In process of this so terrific Duel with Elizabeth Farnese, and general
combat of the Shadows, which then made Europe quake, at every new
lunge and pass of it, and which now makes Europe yawn to hear the
least mention of it, there came two sputterings of actual War. Byng's
sea-victory at Messina, 1718; Spanish "Siege of Gibraltar," 1727, are
the main phenomena of these two Wars,--England, as its wont is, taking a
shot in both, though it has now forgotten both. And, on the whole,
there came, so far as I can count, Seven grand diplomatic Spasms or
Crises,--desperate general European Treatyings hither and then thither,
solemn Congresses two of them, with endless supplementary adhesions
by the minor powers. Seven grand mother-treaties, not to mention the
daughters, or supplementary adhesions they had; all Europe rising
spasmodically seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this
terrible incubus; all Europe changing color seven times, like a lobster
boiling, for twenty years. Seven diplomatic Crises, we say, marked
changings of color in the long-suffering lobster; and two so-called
Wars,--before this enormous zero could be settled. Which high Treaties
and Transactions, human nature, after much study of them, grudges to
enumerate. Apanage for Baby Carlos, ghost of a Pragmatic Sanction; these
were a pair of causes for mankind! Be no word spoken of them, except
with regret and on evident compulsion.
For the reader's convenience we must note the salient points; but grudge
to do it. Salient points, now mostly wrapt in Orcus, and terrestrially
interesting only to the spiders,--except on an occasion of this kind,
when part of them happens to stick to the history of a memorable man, To
us they are mere bubblings-up of the general putrid fermentation of the
then Political World; and are too unlovely to be dwelt on longer than
indispensable. Triple Alliance, Quadruple Alliance, Congress of Cambrai,
Congress of Soissons; Conference of Pardo, Treaty of Hanover, Treaty of
Wusterhausen, what are they? Echo answers, What? Ripperda and the Queen
of Spain, Kaiser Karl and his Pragmatic Sanction, are fallen dim to
every mind. The Troubles of Thorn (sad enough Papist-Protestant tragedy
in their time),--who now cares to know of them? It is much if we find
a hearing for the poor Salzburg Emigrants when they get into Preussen
itself. Afflicted human nature ought to be, at last, delivered from
the palpably superfluous; and if a few things memorable are to be
remembered, millions of things unmemorable must first be honestly
buried and forgotten! But to our affair,--that of marking the chief
bubblings-up in the above-said Universal Putrid Fermentation, so far as
they concern us.
CONGRESS OF CAMBRAI.
We already saw Byng sea fighting in the Straits of Messina; that was
part of Crisis Second,--sequel, in powder-and-ball, of Crisis First,
which had been in paper till then. The Powers had interfered, by Triple,
by Quadruple Alliance, to quench the Spanish-Austrian Duel (about
Apanage for Baby Carlos, and a quantity of other Shadows): "Triple
Alliance" [4th January, 1717.] was, we may say, when France, England,
Holland laboriously sorted out terms of agreement between Kaiser and
Termagant: "Quadruple" [18th July, 1718.] was when Kaiser, after much
coaxing, acceded, as fourth party; and said gloomily, "Yes, then."
Byng's Sea-fight was when Termagant said, "No, by--the Plots of
Alberoni! Never will I, for my part, accede to such terms!" and attacked
the poor Kaiser in his Sicilies and elsewhere. Byng's Sea-fight, in aid
of a suffering Kaiser and his Sicilies, in consequence. Furthermore,
the French invaded Spain, till Messina were retaken; nay the English, by
land too, made a dash at Spain, "Descent on Vigo" as they call it,--in
reference to which take the following stray Note:--
"That same year [1719, year after Byng's Sea-fight, Messina just
about recaptured], there took effect, planned by the vigorous Colonel
Stanhope, our Minister at Madrid, who took personal share in the thing,
a 'Descent on Vigo,' sudden swoop-down upon Town and shipping in those
Gallician, north-west regions. Which was perfectly successful,--Lord
Cobham leading;--and made much noise among mankind. Filled all Gazettes
at that time;--but now, again, is all fallen silent for us,--except this
one thrice-insignificant point, That there was in it, 'in Handyside's
Regiment,' a Lieutenant of Foot, by name STERNE, who had left, with his
poor Wife at Plymouth, a very remarkable Boy called Lorry, or LAWRENCE;
known since that to all mankind. When Lorry in his LIFE writes, 'my
Father went on the Vigo expedition,' readers may understand this was it.
