempt and ridicule which the Duke of Orleans put on this
controversy, calling it a trifle; whereas Lewis XIV. had been made to
lay it to heart, as an affair of the greatest concern.
The subsequent wars under Lewis XV. made the Jansenists and Molinists to
be still farther forgotten, though not without some occasional
skirmishes on predestination; but as there was no general action, they
were not much heeded.
The dispute, in the mean time, was not totally extinguished, or rather
it was a-fire lurking under embers. In 1750, the Molinists renewed
hostilities, refusing the Sacraments to sick persons of the contrary
party, under pretence of their not having confessional certificates.
The parliament intervened, and punished the delinquents; by which the
two parties regained the consideration, which they had lost by the Duke
of Orleans’s measures. This rupture gave rise to a new discussion,
whether the parliament could intermeddle with this affair, or had any
right to banish, or inflict punishments on priests, who, in refusing to
administer the sacraments, only conformed to the injunctions of their
bishops.
The Jansenists said that the civil magistrate has a power legally
superior even to that of the church, the order of a state depending on
such subordination; and they farther added, that the administration of
the Sacraments is the capital branch of the polity exercised by the
civil magistrate.
The answer of the Molinists was, that in spirituals they acknowledged no
other superiority than that of the Pope and his bishops; that civil
affairs were the parliament’s province, and all it ought to concern
itself in; but that the kingdom of heaven had been committed to pastors,
and not lawyers.
The subjects, in the mean time, died without the sacraments; the priests
indeed were punished, yet the evil remained, and this affair gave the
King much uneasiness: the Bourbons indeed have always laid to heart
religious disturbances: the court gave itself more concern about these
confessional certificates, than ever it had shewn in the most important
political transactions. It often became necessary to put a violence on
priests, and make use of soldiers to compel them to administer. Never,
from the birth of Christ, had such a thing been seen, as having recourse
to the bayonet for the administration of the most sacred mystery. It was
indeed a horrid scandal; but to see subjects, at the point of death,
begging for the communion, and refused, was something still more
shocking.
The King, one day, said to me, “These people give me a great deal of
uneasiness; if they go on, I shall be obliged to turn all the priests
out of their livings, and have their functions performed by
Capuchin-friars, who are intirely as I would have them, &c.”[4]
The court’s attention now came to be taken up with an affair of still
greater importance than the constitution itself; the election of a King
of the Romans. The house of Austria, fond of its greatness, is always
providing for the future security of it. As Charles VI. had engaged the
Sovereigns of Europe to make themselves the instruments of his ambition,
even after his decease; Maria Theresa, in her life-time, took measures
for fixing the Imperial throne in her family.
It was on a Prince who might be looked on as a Lorrainer, that she was
conferring the title of presumptive heir; for Charles VI. dying without
male-issue, the house of Austria had ended in him. The circles of the
empire accounted this measure a greater act of despotism than that of
the late emperor; as hereby the empire, from an elective constitution,
not only became hereditary, but even escheated to a foreign family: loud
complaints were made, and that was all. It is now about a century, that
the petty princes in Germany have not been able to shew their resentment
against the house of Austria, any farther than by complaints and
murmurs.
Maria Theresa, knowing how far her forces were superior to any which the
Northern Princes could oppose to her designs, communicated her plan to
the other courts of Europe, and to France one of the first. The King
shewed me the Austrian ambassador’s reasons, digested into writing by M.
de Puisieux, after a conference with that minister. The artful turn
given to them by ambition, makes them worthy of being preserved.
“The calamities still recent, said that Ambassador, which the vacancy of
the Imperial throne, on the demise of Charles VI. brought on Europe,
should move Christian Princes to prevent the like. The Emperor now
reigning is in full health, and it may be presumed, that God will grant
him length of days: but should one of those many accidents to which
human nature is liable, disappoint the public hopes, and shorten his
valuable life, Christendom would be plunged in the same abysses, as on
the decease of the last Emperor. It is therefore the concern of all the
European powers to prevent a war, that scourge which throws every thing
into confusion, lays waste whole nations, and thins mankind. The
calamities caused by the late vacancy of the empire are not likely to be
brought to a speedy end, and what will it be should new disturbances be
accumulated on the former?
