IV. NOVEMBER, 1744—JANUARY, 1747. Foreign Politics—D'Argenson's Ministry—1745: The Convention of Augsburg—The Convention of Hanover—The Imperial Election—The Treaty of Dresden—1746: The Negotiation of Turin—The Saxon Marriage—Review.

At the end of 1740, d'Argenson had succeeded his brother as chancellor of the Orleans household;[257] in November 1744, he was invited to accept a place in the Government as Minister of Foreign Affairs.[258] His brother, Count d'Argenson, was already Minister of War, and since the dismissal of Amelot in April, had been signing the despatches of the Foreign Office.

The appointment of a man without any diplomatic experience or high official knowledge to what was, in the circumstances of the moment, the most important position in the Ministry, might well, at any other period, have given occasion for remark. At this time, however, the Government was peculiarly constituted; its policy was dictated by Marshal de Noailles, who had no official position; and all that was required of the new Minister was not plans or policies of action, but the dutiful deference and docility of his predecessor. The eyes of Noailles would have opened widely could he have read some of the pages which the new Secretary had already devoted to the principles and conduct of French foreign policy.

D'Argenson's ministry lasted rather more than two years, and came to a close in January 1747. The period was an eventful one; and our knowledge of it is derived from diplomatic correspondence in every capital in Europe. The evidence has been digested in several important works, notably the elaborate study in four volumes by the Duc de Broglie,[259] and the comprehensive monograph by M. Edgar Zevort.

These works are valuable and authoritative, but their conclusiveness may be disputed. There are many suggestions with which any one who has made a close personal study of d'Argenson may find it difficult to agree; while the divergencies of detail, and sometimes of conclusion, between the two writers, the admirably chosen series of documents given by M. Zevort, and, above all, a careful acquaintance with d'Argenson's own Journal for ten years before, suggest the necessity and afford ample scope for some independent criticism. It would seem, indeed, that these works have been undertaken primarily with a view to the general history of France; and that no adequate effort has been made to determine d'Argenson's real share in the events for which he bears the official responsibility. There is only too good reason to know that in many critical conjunctures, the foreign policy of France was only pursued because the Foreign Minister was powerless to avert it. Indeed there is reasonable ground for suspecting that no pains have been spared in comprehending everything but the Marquis d'Argenson himself; and that, if the perusal of his official despatches had been illumined by the study of his unofficial memoirs, the character of his action might have been explained more naturally than by the suggestion of stupidity or confusion of mind.

It is true that M. Zevort endeavours to illustrate d'Argenson's political principles from his own "Essai de l'exercice du tribunal européen par la France seule;" but it may very well be doubted whether this piece possesses the importance which has been attached to it. It was written shortly after, or possibly before, the fall of Chauvelin, and at least seven years before d'Argenson's accession to the Ministry. In November 1737, when it appeared in manuscript, France was at peace, Fleury was still Minister, the war between Spain and England had not broken out, the old House of Austria was not yet extinct, and Frederick was still Prince Royal of Prussia. In the interval the face of Europe had wholly changed. Moreover the "Essai" consists of no more than half-a-dozen widely printed pages, placed at the end of the 1764 edition of the "Considérations,"[260] and omitted altogether from that of 1784. It contains a few loose remarks about Russia and the northern powers, with some views upon Spain and Austria which are the commonplaces of d'Argenson's Journal. Almost the only remarkable feature are some significant words upon the position of England, which show that the shadow of 1763 was already falling across the path of France.[261] Indeed the piece appears to be really nothing more than a brief academic essay, written, as we learn from the title-page of the manuscripts in the Library of the Arsenal, as a note upon St. Pierre's "Projet de la Paix Perpétuelle."[262] That the author regarded it as of small importance is clear from his failure to exhibit in his Journal any further affection for its leading idea, the exercise of international arbitration by France alone; his subsequent criticism of Fleury is little more than a consistent denial of it; and we can point to at least one passage where its central principle is categorically rejected.[263] It is true that the conception of a benevolent arbitration exercised by France remained as a shadowy and distant ideal before d'Argenson's mind; but that it had ever any serious influence upon his practical ideas of policy there is no evidence to suggest. Even if it be admitted, with M. Zevort, that these were "the ideas, some ingenious, others chimerical, almost all beyond realisation, which d'Argenson nourished in 1737," it may be denied, with some distinctness, that "he brought them to the ministry in 1744."[264]

It is not here, but in the pages of his Journal for ten years before, that we must search for the secret of d'Argenson's thought. It is true that the running commentary upon foreign politics which is here continued from time to time[265] is, upon a first or a casual reading, as bewildering as many have found it; but it will appear upon study and reflection, that the writer's views, many-sided as they are, revolve about half-a-dozen leading principles, which perpetually recur, are immediately recognised, and from which the author never materially swerves. These principles are based upon profound thought and mature research; and the divergence of view which is superficially apparent is due to their constant adaptation to the circumstances of the moment as affected by fortune or failure, success or reverse. There is no man to whom inconsequence of mind has been more speciously imputed than to d'Argenson, and surely none who has deserved it less.

The ideas which d'Argenson did bring to the Ministry must be set forth as briefly as clearness will allow.

He held that in the dealings of a great nation, the profoundest principle of policy was simple straightforwardness, and that France was in a condition which enabled her to apply that principle with effect.

Her legitimate expansion was already complete; she had nothing further to gain by aggression; and her statesmen should be henceforth as careful for the extension of her prosperity as they had hitherto been for the extension of her borders.

It was necessary to allay the inveterate distrust awakened in Europe by the designs of Louis XIV., and by the junction of the Bourbon houses. The alliance with Spain was of doubtful advantage; and it was the interest of France, while remaining on the most friendly terms with that power, to discountenance, and if necessary to repress, the Spanish ambitions in Italy. At the same time, every support should be given to Spain in her resistance to the commercial aggrandisement of England.

While abstaining from aggression, France, in accordance with her traditional policy, should lose no opportunity of destroying the power of the House of Austria in Germany; the death of the Emperor Charles VI. should be made the occasion for a partition of the Austrian dominions;[266] and the influence, and if need be, the arms of France, should be used in favour of the various pretenders.

Every effort should be made to strengthen the position of the smaller powers, le tiers parti, as a counterpoise to the influence of Hapsburgs and Bourbons alike; the movements of Sardinia, Bavaria, Saxony, Poland and Prussia in the direction of independence, should receive the encouragement of France.

The designs of Russia should be held in check by an defensive alliance with Sweden and Denmark.

As regards England, France should make no attempt to force the Pretender upon an unwilling people; but she should resolutely resist the efforts of England to establish a commercial monopoly, and declare war rather than allow the seizure of the Spanish colonies in America. The means were to be found in the withdrawal of Holland from English influence, support of the colonial policy of Spain, and above all, the restoration of the French marine in view of a great maritime war.

Not the least admirable object which a statesman could embrace would be the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, and the surrender of the whole peninsula to an Italian confederation. The project in truth was an ideal one; but it was commended by its apparent ease of execution—already proved by M. Chauvelin[267]—and by the severity of the blow it would inflict upon Austria.

Behind all was the fact that the French provinces were in a critical condition; and every livre spent in war, and every man lost in battle, were spent and lost at the expense of the provinces. The paramount need of France was ten years of peace, retrenchment, and reform.

Such are the main principles of d'Argenson's political theory. In his Journal for ten years past it is possible to watch them, not in a very meagre reduction to their lowest terms, but as in process of growth, and of adaptation to an ever-changing variety of mood and circumstance. This variety of view, at first the source of continual embarrassment, becomes at last our surest guide; for it reveals the most intimate turn of d'Argenson's thought; and it enables us to divine the aspect from which a particular question is likely to be regarded, his probable choice between alternative courses, and the principles upon which the difficulties of the moment are likely to be resolved. One further reflection the Journal suggests. The tenacity with which these leading principles are maintained is only equalled by their rapidity of adaptation and clearness of grasp; nor can we avoid the suspicion that if the action of the French Foreign Minister should appear to be characterised by a strange inconsequence, the cause is to be sought elsewhere than simply in his own bewilderment and confusion.

