In the royal family, at least, 1699 was marked by a major event: On October 22, the duc and duchesse de Bourgogne, married in name only, were allowed to start actually living together, and that rite of passage was accompanied by the duc’s entrance into the conseil des dépêches - the least important of the councils, to be sure, but the young man was only seventeen: Monseigneur had had to wait a good deal longer. Of course, the duchesse de Bourgogne remained the king’s favorite, a fact which was not lost on her father-in-law. Whether or not he found that a sufficient reason, or whether he simply felt diminished by his son’s greater intelligence, it was at this time that Monseigneur began to show a marked distaste for his eldest son: The set around him, led openly by his half-sister the princesse de Conti, and secretly by Mlle Choin, now began attacking the Bourgognes. Within a year or two, it was clear that, whenever the dauphin became king, his son was likely to have an unpleasant time of it.
With the return of peace, the finances, still disordered, were beginning to improve, and the courtiers noted that, in consequence, the Carnival of 1700 was especially splendid. Ball followed ball, both at Versailles and at Marly; there were costumed mascarades, plays, operas, concerts: Once again, the Sun King was setting the standards by which other monarchs lived. It was at this time also that he began giving the duc de Bourgogne large sums of money. Until now, because all their expenses were paid directly by the Treasury, the duc and the duchesse had each received only 36,000 livres a year. At the time of their marriage, “the King had offered [them] a substantial increase. The duc, who thought he needed no more, thanked him and said that, if he found himself short, he would take the liberty of saying so; and, in fact, at this time, he did. The King praised him greatly, both for asking when he felt the need,* and for coming to him directly without the intervention of a third person; he told him always to do the same with entire confidence, to play at cards boldly without fearing any lack of money, for it was of no importance when people like them lost.” Saint-Simon goes on to comment: “The King liked people to feel easy with him, but he also liked to be feared, and when shy people who had to speak to him grew embarrassed and had difficulty with their speech, nothing pleased him or helped them more.”259
Behind this brilliant façade, the king remained as serious as ever. The death of the Bavarian heir had put an end to the earlier arrangement for the Spanish succession, so new negotiations were started. In March 1700, Louis XIV and William III came to a new agreement: This time, Archduke Charles, Emperor Leopold’s second son, was to have Spain, the Indies, and the Spanish Netherlands while France received a strip of land in the Basque country, the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, and Lorraine, whose duke would be moved to Milan; of course, the Austrian and Spanish crowns were to remain separate.
It was a sensible arrangement, indeed, a generous one inasmuch as the Habsburgs stood to gain far more than the Bourbons, and it says a good deal about Louis XIV’s earnest desire for peace. But to everyone’s surprise, on August 25, the emperor turned it down and instead proclaimed his right to the Spanish dominions in toto, something France could obviously never accept. Simultaneously, intrigues raged in Madrid: Charles II was failing visibly; he must make a new will and was known to have been much upset by the earlier partition agreements. He, too, wanted the Spanish Empire to remain intact. But who, then, was to be his heir?
At first, the wretched king plumped for the archduke, but the departure of the French ambassador, the marquis d’Harcourt, and the massing of French troops at the border made it clear that Louis XIV would not allow that solution to go unchallenged. Indeed, both Charles and his Council now began to reverse themselves. Their first concern was to keep the monarchy intact; it stood in far more obvious danger from its powerful neighbor than from distant Austria. A will in favor of the archduke would mean the dismemberment of Spain’s Empire. It was also true that the duc d’Anjou had the better claim as he was descended from Philip IV’s eldest daughter, and the archduke from a younger sister, so the Council, headed by Cardinal Portocarrero, now urged the king to reverse himself; upon which, in an agony of indecision, he consulted the pope.
