The Age of Louis XIV

by Will Durant

  III. THE SPANISH PROBLEM: 1698–1700

  Charles II, childless, was nearing death; who would inherit his possessions, ranging from the Philippines through Italy and Sicily to North and South America? Louis claimed them, not only as the son of the eldest daughter of Philip III of Spain, but through the rights of his dead wife, Marie Thérèse, eldest daughter of Philip IV. True enough, Marie Thérèse at her marriage had renounced all claim to the Spanish throne; but that renunciation had been made on condition that the Spanish government pay 500,000 gold crowns to France as her dowry. Those crowns had never been paid, for Spain was bankrupt.

  The Emperor Leopold I had counterclaims. He was the son of María Anna, younger daughter of Philip III; in 1666 he had married Margaret Theresa, younger daughter of Philip IV; and neither of these ladies had renounced her rights of possible succession to the Spanish crown. Always harassed by the Turks, Leopold, for the sake of peace with France, compromised his claims by signing with Louis XIV (January 19, 1668) a secret treaty for the eventual partition of the Spanish Empire. By this pact, says a British historian, “he virtually admitted the force of Louis XIV’s contention that the French Queen’s renunciation of her claims was invalid.” 37

  When, by a second marriage, Leopold had a second son, he renewed his claims, but offered to resign them in favor of this new Archduke Karl.

  England, the United Provinces, and the German principalities saw with dread the possibility that the vast realm of Spain would fall to France or to Austria, in either case toppling the balance of power: if Louis won, he would dominate Europe and imperil Protestantism; if Leopold won, the Emperor, holding the Spanish Netherlands, would threaten the Dutch Republic, and would soon reduce the autonomy of the German states. Commercial as well as dynastic interests were involved: English and Dutch exporters supplied most of the market for industrial goods in Spain and her colonies, and received considerable gold and silver in exchange; they were loath to let that trade become a French monopoly. “The preservation of the commerce between the kingdom of Great Britain and Spain,” the British government stated in 1716, “was one of the chief motives that induced our two royal predecessors to enter the late, long, expensive war.” 38

  Anxious to satisfy the merchants of both his native and his adopted lands, and to preserve the balance of power on the Continent, William III proposed to Louis that France waive her claim and agree with England that Spain, the Indies, Sardinia, and the Spanish Netherlands should be resigned to Joseph Ferdinand, Electoral Prince of Bavaria, grandson of Leopold; that the Dauphin of France should receive the Tuscan ports and the “Two Sicilies” (Italy south of the Papal States); while the Archduke Karl should be appeased with the duchy of Milan. Louis accepted the proposal, and signed with William (October 11, 1698) the First Treaty for the Partition of Spain. Leopold angrily rejected the plan. Hoping to keep the Spanish empire from such fragmentation, Charles II drew up a will (November 14, 1698) making the Electoral Prince of Bavaria his universal heir. The Prince confused the situation by dying (February 5).

  Louis offered William a new division: the Dauphin to receive the Tuscan ports, the “Two Sicilies,” and the duchy of Lorraine; the Duke of Lorraine to be compensated with Milan; all the rest of the Spanish empire, including America and the Spanish Netherlands, to go to the Archduke Karl. William and Louis signed this Second Partition Treaty on June 11, 1699. The United Provinces agreed to it, but Charles II protested against any dismemberment of his possessions, and the Emperor, hoping to win all for his son, supported the Spanish position and refused to accept the partition. Charles, as a Hapsburg, was inclined to leave all to the Archduke; as a Spaniard, however, he hated the Austrians, and as a Latin he preferred the French. As a fervent Catholic he asked the advice of the Pope; Innocent XII replied (September 27, 1700) that the best plan would be to bequeath the Spanish empire to a Bourbon prince, who should renounce any right to the throne of France; so Spain would retain its integrity. Apparently the French diplomats outwitted the Austrians in Madrid as well as in Rome. Public opinion in Spain, alienated by the arrogant manners of its German Queen, agreed with the Pope. “The general inclination,” reported the English ambassador at Madrid, “is altogether French.” 39 On October 1 Charles signed the fateful will that bequeathed all Spain and its territories to the seventeen-year-old Philip, Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin, with the proviso that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united under one head. On November 1 Charles died.