Strange enough: that poor Lieutenant of Foot is now pretty much all
that is left of this sublime enterprise upon Vigo, in the memory of
mankind;--hanging there, as if by a single hair, till poor TRISTRAM
SHANDY be forgotten too." [_Memoirs of Laurence Sterne, written by
himself for his Daughter (see Annual Register,_ Year 1775, pp. 50-52).]
In short, the French and even the English invaded Spain; English Byng
and others sank Spanish ships: Termagant was obliged to pack away her
Alberoni, and give in. She had to accede to "Quadruple Alliance," after
all; making it, so to speak, a Quintuple one; making Peace, in fact,
[17th February, 1720.]--general Congress to be held at Cambrai and
settle the details.
Congress of Cambrai met accordingly; in 1722,--"in the course of the
year," Delegates slowly raining in,--date not fixable to a day or month.
Congress was "sat," as we said,--or, alas, was only still endeavoring to
get seated, and wandering about among the chairs,--when George I. came
to Charlottenburg that evening, October, 1723, and surveyed Wilhelmina
with a candle. More inane Congress never met in this world, nor will
meet. Settlement proved so difficult; all the more, as neither of
the quarrelling parties wished it. Kaiser and Termagant, fallen as if
exhausted, had not the least disposition to agree; lay diplomatically
gnashing their teeth at one another, ready to fight again should
strength return. Difficult for third parties to settle on behalf of such
a pair. Nay at length the Kaiser's Ostend Company came to light: what
will third parties, Dutch and English especially, make of that?
This poor Congress---let the reader fancy it--spent two years in
"arguments about precedencies," in mere beatings of the air; could not
get seated at all, but wandered among the chairs, till "February, 1724."
Nor did it manage to accomplish any work whatever, even then; the most
inane of Human Congresses; and memorable on that account, if on no
other. There, in old stagnant Cambrai, through the third year and into
the fourth, were Delegates, Spanish, Austrian, English, Dutch, French,
of solemn outfit, with a big tail to each,--"Lord Whitworth" whom I do
not know, "Lord Polwarth" (Earl of Marchmont that will be, a friend of
Pope's), were the English Principals: [Scholl, ii. 197.]--there, for
about four years, were these poor fellow-creatures busied, baling out
water with sieves. Seen through the Horn-Gate of Dreams, the figure of
them rises almost grand on the mind.
A certain bright young Frenchman, Francois Arouet,--spoiled for a solid
law-career, but whose OEDIPE we saw triumphing in the Theatres, and
who will, under the new name of VOLTAIRE, become very memorable to
us,--happened to be running towards Holland that way, one of his many
journeys thitherward; and actually saw this Congress, then in the first
year of its existence. Saw it, probably dined with it. A Letter of his
still extant, not yet fallen to the spiders, as so much else has done,
testifies to this fact. Let us read part of it, the less despicable
part,--as a Piece supremely insignificant, yet now in a manner the one
surviving Document of this extraordinary Congress; Congress's own works
and history having all otherwise fallen to the spiders forever. The
Letter is addressed to Cardinal Dubois;--for Dubois, "with the face like
a goat," [Herzogin von Orleans, BRIEFE.] yet lived (first year of this
Congress); and Regent d'Orleans lived, intensely interested here as
third party:--and a goat-faced Cardinal, once pimp and lackey, ugliest
of created souls, Archbishop of this same Cambrai "by Divine permission"
and favor of Beelzebub, was capable of promoting a young fellow if he
chose:--
"TO HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL DUBOIS (from Arouet Junior).
"CAMBRAI, July, 1722.
"... We are just arrived in your City, Monseigneur; where, I think,
all the Ambassadors and all the Cooks in Europe have given one another
rendezvous. It seems as if all the Ministers of Germany had assembled
here for the purpose of getting their Emperor's health drunk. As to
Messieurs the Ambassadors of Spain, one of them hears two masses a day,
and the other manages the troop of players. The English Ministers [a
LORD POLWARTH and a LORD WHITWORTH] send many couriers to Champagne, and
few to London. For the rest, nobody expects your Eminence here; it is
not thought you will quit the Palais-Royal to visit the sheep of your
flock in these parts [no!], it would be too bad for your Eminence and
for us all.... Think sometimes, Monseigneur, of a man who [regards your
goat-faced Eminence as a beautiful ingenious creature; and such a
hand in conversation as never was]. The one thing I will ask [of your
goat-faced Eminence] at Paris will be, to have the goodness to talk to
me." [_OEuvres de Voltaire,_ 97 vols. (Paris, 1825-1834), lxviii. 95,
96.]
