DUKE DE CHOISEUL ROGER H. SOLTAU im&&. "&f^ij^-'}l fP w ^M'- ss Oxford 1909 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL THE LOTHIAN ESSAY 1908 BY ROGER H. SOLTAU SCHOLAR OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET ILon&on SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO., LIMITED MCMIX -r)r UNIVERSITY OF ( AIJFORNIA 7-^^ SANTA BARBARA C5 s6 PREFACE. The Essay has been slightly altered since it was awarded Lord Lothian's prize last year. Most of a thesis presented this year in the Final History School has been embodied in Chapter II; and a considerable amount of matter which, in the original essay, was contained in the notes, is now incor- porated with the text. My thanks are due to Professor Gabriel Monod, member of the Institut de France; to Monsieur M. Fallex, of the Lycee Louis-le-Grand, Paris; to Monsieur Alfred Bourguet, the author of several works on Choiseul's foreign policy; to Mr. E. Barker, Fellow and Lecturer of St. John's College, Oxford; and to Mr. W. L. Grant, Beit Lecturer in Colonial History at Oxford, for suggesting several sources of information that I might otherwise have overlooked. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. J. F. Rees, of Lincoln College, Lecturer at the Normal College, Bangor, for assistance in the re- vision of the original essay, and to my father, to Mr. G. D. Brooks, of Worcester College, and to Mr. D. Ogg, of Lincoln College, for help in the correction of the proofs. Oxford, October. 1909. CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter I — Early Days : Rome and Vienna . . . . i „ II— The Seven Years War . . . . . . 26 „ III — Foreign Policy: N. America and Corsica 85 „ IV — Foreign Policy : Poland . . . . . . 96 „ V — Military, Naval and Colonial Policy . . 106 „ VI — The Jesuits and the Parlement . . 127 „ VII — Fifteen Years of Retirement — Conclu- sion 164 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS. — ROME AND VIENNA. ' My Lord Chatham said in full Parliament that since theTate-Cardthal Richelieu France had not had so great a minister as the Duke de Choiseul.'^ rt was to a tottering monarchy that the man to whom his rival paid such a glowing tribute was to devote his energies and talents. At the close of Louis XIV's reign symptoms of approaching de- cline were already visible; and it was indeed the ^ greatness of the Grand Monarque which began the y slow but sure process of decay. But it is in the policy of Richelieu himself that we must seek the origin of those destructive in- fluences; for one of the fundamental causes of the * Horace Walpole, to the Duchesse de Choiseul, Jan., 1771. {Letters, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee, Vol. viii, p. 10.) B 2 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Revolution was the insatiable greed for territorial expansion 61 wliich the Cardinal was the first ex- ponent in the altered condition of modern Europe. The wars of religion might have proved a Ble'sSlng for France by forcing her to peace and internal consolidation had the beneficent rule of the early- part of Henry IV's reign been continued. Even he, however, was meditating an attack upon Aus- tria, and had a wise king and a moderate minister succeeded, France should have felt grateful to Re- vaillac for delivering her from another European coalition and its consequences. The advent of Richelieu, however, saw her decisively*staHing on the fatal road, both through the final strengtheriiijg of a royal despotism so well established that no monarch need be drawn away from schemes of ex- ternal development by cares of internal administra- tion, and through the definite involving of France in a conttnental policy of hostility to Austria.'" This policy was fatal to France. The 'days of Bourbon rivalry with the Hapsburgs were really past ; France had nothing to fear from them as long as she avoided needlessly provoking them. But utter impracticability was the hallmark of French policy at that time : it wasted its strength against an enemy whose real power was past, and in sup- port of Sweden and Poland whose situation, as events ultimately proved, did not seriously affect French interests in Europe. Meanwhile, it system- atically neglected the real issue, that lay, not upon the continent, but upon the seas. Naval and colo- EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 3 nial development was the true sphere of France, and had she concentrated all her energies in that direction, there is no saying' but that she might now enjoy the maritime pre-eminence of England. But it was chiefly in her internal administration that this policy of territorial ifg^gran'dizement, Kow- ever successful for the time, ultimately proved dis- astrous for France. The firm establishment of des- potism enabled indeed Oie Mng'"To grv'e'unH^^ attention to foreign policy ; but tris' no TeS's true that foreign complications prevented him from g"iv- ing heed to administration and seeing by what methods such absolutism was maintained. Legal- ised tyranny was the only name applicable to pro- vincial government, which chiefly existed to prevent any attempt at popular liberty, and to extort from a starving population the funds necessary for the Roi Soleil's glorious wars. The same was true, on a smaller scale, of the rule of the great land- owners who, always at war or at court, abandoned all their power to ' intendants ' or ' regisseurs ' who squeezed out of the tenants the little money royal officers might have left them, not to speak of forced labour and of the general attitude taken by the aristocracy towards their dependants. It is hardly to be wondered at that discontent was smouldering, and that when the fire blazed up France was almost destroyed in the conflagration. But the evil effects of royal rule were not confined to the country and to the lower classes. Liberty of thought and of worship was incompatibte^wlth ~««-.,_«..j^u»j»^ ^.^^,^^^ j^, , ^ . 4 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Bourbon absolutism, and its prescription only in- creased its growth and that bf'ideas ofTeTjeTTion. Thie effects of the Jansenist controversy arid its consequences uponltlie fiall of the monarchy are in- calculable. It was impossible for any reasonably- minded Frenchman, and there were many such, not to look somewhat enviously across the Channel at a people who overthrew a dynasty that did not exercise a tenth part of Bourbon oppi^ession, "With- oiiT beginning to think; and the hidden develop- ment of such thoughts was steadily undermining what was the true support of the Bourbon as of any other power, popular consent. The upheaval was coming. The foreign policy of France was thus largely responsible for the decay of the monarchy, one of the last stages of which was the sphere of activity of the subject of this study. What now made the condition of things all the more critical was that this foreign policy, the very success of which had disastrous effects, was itself in sore I straits. In spite of the supreme effort of 1709, I Louis XIV had passed on to his great-grandson I a very weather-beaten ship of state; and if the years immediately succeeding saw the vessel some- what repaired and the storms it had to face slightly calmed, it was only for a very short time. The I colossal blunder of Cardinal Fleury in involving I France first in Poland and then against Austria revived and intensified all the former evils, and at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle France gained no ad- **MU*^> ,<|MIW*i^ ******** EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 5 vantaire for eight years of war and their con- sequetices. It was the one connnendable action of Bernis and of Madame de Pompadour to save France from the meshes in which she was involved, and to place her at last ag:ainstPr,us,sifi., the, real ener^^^^ peace and Europe's; although a sounder policy would have been to withdraw her entirely from continental complications. The reversal of alli- ances was, next to peace, the one hope of success for France, and it was her army, not her diplomacy, that was to cause her final ruin. But disasters overtook her at every step; and France was drift- ing towards political nullity when "m December, I7s8, the Duke de Choiseul took the ABBe'Comte de Bernis place at the head of affairs. .X^ Etienne-Frangois de Choiseul was born in Lor- -" raine'^ToBabTy at E'uhevnTeJ on tlielw^ :^J''>/ j;^ ^ of June, 1719. His father, FraniQois-Jcisepli de ^ I i^ L Choiseul, IVTairquis de Stainville, spent his life in '^^^^J^ the employment of the Dukes of Lorraine, as their „^<^''^' ambassador in Great Britain (1725) and in France (1726), and continued in their service when they be- came rulers of Tuscany. ChoiseuP says that his ' infancy and youth were spent like those of everybody else,' which means ' His proper title was Comte de Stainville, by which name he is always called until his elevation to the dukedom in 1758. But for the sake of simplicity we shall use at once his more familiar appellation. 6 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. he led the life of the average young French noble- man; receiving little or no schooling, and being brought up with exalted ideas of his own supe- riority : ' I have considered that my master and his kindred were "above irie, and that afrtlie Tesl^'v^re either ttiy equals or my irireriors.' '' He'jomea the arrnyV which, with the Church and diplomacy, was the only career thought fit for true gentlemen with more than four quarters of nobility. In 1738 we find him a ' lieutenant-refornic ' in the Royal-Allemand regiment of cavalry, sent out to take part in the war between Austria and Turkey. However, an attack of smallpox at Vienna cooled his military ardour. A short time later, as a sub- lieutenant in the Royal-Infantry, he started for the Hungarian campaign as aide-de-camp to Prince Charles of Lorraine. The peace of Belgrade al- lowed him to pay an interesting visit to the Turkish camps, where he gathered much experience and a sharp attack of pestilential fever. On his return to Paris, realising that his father, as the servant of ^ the small duchy of Lorraine, could do little for him in the way of influence or preferment, he finally threw in his lot with France. As a French officer, therefore, he fought in Bohemia during 1740 and the following years, and gained there much distinction. In May, 1743. he received the command of an infantry regiment. Before setting out to join his new command he fought at Dettingen, where he felt certain the French oughfltriTSCVe won, and only lost through EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 7 lack of discipline and order. ' What 1 saw in this battle,' he writes/ ' was one of my principal mo- tives in suggesting to the King in 1763 the military changes I carried out.' He was sent to bring the news of the battle to the French court, where he was coolly received, as the intrigues about Madame de Chateauroux were arousing much more interest than the doings of the army. The ' Mercure de France ' for July 16, 1743, announcing Choiseul's arrival, notes that he had ' de I'esprit ' and spoke well; it adds that he was on his way to Provence to join his regiment. But it was not until 1744 that this took place; the pleasures of Paris kept him busy so much that he even refused an offer to go as an envoy to Vienna with a view to carrying secret offers of peace. This, however, was only a very minor post, not calculated to bring much glory or advancement. In 1744 he fought with his regiment in Provence and Italy, was slightly wounded at Nice; the next year he served in Germany, and then in Flanders, whence he was sent home to carry the news of the capture of Charleroi. In 1745 he had obtained the regiment of Navarre, a very desirable acquisition, as it gave its chief a senior rank among colonels, the seniority of a regiment being of more import- ance than that of the officer. It cost him 75,000 livres, of which, according to the custom, he bor- rowed 35,000 at 5 per cent., the whole to be repaid when he got his marshal's baton. In the light of ' Memoires du due de Choiseul, edited by F. Calmettes, p. 10. 8 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. subsequent events it is curious to note that during those campaigns he formed an attachment to the young Due d'Aiguillon, grand-nephew of Cardinal RicheHeu. After Charleroi, Choiseul fought at Namur and at Raucoux. After a winter in Paris he went out again to Flanders, and was present at the battle of Laufelt (July, 1747) and the siege of Bergen-Op- Zoom. Following upon the usual cessation of hostilities caused by the cold season came the siege of Maestricht, which, however, was interrupted by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (October, 1748). Iii~Trecei[Tibef , 1750, Choiselil'nrari-Ted Louise Crozat,' daughter of the Marquis deChatel, whose father had made an immense fortune By very ques- tionable means. Madame de Choiseul-Stainville is, as M. Maugras says, one of the most delightful characters of the i8th century; and Madame du Deffand only voices the feeling of all her contem- poraries when she writes 'it is a pity that she (Madame de Choiseul) is an angel; I had rather she was a woman; but she has only virtues, not a single weakness, not one fault.' Horace Walpole's testimony is that she had more common-sense and virtue than almost any human creature.^ She was to the end of her life the most devoted admirer of her husband, who, in spite of his frequent infideli- ties, was sincerely attached to her and paid her the ■ ' O, it is the gentlest, amiable, civil little creature that ever came out of a fairy egg ! so just in its phrases and thoughts, so attentive and good-natured ! ' Horace Walpole to Thomas Gray, Jan. 25, 1766 (Letters, Vol. vi, p. 403). EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 9 tribute that ' her virtue, her charms, her feehngs towards him, and his towards her, gave to their union a happiness far superior to all advantages of fortune. 1 For the next two or three years Choiseul led the ordinary idle life of the courtier, with this excep- tion, that he seems to have taken pains to make himself unpopular. ' He obtained such a reputa- tion for ill-nature that he was often spoken of as being the original of the chief character in Ores- set's comedy, '' Lc Mediant." '- He levelled the attack of his biting tongue and scathing wit against | everybody, and especially against Madame de | Pompadour, whom he despised as an upstart | bourgeoise. The whole situation changed in 1752, when Choi- seul, by betraying the confidence of his cousin, Madame de Choiseul-Romanet, who aspired to dis- place the royal favourite, made the position of Madame de Pompadour more~secWe "ttiarT'ever, and "earned her undying gratitude a;nd ffieridship. His "HEichrnenf to her seems to Have been very sincere; and so it ought to be, as it was to her that he owed much of his subsequent advancement. ' God forbid,' he wrote later, ' that I ever should . deny that this event in my life made me know ) Madame de Pompadour, bound me to her by the < most tender friendship, and interested her in my I subsequent career. I shall remember all my life | * Mcmoires, p. 62. " Boutry, Choiseul a Rome, p. i. lo THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. my affection for her and the debt of gratitude I owe her.'^ After a year in Flanders as ' marechal dc camp ' under Soubise, Choiseul was privately informed that the post of ambassador at Rome was his li he wished. Politics~were Just the field in which he might expect to use his name and situation, and after some delays he obtained the appointment. Before leaving he spent some weeks in hard work, ' doing all that was in him to acquire in- structions that would make his stay at Rome use- ful.' He studied, as he tells us,^ the principles and operations of European politics, and all the details of the Papal court, where he.arrived on. the .3tl;i,of Noverriter, 1754. He was expecting that his work would only be the ordinary routine of details of expeditions, favours to be asked, the maintenance of the King's dignity. But he soon found that one very difficult piece of negotiation was awaiting him. The old quarrel between the Parlement and the clergy over the Bull Unigenitus^ had been revived by the refusal of the' T^ast Sacraments to persons accused of leanings towards Jansenism, and Paris was again ' Memoires, p. 93 ^ Memoires, p. 94. ^ The Bull Unigenitus was issued by Clement XI in 1713 at the request of Louis XIV. It condemned certain heresies alleged to be found in the Reflexions morales of Father Oucsncl, which bordered on Jansenism. The Bull was used iiidi.scriinin;it.'ly against all those who were not friendly to the existing regime ; it became, as St. .Simon said, ' un in^puisable pot au noir pour barbouiller qui Ton voudrait ' (cf. Jallifier et Vast, Histoire dc I'Europc, 1610-1789, p. 378). P:ARLY days.— ROME AND VIENNA. ii a hotbed of ecclesiastical and theological strife. Wearied out with those disputes, Louis XV re- solved to refer the matter to the Pope, and with this the general assembly of the clergy agreed. (October, 1755.) Hitherto Choiseul's task had been to induce the Pope to maintain a strict neutrality in the struggle.' Benedict XIV, a lover of peace and moderation, ' Beloved by Papists, esteemed by Protestants, A Prie"sT wTtlVout insolence or interest, "A "Pnnce without favotlfites, A Pope without nepbtism'j An Author without vanity, In short a Man whom neither Wit nor Power have been able Fo spoil, '- was'n'ot at all anxioiis^'t^* interfere 'lri'!F*rench matters, and only wondered, with Choiseul, that matters of grace, incomprehensible by themselves, should cause trouble;^ so that the French ambas- sador had not experienced very great difficulties. But now he had to obtain from the Pope a clear and final settlement of the controversy, and at the same time to be obedient to the royal wishes in the question. Louis wanted a Solemn Bull, to be registered by a full Parlement, in which it would be stipulated that the Pope did not interfere of his own accord (Propria niotu), but at the royal request. This the Pope readily granted. The other royal demands ' Instructions donn6es au Comte de Stainville, 1754 (Rccucil des instructions donnees atix ambassadctirs, Vol vi). ^ Horace Walpoie to Sir Horace Mann, June 20, 1757 (Letters, ^ Memoires, p. loS. 12 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. caused more discussion, and often a good deal of friction. Choiseul's instructions were that the pro- posed Bull must declare the Bull Unigenitus to be, not an article of faith, but nevertheless worthy of obedience; that the Pope must express a desire for silence on controverted matters, and decide that confessors alone were to be judges of disobedience to the Bull Unigenitus. The last request meant practically that the punish- ment of the offenders must be secret, while their offence had been public and flagrant. This the Pope could not accept, and Choiseul saw the validity of his objection.^ Louis gave way on this, and owing to his ambassador's clever and politic nego- tiations, he was able to have his way on almost every other matter : the Pope drafted a Bull that contained everything that Louis desired. It was a very great diplomatic success for Choi- seul. He had already received in January, 1756, the decoration of the Holy Spirit, usually reserved for a long career of distinguished service, but ex- ceptionally granted by the King at the special re- quest of Benedict, who considered Choiseul to be ' a minister who deserved everything, full of capa- city and zeal for his service, with an open and sincere heart, in whom he would always continue to have entire confidence.'^ Although the real object of his embassy had been accomplished, Choiseul had not yet made his public 'Choiseul to Rouill^, Jan. 2, 1756 (Boutry, Op. cit., p. 73). ' Benedict XIV to Louis XV, Jan. 3, 1756 (Boutry, Op. cit., P- 75)- EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 13 entry into Rome or been officially received by the Pope. These functions took place on the 4th of April, 1756. ' He resolved to dazzle the Romans and to give them a great idea of the monarch he represented. His entry into Rome has remained famous; it has continued to strike the imagination and to create around him a reputation for magnifi- cence that followed him throughout his career.'