It seems as if
"all the Ministers of Germany had assembled here for the
"purpose of getting their Emperor's health drunk.
"all the Ministers of Germany had assembled here for the
"purpose of getting their Emperor's health drunk.
Thomas Carlyle
So the bright old Eugene dictated, --
or, we hope and guess, he only gave his clerks some
key-word, and signed his name (in three languages,
"Eugenio von Savoye") to these square miles of dull
epistolary matter, -- probably taking Spanish snuff
when he had done. For he wears it in both waistcoat-
pockets; -- has (as his Portraits still tell us) given-up
breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, with a
flash in him as of Heaven's own lightning; but now
growing very old and snuffy.
Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the
Spanish Crown, -- it was such shadow-huntings of the
Kaiser in Vienna, it was this of the Pragmatic Sanction
most of all, that thwarted our Prussian Double-Marriage,
which lay so far away from it. This it was that pretty
nearly broke the hearts of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and
their Mother and Father. For there never was such
negociating; not for admittance to the Kingdom of
Heaven, in the pious times. And the open goings-forth
of it, still more the secret minings and mole-courses of
it, were into all places. Above ground and below, no
Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him
agree or not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and
with all his heart, agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction;
this above-ground, in sight of the sun; and rashly
fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his horror,
he found the Imperial moles, by way of keeping as-
surance doubly sure, had been under the foundations
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? CHAF. n. j A KAISEB HUNTING SHADOWS. 309
1723-1726.
of his very house for long years past, and had all-
bat brought it down about him in the most hideous
manner! --
Third Shadow: Imperial Majesty's Ostend Company.
Another object which Kaiser Karl pursued with
some diligence in these times, and which likewise proved
a shadow, much disturbance as it gave mankind, was
his "Ostend East-India Company. " The Kaiser had
seen impoverished Spain, rich England, rich Holland;
he had taken-up a creditable notion about commerce
and its advantages. He said to himself, Why should
not my Netherlands trade to the East, as well as these
English and Dutch, and grow opulent like them? He
instituted (octroya) an "Ostend East-India Company,"
under due Patents and Imperial Sheepskins, of date
17th December 1722,* gave it what freedom he could
to trade to the East. "Impossible! " answered the
Dutch, with distraction in their aspect: "Impossible, we
say; contrary to Treaty of Westphalia, to Utrecht, to
Barrier Treaty; and destructive to the best interests of
mankind, especially to us and our trade-profits! We
shall have to capture your ships, if you ever send
any. "
To which the Kaiser counterpleaded, earnestly, di-
ligently, for the space of seven years, -- to no effect.
"We will capture your ships if you ever send any,"
? Buohholz, i. 88; Pfcffel, Abrigi Chronoloqique ie VHistoire d'Alle-
magna (Paris, 1776), it. 522.
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? 310 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [nOOKv.
1723-1726.
answered the Dutch and English. What ships ever
could have been sent from Ostend to the East, or what
ill they could have done there, remains a mystery,
owing to the monopolising Maritime Powers.
The Kaiser's laudable zeal for commerce had to
expend itself in his Adriatic Territories, -- giving pri-
vileges to the Ports of Trieste and Fiume;* making
roads through the Dalmatian Hill-Countries, which are
useful to this day; -- but could not operate on the
Netherlands in the way proposed. The Kaiser's Im-
perial Ostend East-India Company, which convulsed
the Diplomatic mind for seven years to come, and made
Europe lurch from side to side in a terrific manner,
proved a mere paper Company; never sent any ships,
only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honour to
be. " This was the third grand Shadow which the
Kaiser chased, shaking all the world, poor crank world,
as he strode after it; and this also ended in zero, and
several tons of diplomatic correspondence, carried once
by breathless estafettes, and now silent, gravitating
towards Acheron all of them, and interesting to the
spiders only.
