On Sunday 6th June, the Spanish Council of State decided to ask Louis XIV to name a grandson to be heir to the kingdom (Landau, ibid.)
On 13th June, Charles II asked the Pope for help (cf. Galland, "Die Papstwahl des Jahres 1700 in Zusammenhang mit den damaligen kirch- lichen und politischen Verhaltnissen", in Historisches Jahrbuch der Gorres- Gesellschaft, III (1882), p. 226, and Pfandl, L„ KarlII... op at., p. 442). At the same time, Charles II wrote to his cousin, the Emperor Leopold, in Vienna, informing him that he had asked the Pope for a mediation and attaching a copy of the letter sent to the Pontiff.
At the conference of ministers called in Vienna to discuss the matter, the purpose of the request was described as follows: "Concerning the letter from the King of Spain, he writes that he has referred to the Pope for mediation." (The original says remissio ad mediationem: cf. protocol of the conference of the Imperial Council of 6th July 1700, Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Geheime Conferenzprotoko/k, Conferentia vom 6 Juli 1700. Cf. also Gaedeke, A., Die Politik Osterreichs in der spanischen Erbfolge- frage, Leipzig 1877, II, pp. 188-89).
The letter containing the request for mediation was materially present at this conference of the Imperial Council on 6th July, and was annexed to the minutes; however, it disappeared at the end of the nineteenth century: Klopp sought it in vain in the State Archives of Vienna where it was supposed to be (O. Klopp, Der Fall. . . op cit., VIII, p. 504 no. 1).
That was not all. In Rome, on 24th July, after a long wait, Lamberg was at long last granted an audience with the Pope. On the matter of the Spanish succession, the Holy Father cut the interview short, saying, according to Lamberg, that: "Since he cannot have dealings with the Prince of Orange, [in other words, the Protestant English King William III] nor could he interpose his mediation (cf. Lamberg, L. v., Relatione istorica umiliata alia maesta dell'augustissimo imperatore Leopoldo /, Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, p. 30). Lamberg then reminded the Pope that the English and Dutch entered into the question only indirectly. The principal problem was in fact France. The Pope replied: "This is a wretched business. But what can we do? We are denied the dignity which is due to the Vicar of Christ and there is no care for us."
What is the Pope referring to here? In all probability, to the men closest to him: first of all, Spada, his Secretary of State, then the Secretary for Breves, Albani, and the Chamberlain, Spinola di San Cesareo; those best placed to undermine his authority and manoeuvre on their own behalf. By then, however, the falsified opinion had already left for Spain.
When it did, however, reach Madrid, the Pope's opinion did not change Charles IPs mind. According to the protocols of the conferences of ministers in Vienna on 23rd and 24th August 1700 (Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Geheime Conferenzprotokolle of 23rd and 24th August. Cf. also Redlich, O., Geschichte Osterreichs, Gotha 1921, VI, p. 503), Charles is reported to have sent a message via the imperial envoy to Madrid, Ludwig Harrach, restating his unaltered intention to keep the Spanish monarchy entirely in the hands of the House of Habsburg. On 10th September, Charles is reported to have gone on to express to the Council of State his disapproval of the pressures which the Council itself was exercising on him to appoint a French prince. Charles II was very sick, almost handicapped, but among his few clear ideas were doubtless those with which he had been brought up: to leave his kingdom to another Habsburg because, as he himself put it, "only a Habsburg is worthy of a Habsburg".
Nor was that the end of the matter. Charles also wrote to his ambassador in Vienna, Duke Moles (Ottieri, FM., Istoria delle guerre avvenute in Europa per la successione alia Monorchia delle Spagne, Rome 1728, I, p. 391), ordering him to assure the Emperor that his heir would be a Habsburg.
It was quite clear to everyone that the Spanish King, although weak and ill, would never have signed a will in favour of France. There was only one solution: such a will had, of course, to be signed; but by someone else. That is what happened.
Speed record
Even the manner in which the Papal opinion was drawn up is noteworthy.
On 3rd July, the Spanish Ambassador, the Duke of Uzeda, was received in audience by Innocent XII. The fact is surprising, since Uzeda had only just been received the day before. He brought with him a signed letter from the King of Spain dated 13th June, which had just been delivered to him by urgent courier: it was a request from the Spanish monarch to the Pope.