For the newly elected Innocent XII the answer was obvious: Spain, as a weak power, was infinitely preferable to Austria, so he, too, backed the duc d’Anjou. That was enough. On October 2, Charles II signed a will making “the second son of the Dauphin of France the successor to all his kingdoms without any exception”; after him, if he were unable to assume the crown, came his younger brother, the duc de Berry; then the archduke; then the duke of Savoy. With this proclamation went a proviso setting up a junta to govern between Charles’s death and the arrival of his successor. Thus relieved of his worries, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs declined peacefully. He died on November 1, at the age of thirty-nine, and was buried at the Escorial on the sixth; on the morning of the ninth, the news reached Fontainebleau.
Louis XIV, who was due to go off hunting, stayed in and announced Charles II’s death to the Court, adding that, in consequence, there would be no festivities of any kind that winter, and he put himself and his family in mourning. That afternoon, the Council which met at three and included Monseigneur, continued until seven; after which the king conferred with Torcy and Barbezieux, the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and War, until ten. The next day, November 10, there was the usual morning Council, but it was followed by an evening meeting which lasted from six to ten. Both the special Councils included the king, Monseigneur, and the three Ministers of State: Torcy, Chancellor Pontchartrain, and the duc de Beauvillier - all quite in order, except that the meetings, to the Court’s stupefaction, took place in Mme de Maintenon’s apartment, and that it quickly became known the king had insisted on hearing her opinion as well.
Obviously, the decision - whether or not to accept the many crowns of the Spanish monarchy for the duc d’Anjou - was a crucial one. For just about 200 years, Spain had been France’s most dangerous enemy: To see it ruled by a French prince might seem, at first glance, like an extraordinarily happy event. Still, the situation was far more complicated than that: As the Council split right down the middle, that became evident.
For Torcy and the duc de Beauvillier, the dangers inherent in an acceptance of the will far outweighed all possible benefits. They pointed out that, if the partition treaty - which the emperor had, however, declined to join - was carried out, France would receive either contiguous territories, like Lorraine, or rich Italian possessions, like Naples, Sicily, and Milan, which would be easier to defend and of real advantage; that having a French prince on the throne of Spain was a fugitive gain, since his children, born in Spain, would be wholly Spanish, and therefore conceivably anti-French; that, having just emerged from a long and costly war, France was in no condition to fight the European coalition which would result from acceptance, and that Spain, already in an advanced state of decadence, far from adding to French strength, would merely be an added burden; and, finally, that if France refused the legacy, its very moderation would give it the leadership in Europe.
The chancellor, on the other hand, argued that refusing the legacy would entail the same union of Spain and the Empire which had proved so dangerous under Charles V at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but with an added degree of closeness which might well be fatal to France; that while Lorraine was, indeed, a desirable province, the Italian states had twice before been French, and had twice been lost; that Spain, being contiguous to France, would be far easier for France to defend than for the emperor to attack; that, as for the next king being wholly Spanish, it was most unlikely since the ducs d’Anjou and de Bourgogne were not only brothers but friends and would see to it that their children, first cousins after all, were also close; that by the time the next generation succeeded to the Spanish throne, the friendship with France would be of such long standing as to be virtually unchallengeable; that not only had the partition treaty been rejected by the emperor, but it was also the work of William III, that perennial enemy of France; and finally that wh
ile war would, indeed, ensue upon acceptance, even attempting to carry out the treaty would result in a conflict with the emperor, so that, war for war, it was better to have Spain and the Indies as the ultimate gain.