Poor good Kaiser: they say he was a humane stately
gentleman, stately though shortish; fond of pardoning
criminals where he could; very polite to Muratori and
the Antiquaries, even to English Rymer, in opening
his Archives to them, -- and made roads in the Dal-
matian Hill-Country, which remain to this day. I do
? Hormayr: (Esterreichischer Plutarch, x. 101.
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? CHAP. n. ] A KAISEK HUNTING SHADOWS. 311
1723-1726.
not wonder he grew more and more saturnine, and
addicted to solid taciturn field-sports. His Political
"Perforce-Hunt (Parforce Jagd)," with so many two-
footed terriers, and legationary beagles, distressing all
the world by their baying and their burrowing, had
proved to be of Shadows; and melted into thin air, to
a very singular degree!
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? S12 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PKOJECT STARTED. [bOOKv.
1723-1726.
CHAPTER ffl.
THE SEVEN CRISES OR EUROPEAN TRAVAIL-THROES.
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 supplemen-
tary adhesions they had; all Europe rising spasmodically
seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this
terrible incubus; all Europe changing colour seven
times, like a lobster boiling, for twenty years. Seven
diplomatic Crises, we say, marked changings of colour
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
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? CHAP, in. ] THE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 313
1723-1726.
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 in-
teresting only to the spiders, -- except on an occa-
sion 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 fermenta-
tion of the then Political World; and are too unlovely
to be dwelt on longer than indispensable. Triple Al-
liance, Quadruple Alliance, Congress of Cambrai, Con-
gress 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 Uni-
versal Putrid Fermentation, so far as they concern us.
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? 314 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [book v.
1723-1726.
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"* was, we may
say, when Prance, England, Holland laboriously sorted-
out terms of agreement between Kaiser and Termagant:
"Quadruple"** 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 conse-
quence. 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 success-
? 4th January 1717. -- 18th July 1718.
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? CHAP, nt. ] the SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 315
1723-1726.
"fill, -- Lord Cobham leading; -- and made much noise
"among mankind. Pilled 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
4'Vigo, in the memory of mankind; -- hanging there, as if by
"a single hair, till poor Tristram Shandy be forgotten too. " *
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,** -- 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 en-
deavouring to get seated, and wandering about among
the chairs, -- when George I. came to Charlottenburg
? Memoirs of Lawrence Sterne, written by himself for his Daughter (see Annual Register, Year 1775, pp. 80-82).
? ? 17th February 1720.
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? 316 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [bOOK v.
1723-1726,
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 Home that will be, a friend
of Pope's) were the English Principals:* -- 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,
? SchOl, U. 197.
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? CHAP, m. ] THE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 317
1723-1726.
-- spoiled for a solid law-career, but whose CEdipe 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 in-
significant, yet now in a manner the one surviving Do-
cument 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,"*
yet lived (first year of this Congress); and Regent d'Or-
ldans lived, intensely interested here as third party: --
and a goatfaced Cardinal, once pimp and lackey, ugliest
of created souls, Archbishop of this same Cambrai "by
Divine permission" and favour of Beelzebub, was ca-
pable of promoting a young fellow if he chose:
"To his Eminence Cardinal Dubois (from Arouet Junior).
"Cambrai, July 1722.
>># # * we ^ jugt 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
? Heraogln von Orleans: Briefe.
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? 318 DOUBLE-MABRIAGE PBOJECT STABTED. [book T.
1723-1726.
"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 Whit-
worth) "send many couriers to Champagne, and few to Lon-
"don. 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 some-
"times, 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 goatfaced Eminence "at Paris will be, to have
"the goodness to talk tome. "* * ***
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 cata-
strophe, comfortable to the reader; upon which perhaps
he will not grudge to read still another word?
? (Euvresde Voltaire, 97 vola. (Paris, 1826-1834), lxviii. 95,96.
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? CHAP, in. ] the SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 319
1725.
Congress of Cambrai gets the floor pulled from under it.