  When news of the will reached Paris Louis was pleased but hesitant. He knew that the passage of Spain from the Hapsburgs to the Bourbons would be violently opposed by the Emperor, and that England and Holland would join in resistance. A German historian gives Louis credit, at this juncture, for pacific aims:

  It would be unjust to say of Louis XIV that his intention had been from the beginning to throw over the Partition Treaty so soon as a will favorable to his House should be in his hands. Even when he was sure of such a will, while King Charles was still alive, he ordered his ambassador in Holland to assure the Pensionary that it was his intention to adhere to his engagements, rather than accept any offers that might be made to him. In addition to this, he still continued his efforts to obtain the accession of the Court of Vienna to the Treaty of Partition. 40

  On October 6 Louis sent an urgent appeal to the Emperor to accept that Second Treaty of Partition. 41 Leopold refused. Louis henceforth considered the treaty void.

  Immediately after the death of Charles, the Spanish Junta, or Regency, dispatched a courier to Paris to notify Louis that his grandson would be accepted as King of Spain as soon as he came and took the oath to observe the laws of the realm. The Spanish ambassador at Paris was instructed, in case of a French refusal, to bid the courier hasten to Vienna and submit the same offer to the Archduke; 42 in any case the Spanish empire must not be partitioned. On November 9 Louis called the Dauphin, his Chancellor Pontchartrain, the Duc de Beauvilliers, and the Marquis de Torcy, foreign minister, to a council in the apartment of Mme. de Maintenon, and asked their advice. Beauvilliers pleaded for a rejection of the Spanish offer as sure to lead to war with the Empire, England, and the United Provinces, and he reminded the King that France was in no condition to face such a coalition. Torcy argued for acceptance; war, he held, was inevitable in any event; Leopold would fight both the Partition Treaty and the will; besides, if the offer should be rejected by the King it would certainly be welcomed by the Emperor, and France would again be surrounded by that same cordon—Spain, north Italy, Austria, and the Spanish Netherlands—which during the last two hundred years it had cost France so much blood to break. Better go to war for a just cause—the will—than in an attempt to enforce the partition of Spain against the desire of its government and its people. 43

  After three days of further deliberation, Louis announced to the Spanish envoys his acceptance of the will. On November 16, 1700, he presented the Duke of Anjou to the court assembled at Versailles. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you see here the King of Spain. His descent called him to that crown; the deceased King so ordered it in his testament; the whole [Spanish] nation desired it, and earnestly entreated me to give my assent. Such was the will of Heaven; I have fulfilled it with joy.” And to the young monarch he added, “Be a good Spaniard—that is now your first duty; but remember that you were born a Frenchman, and maintain unity between the two nations; this is the way to make them happy, and to preserve the peace of Europe.” 44 The Spanish Regency proclaimed Philip at Madrid, and all sections of Spain and her dominions soon declared their consent. One government after another recognized the new King: Savoy, Denmark, Portugal, the United Provinces, England, several Italian and German states; even the Elector of Bavaria—who thought his son had been poisoned by the Emperor—was among the first princes to offer recognition. The crisis seemed surmounted, and the century-long enmity between Spain and France seemed peacefully healed. The Spanish ambassador at Versailles knelt in homage to his new sovereign, and uttered famou
s words that Voltaire mistakenly attributed to Louis XIV: “Il n’y a plus de Pyrénées” (There are no more Pyrenees). 45