^ After many delays caused by the illness of the Pope and the lengthy examination given to the Draft by the Royal Commission, the Bull was pub- lished on the 17th of October, 1756. By its very origin and nature it was bound to be somewhat of a compromise; but it proved acceptable to all, and was registered by the Parlement on the 13th of December, 1756. Choiseul was now able to take the furlough he had been expecting for some weeks, and left Rome in January, 1757, with a pension from the royal treasury and the reputation of a successful diplo- matist. ' The thoughtless, frivolous man has dis- appeared ; he shows in serious matters a really supe- rior maturity of mind and sureness of judgment. '- Immediately after his return to Paris the French embassy at Vienna fell vacant. Since the treaty of Versailles (ist of May, 1756) that settled the Franco-Austrian alliance, this em- bassy was the most important of all. The ambas- sador was practically on the field of war, and could ' Maugras, Lc due ct la duchessc de Choiseul, pp. 35-36. ^ Maugras, Op. cit., p. 47. V 14 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. control the war and the aUiance as easily as the ministers in Paris. At the same time, a statesman of exceptional ability was needed to keep Austria faithful to her engag^ements, a statesman who would be a persona grata both to the Empress and to the French King, and in whom full confi- dence might be placed. By birth and parentage Choiseul was partially a subject and entirely a friend of the Austrian mon- archy; he had just proved both his ability as a diplomatist and his devotion to Louis XV, so that there was no one better fitted for the vacant post; and he would doubtless have obtained it, even with- out the influence of Madame de Pompadour. Some delay was caused, however, by the opposi- tion of Rouille, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The way in which Choiseul solved the problem this opposition presented is characteristic of his tact and diplomacy. He realised that even when ap- pointed he would be in difficulties, as it would be most hard to deal with a minister who was per- manently hostile to him. He discussed the matter with Madame de Pompadour, who said that no possible pretext existed for dismissing Rouille. So Choiseul determined to induce him to resign; he persuaded Madame Rouille that the work was too much for her husband's health, and she made him give up his post.^ By April the appointment had been made, and on the 20th of August the new ambassador reached Vienna. ' Bernis, Mimoires, Vol. ii, pp. 386-7. EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 15 He was just then in a rather awkward position. He had been sent out to ensure the execution of the treaty of Versailles, of which he did not alto- gether approve ;' at the same time, the manner of his appointment made it clear that he was supposed to be the tool of Madame de Pompadour and of Bernis. So he had the double fear of having to act contrary to his own judgment and of receiving from his patrons private instructions that might clash with the official orders he might receive from the King. His policy was therefore to tread very cautiously, and be careful to offend no one. He realised that the altered relations of France and Austria opened up a vast field of possibilities in European politics, in which much glory might be gained by an enterprising and far-seeing statesman such as he undoubtedly promised to be. For this the goodwill of Madame de Pompadour and of Maria Theresa must be kept.^ The obvious policy •' of the ambassador must therefore be to maintain at .; any price the good understanding between France | and Austria. There are two distinct aspects to Choiseul's em- bassy at Vienna. Not only did he receive letters from Bernis as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and others from him as a private individual, but he also was in constant communication with the French ' ' .Although he did approve in principle of the Franco-Austrian alliance, yet he did not favour the actual shape given to it, and considered as disastrous the last stipulations that had been con- cluded.' (Filon, L'ambassade de Choisetil a Vienne, p. 29.) ■ Montbarey, M^moires, Vol. i, p. 205. i6 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. generals at the front. The latter correspondence is full of military details that throw much light on the events of the war, but none on Choiseul himself, except that they reveal him to be, as his previous career would make one expect, an expert in matters of strategy and tactics. Taken as a whole, the despatches sent and received by Choiseul during this period form nothing but an exposure of the total incapacity of the French ministry and army during the war. As Bernis said, ' a war levied against the King of Prussia, who was undoubtedly the greatest captain of his century, deserved to be carried on by good generals and by a council com- posed of enlightened and experienced officers. But neither Austria nor France had any general fit to be opposed to Frederick, and the troops were totally undisciplined. Treachery and incompetence were the orders of the day. Generals and nation were completely demoralised.'^ By thus receiving the confidences of nearly all the important persons in France, Choiseul was able to study the various influences at work in the Court and in the army, and to gain much of that know- ledge of home and foreign politics that stood him in such good stead in later years. ' He made of the embassy a kind of ministry, a secret and hidden ministry, where he soon became the equal of his official superior.'^ * Bernis to Choiseul, Dec. 18, Jan. 6, April 27, 1757-S {Affaires dtrangercs, Correspondance minister idle, Autrichc, Vols. 261, 262, 263). ^ Bourgeois, Manuel de politique itranghe, Vol. i, p. 514. EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 17 The general course of events is not very interest- ing. Almost at the same time came requests for a guarantee of their possessions from two princes — the elector of Hanover, George II of England, and the Duke of Brunswick. George met with a curt refusal : both Bernis and Choiseul considered it ' absurd ' that they should be expected to regard as neutral the only point on the continent where a blow might be struck at England. To them Han- over was a sort of hostage in their hands, and its occupation their principal interest in the continental war.^ Brunswick's request, on the other hand, was granted : his neutrality gave France one enemy the less to fight, and the Duke was not, like George II, at war with her in another quarter.^ Meanwhile the French and Austrian armies were either ex- periencing defeats or winning victories from which they gained no practical advantages : after the con- vention of Klosterseven, ' signed in a hurry, with complete thoughtlessness and utter disregard of forms,' came that of Halberstadt, criticised by Ber- nis as ' a gross blunder, which an infant a fortnight old would have avoided.'^ Finally the disorder in the joint armies culminated in the disaster of Ros- bach on the 5th of November, 1757. * Bernis to Choiseul, Sept. 10, 13 ; — Bernis to Richelieu, Sept. 12; — Choiseul to Bernis, Aug. 31, Sept. 7, Oct. 7, 1757 (Aff. etr., Autriche, Vol. 259). ^Bernis to Choiseul, Sept. 27, 1757 (Aff. dtr., Autriche. Vol. 259)- ^Bernis to Choiseul, Sept. 21, Nov. i, 1757 (Aff. dtr., Autriche, Vols. 259, 260). C i8 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. The year 1757 thus closed for France in general gloom and defeat. Her troops were in a pitiable state of destitution, ' without food, shoes, or shel- ter ' ; her generals were totally incapable, and Ber- nis even hints that court intrigues prevented the best men from being sent out. What was worse, the authorities at home were in no better situation. Bernis well says that there were ' neither generals nor ministers,' among whom he included himself.^ He was weary of the whole struggle into which he had plunged France; rightly or wrongly he con- sidered that nobody had any chance of getting the better of Frederick the Great, and that the allies might as well give up the struggle at once. His colleagues at Versailles, without going to these ex- tremes of despair, were not very sanguine of suc- cess, and did nothing to remedy the state of affairs. In vain did Choiseul beg that some definite plan of campaign might be settled for the coming year; he was told that ' successive events had not yet per- mitted the formation of any settled design,' and that ' it was difficult, in the present stress of circum- stances, to determine what the royal troops might do in the future.'^ To such depths of helplessness had French statesmen fallen ! The year 1758 thus opens up a new stage in Choi- seul's embassy. He now had to deal with the i6\- lowing problem : Bernis wanted peace, almost at * Bernis to Choiseul, Oct. 24, Dec. 13, Jan. 6, 1757-8 (Aff. itr., Autriche, Vols. 260, 261, 262). ^ Bernis to Choiseul, Dec. 22 ; Paulmy to Choiseul, Dec. 25, 1757 (Aff. ^tr., Autriche, Vol. 261). EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 19 any price, and Maria-Theresa was equally firmly bent on war. At the same time the alliance must be maintained, as without Austria, France would be absolutely at the mercy of Frederick. It was, of course, out of the question for Choiseul to act directly on Bernis' instructions, or to beg from Austria her consent to the making of peace. But the matter might be broached very delicately if a favourable opportunity came. This opportu- nity appeared in the shape of an official order to ask for a reduction of the subsidies paid by France to Austria. These were certainly very heavy. ' Be- sides the enormous expenses of her armies, France bore the burden of the subsidies granted to Russia, Sweden, Denmark, the allied princes, and many neutral powers whose non-interference in the war was thus secured; so that it could be .said that French money had armed more than forty thousand men on behalf of Austria and Saxony;^ but such a request was a clear sign that France was much weakened, and from retrenchment to peace there was only a step. Maria-Theresa saw this very clearly, and took fright at once. Choiseul was instructed to let her know that Louis XV was still decided never to make peace without her consent, and to continue to help her in money and men, but that the finan- cial burden was really too great for his resources. Kaunitz and the Empress had the good sense to see that it would serve no good purpose to expect ' Bernis to Choiseul, April 7, 1758 (Aff. Hr., Autriche, Vol. 263). C2 20 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. France to do more than she really could, and they accepted the reduction in the subsidies (March, 1758). At the same time, Bernis' requests for peace be- came so very pressing that Choiseul felt he must yield to them in some degree; and he was success- ful in obtaining from Maria-Theresa a declaration that ' as she could not fail to enter into the situation of her allies, she would agree, if necessary, to a suitable, just, and reasonable peace. '^ Just as Bernis' peace policy, helped by Choiseul's diplomacy, seemed on the eve of becoming success- ful, the w^hole aspect of affairs changed completely : it became clear that Bernis had not the support of the King and the court when he sued for an end to the war at any price. Choiseul saw by his letters from France that the Minister for Foreign Affairs was losing favour rapidly, and that his policy was no longer acceptable to Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour, who, although not bent on the war, only desired peace if it was really convenient to all parties, and gave the ambassador full liberty as to the time and method for the obtaining of it. These instructions placed Choiseul in a much easier position. It was a very hard task to oppose the desires of Maria-Theresa for a policy of extreme aggression, and to be the only one in the whole Viennese court who wished that efforts should be made towards peace. Austria was bent on destroy- ' Kaunitz to Choiseul, April 29, 1758 (Aff. Hr., Autriche. Vol. 263). EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 21 ing Prussia or perishing in the attempt; and if, as we beheve was the case, the Austrian alHance was just then essential to France, Choiseul chose the only line of conduct he could possibly act upon. fie determined to break away from Bernis' instruc- tions to gain peace at any price, and to ensure the bold execution of a resolute war policy. He has been accused of betraying the true in- terests of France. M. Bourgeois says^ that ' it would have been the action of a great heart devoted to his country, and the occasion of a fine deed that posterity would have put to his credit if he risked his favour, like Bernis, to stop France at the very threshold of that disastrous enterprise, but that he preferred to make use of the troubles of the coun- try and of the minister in order to build up defi- nitely his fortunes.' This is an unjust charge. It would of course be idle to pretend that the prospect of power did not influence Choiseul in his choice of a policy, but he did not act in a manner contrary to the welfare of his country. It was very clear that Austria would never accept peace without the recovery of Silesia, and equally clear that Frederick would never con- sent to give up his conquest. The end of the Austro-Prussian war was therefore impossible as yet; so that if France put an end to her share in the war, the alliance with Austria would be ipso facto dissolved. But Choiseul considered — and that rightly — that for France to become isolated in ' Manuel de politique Hrangcre, Vol. i, p. 515. 22 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Europe would mean that she would be completely at the mercy of Prussia and of Great Britain, which would be even more disastrous than the continua- tion of the war. This, as the lesser of two evils, must be decided upon; peace without Austria was out of the question. This was Choiseul's answer to Bernis' endless clamouring for peace. The French minister even sent a draft of proposed preliminary terms, ' which (said the ambassador) might be suitably put forward after Vienna had surrendered to Frederick.'^ Dur- ing two months the discussion went on, Bernis re- peating in every letter that France was ruined and at her last gasp, and Choiseul answering that peace was not a panacea for all ills, that it was impossible to obtain it, and that if it was obtained it would mean the end of the alliance. ' If Louis XV,' he said, ' wishes to continue the war and in this very inglorious moment cut short all negotiations for peace, which seems to me to be the wisest and most expedient policy to adopt, then I can vouch for the fidelity of the court of Vienna. If His Majesty's Council thinks itself bound to make peace, I am sure the Empress, who has a great affection for the King, will not go over to the side of our enemies ; but it is certain that all trust in our court will be lost in Germany, and that the Empress will continue the war, in spite of our having signed a separate peace. '^ 'Choiseul to Bernis, July g and i6, 1758 (Aff. etr., Autriche, Vol. 265). EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 23 The victory of Sondershausen (July, 1758) had in- spired the alHes with a httle more courage, but the defeat of Zorndorf dashed once more to the ground any sanguine hopes of success. Bernis at last de- cided to take a step he had been contemplating for some time, and he asked that Choiseul should be appointed as his colTeagMinthe Ministry for For- eign ^/^alr-'s. His suggestion was feceiveci with sucTi favour that he went one step further and re- signed his State secretaryship. This resignation | was accepted, and Choiseul was appointed at once I to the vacant ministry. i There were many reasons for this appointment; Bernis had himself laid them before the King in great detail.^ Choiseul was the only man who knew the ins and outs of the political system; he had the complete confidence of the Austrian court, and had proved himself to be patient, brave and bold. His succeeding Bernis would make it clear that no change of policy was intended. Further, he was an expert in military, as well as in political matters, a hard worker, and less apt to be influenced by reverses than Bernis. In short, he was the only man in the kingdom who could maintain the alli- ance while making in the treaties the alterations made necessary by the penury of the French treasury. Immediately afterwards Choiseul was made a ' Memoir from Bernis to Louis XV, Oct. 4, 1758 {Aff. etr., Autriche, Vol. 266). 24 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. duke and Bernis a cardinal.^ After a few weeks, in which Bernis made a last and vain effort for peace, the new minister arrived in Paris (2nd of December, 1758). The next day Bernis was exiled. It has been said that Choiseul was himself the author of that exile. It is very likely that he made no effort to save Bernis from his fate; but it was an unavoidable consequence of the events of the last month. Bernis was the author of the Austrian alliance and had done nothing to prevent the out- break of the war; but because the fortunes of the war were against him, he tried to undo his own work by going against royal orders, and then aban- doned his post at a time of crisis. It would have been very curious if he had been suffered to retain the royal favour after a conduct that was nothing else but cowardice. The first part of Choiseul's career was over. He was now put in charge of the war, the conduct of which he had often criticized ; and he had an oppor- tunity for carrying out the reforms he had sug- • The cardinal's hat was to a great extent obtained by Choi- seul's influence. His enemies have said that he acted deli- berately in order to ruin Bernis, because Louis XV was known to have a great aversion for cardinal-statesmen like Richelieu, Mazarin and Fleury. But there is nothing in Choiseul's charac- ter to justify such a charge of treachery. Choiseul was only human, and therefore could not be expected to make great efforts to save his rival. Bernis himself believed to the end that Choiseul was well-disposed towards him, and said that ' if he did not prevent his disgrace he must have been unable to oppose it.' Besides, when Choiseul began to negotiate for the hat Bernis was still in high favour ; and Choiseul thought it well to gain the minister's gratitude by obtaining for him that distinction. EARLY DAYS.— ROME AND VIENNA. 25 gested. But he was very soon to find out the dif- ference between theory and practice, between oppo- sition and oftice; and to reaHse that not even the most successful minister can always make events suit his policy and plans. CHAPTER II. THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 'The tempest is raging,' wrote Bernstorff to Choiseul/ ' and the ship at the helm of which you have been put is much tossed about.' Never was a truer word spoken. France needed indeed a strong and keen-sighted man to guide her, and the first duty of the new pilot was to choose his course. The question was whether or not Choiseul would con- sider, on taking the direction of affairs, that Bernis' peace policy was after all justified. He had made up his mind at once. Immediately after his arrival in Paris he went to see Stahrem- berg, the Austrian ambassador, and told him that on the question of peace he was of a totally different opinion to that of M. de Bernis; that in the actual state of affairs not only was it impossible to make peace, but every such thought must be laid aside, the only real matter at issue being the examination of the best ways for pursuing the war.^ ' Nov. 29, 1758 (Correspondance de Bernstorff et Choiseul, p. 11). ^ Stahremberg to Kaunitz, Dec. 7, 1758 (Waddington, la guerre de sept ans. Vol. 11, p. 469). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 27 While at Vienna, Choiseul had clearly seen that Maria-Theresa would never consent to peace with- out "tlTe' recovery of Silesia, and as Silesia was ni FreHerick's possession, Austria would go on with the" war. Peace meant, therefore, abandoning the alltance. Was it worth acquiring at that price? Many writers answer in the affirmative, and con- sider that in insisting upon the maintenance of the alliance, Choiseul betrayed the interests of his coun- try, and ' cruelly sacrificed France to the desire of | Madame de Pompadour to prove her devotion to her friend the Empress.'