Alas, alas!--The more despicable portions of this Letter we omit, as
they are not history of the Congress, but of Arouet Junior on the
shady side. So much will testify that this Congress did exist; that
its wiggeries and it were not always, what they now are, part of a
nightmare-vision in Human History.--
Elizabeth Farnese, seeing at what rate the Congress of Cambrai sped,
lost all patience with it; and getting more and more exasperations
there, at length employed one Ripperda, a surprising Dutch Black-Artist
whom she now had for Minister, to pull the floor from beneath it (so
to speak), and send it home in that manner. Which Ripperda did. An
appropriate enough catastrophe, comfortable to the reader; upon which
perhaps he will not grudge to read still another word?
CONGRESS OF CAMBRAI GETS THE FLOOR PULLED FROM UNDER IT.
Termagant Elizabeth had now one Ripperda for Minister; a surprising
Dutch adventurer, once secretary of some Dutch embassy at Madrid;
who, discerning how the land lay, had broken loose from that subaltern
career, had changed his religion, insinuated himself into Elizabeth's
royal favor; and was now "Duke de Ripperda," and a diplomatic bull-dog
of the first quality, full of mighty schemes and hopes; in brief, a new
Alberoni to the Termagant Queen. This Ripperda had persuaded her (the
third year of our inane Congress now running out, to no purpose), That
he, if he were sent direct to Vienna, could reconcile the Kaiser to her
Majesty, and bring them to Treaty, independently of Congresses. He
was sent accordingly, in all privacy; had reported himself as laboring
there, with the best outlooks, for some while past; when, still early in
1725, there occurred on the part of France,--where Regent d'Orleans was
now dead, and new politics bad come in vogue,--that "sending back,"
of the poor little Spanish: Infanta, ["5th April, 1725, quitted Paris"
(Barbier, _Journal du Regne de Louis XV.,_ i. 218).] and marrying of
young Louis XV. elsewhere, which drove Elizabeth and the Court of Spain,
not unnaturally, into a very delirium of indignation.
Why they sent the poor little Lady home on those shocking terms? It
seems there was no particular reason, except that French Louis was now
about fifteen, and little Spanish Theresa was only eight; and that,
under Duc de Bourbon, the new Premier, and none of the wisest, there
was, express or implicit, "an ardent wish to see royal progeny secured."
For which, of course, a wife of eight years would not answer. So she
was returned; and even in a blundering way, it is said,--the French
Ambassador at Madrid having prefaced his communication, not with light
adroit preludings of speech, but with a tempest of tears and howling
lamentations, as if that were the way to conciliate King Philip and
his Termagant Elizabeth. Transport of indignation was the natural
consequence on their part; order to every Frenchman to be across the
border within, say eight-and-forty hours; rejection forever of all
French mediation at Cambrai or elsewhere; question to the English, "Will
you mediate for us, then?" To which the answer being merely "Hm!" with
looks of delay,--order by express to Ripperda, to make straightway a
bargain with the Kaiser; almost any bargain, so it were made at once.
Ripperda made a bargain: Treaty of Vienna, 30th April, 1725: [Scholl,
ii. 201; Coxe, _Walpole,_ i. 239-250.] "Titles and Shadows each of us
shall keep for his own lifetime, then they shall drop. As to realities
again, to Parma and Piacenza among the rest, let these be as in the
Treaty of Utrecht; arrangeable in the lump;--and indeed, of Parma and
Piacenza perhaps the less we say, the better at present." This was, in
substance, Ripperda's Treaty; the Third great European travail-throe, or
change of color in the long-suffering lobster. Whereby, of course, the
Congress of Cambrai did straightway disappear, the floor miraculously
vanishing under it; and sinks--far below human eye-reach by this
time--towards the Bottomless Pool, ever since. Such was the beginning,
such the end of that Congress, which Arouet LE JEUNE, in 1722, saw as a
contemporary Fact, drinking champagne in Ramillies wigs, and arranging
comedies for itself.
FRANCE AND THE BRITANNIC MAJESTY TRIM THE SHIP AGAIN: HOW FRIEDRICH
WILHELM CAME INTO IT. TREATY OF HANOVER, 1725.