Termagant Elizabeth had now one Kipperda 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 favour; and was now "Duke de Rip-
perda," and a diplomatic bulldog of the first quality,
full of mighty schemes and hopes; in brief, a new Al-
beroni 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 labouring there, with the best
outlooks, for some while past; when, still early in 1725,
there occurred on the part of France, -- where Regent
d'Orl^ans was now dead, and new politics had come in
vogue, -- that "sending back" of the poor little Spanish
Infanta, * and marrying of young Louis XV. elsewhere,
which drove Elizabeth and the Court of Spain, not un-
naturally, into a very delirium of indignation.
Why they sent the poor little Lady home on those
shocking terms? It seems there was no particular rea-
son, except that French Louis was now about fifteen,
? "6th April 1725, quitted Parli" (Baibler, Journal da Rigne de
Louis XV, I. 218).
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? 320 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [BOOK V.
MS*
and little Spanish Theresa was only eight; and that,
under Due 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 pre-
faced his communication, not with light adroit preludings
of speech, but with a tempest of tears and howling la-
mentations, as if that were the way to conciliate King
Philip and his Termagant Elizabeth. Transport of in-
dignation 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:* "Titles and Shadows
"each of us shall keep for his own lifetime, then they
"shall drop. As to realities again, to Parma and Pia-
"cenza 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 colour in the long-suffering lobster. Whereby,
? SchBU, ii. 201; Coxe, Walpole, i. 839-250?
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? CHAP, in. ] TIIE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 321
1725.
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
leJeune, in 1722, saw as a contemporary Fact, drinking
champagne in ramilies 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 Con-
gress 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 labours, -- 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.
Due de Bourbon, and his young King about to marry,
were of pacific tendencies; anxious for the Balance:
still more was Pleury, who succeeded Due 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;
Carlyle, Frederic the Great, II. 21
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? 322 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [bOOKv.
1725.
an aged reverend gentleman, of sly, delicately cun-
ning 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 readi-
ness 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 Wil-
helm, who beyond all Sovereigns stays well at home,
careless of affairs that are not his: -- procedure be-
tokening cordiality at Hanover; and of good omen for
the Double-Marriage?
Yes, surely; -- and yet something more, on Fried-
rich Wilhelm's part. His rights on the Cleve-Jlilich
Countries; reversion of Jiilich and Berg, once Karl
Philip shall decease: -- perhaps these high Powers,
for a consideration, will guarantee one's undoubted
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? CHAP, in. ) THE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 323
3d Sept. 1725.
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 im-
"mediate war with the Kaiser, advised Friedrich Wil-
"helm 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 un-
friendly, 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. *
Certain it is, Friedrich Wilhelm signed: a man with
such Fighting-Apparatus as to be important in a Han-
over Treaty. "Balance of Power, they tell me, is in
a dreadful way: certainly if one can help the Balance
a little, why not? But Jiilich and Berg, one's own
outlook of reversion there, that is the point to be at-
tended to: -- Balance, I believe, will somehow shift
for itself! " On these principles, Friedrich Wilhelm
signed, while ostensibly hunting. ** 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, Den-
"mark, Sweden and every pacific Sovereignty to join
? (Euvres de Fridiric, i. 153.
? * Fassmann, p. 368; FBrater, Urkundenbuch, p. 67
21*
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1725.
"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. Rumour 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 Succes-
sion War, or worse, to fight over again! --
Fleury and George, as Due 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 exor-
cisms 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 him-
self and others. And the Balance of Power would
settle, in that CASG, AS the laws of gravity ordered:
which is its one method of settling, after all diploma-
cy! -- 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
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? CHAP. III. ] THE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 325
1725.