  IV. THE GRAND ALLIANCE: 1701–2

  Philip V, beginning the Spanish Bourbons, was “quietly and cheerfully received in Spain,” wrote Lord Chesterfield, “and was acknowledged as king of it by most of those powers who afterwards joined in an alliance to dethrone him.” 46 But the Emperor Leopold felt that this virtual union of France and Spain, if allowed to continue, would be a disaster for the house of Hapsburg, so long accustomed to rule both the “Holy Roman” and the Spanish empires. Reflecting his resentment, pamphleteers roused and expressed public sentiment in Austria by pointing out that Charles II had not been of sound mind when he bequeathed Spain to her ancient foe; indeed, they claimed, a post-mortem showed the King’s brain and heart grievously infected with disease; therefore his testament was null and void, and the Spanish dominions belonged to Leopold by the unrenounced rights of his mother and his wife. Leopold urged his former allies—Holland and England—to join him in denying or withdrawing recognition of Philip V, even if this meant war.

  The leader of the United Provinces at this time was Antonius Heinsius, who had been chosen grand pensionary after William’s departure for England. In earlier days, as Dutch envoy to France, he had been threatened with arrest by Louvois in violation of diplomatic immunity, and he had never forgotten that indignity. Now aged fifty-nine, he lived in a modest house at The Hague, cherished books, walked daily to his office, worked ten hours a day, and served as a living challenge of bourgeois simplicity and republican government to luxurious aristocrats and absolute kings. In November, 1700, under instruction by the States-General, he sent to Louis XIV a memorial entreating him to reject the will of Charles II as vitally injurious to the Emperor, and to return to a policy of partition. Louis replied (December 4, 1700) that his acceptance of the will had been made necessary by the Emperor’s repeated rejection of a partition plan, and by the certainty that if France refused the Spanish offer the Emperor would accept it.

  The actions of Louis heightened Europe’s fear of French power. On February 1, 1701, he caused the Paris Parlement to register a royal decree reserving the eventual rights of Philip and his line to the crown of France. This did not necessarily mean that Louis looked toward the union of France and Spain under one king; it was probably intended to ensure an orderly succession to the French throne in case all prior heirs to it should be deceased; in that emergency Philip could surrender the Spanish crown for that of his native land, and so continue the Bourbon line without interruption. But a further procedure of the King justified a hostile interpretation. A treaty with Spain had confirmed the right of the Dutch to guard against the invasion of Holland by maintaining armed garrisons in some “barrier towns” of the Spanish Netherlands. On February 5, by an understanding between Louis and the Elector of Bavaria, who was then governing the Spanish Netherlands, French troops entered these towns and ordered the Dutch garrisons to depart. The Spanish ambassador at The Hague informed the States-General that this had been done by the desire of the Spanish government. The States-General, protesting, submitted, but Heinsius agreed with William III that the Grand Alliance against France must be renewed.

  William took the position that the Second Partition Treaty had been an agreement between himself and Louis; that it had remained valid whether Leopold signed it or not; and that French acceptance of the Spanish bequest had broken a solemn pact. Parliament, however, was loath to resume the expensive struggle with France. When the French government notified England of Philip V’s succession to the Spanish throne, William resigned himself to congratulating his “very dear brother the King of Spain” on his “happy accession” 47—thus giving formal recognition to the new Bourbon regime (April 17, 1701). 48 But as the immense consequences of the Franco-Spanish union came more clearly into view—as the occupation of Flanders by French troops brought Louis XIV closer to Holland, and his possession of Antwerp gave him control over English commerce using that port—the English began to realize that the issue was not merely between Bourbon and Hapsburg, nor only between Catholicism resurgent and Protestantism at bay, but between English and French domination of the seas, of Europe’s colonies, and of world trade. In June, 1701, without declaring war, Parliament engaged to sustain William in all alliances that he might contract for the purpose of limiting the exorbitant power of France. To implement this aim it sanctioned the recruiting of 30,000 seamen and voted £ 2,700,000. In response to an appeal from the States-General William ordered twenty ships and 10,000 men to Holland, and in July he himself crossed to The Hague.