The publication of this Treaty of Vienna (30th April, 1725),--miraculous
disappearance of the Congress of Cambrai by withdrawal of the floor
from under it, and close union of the Courts of Spain and Vienna as
the outcome of its slow labors,--filled Europe, and chiefly the late
mediating Powers, with amazement, anger, terror. Made Europe lurch
suddenly to the other side, as we phrased it,--other gunwale now under
water. Wherefore, in Heaven's name, trim your ship again, if possible,
ye high mediating Powers. This the mediating Powers were laudably
alert to do. Duc de Bourbon, and his young King about to marry, were of
pacific tendencies; anxious for the Balance: still more was Fleury,
who succeeded Duc de Bourbon. Cardinal Fleury (with his pupil Louis XV.
under him, producing royal progeny and nothing worse or better as
yet) began, next year, his long supremacy in France; an aged reverend
gentleman, of sly, delicately cunning ways, and disliking war, as George
I. did, unless when forced on him: now and henceforth, no mediating
power more anxious than France to have the ship in trim.
George and Bourbon laid their heads together, deeply pondering this
little less than awful state of the Terrestrial Balance; and in about
six months they, in their quiet way, suddenly came out with a Fourth
Crisis on the astonished populations, so as to right the ship's
trim again, and more. "Treaty of Hanover," this was their unexpected
manoeuvre; done quietly at Herrenhausen, when his Majesty next
went across for the Hanover hunting-season. Mere hunting:--but the
diplomatists, as well as the beagles, were all in readiness there. Even
Friedrich Wilhelm, ostensibly intent on hunting, was come over thither,
his abstruse Ilgens, with their inkhorns, escorting him: Friedrich
Wilhelm, hunting in unexpected sort, was persuaded to sign this Treaty;
which makes it unusually interesting to us. An exceptional procedure on
the part of Friedrich Wilhelm, who beyond all Sovereigns stays well
at home, careless of affairs that are not his:--procedure betokening
cordiality at Hanover; and of good omen for the Double-Marriage?
Yes, surely;--and yet something more, on Friedrich Wilhelm's part. His
rights on the Cleve-Julich Countries; reversion of Julich and Berg,
once Karl Philip shall decease:--perhaps these high Powers, for a
consideration, will guarantee one's undoubted rights there? It is
understood they gave promises of this kind, not too specific. Nay we
hear farther a curious thing: "France and England, looking for immediate
war with the Kaiser, advised Friedrich Wilhelm to assert his rights
on Silesia." Which would have been an important procedure! Friedrich
Wilhelm, it is added, had actual thoughts of it; the Kaiser, in those
matters of the RITTER-DIENST, of the HEIDELBERG PROTESTANTS, and
wherever a chance was, had been unfriendly, little less than insulting,
to Friedrich Wilhelm: "Give me one single Hanoverian brigade, to
show that you go along with me!" said his Prussian Majesty;--but the
Britannic never altogether would. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ i.
153.] Certain it is, Friedrich Wilhelm signed: a man with such
Fighting-Apparatus as to be important in a Hanover Treaty. "Balance of
Power, they tell me, is in a dreadful way: certainly if one can help
the Balance a little, why not? But Julich and Berg, one's own outlook
of reversion there, that is the point to be attended to:--Balance, I
believe, will somehow shift for itself!" On these principles, Friedrich
Wilhelm signed, while ostensibly hunting. [Fassmann, p. 368; Forster,
_ Urkundenbuch,_ p. 67.] Treaty of Hanover, which was to trim the ship
again, or even to make it heel the other way, dates itself 3d September,
1725, and is of this purport: "We three, France, England, Prussia to
stand by each other as one man, in case any of us is attacked,--will
invite Holland, Denmark, Sweden and every pacific Sovereignty to join us
in such convention,"--as they all gradually did, had Friedrich Wilhelm
but stood firm.
For it is a state of the Balances little less than awful. Rumor goes
that, by the Ripperda bargain, fatal to mankind, Don Carlos was to
get the beautiful young Maria Theresa to wife: that would settle the
Parma-Piacenza business and some others; that would be a compensation
with a witness! Spain and Austria united, as in Karl V.'s time; or
perhaps some Succession War, or worse, to fight over again!--
Fleury and George, as Duc de Bourbon and George had done, though
both pacific gentlemen, brandished weapons at the Kaiser; strongly
admonishing him to become less formidable, or it would be worse for him.
Possible indeed, in such a shadow-hunting, shadow-hunted hour! Fleury
and George stand looking with intense anxiety into a certain spectral
something, which they call the Balance of Power; no end to their
exorcisms in that matter. Truly, if each of the Royal Majesties and
Serene Highnesses would attend to his own affairs,--doing his utmost to
better his own land and people, in earthly and in heavenly respects, a
little,--he would find it infinitely profitabler for himself and others.