Marshal Tesse (de Fralay, R., Memoires, Paris 1806,1, p. 178) reports what Uzeda told him about that audience in 1708: initially, the Pope made difficulties; he had refused to express an opinion on so delicate a matter and yielded to Uzeda's pressing requests only after the latter had submitted to him the views of jurists and theologians (Landau, p. 452 etseq.) By that time, Uzeda had already gone over to the French side, but was still pretending to be a friend of the Empire, and of Lamberg, as the latter was to discover too late (cf Re/azione, p. 8). To convince the Pope to write a reply to the King of Spain, Uzeda enlisted the help of the three men closest to the Pontiff: Secretary of State Spada, Secretary for Breves Albani and Chamberlain Spinola di San Cesareo (Landau p. 453, quoting Tesse).
On 12th July, the old Pope gave in. Lamberg (Relazione, ibid.) was to note later that, on that day, Uzeda "was lacking in the principal respect and [. . .] contravened the faith which sanctissimum in humani pectoris bonum est". On 14th July, the Pontiff officially appointed the three cardinals as members of the congregation responsible for drafting an opinion (ibid., p. 23).
On 16th July, the Pope's reply was dispatched to Charles II (Voltaire, Le Siecle de Louis XIV, Lione 1791, II, p. 180).
Thus, it took the three cardinals only two days, from 14th to 16th July, to decide the Spanish succession. It would have been reasonable to expect that, faced with so burning an issue, the three cardinals should have held meetings among themselves and, at the very least, consulted jurists, historians, experts in dynastic law, and so on. It would have been reasonable to expect that the process of hearing, weighing up and drafting conclusions, should take a few days, not to say a week or two. As it was, Albani, Spada and Spinola wrapped the whole thing up in barely forty-eight hours: "The opinion, issued following lengthy and serious consultations, [sic!] was accepted by the Pope and his reply was dictated by Cardinal Albani to a scribe sworn to secrecy and sent to Madrid by urgent courier." (Galland, p. 226, as cited by Ottieri and Polidori, P., Vita Clementis XI, Urbino 1727, p. 40).
The opinion of the Holy See on the fate of the world was drawn up in no time. An old, sick Pope, who was to die not long afterwards, and one of the least efficient bureaucracies in Europe had, incredibly, beaten all speed records. Does that seem strange? The fact remains that historians have believed the tale to this day.
Only rare, timid, voices have dared advance the suspicion that the Pope's opinion was misappropriated. Among these exceptions, the Spanish historian Dominguez Ortiz writes: "The original of the Pope's reply is unknown and there is a suspicion that the opinion (favourable to the French succession) issued by the three cardinals may have been falsified." (Dominguez Ortiz, A., "Regalismo y relaciones Iglesia-Estado en en siglo XVII", in Historia de la Iglesia en la Espana de los siglos XVIIy XVIII, volume IV of the Historia de la Iglesia en la Espana, Madrid 1979, pp. 88-89; cit. in Menendez Pidal, R., Historia de Espana, Madrid 1994, XVIII, p. 155).
In any case, there was no difficulty in manipulating or counterfeiting the Pope's reply: Innocent XII did not sign documents personally. It is interesting to note that Albani, his successor, behaved very differently, once elected Pope under the name Clement XI: "The number of documents drafted or corrected by Clement XI [...] is surprisingly high. Few popes have written as much and therefore no other Pope's autographs have been preserved in such large numbers." (Pastor, L. v., Geschichte der Papste, Freiburg 1930, XV, p. 10). Perhaps Albani feared that some over- zealous cardinal might interfere with his writings, as he had done with those of his predecessor.
Disappearance of the proofs
Obviously, it w
ould have been easy to demonstrate clearly, once and for all, that Charles requested a mediation and not an opinion, if Charles's request and the Pope's reply had come down to us. Instead, despite the importance of those missives, not so much as a line remains. It was, however, corroborated at the time that there existed at least three copies of Charles's request and two of Innocent XII's reply: all have completely vanished. The coincidence must inevitably cast a heavy veil of suspicion over the whole affair. Here is the list of disappearances:
The original request sent by Charles II and the copy of the reply given by Innocent XII both disappeared from the secret archives of the Vatican in Rome, yet should, according to the Vatican archivists, have been in their place (the disappearance had been noticed in the nineteenth century: cf. Galland, p. 228, no. 5).