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 sub-
sidying 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)*, finds
no ally to speak of. An unlucky, spectre-hunting,
spectre-hunted Kaiser; who, amid so many drums, ma-
nifestoes, 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 conspi-
cuous change of colour 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
? 8th February 1725. Treaty with Kaiser (6th August 1726) went to
nothing on her death, 11th May 1727,
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1726.
or, we hope and guess, he only gave his clerks some
key-word, and signed his name (in three languages,
"Eugenio von Savoye") to these square miles of dull
epistolary matter, -- probably taking Spanish snuff
when he had done. For he wears it in both waistcoat-
pockets; -- has (as his Portraits still tell us) given-up
breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, with a
flash in him as of Heaven's own lightning; but now
growing very old and snuffy.
Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the
Spanish Crown, -- it was such shadow-huntings of the
Kaiser in Vienna, it was this of the Pragmatic Sanction
most of all, that thwarted our Prussian Double-Marriage,
which lay so far away from it. This it was that pretty
nearly broke the hearts of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and
their Mother and Father. For there never was such
negociating; not for admittance to the Kingdom of
Heaven, in the pious times. And the open goings-forth
of it, still more the secret minings and mole-courses of
it, were into all places. Above ground and below, no
Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him
agree or not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and
with all his heart, agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction;
this above-ground, in sight of the sun; and rashly
fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his horror,
he found the Imperial moles, by way of keeping as-
surance doubly sure, had been under the foundations
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? CHAF. n. j A KAISEB HUNTING SHADOWS. 309
1723-1726.
of his very house for long years past, and had all-
bat brought it down about him in the most hideous
manner! --
Third Shadow: Imperial Majesty's Ostend Company.
Another object which Kaiser Karl pursued with
some diligence in these times, and which likewise proved
a shadow, much disturbance as it gave mankind, was
his "Ostend East-India Company. " The Kaiser had
seen impoverished Spain, rich England, rich Holland;
he had taken-up a creditable notion about commerce
and its advantages. He said to himself, Why should
not my Netherlands trade to the East, as well as these
English and Dutch, and grow opulent like them? He
instituted (octroya) an "Ostend East-India Company,"
under due Patents and Imperial Sheepskins, of date
17th December 1722,* gave it what freedom he could
to trade to the East. "Impossible! " answered the
Dutch, with distraction in their aspect: "Impossible, we
say; contrary to Treaty of Westphalia, to Utrecht, to
Barrier Treaty; and destructive to the best interests of
mankind, especially to us and our trade-profits! We
shall have to capture your ships, if you ever send
any. "
To which the Kaiser counterpleaded, earnestly, di-
ligently, for the space of seven years, -- to no effect.
"We will capture your ships if you ever send any,"
? Buohholz, i. 88; Pfcffel, Abrigi Chronoloqique ie VHistoire d'Alle-
magna (Paris, 1776), it. 522.
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1723-1726.
answered the Dutch and English. What ships ever
could have been sent from Ostend to the East, or what
ill they could have done there, remains a mystery,
owing to the monopolising Maritime Powers.
The Kaiser's laudable zeal for commerce had to
expend itself in his Adriatic Territories, -- giving pri-
vileges to the Ports of Trieste and Fiume;* making
roads through the Dalmatian Hill-Countries, which are
useful to this day; -- but could not operate on the
Netherlands in the way proposed. The Kaiser's Im-
perial Ostend East-India Company, which convulsed
the Diplomatic mind for seven years to come, and made
Europe lurch from side to side in a terrific manner,
proved a mere paper Company; never sent any ships,
only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honour to
be. " This was the third grand Shadow which the
Kaiser chased, shaking all the world, poor crank world,
as he strode after it; and this also ended in zero, and
several tons of diplomatic correspondence, carried once
by breathless estafettes, and now silent, gravitating
towards Acheron all of them, and interesting to the
spiders only.
Poor good Kaiser: they say he was a humane stately
gentleman, stately though shortish; fond of pardoning
criminals where he could; very polite to Muratori and
the Antiquaries, even to English Rymer, in opening
his Archives to them, -- and made roads in the Dal-
matian Hill-Country, which remain to this day. I do
? Hormayr: (Esterreichischer Plutarch, x. 101.