Before proceeding to consider that question, a word remains to be said about a few of the men with whom d'Argenson was soon to be engaged. He was already well known in the diplomatic circle at Paris, and with two, at least, of its leading members he was upon intimate terms. One of them was the Marquis de Valori, the French envoy at Berlin, whom d'Argenson had introduced to Voltaire as early as 1739;[268] the other was the ambassador of Holland, M. van Hoey. Van Hoey was a man after d'Argenson's own heart. He sought, in sympathy with his friend, to raise the tone of politics, its huckstering pettiness of means and motives, by a certain philosophy of his own, a philosophy which is not more visionary than most things good, nor more ridiculous than most things noble, but with which the man of the world will refuse to meddle, and at which "le peuple petit-maître," in d'Argenson's words,[269] will go on laughing to the end of time. Before the minister had attained his present position, Van Hoey had esteemed his person and valued his advice; and in the previous year (1743) he had even transmitted to the Hague a long account of a conversation with "un seigneur," whom no one who has read a hundred pages of d'Argenson's writing will have any difficulty in identifying.[270]

There was another personage in the forefront of politics, whose career d'Argenson had not watched in vain. The Prince Royal of Prussia had gone far since the spring of 1739, when the friend of Voltaire was privileged to receive his letters. Time had made little impression upon d'Argenson's first estimate of him. He admired his devotion and his strength of character; and he had even some kindness for that 'splendid mendacity' to which Anti-Machiavel had been converted by events. It was to no childish sentiment of hero-worship that his regard was due; but to a firm and surely reasonable conviction that Frederick was strong enough to afford to be honest, that such a man did not make engagements which he would be glad to repudiate, or break his word when he could possibly help it. He felt that now, as at Frederick's accession,[271] his interests were coincident with those of France; and that the King of Prussia had only to be treated with honesty and supported well, to prove the soundest ally in Europe.

On the 15th of November, 1744, a proclamation was issued[272] directing a general thanksgiving for the capture of Fribourg, the recovery of the King, and the successes of the late campaign. Three days afterwards d'Argenson became Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The fall of Fribourg closed the events of the year in Alsace. Thither in August the King had hurried from Flanders upon hearing that as Frederick had predicted, the Austrians, under Prince Charles of Lorraine, had crossed the Rhine and were ravaging French territory. Louis had no sooner arrived than he was stricken down with fever at Metz; while, through the culpable negligence of his generals Noailles and Coigny, the Prince of Lorraine had been allowed to escape and to join the resistance to Frederick, who had again drawn the sword against Maria Theresa, and had fulfilled his promise of the Treaty of Frankfort (1st June, 1744) by a dashing descent upon Bohemia. His communications were threatened by the return of Prince Charles; Prague was evacuated by the Prussians, and Frederick withdrew with all his forces into Silesia. He was weary of the war, which had long been utterly objectless; he saw clearly enough that its further prolongation could only postpone what it could not prevent, the eventual triumph of Maria Theresa; he would have been glad to escape upon any terms which would leave him in possession of his hard won conquest. On the 26th of November he wrote to Louis XV., suggesting that negotiations for peace should be set on foot, demanding nothing for himself, and proposing as a basis the cession of Upper Austria, and the recognition of the Emperor by Maria Theresa.[273]

To this overture d'Argenson drafted a reply (December 17th). France, rivalling Frederick in disinterestedness, would be content to provide equitably for her allies, would renounce her own conquests in Flanders, and accept the mediation of Saxony. Over this draft was written, "N' a point servi." D'Argenson, taken aback, and feeling it necessary to make sure of his ground, requested the King to inform him definitely of his attitude on the question of peace. In reply he received (December 23rd), a memorandum,[274] in which the King expressed his desire for peace, deprecated any positive negotiation, and declared that the most direct way of realising his desire would be by "the most vigorous war." On the same day Louis wrote to Frederick,[275] discussing the proposals of the latter, and marking not the least eagerness to second his pacific designs.

D'Argenson was by no means blind to the meaning of the King's memorandum. "If the King was animated by the desire for peace, he was still more so by the love of glory;"[276] he had just made his first campaign under the auspices of Madame de Châteauroux; and he looked forward to recovering in Flanders the easy laurels which had been snatched from him in the previous year.[277] D'Argenson feared for the result. His view of the interest of France was wise and clear. The attempt to humble the House of Austria had failed;[278] "peace, no matter how it came, was now the principal object;"[279] the best means of securing it was "to stand upon the defensive in every quarter with foresight and success."[280] In this way the Queen of Hungary would be convinced of the hopelessness of her plans of vengeance, and the opinion of the peace party in the several courts would have time to make itself felt.[281]

Accordingly, "a few days after" receiving the King's memorandum, d'Argenson presented to him a memoir, his reference to which is of the first importance. He proposed that France should confine herself to "a simple defensive in Flanders, not only for fear of raising a dangerous storm in that quarter, but in order to throw more weight upon the two other theatres of war, Germany and Italy. It was in these directions that the chief objects lay; and so far from being able to carry all before us, we were not even sure of holding our ground. It was in Germany that the Queen of Hungary was concentrating her principal forces, while she left to the maritime powers the task of defending the Low Countries. In Italy we required to be superior to the Spaniards, in order to direct them well."[282] So far as d'Argenson personally is concerned, the above appears to be the most valuable record to be found in his ministerial memoirs.

On the 26th of December and the 4th and 8th of January, three letters were written by Frederick,[283] which show that events are moving rapidly. He declares that if negotiations are to be undertaken, it must be done at once;[284] that he has himself to deal with twenty thousand Hungarians in Upper Silesia;[285] that a strong detachment of Prince Charles's army is on the confines of Bavaria;[286] and that events of gravity are only to be averted by the reinforcement of the army of the Lower Rhine, and the despatch of immediate and effective succour to the Emperor and the Bavarian army. "At the present moment, these two positions appear to me of capital importance. They are no slight reverses of which we are running the risk, but the frustration of all our present measures, and even of those for the coming campaign." (January 8, 1745).[287]

The reception which awaited these representations is significant. In the first days of January, an Austrian force, after repulsing a weak French detachment, established itself upon Bavarian territory.[288] At that very moment the Emperor, in reply to his prayers and entreaties, received a letter[289](January 2nd), in which the French King, with manifest impatience, declared himself unable to satisfy his demands. Upon the 9th Louis, in a reply to Frederick, asserted that there was no reason to believe that an Austrian advance was imminent,[290] and declined to pursue further the steps taken in the direction of peace. The letter is described as "très froide et très maladroite" (Zevort).[291]

The inference implied throughout the preceding appears explicitly in a letter to Frederick of the 19th of January. Drafted by d'Argenson, it was revised and signed by Louis XV. The two hands and the two policies are apparent in every line. "Our union, our strength and our efforts," d'Argenson wrote, "give us promise of victory and peace." Under the hand of the King it became "must give us victory." As to Bavaria and the Lower Rhine, "I am thinking of these two objects;" Louis appended, "without forgetting Flanders." To the last line this odd dualism is continued.[292]

This letter was written on the 19th of January. On the following day a new chapter was opened with the death of the Emperor Charles VII., after an illness of twenty-four hours.[293] So far, two months of d'Argenson's ministry have elapsed. Their history has revealed one fact with impressive clearness. Upon the question of peace and the question of war, there is a radical divergence of principle and policy between the French Government and the French Minister. The King will listen to no overtures which may thwart his desire of overrunning Flanders. D'Argenson is earnestly desirous of peace, to be secured by a strong defensive campaign in Germany. Which was the wiser will soon appear.

The death of the Emperor (January 20, 1745) was perhaps one of the most terrible blows which French policy has ever sustained. It came at a moment when fortune had turned to the side of the Austrians, and when every step lost by France was a tenfold gain to Maria Theresa.

Louis XV. had been disposed for war; he found that he had no longer the power to choose. It is true that for the French ministry there were two conceivable courses; but only one was practically open. It was conceivably possible to make terms with Maria Theresa, and to use the death of the Emperor as an excuse for withdrawing from the war. Such doubtless was the view of the trampled German populations and of the tax-burdened householder of the faubourgs; but it could only be maintained by sacrificing every principle of honour and policy, and by ignoring the only considerations which would weigh for a moment either with Louis XV. or Maria Theresa.

For the French King the course was marked out with terrible clearness. He had combined with other powers to rend the inheritance of a defenceless woman; and now, when that woman had faced him, uncrowned but veritably imperial, to beg forgiveness on his knees—the very thought was impossible. Nor could the King of France yet bow before his former vassal of Lorraine. Even if his enemy deigned to listen to him, he would have to take or leave humiliating terms; and it would be a cold return for that generous jubilation with which his people had greeted him a year before. But not only were his own honour and popularity concerned; there was another motive, to which he perhaps may have been less sensible. To accept a peace upon any such terms as Maria Theresa would be willing to grant would have been to inflict a blow upon the future of French foreign policy, from which it might not recover for half a century or more. The last would have been seen of French influence in Central Europe: the upstart of Brandenburg would be swept into the sea: two centuries of effort might be totally erased: and Maria Theresa would resume the throne from which Charles V. had descended. If not to the King, to d'Argenson at least, such a prospect was at once conclusive.[294]

And when looked at from Vienna, peace was equally distant. As well seek to recall a falcon striking its prey as to breathe of peace to Maria Theresa. A statesman to her finger-tips, she saw at once that the two objectives of the next campaign were Frankfort and Breslau. Her armies were already on the plains of Breslau: her armies were within striking distance of Frankfort: if but for a few months the breeze would hold, the Flemish towns might fall to whom they pleased. And the path of victory was the path of vengeance. She regarded the man who had failed to wrong her, not, as is said, with the spleen of a woman, but with the proud wrath of a queen; she had not forgotten that he had driven her from her capital, and forced her to throw herself on the generosity of the men her own fathers had oppressed; nor would she have been slow to tender him the bitter cup from which she had drunk.