“Too many precautions cannot be taken against evils, which, when once
happened, cannot be averted, or the issue of them determined.
“By the election of a King of the Romans, the views of Princes who may
have formed designs, are prevented; and the coronation once over, will
suppress all cabals and intrigues about being head of the empire. When a
sceptre is vacant, a great stir is made after it; but when once
possessed, it is no longer thought of.
“Archduke Joseph, indeed, should the Emperor die, is not of age to
govern his dominions; but the evils of minority cannot be compared to
those which the want of a head to the empire would occasion.
“Not that the Queen of Hungary is in the least apprehensive of her heirs
being deprived of a throne, the legal appenage of her family; her
leading motive in this settlement is to prevent the needless effusion of
blood.
“On the death of Charles VI. it was seen that all Europe cannot make an
Emperor. The Elector of Bavaria, after being placed on that throne by
foreign armies, was always in a tottering condition; so that had not
death deprived him of the crown, he would have been obliged to resign
it, &c.”
I have observed that ambassadors, in cases of personal interest,
generally overlook the regard due to Princes by the law of nations.
Here the Vienna minister would have France subvert the very foundations
of the Imperial constitution, and make that crown hereditary, which had
always been elective. He surely forgot that the house of Bourbon, as I
have been told, had, at the treaty of Westphalia, made itself a
guarantee of the liberties and privileges of the empire. His court
seemed not to recollect that the election of a King of the Romans
depended on the consent of the electors, in a diet held expressly for
such election.
The King, on reading this Memoir, asked M. de Puisieux what he thought
of the business. _Sir_, answered the Minister, _you must consent to
every thing; it is no longer worth France’s while to meddle with the
affairs of Germany; at present the King of Prussia is able to keep up
the balance in the North, and hinder the house of Austria from lording
it over yours; so that all we have to do now, is to look on_. The
council, however, was of a different opinion; but it is not the first
time that one man has been wiser than an assembly.
The court of Vienna was likewise busy in bringing the other courts of
Europe to countenance this election. That of England represented to the
Marquis de Mirepoix, that it was the interest of France to close with
the making a King of the Romans; doubtless, because it was theirs. This
court afterwards went farther, and George the Second affirmed, that the
election of a King of the Romans did not depend on the Electoral
college; that is, that the dignity of presumptive heir to the empire
might be conferred without any deliberation of the electors, which was
making the Imperial crown absolutely hereditary.
I remember all the memoirs of that time agree in the Archduke’s being
very young, but they all likewise added, that an Emperor under age was
better than a vacancy of the throne, which amounts to an approbation of
a regular succession.
A politician of our court, with whom I was talking of this election,
told me, that there was an article in the treaty of Westphalia, which
formally settled this affair. It is there expressly said, _That no
election of a King of the Romans shall be entered on, unless the
reigning emperor be out of the empire, and with an intent to be absent a
long time, or for ever; or that age should render him incapable of
government; or there should manifestly appear some great necessity on
which the safety of the empire depended_. But treaties are never
followed, and no more was said of this, than if it had never existed.
The King of Prussia alone stood up in defence of the Electoral-college;
but he had his reasons for this specious conduct. The election of a King
of the Romans secured the empire to the house of Austria; and it has
been believed by many, that he himself looked that way. There is indeed
no ambition, of which a Prince, so powerful in war as to subdue several
nations, is not susceptible.
I return to Versailles, from whence the affair of the King of the Romans
has carried me too far. Lewis XV. as I have said elsewhere, was now a
little relieved from the load of business imposed on him by the war;
peace allowed him a leisure, which was the very felicity of my life.
Amidst the confusion of sieges and battles, he had no settled residence.
Flanders had several times deprived me of him; but the treaty of peace
entirely restored him to me, and his confidence in me daily increased;
so that he even imparted to me his uneasiness, for kings have their
troubles both as men and as Princes.
Lewis XV. would often lament, that he had no friends, and had a thousand
times wished to have been a private person, for the sake of cordial
friendship and sympathy, to the effects of which Kings are always
strangers.