^ Those criticisms are unjust; in the actual state of things the Austrian alliance was absolutely essen- tial to France, and Choiseul recognised it. This does not mean that he was a blind partisan of the system inaugurated in 1756. He considered that the continental war had caused the real strug- gle, the fight for colonial expansion, to be neg- lected ; and that money and men had been given to Maria-Theresa for this particular war without that princess being in any way interested in the feud which France was pursuing against England.- He even went further and said he thought the previous diplomatic combination was the best, and that France was no longer on a solid basis, but would have, after the war, to inaugurate a new policy, always a very difficult thing for a great state. ' One * Sismondi, Histoire des Frangais, Vol. xxix, p. 193. * Memoir to Louis XV, Dec. 9, 1758 (Aff. 6tr., Autnche, Vol. 267). 28 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. must be exceedingly presumptuous if one expects to substitute for their's a system as good as that of such great men as Richeheu, Mazarin and Louis XIV. Fifty leagues in Canada more or less, Silesia and Russia, all this does not trouble me — Vae Victis — but the creation of a new system awes me and makes me think day and night. '^ In this last view he showed he did not grasp fully the problem at issue. It was indeed true, and to this we shall refer again, that for France the real war was that against Great Britain ; Taut Choiseul diGf'n'oTunderstand— it can be questionea whether afnrSifllis contemporaries did understand — the sig- nificance of the rise of Prussia and of Frederick's policy. He completely misjudged the character of the Prussian king^ and his genius, and this, as we shall see later, proved a great hindrance to the suc- cess of his policy. Had he read the signs of the % times aright he would have realised that the true interest of France was to crush this new power, and this by a firm alliance with all its rivals. * Choiseul to Voltaire, March 13, July 13, 1760 (Correspon- dance. edited by P. Calmettes, pp. 62, 107). ^ In Carlyle's words {Frederick the Great, Book xix, ch. 8) Choiseur"-' gWatly disgusted ' Frederick, and this ' disgust ' was fully mutual. The Prussian King affected to despise * le petit due,' as he calls him; and to the French minister Frederick was a madman, lacking in the most elementary virtues, * un i^ habile charlatan,' ' un preux chevalier qui n'est, qu'un Don fe Quichotte ivre, auquel on doit laisser cuver son hellebore de •^ vanity,' a braggart ' who would always inspire horror and would never attract, either by his most mediocre talents or by his intellectual and physical courage, the latter being a minus quantity ' (sec the letters from Choisoul to Voltaire, Nov. 12, 1759, May 25, July 13, 1760 ; Correspondance, pp. 38, 65,107). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 29 But just then the question was either to preserve the existing- system or denounce the past treaties and break the word of France. It is this latter course of treachery to Austria that he should have taken according- to the historians who are most eager, for the sake of ' national honour,' that the glorious policy of Louis XIV should have been pursued. But if * national honour ' was anything more than a phrase or catchword to excuse the ambition and extravagance of Louis, its first re- quirement was surely honesty to one's pledges. It is very doubtful whether this view of the pro- blem entered Choiseul's mind in any degree. What he considered was that if France broke faith with Austria and made at once a separate peace with England she would be completely isolated in Europe. The war between Prussia and Austria would continue, and England would still have to support her ally — Pitt would never abandon Frede- rick. If, on the other hand, Austria felt herself too weak to fight Prussia alone, and made peace by giving up Silesia, she would never forgive France, who would thus have at least three irreconcilable enemies in Europe : Austria because of her be- trayal, Prussia because Frederick hated Louis, Choiseul and Madame de Pompadour; England, because the problem of colonial expansion made any lasting peace with her impossible. Between an isolation that might mean annihila- tion and the maintenance of an alliance involving an unfortunate war, the choice of evils was easy. 30 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Choiseul determined to remain faithful to past pro- mises and to the Austrian alhance. Having made his decision he swerved not from the path he had chosen; he gave Austria full support; and not even when the most tempting terms of peace were offered at the cost of abandoning her did he ever contem- plate the dissolution of the alliance. This fidelity bore fruit; it is significant that England ended a triumphant war without a friend in Europe, whilst France, at the end of a series of disasters, had gained an ally and had not lost one. The alliance with Austria once recognised as the true policy for France, under actual circumstances at any rate, Choiseul found it necessary to put it on a new basis. His year at Vienna had showed him the constant misunderstandings and petty quarrels that existed between the two allies ; and he deter- mined to settle the matter clearly and definitely so that each power might know what was expected of it. and might do it thoroughly. Hence a new treaty of alliance signed on the 30th of December, 1758. The treaty of 1756 had, according to the new minister, several great defects : the various sub- sidies were enormous, amounting to fifty-two mil- lion livres, the cession of the Austrian Netherlands was only conditional on Austria's acquisition of Silesia, and what was more, the real war, that between England and France, had been forgotten in the continental excitement. A revision of the THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 31 treaty of 1756 was thus made conditional to the continuation of the war, and the basis of the altered alliance was to be the distinction between the con- tinental and the maritime wars. ' The King of France,' wrote Choiseul, ' is taking part in two wars. He is directly interested in one of them; he is only indirectly concerned with the other. This fact necessitates his putting just limits to his alli- ance with Austria. He has no intention of aban- doning his allies, but must make some alteration in the help he gives to them, so as not to interfere with the defence of his people and possessions, and not to weaken his power. No amount of success gained by his allies on land can restore the King's navy or help him to recover his colonies. More- over, the very interests of his allies require that he should retain his naval power intact. The first object must therefore be to strike direct blows at England and force her to peace. Either this will bring on the continent a peace favourable to Aus- tria, or it will so enfeeble England that she will no longer be able to give more than very weak assist- ance to Prussia. In either case it will be to the advantage of the King's allies.'^ The purpose of the new treaty was therefore to insist on the auxiliary position of France in the continental war. It was, of course, impossible to remove all the defects of the original convention; the new treaty could not secure an unqualified sur- ' Instructions to Praslin, June, 1759 {Recueil des instructions, Vol. I, pp. 382-391). 32 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. render of the Austrian Netherlands or obtain the complete withdrawal of France from the conti- nental struggle. But the subsidies were reduced, that to Austria from thirty to seven million livres, and those to Sweden, Bavaria, Wurtemberg and the Palatinate in proportion ; the number of men each power was to put into the field was clearly defined.' This re-establishment of the relations of the belligerents one to the other was a signal ser- vice rendered by Choiseul to the common cause. From the discussion of treaties and subsidies the new minister now had to pass to the practical organisation of the campaign of 1759. As may be expected from his compTainrtKat'tlT? maritime war was being neglected, it was to this that he devoted most of his attention. His great plan was a direct attack upon England, in which all the resources of France would be concentrated. ' He wanted to save in London, Canada and Pondicherry.'- Two strong squadrons were fitted out at Toulon and at Brest, intended to meet in the channel to escort a flotilla of fiat transports containing a large army under Soubise. ' If fifty thousand men perish in a first expedition,' wrote Choiseul, ' the King has determined to send out another force of equal strength, and we shall not give it up as long as there are men in France.'^ At the same time ' Mdmoires, pp. 383-5. ^Vandal, Louis XV et Elizabeth de Russie, p. 353. * Choiseul to Bernstorff, July 29, 1759 (Correspondance. p. 46). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 33 d'Aiguillon was to set sail for Scotland with twelve thousand men; and he was to be joined by a Swedish fleet from Gothemburg carrying a Russian army corps and some Swedish reinforcements. The plan was undoubtedly well thought out, and had considerably more chances of success than many other similar schemes. But it failed utterly, both in its design and in its execution. Both Russia and Sweden shrank from entering into direct conflict with England, of whom they were commer- cial tributaries. Hitherto they were merely acces- sory allies to the continental war; this would mean open rupture. All they dared do was to form a defensive alliance for the neutrality of the Baltic. The French attack was completely unsuccessful, both on land and on sea. In August, the defeat of Minden made Choiseul ' blush at the thought that the French armies could be beaten by a medley of Hanoverians,'^ and in the same month the Toulon squadron was defeated by Boscawen ; while in No- vember, Hawke inflicted on Marshal Conflans a heavy reverse off Brest. Choiseul turned to diplomacy for help. One of his schemes was the formation of a neutral league to resist England's frequent attacks on ships of non-belligerent powers. Holland, as the country that had suffered most at English hands, was the first to be approached, and d'Affry, the French am- bassador at the Hague, was instructed to prevent a ' Choiseul to Kaunitz, Aug. 28, 1759 (Aff. itr.. Autriche, Vol. 272). D 34 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. renewal of the old Anglo-Dutch alliance, and to gain the goodwill of Holland by encouraging the Republican anti-British party,, and dispelling Dutch fears as to the inefficiency of the French navy ; he was also to give a solemn assurance that Choiseul, in his idea of invading England, did not contemplate a Stuart Restoration, which the Dutch dreaded above all.^ The alliance of Russia and Sweden for the de- fence of the Baltic raised Choiseul's hopes of suc- cess, as a step towards the formation of the neutral defensive league. But the alliance did not last, and England's attitude of conciliation ruined the scheme by destroying the primary factor of its existence. To crown all came the battle of Min- den, the fall of Quebec, and the subsequent loss to French prestige which effectually ended d'Affry's negotiations. Foiled in Holland, Choiseul turned to Russia. That country was just then occupying a somewhat peculiar situation in the European concert. Al- though at peace with England, and generally on friendly terms with her, Russia was giving Austria military and financial help against Prussia, thus co-operating with France. But France and Russia "Notre intention n'est point d'exciter une revolution dans les lies Britanniques. Le systeme politique du roi est dia- m^tralement oppos^ h. une pareille idr^e, dont je sens plus que personne Tinutilit^, le danger et peut-etre le ridicule. Nous ne voulous que rendre k nos ennemis le mal qu'ils nous ont fait, sans aucune sorte de concours ni d'intelligence avec la maison de Stuart et ses adherents.' Choiseul to d'Affry, May 31, 1759 {.iff. iHr.. HoUande, Vol. 501). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 35 were not allies. ' They were as two persons who have a common friend and act together in his in- terests, but have no direct agreement about any other matter. The court of Vienna was the meet- ing point of the two powers and the only bond of their friendship. This mixed state, however, that was neither complete indifference nor a perfect alliance, was liable to have disadvantages, and could be of no real use.' Naturally, therefore, the question was to come to a clear understanding with Russia. But this question involved the still graver one of Poland, over whose kings and nobles Russia was stg adi tl/^' trying to secure a lasting influence, with a view to obtaining a definite footing in the country and making it a sort of Russian protectorate. What was to be the attitude of France towards Russia's designs ? This problem was greatly complicated by the peculiar institution called by later writers the King's Secret, the history of which must be briefly outlined if we are to understand the course of subsequent events. For some years French influence in Poland, once very strong, had been steadiTyaecnnmg, when in 1748 the Prince de Conti was approached by the remnants of the Francophile Polish party, and re- quested to come forward as a candidate for the Polish throne. He brought their proposal before the King. Louis, who had always felt a secret dislike for the present policy of non-intervention, favoured the scheme ; but he dared not command his D2 36 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. ministers to reverse their system or face the storm such a decision would cause in his own family, the Dauphin's wife being the daughter of the actual King and sister of Prince Xavier of Saxony, who, according to the scheme, was to be excluded from the throne. So he gave Conti financial help from his privy purse, and gave his agent at Warsaw secret instructions to advance Conti's cause. In 1752 the French ministry, afraid of the des- perate efforts Austria and Russia, then their ene- mies, were making to secure the alliance of Poland, instructed the ambassador, the Comte de Broglie, to oppose their advance, and endeavour to re-create a Polish party favourable to France. Broglie re- ceived additional secret instructions from the King that he was to press forward the claims of a French candidate when the election should come. The official and secret orders thus moved in the same direction, and by 1756 Broglie had been completely successful. The reversal of alliances then changed the whole aspect of matters. Austria and Russia became one the ally and the other the friend of France, and it was naturally impossible to oppose their doings in Poland. Bernis therefore gave orders that the ambassador must keep to a strict neutrality and leave Russia a free hand as long as Polish liberties were not infringed. But Louis and Broglie con- tinued their secret policy of hostility to the Russian party until it became impossible to do anything more without open opposition to Russia, and THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 37 Broglie had to leave Poland. The envoy at War- saw, Durand, was, however, instructed to keep to- gether the remnants of the French party. Thus by 1759 the situation was as follows : Po- land was practically at the mercy of Russia, but Durand was in secret correspondence with Louis XV, Broglie and Tercier,^ to try and keep up a spark of French influence, whilst the ministry sent strin- gent orders of non-interference. In Russia, Louis had another secret agent, d'Eon, who was sent to work in St. Petersburg for the same end as Durand in Warsaw. Choiseul had often expressed his disapproval of Bernis' policy in letting Russia have practically her own way in Poland. In coming into office, how- ever, he saw at once very clearly that he must choose between Poland and Russia; it was impos- sible to defend the one without attacking the other. But with Russia was involved the whole of the Austrian alliance, the maintenance of which was essential to France. The only reasonable policy was therefore to leave Poland strictly alone. A new ambassador, the Marquis de Paulmy, was sent out to Warsaw. His orders were the same as those given by Bernis to Broglie, but the French policy was now systematized and clearly explained. ' Poland was not to be treated as a country with a settled government and a responsible executive, that could have some influence in European politics. ' Tercier was first clerk at the Foreign Office. 38 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. The Polish government was merely an anarchy; but as that anarchy suited French interests, French policy must now be to maintain it, although no foreign power must be allowed to expand at the expense of Poland. The ambassador must there- fore play a perfectly passive part.'^ The Due de Broglie- attacks very fiercely what he calls Choiseul's treacherous policy with regard to Poland. ' No minister more than he or with more cruel and thoughtless resolution dug the pit under Poland's feet before letting her fall into it.' This criticism is unjust. Choiseul could hardly be expected to risk a war with Russia and the isolation in Europe a break with Austria would mean, in order to defend a country which could bring France no serious advantage, and which was only in danger owing to a constitution which it absolutely refused to reform. Previous French attempts at interven- tion under Henry III and Louis XIV had not been successful; it was only twenty-five years since Fleury's shameful failure before Dantzig. Choi- seul's hands were full with the Seven Years' War; he had been called into office to carry it on, and not to endanger his country and Europe by an act of ridiculous and sentimental quixotism. Having made up his mind that an alliance with Russia was worth more to France than the inde- pendence of Poland, Choiseul resolutely endea- voured to come to a clear understanding with ' Recueil des instructions aux ambassadeurs. Vol. V. ^ Le Secret du Roi. Vol. i, pp. 324 and 364. THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 39 Russia. At first he met with success. His pro- posal for a treaty of agreement, ahhough some- what coolly received, resulted in Russia's adhesion to the new Franco-Austrian treaty of December, 1758, and in the convention already mentioned for the neutrality of the Baltic. The relations between Versailles and St. Petersburg were thus placed on a clearer and more reasonable footing, and ' French interests in general seemed to gain ground every day.'^ But Russia's crushing victory over Frede- rick at Kunersdorf (August 13, 1759) altered her position and enabled her to take a more leading part in the concert of the allies. As a price for her troops and money she therefore claimed to keep Eastern Prussia, that her armies had been occupy- ing for two years. This raised a great commotion. Such an advance of Russia upon the Baltic was dangerous to Sweden, and more so to Denmark. Choiseul answered by informing the Empress Eliza- beth that as Austria was the principal party in the continental war and France only an auxiliary, it was upon Austria that Russia should urge her claims. Elizabeth had the good sense to see that to persist in her demands would offend the allies, and she desisted from them, with the idea of bring- ing them forward again when terms of peace would be discussed. But for some time before that deci- sion the relations between France and Russia were rather strained. ' Keith to Holdernesse, June 15, 1759 (Record Office, State Papers, Russia, Vol. 67). 