She might indeed have listened to him upon one condition—the abandonment of Frederick to her vengeance. In June last she had sworn that she would never lower her sword against the man who had torn up the Treaty of Breslau, until her generals could dictate terms to him from Breslau. Proposals on behalf of Frederick—she would have trampled upon them, as she trampled upon the Treaty of Hanover in August, when presented to her by her ally of England. In a word, the French King had to choose between indelible dishonour and the disdainful rejection of his terms.

If these reasons were decisive to the King, they were not less so to d'Argenson himself.[295] No man longed so much as he for peace; but he was not prepared to purchase it with the humiliation of his country, and with the undreamed aggrandisement of that hated House against which, all his life, he had consistently inveighed. The provinces were henceforth to be beaten with scorpions; for the efforts of France had been as nothing to that which the new enterprise would involve. Yet cost what it might, the effort must be made; and d'Argenson was at one with the Council[296] in the hope that by a single brilliant and advantageous campaign, France and Frederick might establish a position from which an honourable peace could be obtained.

The first necessity was to restore to their cause the moral basis which had been struck from beneath it by the death of the Emperor. Henceforth the pretext—for it proved to be little more—was to vindicate the liberty of election, and to support a candidate acceptable to the Electors. For the candidature of the Empire, the choice fell upon Augustus III., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, who at this very time (January, 1745) was negotiating a secret treaty with Maria Theresa.

At this juncture, whatever may be said of it afterwards, the Government acted with promptitude and determination. Before ten days had elapsed, the position which seemed to Frederick "une crise terrible" had been faced, the débris of a great policy had been swept to one side, and before a courier could go and come between Paris and Berlin, the new measures contemplated by the French Government were announced to Frederick.

In a letter of the 31st of January—if not before it—d'Argenson declared that "at the present moment the very idea of peace must be forgotten," and the most strenuous steps must be taken to secure the alliance of the King of Poland.[297] This policy was reiterated in letters of the 1st and 4th of February;[298] and from now until the eve of the election at Frankfort, a desperate effort was maintained to induce Augustus to abandon Austria, and to declare himself a candidate for the Empire.

The conduct of the negotiations fell into the hands of d'Argenson. His own share in the policy is difficult to determine. He knew there was really no choice; but he could not help seeing that on every side it was beset with difficulties. It was true that the King of Poland could scarcely resist the magnificent prize held out to him; and it was not to be supposed that mere personal animosities could obliterate every consideration of interest and honour. In that view the Minister concurred with the Council; and he was supported by Valori,[299] the French envoy at Berlin, who was deputed to approach the Court of Dresden. To French statesmen the opinion was just and natural enough.

Yet d'Argenson at least, though he viewed them undaunted, was by no means blind to the difficulties in the way. The jealousy of Russia in regard to Poland, the formidable rage of the Queen of Hungary, and above all, his hatred and jealousy of the King of Prussia, would all combine to deter Augustus from committing himself in the interest of France. Indeed so small was d'Argenson's confidence of success, that he was unwilling to follow the Council in their resolution to subsidise the King of Poland, and to guarantee to him by treaty an accession of territory to be obtained at the cost of Maria Theresa.[300] However unpromising, the negotiation had to be begun; there was no alternative; and if it came to nothing more, it would at least give time for the development of a campaign, and for the armies of France and Prussia to achieve a position which would serve as the basis of an honourable peace.[301]

If at Paris the plan seemed practicable enough, at Berlin it was regarded from a very different standpoint. French statesmen could consider nothing but the strength of their four armies, the excellence of their intentions, and the splendour of the position to which Augustus would be raised by the arms of France and Prussia. To Frederick the matter presented itself in a less encouraging light. He knew his neighbour of Saxony; he knew that Augustus had no resources of his own; that his ministers were in sympathy with Austria and in the pay of England; and that what might leave Paris as the offer of an empire would reach Dresden as nothing more than an invitation to Augustus to throw over a sound alliance, to place himself at the mercy and become the tool of a covert enemy and a doubtful friend, and in a word, to resume the position from which Charles VII. had been happily liberated by death. Frederick saw at once that the French policy was foredoomed, and he did his best to impress upon the cabinet the fruitlessness of its task.[302] Finding his representations received as merely the suggestions of prejudice and jealousy, he had no alternative but to give way; and on the 13th of February[303] he announces that he has "buried his resentment," and sanctioned the departure of Valori for Dresden. Frederick was perfectly confident that Valori could only fail;[304] and he felt that any apparent success which he might gain, would be by no means useless in another direction in which his own efforts were actively engaged.[305]

If the hopes of France were illusory and her policy unsound, they were certainly not more so than the course which Frederick had himself adopted. On the 26th of January, before any definite communication had reached him from the French Government, he had instructed his representatives to sound the ministers at London and the Hague;[306] for a consideration received he offered to withdraw from the war, and to co-operate in the election of the Grand Duke. His agents were instructed to press these proposals.

That Frederick could have had any real confidence in these measures, it is difficult to believe. It is true that in England the Hanoverian party was no longer in power; but George II. was bent upon the war, and Carteret's influence was still supreme; moreover, popular feeling, while demanding a change in the direction of the war, was by no means in favour of its abandonment. Whatever the dispositions of the English ministry, from Maria Theresa there was nothing to hope. Indeed the whole plan was a counsel of despair. Frederick had everything to gain and absolutely nothing to offer; he had incensed the whole of the Austrian party; and if there were no motives of interest to aid him, he could scarcely trust to motives of charity. Indeed the whole situation is summed up in some words of Chesterfield to the Prussian minister at the Hague: "I understand," he said, "the truth is you ask everything and you offer nothing, for Silesia is no longer yours, since you have yourselves torn up the treaty which gave it you."[307]

It is easy to see the very natural motives which actuated Frederick in the adoption of his policy.[308] On the 31st of January, before the measures contemplated by the French Government had yet been communicated to him, he wrote to Louis XV. describing the position of their cause in Germany in terms of very real concern. He spoke of the utter dejection into which their allies had been plunged by the death of the Emperor, and of the favourable positions secured by the Austrian party; and he declared that only by the immediate reinforcement of the French army in Bavaria could the young Elector be prevented from "throwing himself into the arms of the Queen of Hungary."

It was probably with some surprise and not a little relief that he received the news of the French determination to continue the war.[309] He was already, as we have seen, in communication with London and the Hague; but he could not help feeling how slender was his hope in the intervention of the maritime powers; and he was wise enough to know that peace, when it came, would be the less precarious for being secured by a successful campaign.

That this was his feeling in the matter is clear from the attitude he maintained towards France during the next two months. While hoping desperately for the intervention of England, he neglected no opportunity of concerting measures for the future of the war. Until the re-opening of the campaign in Flanders, Louis XV. was besieged with letters, memoirs, requisitions of all sorts, demonstrating with unfaltering precision the critical positions which had to be maintained, and insisting upon the only measures by which the French policy could be carried to success, and the French allies preserved from ruin. He made it clear[310] that a majority in the Electoral Diet could only be secured, and the influence of the Austrian party destroyed, by the most vigorous action on the part of the two French armies in Bavaria and on the Main.

It had not remained for the King of Prussia to indicate the only means by which the French policy could be executed or excused. Even before the death of the Emperor, as we have seen, d'Argenson had been convinced that the readiest way of obtaining peace was not by a brilliant invasion of Flanders, but by a strong defensive campaign in Germany.[311] He now saw that every consideration in favour of his policy had gained tenfold in weight; and about the middle of February, probably upon hearing of Valori's difficulties at Dresden, he presented to the king a certain memoir setting forth a plan for the future campaign.

This memoir is of the last importance.[312] It strikes the key-note of d'Argenson's conduct during the year 1745; it illustrates, as nothing else can do, his real position in the Ministry; and it alone can explain his subsequent attitude with regard to Frederick and Prussia. As this document is very rare, and as it only exists by a fortunate accident, it will be advisable to reproduce it entirely as it stands; its meaning is too precious to be even prejudiced by an attempt at translation. No apology will be found necessary for its inclusion here. It runs:

"SIRE,—Depuis deux mois[313] je suis assez au fait de la combinaison de nos forces sur les quatre théâtres de guerre où V.M. a des armées présentement prêtes à entrer en campagne, pour critiquer les positions relativement à la politique et pour vous donner mon avis.

"Les Pays-Bas, où V.M. va commander son armée, ne sont pas l'objet principal de cette guerre; je crains que les flatteurs et les gens intéressés à faire paraître des opérations militaires plus brillantes que solides, n'ayent conseillé à préférer ce côté-là à d'autres. Vous y occuperez, il est vrai, les forces des puissances maritimes, et quelques-unes de l'Autriche; mais ce n'est qu'une diversion; et l'on ne recourt aux diversions que quand on ne peut aller directement à l'objet principal.