And the Balance of Power would settle, in that case, as the laws
of gravity ordered: which is its one method of settling, after all
diplomacy!--Fleury and George, by their manifestoing, still more by
their levying of men, George I. shovelling out his English subsidies
as usual, created deadly qualms in the Kaiser; who still found it
unpleasant to "admit Spanish Garrisons in Parma;" but found likewise his
Termagant Friend inexorably positive on that score; and knew not what
would become of him, if he had to try fighting, and the Sea-Powers
refused him cash to do it.
Hereby was the ship trimmed, and more; ship now lurching to the
other side again. George I. goes subsidying Hessians, Danes; sounding
manifestoes, beating drums, in an alarming manner: and the Kaiser,
except it were in Russia, with the new Czarina Catherine I. (that brown
little woman, now become Czarina [8th February, 1725. Treaty with Kaiser
(6th August, 1726) went to nothing on her death, 11th May, 1727.]),
finds no ally to speak of. An unlucky, spectre-hunting, spectre-hunted
Kaiser; who, amid so many drums, manifestoes, menaces, is now rolling
eyes that witness everywhere considerable dismay. This is the Fourth
grand Crisis of Europe; crisis or travail-throe of Nature, bringing
forth, and unable to do it, Baby Carlos's Apanage and the Pragmatic
Sanction. Fourth conspicuous change of color to the universal lobster,
getting itself boiled on those sad terms, for twenty years. For its
sins, we need not doubt; for its own long-continued cowardices, sloths
and greedy follies, as well as those of Kaiser Karl!--
At this Fourth change we will gladly leave the matter, for a time;
much wishing it might be forever. Alas, as if that were possible to us!
Meanwhile, let afflicted readers, looking before and after, readier to
forget than to remember in such a case, accept this Note, or Summary of
all the Seven together, by way of help:--
TRAVAIL-THROES OF NATURE FOR BABY CARLOS'S ITALIAN APANAGE; SEVEN IN
NUMBER.
1. Triple Alliance, English, Dutch, French (4th January, 1717), saying,
"Peace, then! No Alberoni-plotting; no Duel-fighting permitted!"
Same Powers, next year, proposing Terms of Agreement; Kaiser gloomily
accepting them; which makes it Quadruple Alliance (18th July, 1718);
Termagant indignantly refusing,--with attack on the Kaiser's Sicilies.
2. First Sputter of War; Byng's Sea-fight, and the other pressures,
compelling Termagant: Peace (26th January, 1720); Congress of Cambrai to
settle the Apanage and other points.
3. Congress of Cambrai, a weariness to gods and men, gets the floor
pulled from under it (Ripperda's feat, 30th April, 1725); so that Kaiser
and Termagant stand ranked together, Apanage wrapt in mystery,--to the
terror of mankind.
4. Treaty of Hanover (France, England, Prussia, 3d September, 1725)
restores the Balances, and more. War imminent. Prussia privately falls
off,--as we shall see.
[These first Four lie behind us, at this point; but there are Three
others still ahead, which we cannot hope to escape altogether; namely:]
5. Second Sputter of War: Termagant besieges Gibraltar (4th March,
1727--6th March, 1728): Peace at that latter date;--Congress of Soissons
to settle the Apanage and other points, as formerly.
6. Congress of Soissons (14th June, 1728--9th November, 1729), as
formerly, cannot in the least: Termagaut whispers England;--there is
Treaty of Seville (9th November, 1729), France and England undertaking
for the Apanage. Congress vanishes; Kaiser is left solitary, with the
shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, in the night of things. Pause of an awful
nature:--but Fleury does not hasten with the Apanage, as promised.
Whereupon, at length,
7. Treaty of Vienna (16th March, 1731): Sea-Powers, leading Termagant by
the hand, Sea-Powers and no France, unite with Kaiser again, according
to the old laws of Nature;--and Baby Carlos gets his Apanage, in due
course;--but does not rest content with it, Mamma nor he, very long!
Huge spectres and absurd bugaboos, stalking through the brain of dull
thoughtless pusillanimous mankind, do, to a terrible extent, tumble
hither and thither, and cause to lurch from side to side, their ship
of state, and all that is embarked there, BREAKFAST-TABLE, among other
things. Nevertheless, if they were only bugaboos, and mere Shadows
caused by Imperial hand-lanterns in the general Night of the
world,--ought they to be spoken of in the family, when avoidable?