There remained Monseigneur, who normally said nothing. Now, to everyone’s surprise, he spoke up. First, he agreed at length with Pontchartrain; then, “turning to the King in a respectful but firm manner, he said that, having opined like the others, he now took the liberty of asking for his inheritance, since he was able to receive it; that the Spanish monarchy was the property of the late Queen his mother, and therefore his but that, to preserve the tranquillity of Europe* he wholeheartedly transmitted it to his second son; that he would not cede an inch of ground to anyone else; that his request was just, and at one with the King’s honor and the interests and the greatness of his Crown; and that he hoped therefore not to meet with a refusal. All this, said with considerable warmth, caused great surprise. The King listened very carefully, then said to Mme de Maintenon: ‘And you, Madame, what do you think of all this?’ First, she played at modesty, but then, being pressed and finally ordered to answer … she praised Monseigneur, whom she feared and disliked, as he disliked her, and advised acceptance. The King ended the Council without showing where he stood. He said that he had listened carefully and understood the arguments on both sides, that there were weighty reasons on either, and that the affair was well worth sleeping over.”260
The next day, November 10, several couriers arrived at Fontainebleau bearing assurances that Charles II’s will had the backing of both the aristocracy and the people; another council was held that afternoon, again in Mme de Maintenon’s apartment. On the morning of the eleventh, the king saw the Spanish Ambassador and then the duc de Bourgogne; on the fifteenth, he returned to Versailles. “The next day, Tuesday, November 16, the King, after his lever, called the Spanish Ambassador into his cabinet, where the duc d’Anjou [was already waiting]. The King, pointing to him, told the Ambassador he could greet [the duc] as his King. Immediately, he knelt in the Spanish fashion [the French bowed, but did not kneel] and made a rather long speech in Spanish. The King said that [the duc] did not yet understand the language, and that he would answer for his grandson. Immediately afterward, and against all precedent, the King had both sides of the door thrown open and ordered all who were there, and they were very numerous, to come in; then, majestically looking over the crowd: ‘Messieurs,’ he said, ‘here is the King of Spain. His birth has called him to that crown, as did the late King in his Will; the entire nation has wished it and pressed me to allow it: it was the will of Heaven, I grant it with pleasure’; and turning to his grandson: ‘Be a good Spaniard, but remember that you were born a Frenchman and keep the two nations united: that is the way to ensure their happiness and peace in Europe.’“261 Upon this pronouncement, the duc d’Anjou’s two brothers, Bourgogne and Berry, came in and embraced him tearfully. In all of Louis XIV’s long reign, no moment had been more glorious: Here was a triumph so vast that not even the cardinal de Richelieu, in his most ambitious juncture, could have imagined it possible.
From that moment on, the sixteen-year-old* duc d’Anjou, having assumed the name of Philip V, was treated like a king. His grandfather insisted that he share all the royal honors; Monseigneur, beside himself with pride, gave Anjou precedence everywhere, and repeated constantly, “The King my father, the King my son,” although, as Saint-Simon wryly observes, he might not have been quite so happy had he remembered a well-known prophecy about himself which ran: “Son of a king, father of a king, never a king.” It was then announced that Philip V would set off for his new realm on December 1.
Already on November 12, the king had written almost identical letters to the queen dowager and the Spanish Junta.† “The sorrow we feel for the loss of a prince, whose qualities and close kinship made his friendship precious, is greater still because of the touching proof he has given us at his death of his justice and his love for his subjects, and also because of the care He took in maintaining, beyond His own life, the happiness of Europe.”262 And to the Junta, he continued: “All our care will be henceforth, through an inviolable peace, to restablish the Spanish monarchy in its former splendor. We accept, in favor of our grandson the duc d’Anjou, the late Catholic King’s Will … We will send [Anjou] off instantly so as to give to his subjects, at the earliest opportunity, the consolation of receiving a king whose first duty must be to uphold Justice and our Religion, to work only for the happiness of his realm, to know and reward merit … We will urge him to remember his birth … but even more whose King he is.”263
With the possible exception of Mme de Maintenon, who dreaded the prospect of war, the reaction in France was ecstatic. The Court, its breath taken away by such an accretion of greatness, was unanimous in its praise as were the people and Parlements. A verse published in the Mercure de France was typical:
“Pour fixer à jamais le repos que tu donnes A tes rivaux confus tu cèdes des couronnes Que devaient à tes fils le sang et l’équité. Mais Dieu pour qui ton coeur fait un tel sacrifice D’un roi qui va mourir ranimant la justice Rend ses états entiers à ta postérité …” (To establish forever the peace you have given us To your surprised rivals you have given crowns/ Owed to your sons by birth and fairness/ But God for whom your heart made this great sacrifice/ Resurrecting the sense of justice of a dying king/ has given your grandson his realm undiminished.)264
It was no wonder: Louis XIV and his ministers knew that Spain was really the ghost of its former self, that, in fact, it had virtually ceased being a major power, but for all those who were less well informed - that is, almost everyone - the event was altogether dazzling. France’s oldest and - until recently - most powerful enemy had, overnight, become a virtual dependency. As they ascended another throne, the Bourbons were adding not one but many crowns to that of France. The riches of Latin America were still legendary, and it was all done, not as the result of a long and bloody conflict, but through a stroke of the pen.