40 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. .While he was making plans for the vigorous con- duct of the war, Choiseul could not but perceive that there had been much to warrant the desire of Bernis for peace, and that when he had lamented the decay of French resources the Cardinal had not over-estimated the gravity of the situation. ' The French,' wrote a contemporary,^ ' are cer- tainly sick of the war ; money they get, but it is by all sorts of tricks and baits, as well at home as abroad; their old funds are to be purchased at twenty-five per cent, discount, besides which they are greatly in arrears in all their payments. . . . The retrench- ing fifty-four millions from their subsidies is meant to raise their credit, or to prevent their breaking; ' and a little later in the year they had to resort to such expedients as ' the stopping payment of all the redeemable funds and the annulling during the war all the bills of exchange drawn from or upon their colonies.' This financial distress, coupled with the disorganised state of the army and the navy, the disaster of Minden and the defeat of Con- flans made the burden of war almost intolerable. Choiseul did not intend, however, to follow in Bernis' footsteps and seek to obtain peace at any cost, even at that of the alliance. He intended keeping France faithful to her pledges, and dreaded the possibility of her isolation in Europe. But he became bent on obtaining Austria's consent to an attempt at peace, and instructed his cousin the ' Yorke to Lord Royston, Jan. 2 and Nov. 19, 1759 (British Museum, Add. MSS. 35,365, Hardwicke Papers). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 41 Conite de Clioiseul-Praslin, who had succeeded him at the French embassy in Vienna, to try and gain over Austria to his views. The state of things in Vienna was unfortunately unfavourable just then for such proposals. Maria Theresa and Kaunitz were beginning" to realise what their system meant, that if Frederick was not abso- lutely crushed they had failed. There was no escape from that position, no possibility of a middle way. The war had been started for the recovery of Silesia, and for revenge on Prussia; neither of those aims could be realised without the utter de- feat of the Prussian king. Hitherto the fortunes of war had favoured him, and Austria saw herself engaged in a struggle to the death with a powerful foe whom she had underestimated : either she or he must be annihilated before the struggle could cease. It is easy, therefore, to understand that Praslin found it difificult to suggest peace. Kaunitz spoke of the war as if it was yet to last a long time, and seemed on the horns of a dilemma : the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of crushing Frederick, and the impossibility of peace before Frederick was crushed.^ But the disasters of the summer of 1759 drove the Austrian court to take a more rational view of matters, and in October it became possible to bring once more before them the question of the cessation of the war. Maria-Theresa was forced ' Praslin to Choiseul, July 21, 1759 (Aff. dtr., Autriche, Vol. 272). 42 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. into acknowledging- that ' the peace of the conti- nent would have to be made soon; that the state of her finances would not allow her to carry on more than one campaign, and that the next winter peace would have to be seriously considered. Nevertheless, she admitted being very touchy on anything concerning peace, '^ and as the word ' peace ' grated on Kaunitz's ears, and seemed to him to be an insult, Choiseul and Praslin realised very clearly that Austria wanted war, and would have to be forced to peace, either by France or by her enemies.- The year 1759 was not destined to end without hopes of such an event coming to pass. Choiseul was not the only one to wish for peace; as early as September Frederick considered peace very desir- able, and ordered his ambassador to win England to that point of view." He succeeded, and in November, 1759, England and Prussia declared'^ ' that they were ready to send plenipotentiaries to any place which should be judged most convenient, in order to treat in conjunction concerning a general and firm peace with those whom the belli- gerent powers should think proper to authorize on ' Praslin to Choiseul, Oct. 6, 1759 (Aff. etr., Autriche, Vol. 274). ^Praslin to Choiseul, Oct. 14, 1759 (Aff. dtr., Autriche, Vol. 274). ^Frederick to Knyphausen, Sept. i, 1759 (Political Corres- pondence, Vol. XVIII, p. 512). * Chatham Correspondence, Vol. i, p. 461. THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 43 their side towards the accomphshnieiit oi so salu- tary an end.' Shortly afterwards came the declaration of the allies offerini^' a congress. This declaration caused great surprise at Vienna, and made it clear that the Austrian court did not look with favour upon the idea of peace. ' In this they are quite right,' wrote Praslin to his cousin. ' Austria has nothing to lose and much to gain by the continuation of the war. Her finances are less exhausted than ours; her troops are good. Frederick is much weakened. It is an exceptionally good moment for making a great effort to crush him.'^ Naturally Austria could not return a direct nega- tive in answer to the proposals of the allies, but she proved in no hurry to give any answer; and the French ambassador saw very clearly that ' the only epoch the Empress thought suitable for peace was that of Frederick's downfall.'- Choiseul re- plied that ' without manifesting an immoderate desire for peace, no occasion must be lost to make Austria understand that he had no intention of sacrificing the interests of France to those of the house of Austria.'^ This firm attitude made Austria give a reluctant but formal consent to a scheme that had been in the air for a few weeks, namely, a separate negotia- tion between England and France, with a view to ' Praslin to Choiseul, Dec. g, 1759 (Aff. Hr., Autriche, Vol. 274). ^ Praslin to Choiseul, Dec. 14, 1759 {Aff. etr., Autriche, Vol. 274). ^ Choiseul to Praslin, Dec. 25, 1759 {Aff. etr., Autriche, Vol. 274). 44 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. ending the maritime war. It was felt that, if this could be done, a great step would have been taken towards a general peace. Choiseul had at first received England's overtures rather coldly, being doubtful of her sincerity; but his suspicions soon disappeared, and he welcomed the idea that terms of peace should be informally discussed at the Hague between Joseph Yorke and d'Affry, the respective ambassadors of George II and Louis XV. From the outset Choiseul and his opponents Frederick and Pitt, were at cross-pur- poses. The French minister meant to carry to its logical issue the distinction made in the negotia- tions between the maritime war and the continental, that is, he wanted a separate treaty of peace to be signed between France and England. On this point the instructions he sent to d'Affry were formal : ' The King commands you to declare very emphatically that we distinguish our par- ticular war with England from that on the conti- nent.'^ Frederick, however, was quite as clear in his determination that this separate peace should not be signed without his being expressly included therein, and in this Pitt fully supported him.^ This was a basis Choiseul could not accept. France, he said, was at war with England, and Prussia with Austria. The fact that these first two countries were interested as auxiliaries in the war 'To d'Affry, Dec, 1759 (Aff. ^tr.. Hollande, Vol. 502). ^Frederick to Knyphausen, Jan. 12, 1760 (Pol. Corr., Vo\. xiXj p 20). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 45 between the other two, did not affect their own particular war, the end of which could be settled by themselves alone. But it was absurd to enter- tain the idea that Prussia should be a party to such a peace. She had no stake in the colonial struggle that was the point at issue between England and France; she was not even formally at war with France; how could she sign a treaty of peace with her? If Prussia made terms, Austria must make terms also ; but their quarrels were to be settled at a congress — this separate peace was no business of theirs. That this position was just and logical is shown by the fact that it was adopted by all parties in 1761 and 1762. But neither Pitt nor Frederick saw this, and it became at once evident that a deadlock would be reached very soon. Choiseul could not treat with Prussia, owing to the trouble it would cause with Austria; while Frederick declared that for England to treat separately would be to desert him,^ and Pitt wanted the maintenance of the Anglo-Prussian alliance at least as much as Choiseul wished to keep the alliance with Austria intact. The negotiations dragged on a long time, how- ever; and it is very clear that both parties were very reluctant to realise that they could not hope to come to an agreement. They both did their best. Choiseul was evidently sincere ; — his dealings with Austria and his letters to d'Afifry leave no possi- ' Newcastle to Pitt, March 13, 1760 (Chatham Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 29). 46 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. bility of doubt, — and his desire for peace was not confined to mere words : he went as far as he dared. He was willing to include Hanover, Hesse and Brunswick in a separate treaty, and practically pro- mised to force Austria to peace as soon as the maritime war was ended; but although he would ' do his best to contribute to help the King of Prussia out of his scrape,'^ he could not include him by name in such a treaty. It was, however, on this express inclusion that both Frederick and Eng- land insisted. It is not easy to see why Frederick was so tenacious, for he undoubtedly desired peace, yet all his actions seemed to put peace further away. His attempt to treat directly with France through the Bailli de Froullay was based on a misconception of the political situation in Paris— the idea that Louis XV was the head of the peace party in France and that Choiseul was hostile to it^ — and was bound to fail, but does not reveal an intolerant attitude. The nearest approach to a solution of the problem has been reached by von Ruville, who states that it was Pitt who wanted to continue the war, that he might deprive France of her colonial empire, and * who devoted his energies to the avoidance of any serious negotiations for peace.' It is quite possible that Pitt urged Frederick to insist on his express inclusion and then said he could not treat as long as Frederick maintained that attitude. The general ^ Yorke to Royston, March 25, 1760, Add. ■l/'^'^- 35,365. ^Frederick to Finckenstein, Feb. 6 and 14, 1760; to Kny- pliausen, .April 11 (Pol. Corr., Vol. xix, pp. 72, 98, 261). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 47 conclusion we may draw is that the blame for the failure of peace is to be laid at the door of England. ' It would have been as well for her to treat with- out the King of Prussia; she might have had peace upon her own terms provided she had helped France to save appearances.'^ The situation had also been complicated by the evident reluctance of the courts at Vienna and St. Petersburg towards peace. Austria had only con- sented to the separate negotiation because she hoped England would be humiliated thereby,^ and maintained her opinion that at least another cam- paign must be waged. To this Russia agreed, and the two powers really did their best to put ' spokes in the wheel' of peace. The truth was, as Maria-Theresa put it, there was such a good occasion of crushing Frederick that it was a pity to let it escape, he being in a much more critical situation than at any time during the war;^ and Choiseul could not help sympathising with her point of view : ^ all he wanted was that she should not take offence at the steps France was taking towards her particular peace ; and in this he had succeeded. By the end of April all hopes of peace were over : the separate negotiations had broken down and the proposal for a general congress had been tacitly dropped. Kaunitz saw that the separation ^ Yorke to Royston, May 30, 1760, Add. MSS. 35,365. " Praslin to Choiseul, Jan. iq, 1760 (Aff. itr., Autriche, Vol. 275). ^ Choiseul to Praslin, Feb. 15, 1760 (Aff. etr., Aiitrichc. Vol. 275). 48 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. of the two wars was not as useful to the Empress as he had at first thought it would be. He foresaw, not without reason, that it might happen that the settling of French interests would make them a little cooler about Austria's. He began to fear that England might be willing for peace : he had never imagined she would be, and only supported the principle of separation lest French losses should be played off against the gains to which Austria was looking forward. The failure of peace, however, came in time to prevent any unpleasantness, and Choiseul could write, with justifiable triumph, that ' if England had wanted to sow dissension among the allies, she had failed.' The truth was, that it was practically impossible for the Franco-Austrian alliance to be in any real danger. Choiseul clung to it as the only system capable of saving France from complete isolation in Europe, while Kaunitz had as ' the invariable and fundamental principle of his policy to maintain the French alliance in preference to everything else, since he was its author.'^ It had also the advantage of leaving Austria a perfectly free hand in Ger- many : George H never used to let her interfere with the rights of the Germanic body, while France could not check her designs in any way.^ While Austria had been secretly hindering peace, ' Praslin to Choiseul, Jan. 3, 1761 {Aff. Hr., Autrichc, Vol. 281). ^ Praslin to Choiseul, March 29, 1760, {Aff. ^tr., Autriche, Vol. 275)- THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 49 although professing- to favour it, another European power, Spain, sincerely desirous of seeing the end of the war, had been really putting it off by its maladroit diplomacy. The idea of a Spanish media- tion had already come to Bernis during his ministry, and Choiseul was only reverting to past policy when, shortly after his accession to office, he wrote to d'Aubeterre, the French ambassador in Madrid, that ' the intention of the King was that he should lay before the eyes of the Spanish ministers strong reasons to lead the court of Madrid to make a common cause with France, for it was only the combined action of the naval forces of both powers that could reduce to reason an enemy equally dan- gerous to both.'^ An alliance with Spain had many advantages. The dynasty on the Spanish throne was Bourbon, and at the same time was several times connected by marriage with the Hapsburgs ; and Spain was the only country in Europe that had colonial interests and could hope to take an active part in the naval war. Thus the Austrian alliance would, if any- thing, be strengthened and a considerable addition might be made to the forces opposed to England. In the despatch quoted above Choiseul spoke advisedly of the ministers, not the King. Ferdi- nand of Spain was sinking fast, and his successor, Charles III of Naples, ' Baby Carlos,' was awaiting the succession. He was known to have strong ' Dec. 25, 1758 (Bourguet, Le Due de Choiseul et I'aUiance espagnole. p. 5). E so THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. anti-British feelings, and d'Aubeterre thought that ' once he would be there, all would be easy.'^ That assertion was somewhat premature. On succeeding Ferdinand in August, 1759, Charles de- clared that the internal condition of Spain required his undivided attention for some time before he could discuss matters of foreign policy.^ A general tone of true friendliness and mutual trust prevailed, however, between the two countries. Meanwhile, Choiseul removed d'Aubeterre to put in the Marquis d'Ossun, a diplomatist of real genius, who was to prove to Charles that France was still well able to carry on the war with deter- mination, but that peace was very desirable and could best be obtained through Spanish interven- tion. Unfortunately for Spain, Charles allowed himself to be persuaded of the truth of both those assertions; the result was that in his efforts to obtain peace for France he fatally compromised the relations of his country with England, and found himself linked to a practically helpless power in whose disasters he was eventually involved. For a short time after d'Ossun's arrival it was doubtful in Madrid as to whether he or Wall, the minister for foreign affairs, who had strong Eng- lish sympathies, would control the policy of the new King. When internal matters had become somewhat settled, it became clear that the French influence had won the day. ' d'Aubeterre to Choiseul, Jan. i6, i759(Bourguet, Op. cit.p.S). " d 'Aubeterre to Choiseul, Oct . , 1 759 (Bourguet , Op. cit. , p. 46). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 51 Choiseul immediately tried to ' render the King's good dispositions efficacious in the critical state of affairs.'' Already in October there had been a vague talk of Spain's willingness to mediate in the war, and in November a formal memorial was sent by Charles to England, declaring ' that he could not see with indifference the considerable conquests of the English in America, and that if they did not make peace he would be compelled to make war.' At the same time he offered his mediation. This memorial did not produce a very good effect in England. 'That part of the memorial,' wrote Pitt, 'which declares that His Catholic Majesty can- not see with indifference our successes in America, seems here very little consistent with the expres- sions in the other parts of that piece where Spain wishes to be considered as in a pure neutrality.'^ Charles had gone a little farther in his veiled threats than Choiseul intended him to, and should have been put on his guard by the very frigid reply made by Pitt to d'Abreu, the Spanish ambassador in London. The Anglo-Prussian offer of a congress was nothing short of a distinct snub to Charles' pacific tendencies and should have made him with- draw for a time his proposals of intervention. But, having begun, he went on in his eager meddling, and drafts of possible terms of peace ' d'Ossun to Choiseul, Dec. 7, 1759 (Aff. dir. Espa^ne, Vol. 526). ^ Pitt to Bristol, Dec. 14, 1759 (Record Office, State Papers, Spain, Vol. 160). E2 52 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. were exchanged between Paris and Madrid. Pitt, however, refused to send thereto drafts of the terms on which he would consent to peace : ' he feared that His Catholic Majesty had a feeling of partiality for France.'^ Meanwhile the negotiations went on at the Hague between Yorke and d'Affry, and the allied powers were drafting their formal reply to the English proposals for a congress. Strangely enough, Spain suddenly began to hang back; w^as it fear caused by Pitt's reply, or a recrudescence of royal favour to the Anglophile Wall ? We do not know, but Choiseul got alarmed and said ' that England would succeed in ruining France unless the Catholic King soon came to a decision.'^ He was very anxious that mention should be made of the Spanish offer of mediation in the reply of the allied powers to England. Spain seemed afraid that such an inclusion might irritate the enemy and hinder the cause of peace, but yielded to Choiseul's exhor- tations.^ We may justly wonder how it was that both Charles HI and Choiseul could dream for a moment that England would accept the mediation of so obviously biassed a power as Spain. It is difficult to understand how, after the memorial of Decem- 'd'Ossun to Choiseul, Feb. 4, 1760 (Aff.dtr., Espagne, Vol. 527)- ^Choiseul to d'Ossun, Feb. 19, 1760 (Aff. itr.. Espagne. Vol. 527)- 3 Choiseul to d'Affry, March 20, 1760 (Aff. itr., Hollande. Vol. 503). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 53 ber, Charles could write^ : ' The English believe me to be partial; they are right in the main, but I have given them as yet no reason to think so ' ; while Choiseul thought that ' there was a partiality of heart and feeling founded on ties of kinship which was not contrary to the laws and rules of justice; and that His Catholic Majesty was certain to keep the scales even and to weigh without preju- dice the rights and claims of France and of England.'