"Si V.M. y a des grands succès, je veux qu'elle puisse pénétrer sous peu en Hollande, et qu'elle châtie par là les Hollandais de leur ingrate témérité; mais cela ne nous donnera pas la paix; et pour comparer le présent au passé, c'est convertir la belle position que nous donna la paix de Nimègue en la vaine entreprise du feu roi en 1672 quand il pénétra en Hollande.

"L'année dernière, Votre Majesté ayant débuté par des conquêtes en Flandre, il fallut retourner en Allemagne. Alors c'était le passage du Rhin par le prince Charles qui y obligeait; cette année-ci ce sera l'élévation du grand-duc comme empereur qui y forcera.

"L'objet principal est l'Allemagne; tout en dépend, même l'établissement de l'infant don Philippe en Italie. Pour parvenir à la paix, Votre Majesté a trois objets à soutenir: (1) de maintenir le roi de Prusse en Silésie; (2) d'empêcher l'élection du grand-duc, et de procurer l'élection de la couronne impériale au roi de Pologne avec une grande facilité; sans quoi, il n'en acceptera même l'idée; (3) un établissement pour don Philippe, quel qu'il puisse être. Pour cet effet, il faut que nous nous soutenions puissants en Allemagne, et que nous tâchions d'y donner la main au roi de Prusse.

"Les quatre théâtres de guerre, où opèrent nos quatre armées, sont celle de Flandre, celle de Mein, celle de Souabe, et celle d'Italie.

"Je serais d'avis que V.M. ne fît qu'une défensive en Flandre, sous les ordres du comte de Saxe, qui s'y entend si bien, ainsi qu'il a paru à la fin de la dernière campagne.

"En Italie encore une défensive, malgré ce qu'en pourront dire les Espagnols, pour bien assurer les Gênois, les mettre à l'abri de toute attaque, défendre par là le roi de Naples, et tenir en échec le roi de Sardaigne, qui même ne pourra se soutenir à la longue, s'il n'est point soutenu des Autrichiens; et si l'on trouve jour à entamer le Piémont, qu'on y avance autant qu'on pourra; qu'on avance dans le Milanais et le Plaisantin, si l'on peut; mais qu'en Allemagne nous faisions nos plus grands efforts.

"Que Votre Majesté se porte incessamment à Strasbourg avec son équipage de guerre, pour aller ensuite commander celle des deux armées, qui promettra d'avoir le plus de succès et de sécurité pour la personne sacrée de Votre Majesté.

"Celle du Mein, sous les ordres du Maréchal de Maillebois, a commencé à pousser l'ennemi. Je serais d'avis qu'on lui continuerât ce généralât. Elle pourra aller jusqu'en Westphalie et à Hanovre. Celle de Bavière doit être rassemblée incessamment, avec des magasins à vos dépens, puisque l'électorât de Bavière n'en peut fournir. Il faut la mettre en état de faire le siège d'Ingolstadt, resserrer nos quartiers, et allant du Leck à Passau elle pénétrera en Autriche et donnera la main au roi de Prusse.

"Comptez, Sire,[314] que ce puissant allié sortira de sa défensive; qu'il ira en Bohême, en Moravie, et même en Autriche, s'il se peut, quand nous lui montrerons si bonne exemple. Avec cela Votre Majesté soutiendra ses alliances et même les augmentera. Le Palatin, la Hesse, la Bavière nous seconderont; et la Saxe même, assurée de nos succès, n'hésitera plus d'accepter la couronne impériale. Au moins retarderons-nous cette élection, et elle sera le scéau de la paix. Si au contraire, nous n'envisageons que la Flandre comme objet principal, et que nous négligeons l'Allemagne, nous perdrons tous nos alliés, les unes après les autres, et notre ennemi sera élu empereur sous nos yeux."[315]

There are many striking suggestions to be found in this memoir; but it may be scrutinised in vain for any evidence of that doubt, hesitation, looseness of grasp, by which d'Argenson's conduct is too readily explained; while, on the contrary, we have only to read it in the light of the measures actually taken by the French Government to detect the real foundation for those charges: and to know how much weight it is necessary to attach to them in so far as they concern the Marquis d'Argenson.

We have only to read the above memoir with any of those prepared by Frederick, and to sketch the chain of circumstances which took Louis to Fontenoy, to be in possession of all the threads of the long complication of 1745.

In a memoir of the 6th of March,[316] Frederick represents that if the election of the Grand Duke is to be prevented, a majority in the Electoral College must be regained; if that is to be done, the communications between Hanover and the three ecclesiastical Electorates must be severed by the vigour of the army of Maillebois; and the decisive movement must come from the army of Bavaria, which, under vigorous command, must capture Passau, march upon Vienna, and by drawing off the Austrian troops, throw open Moravia to the Prussian army. He does not mince the meaning of his proposals.

"If another course is taken in this war, the King of France will reduce his allies to the necessity of withdrawing from it as best they can; for there must be a prompt end to this, and the matter must be decided one way or the other before the imperial election."[317]

Frederick's communications with the French Court are one long reiteration of this demand. Never did a man plead more eloquently the cause of reason and manliness; and never was eloquence more desperately sincere.

The action, not of the French Minister, but of the French Government, is almost incredible. They had deliberately embarked upon a great policy, and they deliberately refused to take a single step by which it could be realised. All that depended on d'Argenson indeed, was done as strenuously as man could do it. He exhausted himself in efforts to win over the King of Poland, trampling down or shutting his eyes to the obstacles which faced him; and he never relaxed in his entreaties to Frederick to second his efforts at Dresden.

"Will your Majesty consider that by this alliance, if it should ever take place, we should become absolute masters of the situation."[318]

... "If your Majesty cannot lay aside the feelings which alienate him from the King of Poland, I see only the prospect[319] of a long war, the Grand Duke Emperor, and the Empire turned against us, whatever efforts we may make."[320]

D'Argenson might beg and entreat, and write despatches: but he was powerless to enforce his words with the weight of his little finger.[321] On the 10th of March he drafted a reply to Frederick, in which he undertook that the army of Bavaria should be reinforced and should push the war with vigour. The reply never went to Berlin; it remains marked with the words "n'a pas servi."[322] Indeed the French policy was already decided. For no political reason whatever, the King had set his heart upon a campaign in Flanders; and to that desire his own interest, the interest of his allies, and every statesmanlike consideration must of necessity yield. He was not likely to meet with resistance from Noailles, still less from Count d'Argenson or Maurepas; and the Foreign Minister stood alone in fruitless opposition to this brilliant piece of political fatuity.

The effects of it were apparent already. The arms of France were paralysed in Germany in order that troops might be concentrated in Flanders; the army of Bavaria could not be reinforced; little could be done for the army of the Main; and d'Argenson, while persistently demanding ready co-operation in his overtures at Dresden, was obliged to evade and trifle with the equally persistent demands of Frederick. His position was a very thankless one; and it would have been as ridiculous as it at first would seem, had it been of his own choosing. That it was not, there is ample evidence to prove.

From this anomalous disposition of the French Government the four decisive events of the year 1745 descend in lineal succession. Each was a political disaster of the first magnitude; every one of them was richly deserved, and not one was really attributable to the Minister who has ordinarily borne the burden and the blame. Those events are—first, the loss of Bavaria; second, the Convention of Hanover; third, the election of Francis I.; and fourth, the Treaty of Dresden.

It was on the 21st of January that the young prince Maximilian succeeded to the Electorate of Bavaria; on the 19th of April he signed a convention with Maria Theresa.[323]

The Emperor on his death-bed had adjured his son to rely on the support of France;[324] and Chavigny, the French minister at Munich, was ready to assure him that he would never do so in vain.[325] The Austrian troops were already in Bavaria; repeated warnings were given both by Frederick and Chavigny of the critical position of the young Elector; and every means of persuasion was exhausted by Chavigny in order to secure the reinforcement of the Bavarian army. The French Government were deaf to his representations; the Council rejected d'Argenson's despatches;[326] d'Argenson himself was at last irritated at the reiteration of demands with which he had no power to comply.[327] Chavigny had to pacify the Elector with promises and assurances, in default of troops.

In the meanwhile no effort was spared by Maria Theresa to detach the Elector from the League of Frankfort.[328] Her diplomatic agents were Colloredo and Count Batthiany. Colloredo negotiated at Munich with humiliating terms of peace; Batthiany advanced upon Munich with an army eleven thousand strong, before which Ségur, with a small French force, had withdrawn to the Bavarian frontier. Accordingly, Chavigny and the Elector fled to Augsburg, where, on the 19th of April, a treaty of peace, dictated by the Austrian envoy, was signed by Maximilian.