Of course, Louis XIV himself knew that his grandson’s prodigious fortune would have to be bought, and bought dearly; already on November 14, he had sent off a letter to the comte de Briord, his ambassador in Holland; with it went a memorandum for the States General - an indirect way of approaching William III - in a desperate effort to avoid the unavoidable war.
The first of these missives is of particular interest because it retraces the king’s reasoning. After telling Briord of the Spanish Ambassador’s urgent speech in favor of acceptance, he goes on: “I examined, with the greatest attention, all the drawbacks and all the advantages, either of carrying out the [partition] Treaty or of accepting the Will. In the first case, I saw the usefulness of uniting several States to my Crown, of weakening a power that has always been the enemy of mine. I considered the agreements made with the King of England and the [Dutch] States General, and the idea of the general tranquillity that would ensue if I carried out the partition Treaty faithfully. On the other hand, I had reason to believe that the more my power grew through the accretion of the States which my son had kept for himself, the more I would meet obstacles in having the treaty carried out. The late negotiations, and the present uncertainty, show this all too clearly. The King of Spain’s Will added to the difficulties. Since the Archduke was listed after my grandsons, the Emperor would have been even more unwilling to sign the treaty; and even had he done so, it would merely have caused his rights to pass on to the Duke of Savoy, who would have been recognized by the entire Spanish nation as the legitimate heir. Carrying out the treaty would therefore have entailed my conquering all the States dependent on the Spanish Crown in order to distribute them according to the treaty. That decision would have caused a war whose end was not foreseeable: nothing could be more opposed to the spirit of the treaty.
“I see, on the contrary, that, as I accept the Will, no one has any right to complain … ; that all pretext for a war is removed; that Europe has no need to fear the union of so many States
under a single power; that my own power is not enlarged; that things remain as they have been for so many years; and that it is therefore best for Europe, and more in keeping with the spirit of the treaty, to follow the late King’s arrangements”; and after urging M. de Briord to enlist the cooperation of the Spanish Ambassador, he adds: “You will tell him that, at present, my only intention is to keep the [Spanish] monarchy intact.”265
This letter requires a good deal of analysis. Obviously, it sets out the line the king meant to take toward the two key powers, England and Holland: Without their financial and military help, the emperor could not go to war. And some of the message is disingenuous. Having a seventeen-year-old who was neither intelligent nor decisive on the throne of Spain represented a considerable accretion of power for France: To say that with its own king, Spain would be exactly as before was little short of absurd. In fact, Louis XIV, who knew very well that war was virtually unavoidable, was trying to position himself for the future peace negotiations; by saying that “at present,” he intended to keep the monarchy intact, he was signaling his willingness to negotiate its dependencies away at a future date.
At first, it seemed as if, indeed, war could be avoided. In February, both William III and the Dutch grand pensionary wrote Philip V recognizing him as king of Spain. The elector of Bavaria, one of the most important princes in Germany, had also been appointed governor of the Spanish Netherlands by the late king: He promptly signified his readiness to obey the new monarch’s orders. As for the duke of Savoy, his daughter was duchesse de Bourgogne, and Louis XIV immediately asked for her younger sister as the wife of Philip V: Under those circumstances, he, too, could be relied on to back the French.
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