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? CHAP. n. ] A KAISEK HUNTING SHADOWS. 311
1723-1726.
not wonder he grew more and more saturnine, and
addicted to solid taciturn field-sports. His Political
"Perforce-Hunt (Parforce Jagd)," with so many two-
footed terriers, and legationary beagles, distressing all
the world by their baying and their burrowing, had
proved to be of Shadows; and melted into thin air, to
a very singular degree!
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1723-1726.
CHAPTER ffl.
THE SEVEN CRISES OR EUROPEAN TRAVAIL-THROES.
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 supplemen-
tary adhesions they had; all Europe rising spasmodically
seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this
terrible incubus; all Europe changing colour seven
times, like a lobster boiling, for twenty years. Seven
diplomatic Crises, we say, marked changings of colour
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
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? CHAP, in. ] THE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 313
1723-1726.
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 in-
teresting only to the spiders, -- except on an occa-
sion 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 fermenta-
tion of the then Political World; and are too unlovely
to be dwelt on longer than indispensable. Triple Al-
liance, Quadruple Alliance, Congress of Cambrai, Con-
gress 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 Uni-
versal Putrid Fermentation, so far as they concern us.
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? 314 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [book v.
1723-1726.
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"* was, we may
say, when Prance, England, Holland laboriously sorted-
out terms of agreement between Kaiser and Termagant:
"Quadruple"** 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 conse-
quence. 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 success-
? 4th January 1717. -- 18th July 1718.
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? CHAP, nt. ] the SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 315
1723-1726.
"fill, -- Lord Cobham leading; -- and made much noise
"among mankind. Pilled 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
4'Vigo, in the memory of mankind; -- hanging there, as if by
"a single hair, till poor Tristram Shandy be forgotten too. " *
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,** -- 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 en-
deavouring to get seated, and wandering about among
the chairs, -- when George I. came to Charlottenburg
? Memoirs of Lawrence Sterne, written by himself for his Daughter (see Annual Register, Year 1775, pp. 80-82).
? ? 17th February 1720.
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? 316 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [bOOK v.
1723-1726,
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 Home that will be, a friend
of Pope's) were the English Principals:* -- 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,
? SchOl, U. 197.
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? CHAP, m. ] THE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 317
1723-1726.
-- spoiled for a solid law-career, but whose CEdipe 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 in-
significant, yet now in a manner the one surviving Do-
cument 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,"*
yet lived (first year of this Congress); and Regent d'Or-
ldans lived, intensely interested here as third party: --
and a goatfaced Cardinal, once pimp and lackey, ugliest
of created souls, Archbishop of this same Cambrai "by
Divine permission" and favour of Beelzebub, was ca-
pable of promoting a young fellow if he chose:
"To his Eminence Cardinal Dubois (from Arouet Junior).
"Cambrai, July 1722.
>># # * we ^ jugt 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
? Heraogln von Orleans: Briefe.
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? 318 DOUBLE-MABRIAGE PBOJECT STABTED. [book T.
1723-1726.
"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 Whit-
worth) "send many couriers to Champagne, and few to Lon-
"don. 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 some-
"times, 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 goatfaced Eminence "at Paris will be, to have
"the goodness to talk tome. "* * ***
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 cata-
strophe, comfortable to the reader; upon which perhaps
he will not grudge to read still another word?
? (Euvresde Voltaire, 97 vola. (Paris, 1826-1834), lxviii. 95,96.
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? CHAP, in. ] the SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 319
1725.
Congress of Cambrai gets the floor pulled from under it.