The event of the 19th of April was the signal for what M. de Broglie himself calls "the breakup and rout of all that in a greater or less degree was still holding to France."[329] The Prince of Hesse, the Elector Palatine, the Duke of Wurtemburg, and the Electors of Trèves and Mayence were at no pains to conceal their view that the French cause in Germany was lost; while the Elector of Saxony, Augustus himself, the very man upon whom for three months the efforts of French diplomacy had been centred, made haste to summon the troops of France to withdraw from the soil of the Empire, where there remained no excuse for their continued presence.[330]

Such was the disaster d'Argenson had foreseen and endeavoured vainly to avert. He is said[331] to have cherished with blind fatuity an unfounded faith in the fidelity of Bavaria. That faith was more than justified, if we are to believe Chavigny, who said that up to the very day when the unhappy Elector was forced to abandon his capital to the Austrians, he remained firmly attached to the French alliance.[332] The truth is this: that not only at Munich, but at Dresden and Frankfort, d'Argenson's action must appear ridiculous; because, while prosecuting his negotiations with energy and enthusiasm, he was unable, through no fault of his own, to give them the weight of a single cannon-shot. In a word, the bold policy of the 31st of January, while actively prosecuted by the French Minister, was tacitly abandoned by the French Government.

Of that fact Frederick needed no further evidence than the Convention of Augsburg. His mind was made up. He saw at once that the real object of that Government was, not the protection of German liberties, not the election of the King of Poland, not a decisive war and an honourable peace, but simply a holiday campaign in Flanders. He was utterly exasperated by the vain selfishness of the French policy, while his impatience at its continued tenderness for Saxony mounted to the brim.

"We are on the eve of a new war," he wrote to Louis XV., a fortnight after the loss of Bavaria, "and what I want to know is this: Is Your Majesty going to declare himself for a prince who is giving auxiliaries to the enemies of France, or for the man whose diversion disentangled Alsace; does Your Majesty prefer the artifices of a crafty and secret enemy to the frankness of an honest friend, who has drawn upon himself the whole burden of the war, and whose provinces are now only being ravaged in order to secure the sweets of tranquillity to the subjects who live under French dominion. In a word, I must know if the justice, the honour, the generosity of Your Majesty can consent to leave me without the real assistance which He is bound by treaties to render, and to sacrifice me to a prince who has dethroned Your Majesty's father-in-law, a prince who is sold to the enemies of France, and who is only awaiting the favourable moment to give vent to his hatred and animosity against her."[333]

He gives the French king to understand that for the purposes of the common cause, the siege of Babylon will be as useful as the siege of Tournay;[334] and in despair of producing any effect, he concludes:

"It is simply in the force of his own arms and in the fortune of battles that the King of Prussia puts his greatest trust, in the hope that the goodness of his cause and the valour of his troops will never fail him."[335]

He sees but one remedy for the crisis produced by the loss of Bavaria—the immediate invasion of Hanover by Conti, with the army of the Main.[336]

This advice was a marvel of astuteness. He saw that with the abandonment of France he had nothing further to hope from the war; and that his only resource lay in bringing pressure to bear upon the maritime powers, and extricating himself as best he could. He proceeded to do so, needless to say, without the least compunction. To Frederick, the difference between the open rupture of an alliance and the tacit abandonment of an ally, was one for a casuist and not for a statesman. Events deepened his determination. Decided by the fall of Bavaria, Augustus on the 18th of May had ratified the Treaty of Warsaw arranged in January with Maria Theresa;[337] and on the 4th of June, a combined army of Austrians and Saxons strayed into the "trap" which Frederick had spread for them at Friedbourg.[338] On the 11th of May, Louis XV. had reaped the utterly vain glory of Fontenoy; and shortly afterwards Conti, upon the Main, received orders to detach twenty thousand men for the army of Flanders.[339] The Statesman at Vienna seized the opportunity to unite her armies in Bavaria and Franconia, and Conti, menaced by superior forces, withdrew with his troops beyond the Rhine.[340] There was not a Frenchman left in Germany; and the army of the Empress closed round Frankfort.

At the end of an ironical letter of compliment to the French king, Frederick writes (August 25th):

"It is a pity that in such a fine picture there should be one blot to spoil it a little. I speak of the retreat of the Prince of Conti. It is he who crowns the Grand Duke, and places Your Majesty's allies in a desperate and fatal position."[341]

From that position Frederick was determined to escape; but his success would have been more than doubtful, were it not that at this very moment, a critical conjunction of untoward events softened the obduracy of George II. The French advance in the Low Countries, the clamour of the peace party, and above all, the sweeping success of the gallant Prince Charles Edward, forced King George to listen to terms.[342] If the English troops were to be withdrawn from the Continent, Hanover could not be left at the mercy of Frederick; and only by the suspension of arms in Silesia, could a force be drafted from the Austrian army to relieve the English in the defence of Flanders. A determined effort was made to induce Maria Theresa to consent to a pacification. She would have nothing whatever to do with the traitor of Brandenburg; nor would she listen to any proposal which would involve the withdrawal of a single man from the Silesian frontier.[343] In the meanwhile time pressed; Charles Edward was marching on Edinburgh; and on the 26th of August, the King of England signed the Convention of Hanover, guaranteeing, for himself and his allies, the suspension of the war and the maintenance of Frederick in Silesia.[344]

If Maria Theresa had rejected, three weeks before, the proposals presented to her by her ally of England, she was not more likely to recognise the Convention signed by England upon her behalf. On the very day when Robinson, the English envoy at Vienna, endeavoured to obtain her acceptance of a treaty which snatched her enemy from her grasp, she received the news[345] that the long conflict she had maintained so manfully had ended at last in triumph, and that her husband, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, had been elected Emperor at Frankfort.

This election took place on the 3rd of September. It shattered once for all the diplomatic combinations which the labour and enthusiasm of d'Argenson had endeavoured singly to sustain. To crown the catastrophe, he was abandoned by the man to whom everything had been sacrificed; for the King of Poland, a few days before, declared in favour of the Austrian candidate.[346] At the very moment of this palpable collapse of French influence in Germany, the air became heavy with rumours of the withdrawal of Frederick from the French alliance.

It is no easy matter to determine d'Argenson's real share in these events; but it seems clear that whatever tone be assumed in regard to it, it cannot be that of harsh contempt.

At a terrible crisis in the beginning of the year, he had acquiesced in the adoption of a daring policy; he had discerned the measures by which alone that policy could be realised; and he had endeavoured, in conjunction with the greatest of the French allies, to enforce them upon his colleagues. He had seen those measures, one by one, deliberately and wantonly rejected; and the policy which could only be maintained by a couple of armies was left him to support without a single man. Inevitably his time was spent in apprehending disaster, in futile attempts to hamper its approach, and in transparent efforts, when it came at last, to give it the appearance of success.[347] In a constitutional government he might have resigned his place, declining the responsibility for measures which he had no power to control. As the minister of Louis XV., such a course was impossible. He might again have refused to pursue his negotiations at Dresden and in the several Electorates; but to have done so would have been to deprive the French intervention of its only possible pretext. A third course would have been to shrug his shoulders, tear up the policy of January last, and accept his share in the unprincipled by-play which was the only form that French diplomacy in Germany could reasonably take. He had simply to choose between acting like a knave, and looking like a fool. The qualities requisite for the former part he had never been able to acquire; and he had a profound faith that knavishness was the very last attribute of a statesman. In short, his only resource was to believe, in spite of himself, that there still remained some serious possibility of success, to shut his eyes to ominous circumstances, and to clutch at every shred of hope. By dint of trying to persuade others, he succeeded at last in persuading himself. He lost sight of the fact which had once been clear to him, that to Frederick mere protestations of confidence, with nothing to support them, were not worth the paper they were written on; and he clung to the belief that the suave indecisions of the Court of Dresden were more than a diplomatic veil for an absolute refusal. So it was that when the disasters he had foreseen occurred in due course, he found that it was less easy to accept than to apprehend the inevitable; and the Treaty of Hanover and the election at Frankfort came to him as a cruel blow. In a sorrowful letter to Marshal de Belleisle he says:

"I have received your letter. As to what you say of me, I must say nothing, and with good reason; I fear your praises more than any man's, for I know your sincerity. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that I have the least capacity for affairs, where, up to the present, I have had so little success."[348]

Knowing as we do in how slight a degree d'Argenson was himself responsible for these disasters, we can only be impressed by the touching readiness with which he was content to accept the blame. For eight months he had been in as thankless a position as was ever occupied by mortal man. His representations had been neglected; his despatches had been revised or rejected by the Council; deprived of means, his enterprises had been doomed to failure; and it was only by his own enthusiasm and devotion that they had been maintained so long as they were. If on occasion he had been blindly credulous, there were occasions when only by blind credulity could his position be maintained at all.

It was by a courier from the headquarters of Prince Charles's army that the news of the treaty which guaranteed to Frederick a suspension of arms was conveyed to Maria Theresa.[349] She at once communicated with Count Brühl, the all-powerful favourite at Dresden. Immediately afterwards (September 10th), the Saxon minister placed in the hands of the French agent a draft of the Convention of Hanover, and gave him to understand that if France desired to be avenged upon her faithless ally, she would not be repulsed at Vienna.[350]

The French Ministry was at once placed in possession of this startling news; and it was resolved, by a majority of the Council, that negotiations should be opened at Dresden with Maria Theresa.[351] The feeling against Frederick was at fever-heat.