In the General Archives of Simancas in Spain, both the copy of the missive from Charles II and the original of the reply given by Innocent XII are missing (in 1882, the director of the Spanish archive had reported their disappearance: cf. Galland, ibid.)
As has already been mentioned, the copy of Charles II's letter sent by Charles in person to the Emperor Leopold I is missing from the Vienna State Archives. (This too was known to be missing in the mid- nineteenth century: cf. Galland, ibid., verified in person. Klopp, too, could find no trace of it: cf. Der Fall... cit., VIII, p. 504, no. 1).
Lastly, there is no longer any trace in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris of the two apocryphal versions of the letters found and published by C. Hippeau (Avenement des Bourbons au trone d'Espagne, Paris 1875, II, pp. 229-30 and 233-34). Both of them soon disappeared and no historian apart from Hippeau can claim to have seen them.
There is practically no European capital from which there has not been some strange disappearance.
A brief word about the two apocryphal letters republished by Hippeau: in 1702, there circulated in Italy in a leaflet the presumed letter from Charles II, together with the reply from Innocent XII, according to which the Pope advised Charles to name a French heir. Lamberg (Klopp, ibid.) went to see Albani when he had already become Pope Clement XI and asked him to explain these, seeing that he had personally headed the famous congregation for the Spanish succession.
Albani told him that in those letters ". . . there is some small truth, but much that is false. . . and suffice to say that in truth neither the request by Charles II nor the reply by Innocent XII were precisely as stated in the leaflet."
The Pope then authorised Lamberg to print and publish his words (Klopp, ibid.; Galland, p. 229, no. 5).
Despite the Pope's public disclaimer, the two apocryphal letters were (perhaps for want of anything better) taken for valid by a number of eighteenth-century historians. Among other things, these documents gave the date of dispatch of the opinion as 6th July, and not 16th. In the centuries that followed, this gave rise to a long series of errors in the chronological reconstruction of the facts, the effects of which can be felt in many history manuals.
Pope Albani and Atto Melani
The newly elected Pope Albani wasted no time in expressing his gratitude to Atto. Barely two months after his election to the pontificate, he instructed Cardinal Paolucci, Secretary of State, to write to Monsignor Gualtieri, the Papal Nuncio in France, a letter full of appreciation for Melani, with the promise that he would, at the earliest opportunity, return the favours which the latter had rendered him (Florence, Biblio- teca Marucelliana, Manoscritti Melani, 3, c. 280):
Our Lord is well informed of the advantageous reputation which Signor Abbot Melani enjoys at this Court and of the good use to which he puts this in such a way as duly to contribute to the service of this Holy See and of its Ministers and, having at various times received certain testimonials thereof from the latter [...], not only does His Holiness gratefully remember these things, but he deigns to show himself most willing to reward the good works of the said Signor Abbot with acts of his paternal benevolence on such occasions as may prove favourable to the interests of the latter's household here.
In the State Archives of Florence (Fondo Mediceo del Principato, filza 4807) many other testimonials are to be found to the unceasing attention with which, in the months preceding his departure for Villa Spada, Abbot Melani followed the health of the dying Pope and the movements of the various cardinals with a view to the forthcoming conclave. On 4th and 8th January, he wrote to Gondi, Secretary to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, that Louis XTV had ordered all the French cardinals to leave for Rome on about 20th January so as to be present at the conclave. Then, on 25th of the same month, he reports that many cardinals did not leave for Rome, having received the news that the Pope's health was "constantly going from good to better"; other French cardinals had, however, set out before receipt of these tidings.
Atto had, moreover, been perfectly aware for months that the old Pope had effectively been stripped of his power by various cardinals among his collaborators, despite the fact that, in his letter to the Connestabilessa, he candidly denied such rumours. On 1st February 1700, he wrote to Gondi:
However much the Cardinals at the Palace may strive to conceal the truth, we are informed that his spirit [that of InnocentXII] varies greatly and that the distribution of responsibilities to various prelates has been arranged by themselves, although people believe that His Holiness is still able to work.
OF COURSE, THE REST IS ALSO TRUE...