^ Choiseul's illusions had never been shared by Kaunitz, who declared that Charles III did not like France and w^as English at heart. The truth was probably, as Praslin shrewdly guessed, that he did not wish France and Spain to become too closely united, lest such an union should weaken the Franco-Austrian alliance; he wanted Austria to be the only ally of France, and thus keep her under her dependence. If Praslin was right, Kaunitz was not actuated by very lofty motives, but a little later he showed real insight into the state of affairs by declaring that the Spanish alliance would do France no good, that the King of Spain would want to play a part in the alliance, and would claim the part of mediator, when such an interference was not needed, and would only serve to create fresh complications. Nothing good would come of it, M'Ossun to Choiseul, March 5, 1760 {Aff.etr., Espagne, Vol. 527)- * Choiseul to d'Ossun, March 19, 1760 (Aff. itr., Espagne, Vol. 528). 54 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. and it was too early to think of peace. Maria- Theresa, while admitting that she wished England to make a separate peace with France, said she fought shy of Spain : there was too much English influence in that court. ^ Choiseul naturally clung to his negotiation with Spain, and succeeded, if not in gaining Austria's approval, at least in making her understand that the original alliance would not be affected and that Charles III should be rigidly excluded from all intervention in the continental war. Choiseul's illusions, if not those of Charles, were soon dispelled. Pitt's reception of the allies' reply had not been very encouraging (April, 1760), and the negotiations at the Hague had been dropped. In his opinion the state of things he had foreseen in February had come to pass : England had eluded the Spanish offer of mediation, and Charles's best course was to declare war at once. The Spanish King, however, completely failed to understand the policy and character of Pitt; and, still believing in the possibility of England's agreeing to some settle- ment, he sent a new ambassador to London, Count Fuentes, with instructions to lodge a strong pro- test against alleged damage caused by England to Spanish settlements in Honduras and Florida; — which step did not dispel the doubts existing in English minds with regard to his partiality. Choiseul was now certain that Pitt would neither ' Praslin to Choiseul, Aug. 27, Sept. 5, Oct. 6, 1759 (.Aff. itr., Autriche, Vols. 273, 274). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 55 accept the mediation nor give Spain any redress for her grievances, and with astonishing foresight he predicted the results of Fuentes' embassy some time before he actually left for London. ' England,' he said, ' is going to conquer this year nearly all the French colonies in America : Canada first, then Louisiana and Martinique. She will attack the isles of France and Bourbon (Reunion and Maur- itius) and cut off our communications with Pondi- cherry. Meanwhile M. Pitt will easily fence about with M. de Fuentes by keeping the negotiations open. At each fresh conquest he will feign to yield to Spanish wishes, until we have lost every- thing, then he will simply refuse all Spain's de- mands; he does not fear her fleet, and we shall finally be forced to accept grievous and shameful terms of peace.' ^ Except that the end of the war did not come so soon as he seems to have then expected, Choiseul had been perfectly accurate in his forecast of events. Pitt simply toyed with Fuentes until even Charles III understood that England did not want to come to terms. Choiseul thought the time had come for Spain to strike ; * he had enough of words and of being given, as sole political food, the fruit- less compliments of the King of Spain ; he was not desirous of dragging him into the war, but wished his preparations and speeches to be strong enough to procure peace, '^ if not, 'Spain would have to ' Choiseul to d'Ossun, Feb. 9, iy6o(Aff. etr., Espagne, Vol. 527). ' Choiseul to Praslin, May 10, ij6o{Aff. etr., Autriche, Vol. 276). S6 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. prove by her deeds that she returned the friendly sentiments France had never ceased to show her.'^ This was, however, easier said than done. Now that he was asked to take a definite step Charles wavered and hesitated, and Choiseul wearily wrote that ' Spain was to be depended upon for neither peace nor war ' and ' had for her sole object to gratify her private ambition by using for the suc- cess of her plans the two powers she pretended to try and reconcile.'^ The death of the Spanish queen and a sudden change in Wall's policy seemed to remove the only two influences that worked upon Charles for mod- eration; and he declared that ' he would not go to sleep ' but would take strong measures against the English if they did not satisfy his demands. But when the fall of Montreal lost Canada to France, and when Choiseul declared that ' it was no longer time to delay, he must know at once what his Catholic Majesty intended doing,' Charles an- swered that, eager as he was to join France, he could not be ready before six months or a year, owing to the appalling decay into which Ferdinand had let his army and navy fall.^ This reply again gave Choiseul the impression that in spite of all his assurances of friendship 'Choiseul to d'Ossun, May 27, 1760 (Aff. dtr., Espagne, Vol. 528). ^Choiseul to d'Ossun, June 21, Aug. 19, Nov. 10, 1760 (Aff. dtr.. Espagne. Vols. 529, 530). ^d'Ossun to Choiseul, Sept. 15, Oct. 17, Nov. 28, 1760 (Aff. 6tr.. Espagne, Vols. 529, 530). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 57 Charles did not mean to take any active steps, and he gave up the hope of obtaining from him ' the real and present help' France needed. But the situation was altered by one of those sudden shiftings of policy to which Charles and Grimaldi were liable. They lost all patience with Pitt, who was again practising a policy of feint on the Hon- duras question in order to gain time, and Wall himself declared that ' he perceived success was blinding the British ministers, that they seemed to forget all the solicitations made by their enemies to induce the Spaniards to take a share in the present war ; ' ^ adding a few days later that he ' wished not to leave Spain in a war with England, but that the court of London seemed to be driving every thing that way.' The Spanish government was now quite prepared to join forces with France, and d'Ossun wrote that ' unless peace could be had on very good terms it was better to carry on the war with activity, as Spain would very shortly be able to come to their help.'^ Choiseul could now make a definite offer to Spain, and he suggested a commercial and defen- sive treaty of alliance.^ He had just taken charge of the war department and realised what a heavy tax the struggle was upon the resources of the * Bristol to Pitt, Jan. 14, 1761 (State Papers, Spain, Vol. 163). * d'Ossun to Choiseul, Jan. 19, Feb. i, 1761 (Aff.dtr.,Espagne, Vol. 531). ' Choiseul to d'Ossun, Jan. 27, 1761 (Aff. etr., Espagne, Vol. 531). 58 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. country, so he did not want to enter into over-rash undertakings. That caution was necessary was shown by d'Ossun's statement that ' the great diffi- culty was to induce His CathoHc Majesty to act towards England with moderation as well as firm- ness, and to prepare vigorous measures without making use of them.' Another reason for caution was that fresh negotiations for peace were on foot. To see the origin of these negotiations it will be necessary to retrace our steps to a considerable extent. The summer of 1759 had seen Choiseul make an attempt at peace through Russia. In July, 1759, acting on a hint received from Woron- zoff, the Russian Chancellor, he instructed the French ambassador, I'Hopital, to induce Russia ' to obtain a lasting glory and right to the thankful- ness of Europe by coming forward as a mediator between Prussia and Austria who were both worn out by the war. Once the two German powers were on the road to peace the good offices of Russia might be used towards a Franco-English settlement.'^ The scheme was ruined by Louis XV who sent the ambassadors secret orders to take no notice of ministerial instructions. The difficulty of the situation in St. Petersburg, caused by the question of peace and Russia's demands on Prussia, proved too much for the skill of the old ambassador, I'Hopital, and it was decided to give '■ Choiseul to I'Hdpital, July 8, 1759 (Aff. dtr., Russie, Vol. 60). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 59 him an energetic assistant. The Baron de Breteuil was accordingly sent with instructions to employ Russia to the conclusion of an honourable peace and meanwhile to obtain from her efficacious help in the war. Not a word was said about checking her influence in Poland. But he also received from Tercier secret instructions to prevent any Russian mediation and to ensure the election to the Polish throne of Xavier of Saxony, third son of the King and brother-in-law of the Dauphin, while keeping a watch over Polish interests and checking Russian operations. It all came to this : that the secret policy was trying to hinder the operations of the allies of France, at the time when a decisive blow struck by Russia might, in Frederick's own words, have dealt Prussia her death-blow, given Silesia to Maria-Theresa, and to France nearly all the impor- tant garrisons of the Austrian Netherlands, the rest of which were to go to Louis's cousin, the In- fante Philip, and become a kind of appendage of France.^ Breteuil did not prove a success in any way. Embarrassed by his double set of instructions, he dared not follow either of them thoroughly : he did nothing for Poland and discouraged the friendly advances of the Russian Chancellor Woronzoff . Meanwhile, Choiseul was beginning to alter somewhat his views respecting the Austrian alli- * Vandal, Louis XV et Elisabeth de Russie, p. 378. 6o THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. ance. He found that Maria-Theresa was over- eager to draw France into the struggle against Prussia, and that on its actual basis the alliance caused Louis XV to waste his resources in that struggle and made it difficult for him to defend him- self against England; while a great accession of power to Austria would be dangerous to France. All that he could do was to hope that success would be gained in the naval war, that a separate peace would be obtained, and that the rest of Europe would act as a balance to Austrian power. ^ This illustrates in a remarkable degree what we noticed before as the capital defect in Choiseul's views on politics, namely, his complete under- estimation of Frederick's resources and genius. It is very curious that as late as August, 1760, he could think that the war might end in substantial gains to Austria. Had he been able to read the signs of the times on the continent as well as he did in the colonies, he would have made every effort to guard against the extension of Prussia and not of weak Austria. All this made Choiseul all the more anxious for matters to come to a distinct and decisive issue, and he gladly followed his cousin's advice that he should once more approach Russia on the subject. There was, said Praslin,^ every chance of the scheme being successful. Russia was weakened * Choiseul to Praslin, Aug. 24, 1760 (Aff. dtr., Autriche, Vol. 276). " Praslin to Choiseul, Aug. 28, Sept. 4, 7, 1760 (Aff. dtr., Autriche, Vol. 277). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 6i and conlcl hardly continue the war; Maria-Theresa and Kaunitz were quite prepared to surrender to necessity if they were firmly spoken to, and to acknowledge that the time for peace was approach- ing. Choiseul determined to act on the sugges- tion, and sent Kaunitz a lengthy memoir in favour of peace, containing nothing very new : the old arguments about the uselessness to France of the war against Prussia, the necessity of crushing Eng- land, and since that was impossible, of peace. ^ Kaunitz answered by admitting the value of Choi- seul's reasoning, only adding that if peace was to be made it was to be made in a better way than that in which the war had hitherto been carried on. The Empress, however, thought otherwise, and a lengthy discussion had to be begun to show her that the war must indeed cease. She soon showed that she was unable to give up her schemes of aggrandisement, that the idea of peace with Fred- erick was hateful to her. 'Fire and water,' said Praslin, ' are less incompatible than the courts of Vienna and Berlin; their characters are even more different than their interests. Maria-Theresa will make every effort to dissuade us from peace; she wants to prolong the war.'^ After a lengthy con- ference with Kaunitz, in which Praslin bluntly said that ' peace would be made the day the Empress would give up Silesia, which was the watchword of the war,' Austria was induced to propose to the ' Choiseul to Kaunitz, Sept., 1760 (Aff. itr., Autriche, Vol. 277). ' Praslin to Choiseul, Sept. 30, i-j6o{Aff. etr., AutirchcVol. 277). 62 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. allies a declaration to be presented to the enemies, and expressed her decision to persevere in her alli- ance with the King of France, and to try and obtain a general, firm and lasting peace. Praslin thought Maria-Theresa had not wanted to be out- stripped in generosity by the English, who had made considerable sacrifices in order to save their ally.^ The consent of the court of Vienna was a great step towards peace, but it was not the peace itself, and Choiseul foresaw many difficulties before that was obtained. He thought peace would prove as expensive as war because it was so much needed that almost any terms would have to be accepted.' Kaunitz was also somewhat full of apprehension, but thought that France might trade on and profit by the well-known opposition to peace of the court of Vienna. 'Austria,' thought Praslin, 'is practi- cally resigned to peace, and will entirely fall in with our views if Russia can be got to set the example; at any rate, we must go ahead.' A few days later Maria-Theresa herself used that same phrase, that she was resigned to peace, but, she added, she was not very sanguine of success.^ Discussions then took place as to the best form proposals of peace might take. The question was whether a general congress should be suggested or ' Praslin to Choiseul, Oct. 6, 12, jy6o{Ajf. ^tr., Autriche, Vol. 2yS). ^ Choiseul to Praslin, Oct. 25, 1760 {Aff. itr.,Atiiriche, Vol. 278). 'Praslin to Choiseul, Nov. 18, 26, Dec. 6, 1760 {Aff. 6tr., Autriche, Vol. 278). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 63 not. Choiseul preferred that England and France should be entrusted with the interests of their res- pective allies.^ This was soon seen to be imposs- ible; Austria would never consent to such a sub- ordinate position, and by the end of February, 1761, the idea of Vienna, that of a general Euro- pean congress, had been adopted. A little later it was agreed that Choiseul should write to Pitt with a view to a separate Anglo-French negotiation.' Meanwhile, Choiseul had again tried to get peace through Russia. To his first suggestion, that the Empress should take upon herself the interests of the allies and broach the matter to Russia and Eng- land, he had received a favourable reply. Not trusting Breteuil, however, he sent a special agent, Favier (January, 1761), with instructions to suggest two congresses, one for the maritime, the other for the continental war. Russia agreed to the pro- posals, and her action was of great value in decid- ing the Austrian court to give its definite consent to peace and to the separate negotiation of France and England. All the allies of France had thus been induced to fall in with Choiseul's views as to the necessity of peace. But the other party in the war was as eager as they were to put an end to the struggle. As early as November, 1760, Frederick considered ' Memorial to Maria-Theresa, Jan. 5, 1761 (Aff. Hr., Autriche, Vol. 281). ■ Praslin to Choiseul, Mar. 12, 1761 {Aff. ^tr., Autriche. Vol. 2S1). 64 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. himself lost if the coming year did not bring peace/ and told Knyphaiisen to work in that direction; while new influences were at work in England that made the ministry decide to renew the offer of nego- tiations made in November, 1759. All the belligerent powers were thus in a suitable mood when, on the 26th of March, 1761, Choiseul sent to the allies the formal proposals for a congress to be held at Augsburg, and to Pitt, through the Russian am- bassador, Galitzine, an offer for a separate negotia- tion between England and France. This time the principle of the complete separation between the maritime and the continental war was accepted both by Russia and England. George III was now on the English throne, and did not cling to Hanover and the Prussian alliance with the same ardour as his father did. Pitt was no longer as secure as he had been : the influence of Bute was beginning to make itself felt, and he dared not show himself as hostile to peace as in 1759. Finally Frederick himself had accepted his exclusion from a Franco-British peace, provided France ceased to assist Sweden and Russia.^ This acceptation of a principle for which he had been contending since the beginning of the war was a distinct triumph for Choiseul. As a basis for negotiations, Choiseul suggested the ' Uti Possidetis,' namely, that each country ' Frederick to Knyphausen, Nov. 26, 1760 (Pol. Corr., Vol. xx, p. 119). - Frederick to Knyphausen, Dec. 21, 1760 (Pol. Corr., Vol. xx, p. 162). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 65 should keep what she possessed on the ist of May in Europe, the ist of July in the West Indies and in Africa, the ist of September in India; but he added that ' as His British Majesty might consider those time limits either too far removed or too close at hand, or might think it desirable to give mutual compensation, His Most Christian Majesty would be pleased to discuss those points.' April was spent in preliminary discussions and some rather unworthy quibbling on the part of Choiseul, who tried to withdraw his offer to change the dates for the Uti Possidetis basis, and in May Stanley was sent to Paris and Bussy to London as plenipotentiaries for their respective sovereigns. But during the interval both the English and French ministers had been, in Choiseul's words, 'breaking the windows of the house they were trying to re- pair,'^ Choiseul by concentrating a large force under Broglie and Soubise to strike a final blow at Hanover, and Pitt by waiting to fix the dates for the Uti Possidetis basis until Belle-Isle was safely in his hands. Nothing in the instructions given to Stanley and Bussy was likely to cause from the very outset such a deadlock as had been the case in 1759-60, and it seemed as if both parties were really in earnest. Fresh epochs for the basis (the ist of July, of Sep- tember and of November) were decided upon, and at first the negotiations between Stanley and Choi- ^ W. L. Grant, Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique, igo6, p- 354. F 66 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. seul seemed to be taking a very favourable turn. But Pitt and Bussy were not getting on quite so well, and when actual terms began to be drafted it became clear that matters were in a critical situation. On the i8th of June, Choiseul suggested as a preliminary basis terms which included the fixing of the limits of Canada at the Ohio river, and the re- turn to the conditions laid down in the treaty of Utrecht as regards the Newfoundland fisheries.^ Pitt did not meet these proposals with an absolute refusal, but said with regard to the fisheries that 'a claim to this most valuable advantage, founded on a treaty that no longer existed, could not but meet with the utmost difficulty, nor would ever be consented to without some great and important compensation.'