D'Argenson's time had come at last. He had opposed without success the resolution of the Council; but his own credit had fallen with the defection of the man whose fidelity he had guaranteed. Nevertheless, he knew that persuasion was the least of his resources; and he resolved that it should be no fault of his if anything came of the overtures of the Empress.

His position is clear. It was not for nothing that for twenty years he had studied and thought upon public affairs; he was as deeply versed in the interests of the kingdom as the rest were skilled in the intrigue of the Court. The meaning of the Austrian proposals was not mistaken for an instant. Maria Theresa, roused by the thought that her enemy was escaping, had resolved to sacrifice her lesser hate; and by making terms with France, even at the cost of some of her Belgian provinces, to set free an army, forty thousand strong, for service in Silesia. D'Argenson knew the meaning of that; it would be all over with Frederick II.

The prospect suggested two questions. In the first place: Was it just? Had Frederick deserved the fate to which the French Council were ready to abandon him? D'Argenson had only to recall his correspondence with Prussia during the spring, the loss of Bavaria, and the retreat of Conti, to satisfy himself that if France had at last been abandoned by Prussia, she had only herself to blame. But there was a further consideration. Was it wise? and to that question d'Argenson alone in the French Ministry was capable of desiring or conceiving the answer. To the rest, to Noailles or Maurepas or Count d'Argenson, the paltry personality of the month or of the moment, the time-killing, time-winning shuffle or shift, was the decisive factor in politics. D'Argenson's statesmanship had a broader base. It had regard, not to the interest of his place or to the opinion of de Pompadour, but to the interest of his country and the tradition of Richelieu. He alone could weigh the gravity of the course the Council undertook so lightly. He alone could see that so long as the Prussians remained in Breslau, France would be sure of a powerful ally, and the right hand of Austria would be paralysed in Europe; while, upon the other hand, if Frederick were compelled to bow before fate and Maria Theresa, the heiress of Austria would draw the sword of Charles V. against her own enemy and the enemy of her House. Months before, d'Argenson had revealed his feeling in one of those master-sayings of depth and directness, which only tend to strengthen the belief that his history deserves to be re-written. At a not dissimilar crisis he declared:

"We must not listen, we must not even permit a word of such a thing. If the Low Countries were offered to me, I should believe them too dearly bought at such a price as this. You have to make it clearly understood that His Majesty is resolved never to stand by and see this prince despoiled of what has been ceded to him by his treaty with the Queen of Hungary at Breslau in 1742; and that His Majesty would prefer to surrender the dearest interests of his realm than ever consent to allow this prince to be deprived of Silesia and the county of Glatz."[352]

It is the saying of a man who is not easy to understand, but who is worth the trouble which the attempt involves. To put his attitude in a word, he regarded Silesia as strategically the most valuable of the French provinces. He would have preferred almost to sacrifice Lorraine.

The Council, in arriving at the above resolution, had reckoned without the minister who was to carry it into effect. At this juncture d'Argenson found that the very circumstances which had paralysed his efforts in the beginning of the year were telling powerfully in his favour; for the anarchy prevailing in the French Government was such that the only means of positive action open to any of the ministers was in the frustration of his colleagues' designs. To that task d'Argenson addressed himself with right good will. In transmitting his instructions to Vaulgrenant, the French envoy at Dresden, he allowed him to understand that if he could only succeed in failing, his failure would not go unforgiven.[353] The Austrian majority in the Council were by no means unanimous; and their different resolutions were communicated to Vaulgrenant without the faintest attempt to reconcile them.[354]

"I agree that the matter is one of some difficulty," wrote d'Argenson; "M. de Vaulgrenant will get out of it as best he can."[355]

Above all, he made the ambassador clearly understand that he was to listen to no proposal which would tend to deprive Frederick of Silesia, well knowing that with that object only had the Empress been induced to treat at all.[356] In fact, Vaulgrenant could not possibly mistake the tone which the minister desired him to assume.

In this enterprise d'Argenson found a powerful ally in the man whom, in the beginning of the year, he had endeavoured vainly to assist. Frederick had achieved one of his master-strokes. Upon hearing of the Convention of Hanover, Maria Theresa had formed a daring design. She resolved to ignore the approach of winter, and to concentrate her troops in Saxon territory for a direct descent upon Brandenburg. The plan was concerted secretly with Augustus, and the Saxon army would act with the Austrians.[357] At the close of the regular campaign Frederick had returned to Berlin. His sword had clicked again in the scabbard, his hand had fallen nerveless from the hilt, when suddenly a stray word let fall at a dinner-table by Count Brühl was conveyed carefully to Berlin; tensely the fingers closed upon the hilt, the sword leapt forth again bare and terrible, and at the end of a three-weeks' campaign, which we cannot even read of now without dancing eyes and tingling blood, the lion of Brandenburg entered Dresden.

It was through streets strewn with the red work that the Austrian envoy, on the verge of desperation, made his way to the house of Vaulgrenant,[358] whom he found but moderately willing to listen to proposals in doubtful favour with the ministry at home, and to the prejudice of the man who might sleep that night in the capital of his fallen enemy. The conference was without result; it was never resumed.[359] Through the combined efforts of d'Argenson and Frederick the whole negotiation had come to nothing; and Maria Theresa had no alternative but to sign with Frederick the Treaty of Dresden. By this treaty the Convention of Hanover was confirmed. Frederick was free to withdraw from the war, and he was again recognised as sovereign of Silesia.

This was the last great blow which French policy sustained during the year 1745. Frederick had broken finally with France. Months before, when the position had first been suggested by the news of the Treaty of Hanover, d'Argenson had conceived his policy in regard to it. He knew better than any man the real causes of Frederick's defection; and deplore it as he might, he saw no reason for enlisting Prussia among the enemies of France. He had expressed his thought in a letter to Belleisle:—[360]

"We must leave him alone; he will remain neutral; he will deceive the Queen of Hungary as he deceives everybody else; he will continue to cause her uneasiness until the general peace, and it is his interest to do so; he will oblige her always to keep an army in the neighbourhood of Silesia.... We can retain his alliance by interest, or at least by a certain understanding which prevents him hurting us, and which will be useful to us in many ways." "In fact, as he told the Prussian ambassador as soon as the Treaty of Dresden was known, he regarded Prussia as henceforth the political centre of French interests in the Empire and in the north."[361]

So concludes this study of the position really occupied by d'Argenson with regard to the political events of 1745. It is not without reason that it has been dwelt upon at length; for the period embraced seems immeasurably the more important of d'Argenson's ministry. The principal events of the following year are really no more than episodes, loose, and comparatively of little weight. In 1745 however, we have a long and connected series of incidents, affording an extended view of the rival policies; and furthermore, we are brought directly into contact with the great political question of the day, the question suggested by the growing change in the relations of the German powers.

Moreover, it is upon his action during this period that the severity of criticism in regard to d'Argenson's ministry is mainly based. To accept that criticism as conclusive, it would have been necessary to obliterate every impression suggested by his life before and after. There was no alternative but to examine it; and if we have sometimes been compelled to challenge the positions of MM. de Broglie and Zevort, it is with a diffidence due to authorities so distinguished. Yet no diffidence need disguise the result. So far as d'Argenson personally is concerned, each historian supplies the material for questioning the conclusions of the other: and at the same time for conceiving a third, in harmony with d'Argenson's known character and opinions. So far as we can see, neither writer has examined these events with reference to any general scheme of policy in d'Argenson's own mind; the forms that happened to be impressed upon that policy by the accidents or circumstances of the moment appear to have been mistaken for the policy itself—a process which, for a man in d'Argenson's position, would efface the distinction between statesmanship and imbecility. Moreover, he has frequently been held responsible for events over which he had no control whatever; and in M. de Broglie's case, failure to appreciate or sympathise with him is aggravated by personal opposition to his measures; and about the whole account of his ministry, equable as it is, there are unwelcome suggestions of Marshal de Noailles.

It is unpleasant to seem to speak so lightly of those to whom one owes so much; and it is no further necessary. The conclusion remains that during this period d'Argenson had a clear and statesmanlike policy; that thwarted and crossed at every turn, he did what little he could to realise it; that he was forced by the defection of his own government into a false and even ridiculous position; and that, in the circumstances, he acquitted himself as worthily as any man could be expected to do.

In the following year, 1746,[362] the course of French foreign politics is fortunately plain and simple. D'Argenson's position is clearly marked, and it has been treated with what appears to be substantial justice.[363]

The year presents three striking episodes. It opens with a strange attempt and a still stranger failure, it is distinguished by at least one marked success, and it closes with a curious comedy of intrigue of which the dénouement was d'Argenson's disgrace.