Termagant Elizabeth had now one Kipperda 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 favour; and was now "Duke de Rip-
perda," and a diplomatic bulldog of the first quality,
full of mighty schemes and hopes; in brief, a new Al-
beroni 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 labouring there, with the best
outlooks, for some while past; when, still early in 1725,
there occurred on the part of France, -- where Regent
d'Orl^ans was now dead, and new politics had come in
vogue, -- that "sending back" of the poor little Spanish
Infanta, * and marrying of young Louis XV. elsewhere,
which drove Elizabeth and the Court of Spain, not un-
naturally, into a very delirium of indignation.
Why they sent the poor little Lady home on those
shocking terms? It seems there was no particular rea-
son, except that French Louis was now about fifteen,
? "6th April 1725, quitted Parli" (Baibler, Journal da Rigne de
Louis XV, I. 218).
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? 320 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [BOOK V.
MS*
and little Spanish Theresa was only eight; and that,
under Due 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 pre-
faced his communication, not with light adroit preludings
of speech, but with a tempest of tears and howling la-
mentations, as if that were the way to conciliate King
Philip and his Termagant Elizabeth. Transport of in-
dignation 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:* "Titles and Shadows
"each of us shall keep for his own lifetime, then they
"shall drop. As to realities again, to Parma and Pia-
"cenza 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 colour in the long-suffering lobster. Whereby,
? SchBU, ii. 201; Coxe, Walpole, i. 839-250?
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? CHAP, in. ] TIIE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 321
1725.
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
leJeune, in 1722, saw as a contemporary Fact, drinking
champagne in ramilies 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 Con-
gress 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 labours, -- 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.
Due de Bourbon, and his young King about to marry,
were of pacific tendencies; anxious for the Balance:
still more was Pleury, who succeeded Due 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;
Carlyle, Frederic the Great, II. 21
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? 322 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [bOOKv.
1725.
an aged reverend gentleman, of sly, delicately cun-
ning 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 readi-
ness 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 Wil-
helm, who beyond all Sovereigns stays well at home,
careless of affairs that are not his: -- procedure be-
tokening cordiality at Hanover; and of good omen for
the Double-Marriage?
Yes, surely; -- and yet something more, on Fried-
rich Wilhelm's part. His rights on the Cleve-Jlilich
Countries; reversion of Jiilich and Berg, once Karl
Philip shall decease: -- perhaps these high Powers,
for a consideration, will guarantee one's undoubted
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:13 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hn6m7g Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP, in. ) THE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 323
3d Sept. 1725.
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 im-
"mediate war with the Kaiser, advised Friedrich Wil-
"helm 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 un-
friendly, 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. *
Certain it is, Friedrich Wilhelm signed: a man with
such Fighting-Apparatus as to be important in a Han-
over Treaty. "Balance of Power, they tell me, is in
a dreadful way: certainly if one can help the Balance
a little, why not? But Jiilich and Berg, one's own
outlook of reversion there, that is the point to be at-
tended to: -- Balance, I believe, will somehow shift
for itself! " On these principles, Friedrich Wilhelm
signed, while ostensibly hunting. ** 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, Den-
"mark, Sweden and every pacific Sovereignty to join
? (Euvres de Fridiric, i. 153.
? * Fassmann, p. 368; FBrater, Urkundenbuch, p. 67
21*
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? 324 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [book V.
1725.
"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. Rumour 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 Succes-
sion War, or worse, to fight over again! --
Fleury and George, as Due 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 exor-
cisms 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 him-
self and others. And the Balance of Power would
settle, in that CASG, AS the laws of gravity ordered:
which is its one method of settling, after all diploma-
cy! -- 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
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:13 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hn6m7g Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. III. ] THE SEVEN EUROPEAN CRISES. 325
1725.
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 sub-
sidying 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)*, finds
no ally to speak of. An unlucky, spectre-hunting,
spectre-hunted Kaiser; who, amid so many drums, ma-
nifestoes, 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 conspi-
cuous change of colour 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
? 8th February 1725. Treaty with Kaiser (6th August 1726) went to
nothing on her death, 11th May 1727,
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? 326 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT STARTED. [BOOK V. ?
1726.