^ Also the fortifications of Dun- kirk must be dismantled. Choiseul was willing to accept this last condi- tion ' as an extreme measure, to be kept for the end of the negotiation in case of urgent need,' but in- tended having his way on the question of New- foundland : some shelter there must be had. ^ Pitt, however, had not the intention of granting even 'the breadth of a blanket,' and it became evident that a crisis had been reached. Pitt's policy of completely excluding the French ^ Stanley to Pitt, June i8, 1761 (State Papers, France. Vol. 251)- ^ Pitt to Stanley, June 26, 1761 (State Papers, France, Vol. 251)- ^Choiseul to Bussy, July 4, 1761 (Aff. 6tr., Angleterre, Vol. 443)- THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 67 from any territorial rights in Newfoundland was severely criticized by Bedford, who considered that the terms offered by Choiseul were ' so advanta- Sfeous that no one should hesitate a moment in giving" his assent to the conclusion of peace upon the very terms chalked out by M. de Choiseul him- self,'^ and thought Pitt was ' trying to fight against nature in trying to drive France entirely out of any naval power.' Had Pitt given way, or been super- seded, it is probable that peace would have shortly followed. To this was Choiseul looking forward when he wrote that ' if they (the French) were to make reasonable proposals to the chief English ministers of state, who sincerely wished for peace, and if M. Pitt could not accept those terms, his hand would be forced by those ministers, headed by Lord Bute.'^ Unfortunately, this did not take place until three months later, when it was too late for the peace. It was not, however, on the matter of the fisheries that the rupture of the negotiations came. The letters of Stanley in the early part of July contain several hints dropped by Choiseul of the possibility of Spain interfering in the war. Stanley declares that ' he treated this matter with every term that is short of contempt, declaring that if he was a minister he would not from that motive yield to ^ Bedford to Bute, June 13, July 9, 1761 (Bedford Correspon- dence). ^Choiseul to Bussy, July 9, 1761 (Aff. Hr., Angleterre, Vol. 443)- F2 68 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. France one blade of grass or one grain of sand.'^ Choiseul's threats, however, were not without foun- dation : on the 23rd of July, Bussy presented to Pitt a memorial containing a stipulation that the King of Spain should be invited to guarantee the future treaty of peace, and stating that ' the King of France, alarmed at the disputes between Spain and England, made it a sine qua non for the general peace that His British Majesty should first end his dissensions with Spain.' Pitt answered that this memorial was 'totally inadmissible, and that Eng- land would not suffer that France should at any time interfere in English quarrels with Spain. '^ This was tantamount to a renewal of war. Before seeing how the negotiations actually ended, however, it is needful to retrace our steps and learn what had taken place between France and Spain to justify the Spanish intervention. We left Choiseul and Grimaldi discussing a treaty of commerce and a defensive alliance in March, 1761. Matters went on very smoothly, and in May Choiseul began to speak definitely of signing two distinct treaties,^ ' one a family compact, to be stipulated for ever between all the sovereigns of the House of France, and which, dealing only with the interests of its branches, would not include any ' Stanley to Pitt, July 12, 1761 (Stafe Papers, France, Vol. 252). ^ Bussy to Choiseul, July 24, 1761 (Aff. dtr., Anglcterrc.WoX. 444). ^Choiseul to d'Ossun, May 12, 1761 {Aff.dtr., Espagne, Vol. 532). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 69 other power; the other, although deahng especially with matters concerning Spain, would be open to the adhesion of other kings and republics.' Meanwhile, the negotiations with England had begun, and the problem for Choiseul was not to let his dealings with Spain interfere with the possibility of peace. He did not intend, as M. Bourguet says,^ to use Spain as an instrument for peace, in order to awe Pitt by the fear of a Franco-Spanish alliance ; he knew well enough that Pitt did not fear Spain, for otherwise he would have been careful to yield long before to her grievances; and the atti- tude of Spain clearly indicated that she was not willing to play such a part of peace-maker.^ Choi- seul wanted to make use of Spain for war. But here it is better to let him speak for himself.^ ' I then proposed to your Majesty to play two games together, one to keep up the negotiation with Eng- land; at the same time— and this was the second game which I thought essential — I entered into an exchange of views with Spain, so devised that, if we were to make peace, that crown would find it to its interest to support us in the negotiation, and guarantee the stability of the treaty. If on the contrary we failed in this, my plan was that Spain should be drawn into the war, and that France would be able to profit by the events which this new ' op. cit., p. 221. 2 Grimaldi to Fuentes, Mar. 5, 1 761 (Chatham Correspondence). ' Memorial to Louis XV, 1765, Memoires, p. 387 ; translated in Corbett, The Seven Years War, Vol. 11, p. 185. 70 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. complication might produce, and repair her losses. Finally, if the event proved unfortunate, I had in view that the losses of Spain would lighten those that France might suffer.' Choiseul was thus carrying on a double intrigue, that was not altogether to the benefit of his Spanish friends. In any case, a Spanish defensive alliance was to his advantage, for, as he said, it would help to guarantee the peace in the event of its being signed. But that he was perfectly ready to sacri- fice Spain if it might advance the end of the war is equally certain. The important thing for him was to avoid friction both with Pitt and with Charles III. The latter was bent on war, and must not be offended by any rash efforts to obtain peace at any price. Besides, this hostile attitude was entirely due to Choiseul's influence; and Charles could, if the French minister pleaded for peace, use against him his own argu- ments of the last two years. At the same time, Pitt needed very careful handling; he must not have again reason to complain of unwarranted Spanish interference in the maritime war and thus find his enemy playing into his hands. How was it, then, that Choiseul failed ? The real cause is that he was so deeply pledged to Spain that he could not prevent her intervention when she insisted upon it. He did well to be able to put it off as long as he did; for, as we saw, the Spanish memorial was only presented when it became clear that rupture was almost unavoidable on other THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 71 points; and even then Clioiseul was astonished that Count Fuentes did not give in to the good reasons put forward by Bussy for the delaying of the presen- tation of the memorial/ But even admitting that Choiseul's hand was forced in this matter, it is equally clear that he never succeeded in deceiving Pitt on the subject of the Spanish negotiations. From the outset the Enghsh ministers realised that ' France was trying to gain time to be able to push her one great operation in Germany.'^ These operations in Germany were, of course, legally jus- tifiable, inasmuch as peace had not been signed ; but it is certain that they produced a very unpleasant impression on the allied powers, and made some doubt Choiseul's sincerity in the negotiation. The Spanish intervention having been rejected, Choiseul thought that war was now certain and that the time to unite the two crowns had come; he sought, however, to drag on the negotiations in order to bring to a successful issue the Spanish treaty before England could hear of it.^ His despatch was seized by Pitt, who urged before the Council that war should be at once declared against Spain. But on this he was outvoted, and Choiseul and Grimaldi were able to sign at leisure the Family Compact on the 15th of August, 1761. ' That most extraordinary transaction of this and ^Choiseul to Bussy, July 29, 1761 (Aff. 6tr., Angleterre, Vol. 444)- - Pitt to Bristol, July 28, 1761 (State Papers, Spain, Vol. 164). ^ Stanley to Pitt, Sept. 4, 1761 (State Papers, France, Vol. 252). 72 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. all times ' comprised two parts. The general treaty of alliance gave to Spaniards in France practically the status of Frenchmen, with reciprocal advan- tages to Frenchmen in Spain. It was agreed by the secret convention that if by the ist of May, 1762, peace was not made between England and France, Charles III would declare war against George III, and Louis XV would restore Minorca to Spain. Portugal was to be invited to join the alliance, and if she refused was to be treated as a common enemy. ' Spain was France, and France was Spain.' The words * if peace be not made before the ist of May ' show that Choiseul had not yet quite aban- doned all hopes of peace. He continued to drag on the negotiations by offering further concessions ; just a rock for the fisherfolk in Newfoundland would satisfy him, he declared. For a short time it looked as if he was going to have his way, for on the 27th of August Pitt wrote offering the island of St. Pierre, which, he said, was more than a rock.^ But this concession had come too late: partly through new confidence given to him by the Family Compact, partly because of his expectation that Pitt might yet be induced to offer better terms, Choiseul practically refused St. Pierre as insufficient.^ But Pitt was not desirous of making peace, and, aware of the Family Compact in its principal de- tails, was certain that Choiseul really meant war, ' Pitt to Stanley, Aug. 27, 1761 (State Papers, France, Vol. 252). " Stanley to Pitt, Sept. 4, 1761 (State Papers, France, Vol. 252). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 73 and only sought to waste England's time while Spanish armaments were being equipped. At first, however, Choiseul did mean peace, and was still willing to acquire it, if it were possible, by throw- ing Spain over : a very curious letter to Bussy shows that if England was willing to accept the French ultimatum of the loth of August, Pitt was to be told of all the secret details of the Spanish alliance, and that his advice would be asked as to how to evade the engagements of the Compact and end the war.^ ' Had Pitt intercepted that despatch, the history of the world might have been changed.'^ But he did not intercept it; the French ultimatum was rejected, and by the middle of September, Stanley and Bussy returned to their respective coun- tries and the negotiations were at an end. One great obstacle to peace throughout had been Austria and the continental complications. By a tacit agreement the meeting at Augsburg of the proposed congress had been postponed till France and England had adjusted their differences, but even then German affairs proved a source of trouble to Pitt and to Choiseul. The point at issue was the settlement of conquests made by France in Germany, and how far they were to be weighed against those made by England over France out- side Europe : were they to be dealt with by the congress, or to be settled at once ? Again, how ^Choiseul to Bussy, Aug. 10, 1761 (Aff. elr., Angleterre, Vol. 444)- - W. L. Grant, Op. cit.. p. 366. 74 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. much help were France and England to give to their respective allies after their peace was signed ? All these questions were hotly discussed. Austria exerted during the whole of the negotiations an influence on the side of war; she was determined to keep France faithful to the engagements undertaken in December, 1758, and feared that, if the separate peace was made, the end of the continental war would follow, which was exactly what Choiseul intended to happen; and when on the 3rd of August it was announced that the rupture of the negotiations was a settled matter, the joy of Kaunitz knew no bounds/ It is probable, however, that if the burning ques- tion of the fisheries had been settled, the affairs of Germany would not have prevented peace : Pitt would not have been allowed to continue the war for the sake of Prussia, nor Choiseul for that of Austria. But a great obstacle to peace was that neither of the two parties was at the end of its resources. Choiseul was anxious for peace; he had been trying to conclude the maritime war ever since he came into power, and was prepared to make considerable concessions. But he felt cer- tain that France would, thanks to Spanish help, be able to go through at least another campaign, and he foresaw the fall of Pitt : he had constantly be- fore his mind the idea of treating ultimately with the peaceful-minded Bute or Bedford, and of obtain- ' Praslin to Choiseul, Aug. 3, 1761 (Aff. dtr., Autriche, Vol. 283). THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 75 ing from them better terms than what he could hope for from the more irascible i'itt, and in this he ultimately succeeded. The ultimate cause of the failure of peace was Pitt's desire to continue the war. lie welcomed the prospect of having" to hght Spain, considering it would be a source of naval and commercial success. Yorke sums up the situation when he writes to his brother on the 6th of October : ' 1 have long felt that Mr. Pitt's overbearing way would in the end force a rupture. It's a pity that they (the king, the favourites and the ministers) did not unite in the beginning of the negotiation and carry things through with courage and temper, for, except himself, everybody at the bottom was of one mind about the peace, and the world will not find another reason for breaking- off the nego- tiations, except our hauteur and a desire to bring all the trade of Europe into our own hands.' A month after the renewal of the war both Eng- land and France experienced important ministerial changes. On the 5th of October Pitt fell at last; on the 13th Choiseul became minister for the navy and handed over foreign affairs to his cousin the Duke de Choiseul-Praslin, who had previously suc- ceeded him at Vienna, keeping, however, for him- self all matters relating to Spain and the Family Compact. Praslin became practically the tool of his cousin, who now occupied in France a power quite unique. Choiseul probably thought that with 76 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. the removal of Pitt he might partly abandon dip- lomacy into less able hands and carry on himself the whole war on land and sea/ Choiseul's great object was now to induce Spain to declare war at once, but Charles maintained it was impossible until February, the time fixed in the Family Compact, and remained firm in his decision. England, however, was not at rest; there were rumours of the Family Compact and of Spain being on the point of entering the war; and, taking alarm at the Spanish armaments that were on foot, she demanded on the 19th of November a categorial answer to the question whether there was an offen- sive agreement between Madrid and Paris, failure to reply being regarded as an aggression on the part of Spain and an absolute declaration of war. Spain refused any explanation, and Lord Bristol left for Portugal on the nth of December, while Fuentes, the Spanish ambassador in London, ad- dressed a memorial to the King and the nation, re- gretting ' that a spirit of hauteur and discord should reign in the British government for the misfortune of the human race,' and declaring ' that the horrors of the war were to be laid at the door of the in- ordinately proud and ambitious man who had held the reins of government, and still seemed to hold them, though in another hand.'- 1 It is hardly necessary to contradict the statement that Choiseul had 'heavily bribed Pitt to give up the reins of government.' (.'\udoin, Administration Militaire de la France, Vol. in, p. 178). ^ Account of rupture, sent to Keith at St. Petersburg, Dec. 29, 1 761, Add. MSS. 35,484. THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 77 Although desirous of peace and knowing- that the Eng-hsh cabinet also wished for it, Choiseul deter- mined to strike hard, since another campaign must be waged. On the 25th of November he wrote to d'Ossun, developing his plans : a vigorous diversion in Hesse, a big armament in America, camps in Normandy to protect French shores, and a camp in Dunkirk with a view to an invasion of England. * An army of fifty thousand men was to be massed between the Meuse and the Lower Rhine, under colour of a reserve for the Westphalian army, and would at the last moment be moved by forced marches to the coast in echelon as required.' It was to be shipped across by small detachments in eight small transports — not more, in order to avoid arousing suspicion. But for this it would be neces- sary to secure the command of the channel for four or five weeks. ^ While France was thus to operate in Germany, America and England, Spain was to create a diversion by effecting a descent on Ireland, and by making a strong attack on Jamaica and Portugal. Since Methuen's treaty Portugal had always been the faithful ally of England, and might now prove a source of danger to Spain. Choiseul was in favour of invading that country without any warn- ing, but Charles, more scrupulous in outward forms if not at heart, insisted upon using ordinary diplo- matic methods, and merely ordered Portugal ' to ' Corbett, England in the Seven Years War, Vol. 11, p. 297. 78 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. declare herself united to their Majesties in their present war against England, to break off all in- telligence with that country, to close all her har- bours to its ships, and to join all her forces to those of France and Spain. '^ Portugal, protesting against such tyranny, refused and joined England. Choi- seul would have liked to act in a similar way to- wards Holland, but failed to get the royal sanction for his plans. The events of the war, however, proved fatal to his hopes of improving the French position. The attack on Portugal failed; Mar- tinique fell into English hands on the 15th of Feb- ruary, and later (in August) Havana. This and the failure of the scheme against England can be said to have ended the war (1762). The Bute faction had got into power entirely by opposing Pitt's policy of war; — so much so, that when they declared war against Spain some won- dered whether that did not mean ' the late Prime Minister was going to get on horseback again. '^ So it is not surprising that as early as December, 1761, Bute had re-opened negotiations through Viry and Solar, ambassadors of Sardinia in London and Paris respectively. Choiseul had accepted the sug- gestion of treating through that channel, and by April, 1762, peace was once more being discussed on the basis of the Uti Possidetis. Choiseul offered the whole of Canada ; he only wanted a suitable 'Choiseul to d'Ossun, Nov. 17, 23 (Aff. 6tr., Espagne, Vol. ^ Yorke to Royston, Dec. 25, 1761, Add. MSS. 35,366. THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 79 shelter in the St. Lawrence and Newfoundland fisheries, and promised that Spain would make no difficulties.^ This time no hitch took place, and negotiations went on very smoothly. The general tendency to peace was increased by the events in Russia. Eliza- beth had died on the 5th of January, 1762, and the new Czar hastened to conclude with Frederick a treaty that ' reads more like a declaration of love than the alliance between two sovereigns.' In re- turn for all Prussian lands held by Russia and for the free use of the Russian troops, he only asked for two things : a place in Frederick's heart and a commission in his army.^ Naturally, Frederick re- ceived such a friend with open arms. But the reign of that madman did not last; after six months he was dethroned by his wife Catherine, who, in doubt as to her best course, chose to pursue a policy of absolute neutrality. This equalising both parties was an important factor in bringing about the peace. What complications there were came, not from France, but from the very strained relations be- tween England and Prussia. The changes in Russia had made Frederick's position more secure, and he could afford to quarrel with England. In spite of this, however, matters progressed favour- ably. ' The peace will be very easy,' wrote Choi- ' Choiseul to Solar, April, 1762 (Aff. etr., Angleterre, Vol. 446). ' Broglie, Le Secret du Roi, Vol. 11, p. 10. 