  The Emperor, claiming the entire Spanish dominion, was already at war. In May, 1701, he sent an army of 6,000 horse and 16,000 foot to seize the possessions of Spain in north Italy. He placed in command a young prince who was destined to rival Marlborough himself as a general—Eugene of Savoy. Eugene’s grandfather was Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy; his father, Prince Eugène Maurice, settled in France as Count of Soissons; his mother was Olympe Mancini, one of the alluring nieces of Mazarin. Eugene himself, aged twenty (1683), asked Louis XIV to give him command of a regiment; refused as too young, he renounced France and entered the Imperial service. He joined with Sobieski in the relief of Vienna and the pursuit of the Turks; he was wounded in the capture of Buda, and again in the siege of Belgrade; he led the Imperial army to its decisive victory over the Turks at Senta (1697). He had every charm except those of features and physique. An unsympathetic Gaul described him as “this ugly little man with a turned-up nose over an upper lip too short to conceal his teeth”; 49 but Voltaire recognized in him “the qualities of a hero in war and a great man in peace, a mind imbued with a high sense of justice and pride, and a courage unshaken in the command of armies.” 50 Now, aged thirty-eight, he guided his forces over the Alps, outmaneuvered the French detachments there, and, with successive victories over Catinat and Villeroi, won for the Emperor nearly the whole duchy of Mantua (September, 1701), long before the War of the Spanish Succession had been declared.

  Meanwhile diplomacy had prepared a decade of massacre. In August Spain granted to France the lucrative asiento—the “contract” to supply slaves to the Spanish colonists in America; evidently France intended to use her overriding influence in Spain to capture the commerce of its possessions on three continents. On September 7 the representatives of England, the United Provinces, and the Empire signed the Treaty of The Hague, forming a second Grand Alliance. Article Two declared it essential to the peace of Europe that the Emperor obtain satisfaction for his rights to the Spanish succession, and that England and the United Provinces be made secure in their dominions, navigation, and trade. The treaty promised to the Emperor the Spanish possessions in Italy and the Low Countries, but it left open the possibility that Philip V might be recognized as King of Spain. The contracting states pledged themselves to undertake no separate negotiations, to sign no separate peace, to prevent the union of the French and Spanish crowns, to bar French trade from the Spanish colonies, and to defend and maintain any conquests that England or the United Provinces should make in the Spanish Indies. 51 Two months were granted France to accept these terms; failing this, the signatories would declare war.

  Louis met the challenge with characteristic pride. He proclaimed himself in honor bound to defend the will of Charles II, and the resolve of the Spanish people that their Empire should not be dismembered. Too confident in the power and righteousness of his cause, he appeared at the bedside of the dying James II, and comforted him with the promise that he would recognize and uphold James III as King of England. When the father died Louis kept the promise; we do not know whether this was a “magnanimous action” (as a magnanimous English historian called it 52), or a surrender to the tearful pleas of the widow, 53 or a military measure designed to divide England into supporters of William and Jacobite supporters of a second Stuart restoration. In any case the War of the Spanish Succession was also a war for the English succes
sion, even for the English soul; for a restored Stuart might resume the attempt to make England Catholic. Though France felt that the action of the allies violated the recognition that nearly all of them had given to Philip V as King of Spain, most of England felt that Louis had violated the Treaty of Ryswick, in which he had recognized William III as King of England; and the recognition of James III was resented as a presumptuous interference in English affairs. A clause was added to the terms of the Grand Alliance binding its signatories to make no peace with France till William should have received satisfaction for the insult offered him by Louis’ action. In January, 1702, Parliament attainted James III—i.e., declared him a traitor and an outlaw. At the same time, by a majority of one, it passed an Abjuration Act requiring all Englishmen to repudiate the “Pretender,” and to swear fealty to William III and his heirs. On March 8, 1702, William died, aged fifty-two, too soon to know that he had welded an alliance that for half a century would determine the map of Europe. On May 15 the Emperor, the States-General of the United Provinces, and the Parliament of England simultaneously declared war upon France.