Maria and Louis
Atto Melani really was a bosom friend of Maria Mancini, as well as an admirer of her famous sisters. One of these, Ortensia, in her memoirs (Memoires d'Hortense et de Marie Mancini, ed. Doscot, Mercure de France, Paris 1965, p. 33) recounts that "an Italian eunuch, a musician of Monsieur le Cardinal, a man of great wit" paid court to "both my sisters and me". She adds that ". . . the eunuch, her [i.e. Maria Mancini's] confidant, who fell out of favour owing to his absence and to the death of Monsieur le Cardinal, undertook to make himself indispensable to me; [. . .] This man had kept rather free access to the King from the days when he was my sister's confidant [i.e. Maria again]" (cit. in Weaver, R.L., "Materiali per le biografie dei fratelli Melani", in Rivista italiana di Musicologia, XII (1977), p. 252 etseq.)
Maria's letters to Atto, in which the Connestabilessa also addresses the Sun King, using the pseudonyms "Silvio" and "Lidio", really do exist. They were discovered by the authors in Paris, together with the reports which Maria sent Atto from Spain on the imminence of the War of the Spanish Succession. These reports provide a detailed picture of Maria's activities as a source of information. Her French contact was always Atto, who reported to Louis's ministers, presenting, explaining and commenting on his friend's reports (Maria's letters and Atto's related writings are in C.P. Rome Suppl.10 - Lettres de l'abbe Melani, in ms. pp. 120, 185, 187, 206, 222, 259, 281, 282, 285).
While carrying out this dangerous work, Maria seems to have kept Louis's image clearly before her eyes: as when she writes to Atto from Toledo on 9th August 1701 (ms. p. 285 et seq.), confessing to him, when observing Philip V: "I feel so tender when I see him, remembering his grandfather when he was his age".
Hitherto, no one knew of this forty-year long correspondence between Atto Melani and Maria Mancini, even less of the coded allusions to Louis XIV contained therein. Because of this, among the numerous and well-documented biographies of Maria Mancini (from Perey, L., [pseudonym of Luce Herpin], Une princesse romaine an XVII' siecle, Paris 1896, to Dulong, C., Marie Mancini, Paris 1980), none has until now touched upon her real, decisive role in the King's life.
Unknown until today, and discovered by the authors in the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence (Manoscritti Melani 9, pp. 157—58r) is the farewell letter which Maria wrote to the Sovereign and which Atto delivered to him secretly, as told by the Abbot himself on Evening the Fourth. In reality, Atto did far more than take a look at that letter: before handing it to his king, he copied it carefully. And this is most fortunate, as it is the only surviving love letter between Maria Mancini and Louis XIV The lett
er, originally written in French, copied and kept amongst Atto's personal correspondence, and prudently omitting date, sender and recipient, is simply and allusively entitled "Lettre tendre", or tender letter, and the identity of Maria Teresa, Infanta of Spain, the King's future wife, is concealed under the pseudonym Eleonor:
I take my leave of you, Sire, and I write to you from the same palace where we both still are, and from which we are both about to depart. The ways we shall be taking are very different: you are about to bring joy and love to the hearts of all your subjects in France; you are about to pledge your faith to a Queen, upon whom you will then bestow yourself. Ah, Sire! Could you ever have imagined that I should witness so sad a spectacle? By giving Eleonor your hand, you inflict the filial blow against my life. Shall I live, my God? And see you on another's arm ? You will perhaps say to me, Sire, that I myself counselled you to enter into this fatal marriage. Ah, Sire, you do not know that I always do pitilessly whatever my honour demands of me. But I have not suffered any the less for this. I can tell you that I give you back your freedom, your country, your peoples, and, cruellest of all, that I give you a Spouse. I had not claimed such an honour: perhaps I would have wished that it be destined to no one. I have itididged no illusions about this, but my fancies have nonetheless been extravagant. I have desired that you should be a plain gentleman. Had that been the case, I would have done more for you than you have done for me, in the plight in which I now find myself. What an idea, alas! It still pleases me at this very moment, while in the rest of my thoughts I can find nothing but horror and desperation. If when your wedding ceremony takes place I am still living, it will be only to spend the rest of my days in an austere place. Awful iron spikes, erect and terrible, will stand between you and me. My tears, my sobs, cause my hand to tremble. My imagination clouds over, I can write no longer. I know not what I say. Adieu, my Lord, the little life that remains to me will be sustained only by memories. O charming memories! What will you make of me, what shall I make of you? I am losing my reason. Adieu, my Lord, for the last time.
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