8o THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. seul to Solar in May,' and by the middle of June terms were half agreed on, only the fisheries, Sene- gal, India, and the West Indies containing any points at issue. Even on these, an agreement could easily be arrived at : Bedford and Bute were in favour of giving up Santa Lucia; they agreed that Eng- land could not keep the monopoly of the fishing trade, and that the German war had ruined the king- dom, and both were opposed to paying attention to popular clamour and its unreasonable claims f so that on the 8th of August, Choiseul could write to d'Ossun that the Franco-English peace was set- tled, and that only Spain remained.^ Early in Sep- tember plenipotentiaries were exchanged for the ratification of the peace. But its final conclusion was not to come so quickly as had been expected. The consent of Spain to an abstract peace had been obtained in August, but the discussion of the actual terms raised difficulties. In the drafts of terms exchanged with England, Choiseul had freely disposed of Spanish territories without Spain herself knowing about the proposed terms ; and on the 12th of September, Bedford wrote that he found the French much embarrassed owing to their having promised England the rights of navigation in the Gulf of Mexico, ' on the bare mention of which M. Grimaldi had already monte ' May 29, 1762 (Aff. dtr., Angleterre. Vol. 446). ^ Minutes of Privy Council, June and July, Add. MSS. 34,713. ^ Aff. etr.,Espagne, Vol. 537. THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 8i sur ses grands chevaux.'^ Happily for Choiseul, the difficulties came only from M. Grimaldi him- self, the King of Spain having left carte blanche to his cousin, His Most Christian Majesty, to settle everything as he should himself think proper, and if matters reached a crisis Grimaldi could be over- ruled. The knot of the negotiation, as Choiseul terms it, was reached on the 20th of September on the question of Louisiana, which England was restor- ing, and which France was trying to keep and not hand over to Spain. Choiseul wrote that he would not suffer peace to be missed because of that mat- ter : Louisiana was theirs,^ which meant, as Bedford put it, that if Spain refused, France would probably consent to a separate peace. ^ Spain, however, did not refuse; Charles HI left Louis XV quite free to end as best he pleased the matters at issue between Grimaldi and Bedford.^ Just as this complication had been satisfactorily dismissed, another arose of far graver import : on the 3rd of October came the news of the fall of Havana, the most serious event of the war in Choi- seul's eyes. This in two ways : by giving England reasons for increasing her demands, and, what was ' To Egremont (State Papers, France, Vol. 253). ^Choiseul to d'Ossun, Sept. 20, 1762 (Aff. Hr., Espagne, Vol. 537)- ^ To Egremont, Sept. 25, 1762 (State Papers, France, Vol. 253). ^d'Ossun to Choiseul, Oct. 22, 1762 (Ajf. dtr., Espagne, Vol. 537)- G 82 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. worse, by ' totally changing the position of France with regard to Spain, to whom the lost territory be- longed, and who would now have to be compensated for this loss, and might even desire to continue the war; — and if she did,' added Choiseul, ' the French King would feel himself bound to stand by her.'^ For a short time it did look as if war was going to break out once more, for, on the loth of October, d'Ossun informed Choiseul that Charles III pre- ferred such a course to accepting any increase of demands on the part of the English. This Choiseul considered to be madness,^ and Charles finally con- sented to leave Louis XV free to make what terms he pleased.^ This removed the last difficulty, and on the 3rd of November the preliminaries were signed. The actual treaty of peace was slightly delayed by some disputes about French settlements in India, and was finally signed on the loth of Feb- ruary, 1763. Choiseul thought ' the peace would be neither glorious nor profitable to France and Spain, but that circumstances had not allowed the obtaining of better terms,' and as Bedford was accused in England of having let France off too easily we may conclude that the settlement was fairly equitable. ' Choiseul to d'Ossun, Oct. 3, 1762 (Aff. dtr., Espagne, Vol. 537)- ° Choiseul to d'Ossun, Oct. 20, 1762 (Aff. dtr., Espagne, Vol. 537)- ''d'Ossun to Choiseul, Oct. 22, 1762 (Aff. Hr., Espagne, Vol. 537)- THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 83 Nevertheless, on the whole, Choiseul had won. It is true that in order to regain Havana for Spain he had to make her abandon Florida, and let her have Louisiana instead; that in 17C1 he had been offered more in India than what he got in 1762,^ and that he gave up Minorca. But he had gained what he had made up his mind to have, that is, fishery rights in North America, including the St. Lawrence, with both St. Pierre and Miquelon; and in Africa both Senegal and Goree for the slave- trade. The truth is that Bute was no match for Choiseul in diplomacy, and was over-reached by him on every point of importance. He humiliated France enough to inspire her with a burning desire for revenge, but he did not weaken her enough to prevent her from putting that revenge into execution. Fair or not, Choiseul only meant the peace to be temporary. The Seven Years War was to him but the first act of the struggle for commercial and colo- nial supremacy, and in all negotiations for peace the same anxiety to obtain favourable terms towards this end appears. To maintain a footing in every region, if only by means of a trading comptoir, was always his aim ; and he would never consent to peace without a share in the fishery and slave * Pitt distinctly liinted that lie was prepared to make consider- able territorial concessions in India, trade in which country he thought was most advantageous to France (Bussy to Choiseul, July 9, 1761, Aff, (itr., Angleterre. Vol. 443. — W. L. Grant, Lec- tures on Chatham's Colonial Policy, Oxford, 1908). G2 84 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. trades : his obstinacy on those two points was suc- cessful in the end, and the peace left France enough possessions to form the nucleus of a flourishing colonial empire and of a prosperous trade. CHAPTER III. FOREIGN POLICY : NORTH AMERICA AND CORSICA. The Seven Years War was at last over, and France had been defeated, in spite of Choiseul's efforts, both diplomatic and military. ' He was not responsible for events, but only for supplies, and these were abundant; for instructions, and these were clear and precise. It was not his fault if Louis' generals did not use those supplies or follow those instructions.'^ It is in the camp and not in the council chamber that we must look for the real authors of the disgrace of France. For three years Choiseul now left the direction of foreign affairs to his cousin Praslin. To keep France at peace in order that she might recuperate her strength was the policy he advised ; and this by the maintenance at all costs of the Family Compact. The alliance of the Bourbon powers was now the fundamental point of his policy, although first de- signed as a pis-allcr for peace, without any senti- mental principles of family union. Although use- ' Mdmoires, p. 395. 86 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. less in time of war, it would now prove essential towards the balance of power. Every effort was to be made to keep on good terms with Prussia, and the Austrian alliance must be maintained as being more useful than harmful. As to England, it was yet too early to think of another war; this could not be anticipated until 1769.^ But if war could not be declared now, it was cer- tain to come later; and meanwhile Choiseul wanted to create as many difficulties for England as was possible while keeping at peace; and he showed this clearly enough when he resumed the direction of foreign affairs in 1766. The relations with Eng- land had been fairly satisfactory during the in- terval. There had been little difficulties at Goree and in Newfoundland,- but serious friction had been avoided. What he now feared was a renewal of war caused by the return of Chatham to power. 'What we have to dread,' he wrote, 'is lest this proud and ambitious minister should seek to regain his lost popularity by warlike exploits and attractive schemes of conquest. This being so, you can easily imagine we are in no hurry to see a firm ministry established in England. I hope the present anarchy (caused by Chatham's illness), far from soon com- ing to an end, will last a whole century.' Choiseul's policy was therefore to do every thing in his power to ' overthrow Chatham and make it impossible for ^ Mimoires, p. 389. * The question of the Newfoundland fisheries, opened in 1713, was only settled in May, 1904. FOREIGN POLICY : N. AMERICA & CORSICA. 87 him to disturb the trauquiUity of Europe,'^ and, apart from the ' anarchy ' of the country, his sole hope rested upon his behef that England was fast on the road to financial ruin and could not be ex- pected to retain her immense colonial empire. He could not understand how it was that England, in herself so small a point on the map of Europe, should dominate a third of America, extend her trade all over Asia and the North of Europe, and be ever seeking for fresh commercial openings in all parts of Africa and Europe. He saw that it was so, but, failing to see why, he hoped that this was an unnatural state of things that could not last.^ England's colonial empire being in his eyes her most vulnerable spot, it was there that he concen- trated his hostility against her. His policy in the Seven Years War had already foreshadowed that which he now tried to pursue, to build up the commercial and colonial power of France; and this could only be done upon the ruins of that of Eng- land. From the very first he foresaw the revolt of the American colonies; he thought 'Pitt had made a mistake in insisting upon the acquisition of Canada, which, if kept by France, would help to maintain the colonies in a dependence from which they would certainly free themselves the day when Canada was ceded to England.'^ He did not think ' Choiseul to Durand, ambassador in London, Sept. 15, 1766; Aug. 4, 1767 (Witt, Thomas Jefferson, pp. 412, 420). ^Choiseul to Durand, Aug. 24, 1767 (Witt, Op. cit., p. 425). 'Choiseul to Stanley, 1761 (Witt, Op. cit., p. 420). 88 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. the revolt very near; — indeed, he expected he would not see it himself/ — but considered that judicious intervention might hasten it; and in anticipation of the moment when France might openly help America to shake off English domination, he put forth all his energy in secretly encouraging the rapidly- increasing estrangement between the colonies and the mother country. For this purpose a secret agent, Colonel Kalb, was sent to America to examine how matters stood as regarded the military strength of the colony and her relations with England and France (1767 — 1769); while Durand, the ambassador in London, was to examine the question from the English point of view. The reports of both were unfavourable. Durand thought the revolution would be as dan- gerous to Europe as to England herself, ' because all other European colonies would be the prey of those whose excess of strength and vigour had enabled them to break away from all external con- trol; and also that the loss of one part of her dominions would not materially weaken England, who had no possession she could not do without.'^ From America, Kalb reported that although popu- lar feeling was strong against English rule, ' the colonies were not inclined to throw it off by means of foreign interference ; which method of obtaining ^ Mitnoires, p. 393. *Durand to Choiseul, Aug. 11 and Sept. 3, 1767 (Witt, Op. cit., pp. 420, 430). FOREIGN POLICY : N. AMERICA & CORSICA. 89 liberty would be the worst possible,'^ and declared that a war between France and England would re- kindle American loyalty to the mother country. Choiseul thought the English government had not enough energy to use such a war as a remedy for their American troubles,^ but realised that the chances of a Revolution with French assistance were not yet at hand. He made, however, a last attempt to conciliate the discontented colonists by breaking with a cherished commercial tradition. The mother country had hitherto reserved for her- self exclusive trade with the colonies; and this had become practically an economic maxim. But an excellent way of helping the new nation was to open the markets of French and Spanish colonies to its produce, and establish free exchange between them. This meant not only a complete revolution in commercial policy, but also the definite renuncia- tion of Canada, the loss of which was largely due to the help given to England by those colonies which Choiseul now tried to make into a nation. But the chance of striking a definite blow at Great Britain was enough to compensate for those sacrifices. To this scheme, however, of giving up the old colonial system by freely admitting American pro- duce into the colonies of the two crowns, Spain offered a strenuous resistance : ' She did not choose to augment the power and prosperity of an already too formidable neighbour, which, should it become ^Kalb to Choiseul, Jan. 15, 1768 (Witt, Op. cit., p.458). 'Choiseul to Chatelet, May 23, 1768 (Witt, Op. cit.. p. 438). 90 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. separated from the mother country, would be dan- gerous. '^ Choiseul preferred to drop the scheme rather than risk offending Spain and imperilHng the Family Compact. From the point of view of a strictly utilitarian policy he was perhaps right; but it is to be regretted that, able as he was to bring forward new and daring proposals, he should have lacked the courage to carry them into execution because of an opposition which, after all, the dis- play of a little firmness would have quelled. Once his idea of a commercial agreement with America had to be abandoned, Choiseul renounced all hopes of being himself a mover in the coming struggle, and concentrated his energies upon Euro- pean matters (1769). The truth was that the colonies were not yet ripe for independence. They had not suffered enough at the hands of their mother country, and they were not yet united in a senti- ment of resistance. Besides, France was too weak, and England would have soon rendered of no effect a help that would have been dearly paid for. But, although unsuccessful, Choiseul's work had not been barren of results; the whole question had been elucidated in its most minute points for the day when it should be again taken up; and the policy of Vergennes merely continued that of Choiseul. Choiseul's schemes of expansion at the expense of England were not limited to the colonies. The union of Corsica to France was part of his anti- ' Doniol, L'Etahlissement de la France aux Etats-Unis, Vol. i, p. 241. FOREIGN POLICY : N. AMERICA & CORSICA. yi British policy. For a long time Corsica had been proving a source of trouble to her possessor, Genoa. On several occasions, notably in 1737 and 1751, the Genoese Republic had appealed to PYance for help against her rebellious subjects, so that when fresh disturbances broke out in 1764 she was follow- ing a recognised precedent in asking Choiseul to assist her. The French minister gladly responded to the appeal, as a footing in the island would further his country's interests; and French troops soon occu- pied all the important fortified places. The rebel- lion was partially quelled after considerable diffi- culties, but before peace was finally restored, a treaty was signed on the 15th of May, 1768, recog- nising that ' if His French Majesty withdrew his troops, trouble, dissension and their consequences would return with increased violence.' Five towns were therefore to be left perpetually in possession of France. But, as Flassan says,^ ' this treaty was only a palliative for the actual cession, which was not to be formulated too openly for fear of English and Austrian objections.' By a treaty signed in July of the same year, Genoa sold Corsica to France for two million livres,^ with a provision that this cession was only temporary, and should become of no effect as soon as the Genoese should repay the ^ Flassan, Histoire de la Diplomatie Frangaise, Vol. vii, p. 28. " ' II reste k savoir si les hommes ont le droit de vendre d'autres homines, mais c'est une question qu'on n'examinera jamais dans aucun traite. ' — Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV. 92 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. two millions received. It is hardly necessary to add that this last clause was merely designed to throw dust into the eyes of England and of Austria. Genoa had found the island too troublesome a pos- session, and was glad to cede it to one who had sufH- cient military power to maintain it in subjection. This did not prevent England from making a vigorous protest. It was, as Choiseul said himself, ' venturing upon a great deal ' and ' putting her patience to the severest test possible,'^ for Corsica was an important Mediterranean outpost and one of the capital points for the Levant trade. But he thought the English government too busy with troubles in America, and too weak in itself, to cause much fear, and he was right. On Lord Rochfort's insistence on the immediate evacuation of the island, he refused 'to recall the troops,' under the stale pretence of the dishonour of receding from an enter- prise once commenced, and declared that, although not desirous of war, he would not shrink from hostilities,'^ but at the same time he instructed Chatelet, the French ambassador in London, to urge upon Bedford the necessity of maintaining peace, saying ' that England could not permit so trum- pery a consideration to be the occasion of a rupture between two nations which had need of peace.' He foresaw rightly that England dared not go to war ; she had to let the matter drop and be content with 'Witt, op. cit., p. 49. ^ Rochfort to Shelburne, June 9, Sept. 14, 1768 (Coxe, Bourbons in Spain, Vol. ill, p. 384). FOREIGN POLICY : N. AMERICA & CORSICA. 93 secretly inciting the Corsicans to rebellions, which were only finally crushed in 1769, by the defeat and banishment of Paoli, the insurgent leader. Corsica was a very valuable acquisition for France, from her military and trading situation and her vast forests that might compensate in part for the loss of Canadian timber. It was destined to prove a durable conquest, chiefly, as Choiseul said, be- cause ' it was taken before the English had time to think of means of opposing it, and because acquisi- tions made in peace are more solid than those re- sulting from wars. The island was essential for the defence of French trade in the Levant, and once fortified, could easily control all the coasts of Italy. Indeed, it might be considered more useful to France, on the whole, than Canada would have been.'^ Last, but not least, Corsica became a French possession just in time to enable Napoleon Bonaparte to be born a French subject.^ At this same time France gained another province without any war or even trouble, by the death of Stanislaus Leczinski. Lorraine passed to the French crown, in virtue of the treaties of the 30th of September, 1736, and the i8th of November, 1738, and was finally occupied on the 24th of Feb- ruary, 1766.^ Choiseul thus became by birth what ' Mdmoires, p. 245. ^Corsica was annexed in July, 1768, and Napoleon was born in August, 1769. * Haussonville, Reunion de la Lorraine avec la France, Vol. iv, P- 473- 94 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. he was already by education and career, a subject of Louis XV. Corsica and Lorraine were not the only acquisi- tions of the end of Choiseul's ministry. In 1768, Avignon and the Comtat-Venaissin were seized from the Papacy, for motives that will appear later ;^ and before closing this chapter mention should be made of Choiseul's relations with a foreign country that only rarely appears in European diplomacy — Switzerland. The city of Geneva had for some time been troubled by internal strife arising from a deadlock between the Senate and the citizens (1766). By the treaty of 1738 the liberties of the city had been guaranteed by three powers, Berne, Zurich and France ; and when the troubles reached the pitch of street-fighting and bloodshed, the Senate appealed to the guaranteeing powers. Choiseul offered at once a scheme of pacification which the citizens rejected. French troops were sent to the Swiss frontier, and England feared another act of hos- tility. But by October, 1767, a mediation had been arrived at. Choiseul's intervention in Switzerland is interest- ing, because it gave rise to a plan of his that is deserving of notice. On seeing the troubles in Geneva, he conceived the idea of opening a ' har- bour of refuge ' for all its oppressed citizens. He chose the village of Versoix, on the shores of the lake, and began planning the town, mapping out ' See Chapter VII. FOREIGN POLICY : N. AMERICA & CORSICA. 