It was not the chance or the exigency of the moment that led to the famous Negotiation of Turin. We can scarcely say how long d'Argenson had dreamed of the liberation of Italy;[364] but for years past he had clung to the idea with something of the fervour of a religious faith. It was the one indulgence in the luxuries of idealism of which he refused to deprive himself. The hope was an inspiring one, and not a year had elapsed since his accession to the ministry, when he began his famous attempt to realise it.

The key to the position was held by the King of Sardinia. Sardinia, in alliance with Austria and in the pay of England, was the great barrier against the Bourbon advance in Italy. To seduce Charles Emmanuel from the cause of Maria Theresa would have been to cripple the Austrian power in Italy; to induce him to turn his arms against his late ally would have ensured her expulsion from the peninsula. There was only one danger to be feared. In Spain, with the Italian branches of the Spanish Bourbons, the House of Savoy had a deadly enemy; and d'Argenson had predicted years before[365] that the whole project might be ruined by the resistance of the Court of Madrid. He was only reassured by the reflection that in her foreign relations, Spain was ultimately dependent upon France, and that a French minister of firmness and courage would be able to bend her to his will.

In September, 1745, d'Argenson approached the Sardinian Government with certain remarkable proposals. He suggested a territorial re-arrangement of Northern Italy, the expulsion of the Austrians from the peninsula by the combined forces of France, Spain, and Sardinia, and the constitution of the various states as an Italian confederation. These overtures were coldly received, the Piedmontese minister representing that their practical effect would be to draw down upon Sardinia the vengeance of Austria and of the whole Empire. The defeat of Bassignano, the progress of the Bourbon arms, and the danger which menaced the city of Alessandria, modified the dispositions of Turin. The negotiations were resumed; and proceeded so far that on the 26th of December the partition of territory designed by d'Argenson was accepted by the Sardinian Government, though the idea of an Italian Confederation was still repulsed. On the return of Champeaux,[366] the French agent, from Turin, arrangements were rapidly made for the conclusion of the treaty; and on the 20th of January, Champeaux again set out from Paris as minister plenipotentiary, charged to obtain a final settlement within two days. Coincidently the Spanish Government was apprised of the negotiation, and its adhesion was required within the same time. Meanwhile, at the instance of Montgardin, the Sardinian envoy, d'Argenson wrote to Marshal de Maillebois, in command of the French army in Italy, acquainting him with the situation, and warning him to remain upon the defensive until the conclusion of the treaty.

While the preliminaries were being signed at Turin, the reverses of Prince Charles Edward freed the English Government from a pressing embarrassment; and on the very day (December 26th), the conclusion of the Treaty of Dresden enabled Maria Theresa to detach thirty thousand men for the army of Italy. The Sardinian ministers began to repent of the haste with which they had listened to the French overtures; they saw that they had embarked upon a desperate venture, in which it would be folly to persist; and henceforth their only care was to obtain an armistice which might enable them to relieve Alessandria and to improve their military position. Finding that in the proposals upon which Champeaux was demanding a final answer, the preliminaries of the 26th of December had been extended, they refused to accept the extension, and they demanded that in case the Spanish Government failed to accede to the treaty, the menace with which Louis XV. had tried to influence it should be made a definite stipulation, and the French troops withdrawn from Italy at the end of two months.

The news of the proposed treaty was received at Madrid with passionate outcries. So far from consenting within forty-eight hours, Philip V. addressed to his nephew an indignant letter of remonstrance; and a special ambassador was despatched to Paris with orders to check the progress of the negotiation. At first the treaty had been kept an absolute secret between d'Argenson and the King; but it was now a subject of popular rumour, and it became necessary to communicate it to the Council.

A storm of opposition was at once let loose, and feeling the King's resolution wavering, d'Argenson resolved upon a decisive step. On the 17th of February, relying upon the good faith of the Court of Turin, he signed the armistice between France and Sardinia.

Meanwhile the Sardinian plans were complete. The great Austrian reinforcement was approaching Mantua; the Piedmontese army was ready to march, while Maillebois, trusting to his instructions, remained inactive, and without a suspicion of the event which was preparing. He was soon undeceived. His son, who was in charge of the armistice, received a letter warning him not to approach Turin unless he was prepared to make the concessions demanded by the King of Sardinia, to raise the siege of Alessandria, and to declare the armistice immediately. This Maillebois was unable to do; he was supplied with passports, and informed that on the following morning (March 5th) the Piedmontese army would be put in motion. A few days afterwards eleven French battalions were surprised at Asti, and their surrender opened to the Sardinian troops the road to Alessandria.

Exactly two days before, the prolonged resistance of the Spanish Court yielded to the determination of d'Argenson; and Philip V. and Elisabeth Farnese accepted the Treaty of Turin. They were soon to hear that the plan they had striven so obstinately to frustrate had been destroyed by the perfidy of Sardinia itself.

The news of the fall of Asti created consternation at Paris; and a host of d'Argenson's enemies, headed by Noailles and Maurepas, were only too eager to fasten the blame upon the Foreign Minister. The King was carried away by the tide of reaction; and after the fashion of weak men, he rushed to the opposite extreme. Everything was done to propitiate Spain. Noailles was charged with a special mission to the Spanish Court, where he used his opportunities to decry the Minister; and most fatal step of all, the commander in Italy, Maillebois, was instructed, for the rest of the campaign, to yield the initiative to the Spanish generals. The two armies were divided by jealousies and suspicions; the Austro-Sardinians pushed their advantage; and by the end of the year the French were driven to the borders of Provence and the Austrians entered Genoa.

Such was the famous fiasco of Turin. The project was doomed from the beginning. The whole history of diplomacy could afford no more intricate play of cross-purposes. Not one of the parties to the negotiation understood the position of the rest; and it was only by a masterly comprehension of its own that the Sardinian Government escaped with success. Upon the conditions of the attempt and the causes of its failure it is unnecessary further to enlarge. For the present purposes it is principally important as perhaps the one event in the whole course of d'Argenson's ministry for which his responsibility is clear and decided; and it is the one event which plainly reveals his greatness and weakness as a practical statesman, and displays the very qualities and defects a previous knowledge of him might have led us to expect. That matter may be dealt with more conveniently when our impressions of his ministry have to be reviewed.

It was one of d'Argenson's political convictions that French influence in Germany was to be best established by refraining from provocation of the German powers. Throughout the winter of 1745 he was engaged in a series of tedious negotiations with the various Electoral Courts, designed to secure the neutrality of the Empire. His plans were successful; and he was able, with the co-operation of Frederick and of Maurice de Saxe, to banish the war entirely from Germany, and to confine it to Italy and Flanders. The conduct of these measures has secured the commendation of his most critical historian.

There remains to be considered a curious series of events, which serves to illustrate the peculiar relations subsisting in the French Government, and the embarrassments by which statesmanship was beset.

In July, 1746, Philip V. of Spain died; and the event was followed immediately afterwards by the death of his daughter, the Dauphine of France. The new king, Ferdinand, was strongly desirous that the young French prince should espouse the sister of the late Dauphine; and the proposal was supported by a powerful party at the French Court, at the head of which were Noailles and Maurepas. The project was distasteful to Louis XV., and it was rejected, ostensibly upon religious grounds. It is suggested that d'Argenson's qualms were occasioned, not by an access of unwonted scrupulosity, but by the hope of repairing the disaster of Turin by the betrothal of the Dauphin to a daughter of the King of Sardinia.[367] Louis was favourable to the scheme, and negotiations were actively begun; but the determination of Sardinia to press her advantage in Italy led to their suspension.

It was then resolved to demand in marriage the daughter of Augustus III. of Saxony. The enterprise proceeded with singular rapidity, and d'Argenson is proud to record it as the most striking of his diplomatic successes. Yet on the very day on which the marriage was celebrated at Dresden, the apparent author of it was disgraced.

The reason is as remarkable as the fact itself. Throughout the negotiation there were two policies at work, one of which was entirely unknown to the French minister. D'Argenson had conceived certain bold and statesmanlike views with regard to the position of Saxony. He hoped to bring about an understanding between Saxony and Prussia, and by the combined influence of France and Prussia, to make the crown of Poland hereditary in the Saxon house. By so doing it might be possible to withdraw Augustus III. from his blind dependence upon Vienna and St. Petersburg. The first step in the realisation of this plan must be the ruin of the Saxon minister, Count Brühl, a sworn partisan of Austria. The other policy was that of Count Brühl himself. He proposed to take advantage of the French overtures in order to bring about an understanding between France and Austria, and so to use their combined forces for the destruction of the rising power of Prussia. The first step in furtherance of the scheme must be the ruin of the Marquis d'Argenson, a firm ally of Prussia.

In fact, the negotiation of Dresden resolved itself into a personal duel between Count Brühl and d'Argenson. It ended, as we know, in the triumph of the former, through the intervention of his great compatriot, Maurice de Saxe.[368] The victor of Raucoux had recognised a strong personal interest in the proposal to make his niece Dauphine of France; and unknown to d'Argenson, he had exerted his powerful influence in favour of it both at Versailles and Dresden. Having nothing further to gain from the war, he was easily persuaded to second Brühl's scheme for the mediation of Saxony; and being given to understand by the Saxon minister that the real obstacle in the way of an arrangement was the "faux système"[369] pursued by the d'Argensons, he resolved to do his best to compass their fall. On the 10th of December he wrote to Brühl:

"People here are beginning to suspect that the d'Argensons have no sincere desire for peace. There is a shell planted; and if we apply the fuse, they will be blown into the air.... I have sounded the Marquis with regard to that question you spoke of last. He is unwilling to listen to any proposals on behalf of the Court of Vienna, and talks upon that matter in a very strange fashion."[370]

Maurice proceeded to apply the fuse. He won over Madame de Pompadour, between whom and the Foreign Minister there was no love lost;[371] and he engaged his friend and d'Argenson's enemy, Noailles, to use his influence with the King. Accordingly on the 15th of December Noailles submitted to Louis XV. a famous memoir,[372] in which d'Argenson's ministry is elaborately represented as one long disaster: his portrait being drawn with a bitterness of party spirit and personal animosity but thinly disguised by an affectation of disinterestedness. D'Argenson was by no means unaware of the intrigues against him; but he would not stoop to defend himself. He thought that his position had been strengthened by the successful negotiation of the Saxon marriage, of which he imagined he had the sole honour; and he believed himself secure in the confidence of the King. The latter, who seems to have regarded d'Argenson with unusual esteem, succumbed to the importunities of the Favourite, the Courts of Saxony and Spain, the all-powerful Maurice de Saxe, the Council of ministers, and every one whom d'Argenson, to relieve his soul or to protect the public, had found it necessary to offend; and on the very day on which what seemed to be a brilliant diplomatic stroke was consummated at Dresden, the man who imagined himself the author of it was dismissed.

The immediate cause of his fall was his obstinate refusal to traffic with Austria, or to sacrifice what generations of experience had taught him to regard as the interest of France to the fortuitous prepossessions of a foreign adventurer.[373]

We can form no just estimate of d'Argenson's capacity as a statesman without some clear ideas of his position as a minister. He had entered office burdened with two disabilities, the cause of which it has been the most important of duties to lay bare. He had no aptitude for court intrigue; he had no power of confronting opposition and sternly frowning it down. Unable to win, he neglected the courtiers; unable to coerce his enemies in the Ministry, he was only too happy to avoid them. He was forced to rely upon the value of his services, and upon the esteem and confidence of the King. That he managed to secure that confidence, and to preserve it even at the moment of his fall, there is ample evidence to show. Relying upon the royal support, he did not hesitate to enforce those principles of policy which research and reflection had led him to embrace. He determined, so far as possible, to make his will felt; and the incapacity with which he was charged by Noailles and the anti-Prussian party in the Council was really incapacity to accept proposals at variance with every statesmanlike tradition. Without regard for the consequences to himself, he acted for what he thought to be the public interest—a process which no French statesman could then pursue without offending innumerable susceptibilities, and uniting every one, from the reigning favourite to the most insignificant chargé d'affaires, in a league of enmity against him. They all combined to convict him of incapacity and indiscretion; he passed among the courtiers as "Dunce d'Argenson";[374] and his eccentricities of manner gave occasion to caricatures which were carefully gathered up by that consummate chronicler of the unimportant, the Duc de Luynes. The persecution was too bitter to be inspired merely by contempt; and we have only to read the letters of Noailles and Saxe to know that they were directed, not to the dismissal of an incapable minister, but to the removal of a statesman who barred their path.[375]

In his public life, d'Argenson is distinguished rather for what he might have done than for anything he did. In 1745 he was, as it has been necessary to show, in no sense responsible for the policy of France; while throughout the year 1746 his position was being undermined in all directions. There was, however, at least one transaction for which his responsibility is clear and undivided. His conduct of the Negotiation of Turin displays in brief the character of the man, and the peculiar qualities of his statesmanship. It reveals one capital defect, the defect of one who has been long accustomed to look upon the world through his own eyes. He made a fatal mistake in attributing his own motives to the Sardinian Government, and in imagining that it would consent for a national ideal to hazard its present and material interests. He did not see that in offering the King of Sardinia the hegemony of the Italian states, he was inviting him to accept the desperate part which had been played by Frederick in Silesia; and that, though the reward would indeed be brilliant, it was far too distant and uncertain to be readily sought by the Government of Turin. The defect, grave as it was, proceeded chiefly from lack of the experience, which a man like d'Argenson can only gain through the terrible bitterness of a first disappointment. We have only to consider the incident further to see that no man ever compassed disaster with so many of the qualities which make for success. The scheme was distinguished by grandeur of conception, and in pursuing it the author gave proof of decision and intrepidity. Incidentally he achieved one triumph of which any statesman might be proud. His dealings with Spain were a monument of reasoned daring and determination; and the acceptance of the Treaty of Turin by Elisabeth Farnese is the most striking tribute that could have been paid to d'Argenson's political capacity. It is true that he was carried away by an enthusiasm which a longer experience would certainly have chastened; and that he courted disaster by endeavouring to accomplish in three weeks the work of thirty, or a hundred and thirty, years. Yet his callow temerity was not ignoble; and French diplomacy can boast of few more honourable failures.

France owes to d'Argenson one lasting debt. He strove, as gallantly as ever man could, to arrest the disintegration of French policy. His determination to adhere to the anti-Austrian tradition embroiled him with his colleagues in the Ministry, and became the occasion of his fall; while it has been made the principal ground of impeachment by certain writers of his own country. He is charged with having sacrificed the substantial interests of France to his blind prejudice in favour of Prussia; and with having refused to recognise the new problems created by the decline of the Austrian House. Such criticism must not pass unchallenged.

It cannot be too clearly remembered that to French statesmen in 1745 the decline of Austria had not yet begun.[376] Fondly had they dreamed of the ruin of her dominion; they woke up to find that in the person of Maria Theresa the Hapsburg dynasty had renewed its youth. The Austrian succession had been maintained in arms; and it would never even have been questioned had it not been for Frederick's seizure of Silesia. As to Frederick himself we have to beware of misconceptions; for in much of French criticism with regard to him we recognise the impressions of 1763—or even of 1870. No one suspected what was in the man, and it was not until December, 1745, that people began to think of him as "the Great." Only three months before the campaign in Saxony, which won from his people and wrung from his enemies that noble salutation, he was described by the oldest of his admirers, d'Argenson himself, as "a man who might have been great."[377] It was not until after the Treaty of Dresden that he ceased to be looked upon as merely an able and unscrupulous prince who had wantonly provoked the resentment of his neighbours, and who had only to be abandoned by his one ally to receive the punishment his insolence had deserved. When, in the previous September, the Empress, at the cost of some of her Flemish provinces, offered to purchase the withdrawal of France, neither she nor d'Argenson mistook for a moment the real meaning of the proposal. In all human probability Frederick would have been doomed. Those who suggest that the "traitor of Hanover" should have been abandoned to his fate, forget the sublime capacity for vengeance with which men like Frederick are endowed. If such a man had yielded to the Empress the sword of Prussia, it would have been to receive it back as the sword of the Empire. The Imperial troops, headed by the Prussians and commanded by the victor of Friedbourg, would have marched to wrest from the common enemy his ill-gotten provinces of Flanders and Lorraine; France might have taken the place of Saxony, and the pride of Paris been bitterly rebuked a hundred years before the time. D'Argenson may not have seen all this; but he was a statesman and a thinker, and he was wise enough to know that such cheap successes as the Empress offered him are often the very dearest of all. With an admirable moral courage, he maintained that nothing Frederick could do, no treason he might contrive, could lessen the interest of France in maintaining him in Silesia; and he would not allow the resentments of a month to obscure the tradition or the teaching of a century.

In maintaining his policy, d'Argenson had to struggle against the irresistible current which was carrying the Monarchy to destruction. Since the death of Louis XIV., private convenience had been the only criterion of national interest. Dubois and Fleury, for their own purposes, had dismantled the tradition of French foreign policy; and though an effort had been made to re-establish it by Chauvelin and his pupil d'Argenson, their work could not long stand against the forces of disintegration. After d'Argenson's withdrawal no further attempt was made, and he lived to see the complete surrender of those cherished principles he had striven so bravely to maintain. D'Argenson admired and reverenced Richelieu; and he has been laughed at for aspiring to be his worthy successor.[378] Banished from power until the age of fifty, he could never attain the eminence of his master. He could only defend for the last time the policy which that master had bequeathed to France.

His defence was in vain. The collapse abroad heralded the collapse at home. It was only in 1789 that the French Monarchy surrendered its charter to the French People. It had resigned it, thirty-three years before, into the hands of Maria Theresa.