95 streets, and advertising his scheme, which really was to found a French rival to (jeneva herself. But the plan failed completely. The Genevans were not sufficiently dissatisfied with their city to become French subjects, and no settlers came to the new town ; so that much money and time were wasted absolutely in vain. All that can be said is that it illustrates Choiseul's remarkable versatility and originality of ideas. The whole of Choiseul's policy in the West of Europe after 1763 can thus be reduced to one feature : persistent hostility to England ; in America, by inciting the colonies to revolt; in India, ^ where he fostered the rebellion of Hyder-Ali ; in Europe, by taking Corsica, interfering in Switzerland, and opposing England's allies, Russia and Prussia. It was undoubtedly the course best suited to French interests. But. as will be seen later, Choiseul went at last too far; and when troubles came that in- volved war, he fell through his reckless opposition to what he truly considered to be the only formid- able foes of France. ^ ' The prisoner (B. A. Lescallier) states that in the last year of his embassy the Comte de Guerchy received particular instruc- tions from the Duke de Choiseul for endeavouring to form, in the general courts of the East India Company proprietors, an opposi- tion against the measures of the British government.' — Petition of B. A. Lescallier, formerly secretary to the French embassy in London, April 20, 1771 (Record Office, Calendar of Home Papers, 1770— 1772, No. 650). CHAPTER IV. FOREIGN POLICY : POLAND. Meanwhile, in the East of Europe, another prob- lem of far greater import confronted Choiseul, which ultimately contributed in a very direct way to his fall. * Europe was hardly beginning to taste the first- fruits of peace when the death of Augustus III, King of Poland, opened a new scene. Russia, now the ally of Prussia, thought herself able, thanks to that co-operation, to dispose of the vacant throne; the weariness of all the great European powers assured her that no unsurmountable obstacles would be raised against her plans; Turkey was the only power she had to fear, and Russia knew, with her usual artifice, how to obtain Turkish compliance with her views. Yielding to the persuasion that a Polish noble was the best king for Poland, Turkey understood only too late that Russia meant not to give Poland a free choice, but to force upon her Stanislaus Poniatowski, and was even prevailed upon to let Russian troops continue the pretended work of reform they had begun in Poland. Such was the state of things at the end of the year 1766.' FOREIGN POLICY : POLAND. 97 To this description of Vergennes' a few words should be added about the part played by France in the election of Stanislaus-Augustus. Two courses of action were open to the ministry; one was to support some candidate selected by the Polish national party, the other to take a strictly neutral attitude and thus avoid alienating any section. But they did neither. They rejected distinct offers of conciliation from Stanislaus, and only gave vague hints of supporting young Prince Xavier of Saxony, who had now become the national candidate. Xavier, however, refused to stand, as he was only offered such slight support, and the flagrantly un- constitutional election of Stanislaus-Augustus put France in an entirely false position, as she had refused either to acknowledge him or to take an open stand against him. The result was that be- tween the open hostility of the Russian party and the anger of the patriots who upbraided her non- intervention, she had to withdraw all her agents, and disappeared from Polish politics, ' accused by some, hated by others, despised by all. Able to choose between two courses of action, she had manoeuvred so as to gather the disadvantages of both and the advantages of none. Well might Hennin write to Tercier that all the world was weary of France as an ally.'^ ' M^moire Secret de M. de Verg^ennes au Roi sur la Politique de la France en Turquie (Boutaric, La Correspondance Secrete de Louis XV , Vol. i, p. 364). ^ Broglie, Le Secret dn Roi, Vol. 11, p. 250. H 98 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Austria was in a similar situation to France ; they had both been awed into inaction by the Prusso- Russian treaty of April, 1764, guaranteeing the maintenance of liberty {i.e., anarchy) in Poland, the election of Poniatowski against any foreign inter- vention, and the carrying out of a series of ' re- forms.' But ' the peace which the Empress sought to restore in Poland only meant the blind subjec- tion to her will of all the various orders in the state, and that aim could only be attained by stirring the fire of internal divisions.'^ Those measures, espe- cially the attempt to give full political privileges to dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church, made of Poland a hotbed of fanaticism and reaction verg- ing on civil war, whilst Prussian and Russian troops were massed on her borders, ready for invasion, and Europe was placidly looking on. At the beginning of the year 1766, Choiseul re- sumed the control of foreign affairs, giving Praslin the navy, probably because he now realised the extreme seriousness of the northern situation, to which he had hitherto been blind. French states- men, including Broglie, who was an expert on Polish matters, had thought that Russia lacked both the strength and the courage to attack openly Polish liberties, and that the presence of Russian troops was only a measure of temporary intimidation. But they were now deceived. On taking a general sur- vey of the situation, Choiseul found that his expec- ^ Choiseul to Durfort, July 6, 1767 (Aff. 6tr., Autriche, Vol. 285). FOREIGN POLICY: POLAND. 99 tations of danger were more than realised. It was not over Poland only, but over the whole of the North and East of Europe, that Catherine and Frederick extended their ovei-whelming- power. ^ Sweden, the old ally of France, was also the prey to an anarchical constitution fostered by Prussian and Russian ministers, and her rival, Denmark, was under a similar influence ; whilst Turkey fondly be- lieved Catherine's pledges that no blow should be struck at northern equilibrium, and young Joseph II of Austria was about to transfer to Frederick the allegiance his mother had faithfully given to France. Alarmed at the isolation of France, Choiseul at once decided to take active steps to check Russia. Sweden was the first sphere in which he sought to conduct this resistance to Catherine, and he in- structed Breteuil, the new ambassador in Stock- holm, to reconstitute the old French party there and restore to the crown its former power. But, as Broglie said,^ it was not so easy to restore French influence in the North as Choiseul thought, and his action was too hasty. Breteuil found French credit too low and fear of Prussia too great : the Swedish Diet declared that no steps were to be taken to re- establish the former system of union between France and Sweden. Foiled in that quarter. Choiseul turned towards Turkey. The most certain way, he thought, of * Choiseul to Bernstorff, April 15, 1766. -Broglie to Breteuil, June 1, 1766 (Broglie, Op. cit., Vol. 11, p. 281). H2 100 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. counteracting the schemes of the Empress Cath- erine, and perhaps of dethroning her, was to stir up a war against her. Only the Turks could render that service. Vergennes was asked whether they might not be made to realise the danger that threat- ened them from Russia.^ But it was the same story there as everywhere else : France had systematically neglected Turkey since 1756, and although the secret diplomacy had been trying to restore French influence, it had failed, and official policy was not likely to succeed better now. So Choiseul had to come back to Poland, not be- cause he pitied her coming disaster, but because it was there only that Russia might be opposed. ' Poland was only interesting because she was the scene of Russia's advance ; and it was only from that point of view that it was advisable to encourage the clergy and the nobility in their resistance to the Russian policy of toleration.'" The situation was becoming every day more criti- cal. Poniatowski had lost Catherine's favour by certain attempts at personal rule and at true re- form, and the patriotic party foolishly tried to gain her goodwill and protection. The result was that the King made humble submission to her, and that she held all parties in the hollow of her hand. At a Diet held in Warsaw in October, 1767, anarchy was 'Choiseul to Vergennes, April 21, 1766 (Aff. 6tr., Autriche, Vol. 285). ^Choiseul to B6renger, Oct. 31, 1766 {Aff. Hr., Autriche, Vol. 285). FOREIGN POLICY : POLAND. loi definitely established and Russian oppression prac- tically legalised; and Choiseul might well write to d'Ossun' that there was no modern example of such open despotism and violence exercised over a free nation. It was nothing else than ' the incor- poration of Poland to Russia.' Open rebellion was at last the answer to such tyranny, and the confederation formed earlier in the year in Bar, in Podolia, gained many adherents, whose motto was ' Aut vincere aut mori pro re- ligione et libertate,' and who fought under the banner of the Holy Virgin. But few statesmen thought it had any chance of success. They saw it was too late, ' that Catherine and Frederick had already settled the part each was to play in the coming struggle, and that circumstances were only too favourable to their plan.'^ But there was one exception to that rule, and strangely enough it was Choiseul. It was a curious reversal of policy. Throughout the year 1767, when resistance might still have been grouped round the King and legality thus upheld, he seems to have thought the case hopeless, as the few words quoted above show. But now, he was ready to help an insurgent confederation which was only the ' last convulsion of a death-agony.' Active steps were at once taken. An agent was sent ' to assure the confederation of the royal satis- ^ Nov. 2, 1767 (Broglie, Op. cit.. Vol. 11, p. 292). 'Choiseul to Durfort, April 16, 1767 {Aff. eir., Autriche, Vol. 285). 102 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. faction at the means taken to deliver Poland from oppression/^ subsidies were lavishly given, and what is more, Turkey yielded at last to Vergennes' entreaties and, under the pretext of a violation of territory, declared war (November, 1768). Choiseul was indeed ' taking the bit between his teeth.' His idea was that ' the Poles had, in the despair of the majority of the nation and in their fanaticism, incalculable resources ' ;- but Louis was right when he said that ' the Turks were going to decide the fate of Poland, but that she was ruined in any case.'-' The confederation was crushed by the Cossacks, and Turkey was beaten on land and sea. Still Choiseul was hopeful. He thought that, although ' little reliance might now be placed upon the confederates,^ vv^ho had not suflicient sagacity and resolution to cause Russia any serious trouble,' yet ' it was impossible to pacify Poland,'* and resist- ance might still be re-organised. For this he sent another agent, Dumouriez, with instructions *to act on a very large scale,' and seemed to expect a general conflagration of Europe, in which Austria, France and Sweden would check the aggressive policy of Russia, England and Prussia. ' Dumouriez ' Instructions au sieur Taules, April, 1768 (Recueil dcs Instruc- tions, Vol. v). =* Choiseul to Durfort, June 21, 1768 (.4^. ctr., Autriche, Vol. 285). ^ Louis XV to Monnet, Nov. 30, 1768 (Broglic, Op. ft/., Vol. n, p. 299). '•Choiseul to Durfort, Feb. 27, 1769 {Aff. ctr.. Aiitridie, Vol. 285). ^ Memoires de Dumouriez, Vol. i, ch. 7. FOREIGN POLICY : POLAND. 103 set out to obey those orders, when, by the end of 1770, he heard that Choiseul had been dismissed from office. The fall of Choiseul was Poland's death-blow. Not that the support he was giving to the confedera- tion was of practical value ; but French intervention deterred Russia somewhat, and, what is more, held back Austria. Maria-Theresa still clung to the French alliance as long as Choiseul, its life and soul, was still in office. But when French policy passed into the hands of d'Aiguillon she let her son Joseph have his own way, and Austria joined Prussia : in February and August, 1772, the two treaties that completed the first partition of Poland were signed. Flowever shocked we may be at her conquerors' greed and immorality, we are nevertheless obliged to admit that to a great extent Poland brought her fate upon herself. She had steadily refused to amend her helpless constitution or to try and obtain a strong government that might have resisted Rus- sian encroachments ; she had declined all attempts at political or social reform. Her anomalous posi- tion was a source of anxiety to all Europe ; her in- ternal disorders invited foreign intervention. The character of the nation, alternately haughty and submissive, alienated all sympathies : ' The conduct of the Poles is so outrageous as to destroy the good- will of their warmest supporters. They are a scat- tered multitude without a policy or the means to pursue one. If they had any clear ideas, and took 104 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. into any account the true love for their country and for hberty, they would not give way so easily to the hostile demonstrations and petty vexations of the Russians. ' ' As to the confederates, ' their divi- sions, their incapacity, their waverings deserved no confidence ; they would only have excited contempt if it had not been that the interests of Poland were bound to their cause.'- From a strictly practical and political point of view the disappearance of Poland from the map of Europe was a boon to international politics. The general trend of Choiseul's policy with re- gard to Poland lacks the unity and firmness that marked his dealings towards England. Until 1762 the interests of France certainly justified his system of friendliness towards Russia and of strict non- intervention in Polish affairs. But with the acces- sion of Catherine he should have finally decided whether Russia was to be allowed a free hand in the North or not. It is quite true that between 1761 and 1766 he was not theoretically responsible for that department of French policy, and had to deal with other problems that taxed all his energies. But without saying that Praslin was a mere tool in his hands, we can safely affirm that Choiseul knew what was being done, and could have altered the French line of action whenever he thought fit. 'Choiseul to Durfort, Aug. 21, 1768 {Aff. dtr., Autriche, Vol. 285). ^ Secret Instructions to ChSteaufort, 1768 (Recueil des Instruc- tions, Vol. v). FOREIGN POLICY : POLAND. 105 He made two grave mistakes : at first in pursuing a neutral course, which was certain to weaken French intluence; and afterwards in attempting active inter- ference when he must have seen it was too late. Whether his usual foresight failed him or wliether he tried to turn attention from the complications in France by creating a diversion in Northern Europe is doubtful : it certainly seems, however, that the utter bewilderment of French policy in Poland during the year 1770 was closely connected with the similar state of home politics. In any case, it is clear that sentiment did not enter into his dealings with Poland any more than in his negotia- tions for the Family Compact. An essentially prac- tical statesman, the rise of Russia was his only care, and he was no more the champion of Polish liberties than their betrayer. He failed because he was not able to give to Northern matters his undivided at- tention, and it is not by the partition of Poland that he challenges the judgment of posterity. CHAPTER V. MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. In March, 1761, Choiseul became minister for war in succession to Marshal Belle-Isle; six months later he took up the naval portfolio, and the whole conduct of the war fell into his hands. But events did not favour him any more than they had his pre- decessors. Continental operations against Fred- erick failed, Russia being the only power to gain any success, which was, however, soon neutralised by the death of Elizabeth and the reversal of Rus- sian policy; and at sea Choiseul fared little better, Belle-Isle and Martinique soon falling into Eng- land's hands, while his schemes of invasion were completely foiled. The Seven Years War thus demonstrated the weakness of the French forces, and the urgent need for drastic reforms in all de- partments of both army and navy. The former was dealt with in the ' Ordonnance ' of 1764, which touches practically every branch of the service. Choiseul's first task was to re-establish the whole army on a new footing. Hitherto, when- MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONL\L POLICY. 107 ever peace was made, many officers and men were dismissed, and those who remained were divided into a smaller number of corps than existed during hostilities; so that when war began again new regi- ments and battalions had to be formed. Choiseul adopted the modern system of not changing" the actual regiments or corps themselves, but of keep- ing each of them on tw^o footings, for peace and for war. As the minister said, ' cette operation a ete grande et bonne. '^ According to this new sys- tem the number of general officers was kept always the same, frequent inspections and manoeuvres occupying their time during peace." In each of the three branches of the army some special reform was affected. In the infantry each cap- tain had hitherto himself fed and clothed his com- pany, receiving from the government a fixed sum, for which he gave no account and of which he kept for himself as much as he could. This system was abolished, funds being dealt out to each army corps from a central office and strict accounts being en- forced. For the cavalry new riding-schools, and a special training school for dragoons were the chief features. The artillery was increased in efficiency and in numbers under a skilled officer called Grib- eauval. Finally Toulon, Valenciennes and Brest were specially fortified. Viewing those reforms from a general standpoint, ^ Mirnoires, p. 397. ^ MSS. Memoir on Army Reform (Papicrs du Due dc Broglie, Bibliotheque Nationale). io8 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. one may discern a double tendency in Choiseul's policy, one towards uniformity, and the other to- wards German discipline. In the former, the classi- fication of cavalry and infantry corps was unified; regiments took numbers instead of the name of their colonels, uniforms were introduced, Swiss and German guards were re-organised on an equal basis with French troops, the administration at head- quarters was simplified and a regular body of staff officers instituted. The other movement was of course the direct result of the continental war. Frederick's training of armies aroused Choiseul's admiration, and he said that 'if France did not imitate Germany in commissariat and artillery she would be ruined by the latter's perfection and superior discipline.' Espe- cially in artillery Choiseul thought the French no longer superior to all others. ' Both Prussia and Austria had carried their artillery forces to such a pitch that mere strategy and valour were no match for them.'^ All those reforms were certainly well thought out and necessary, but their execution was not equal to their conception. Choiseul had not been able to give the matter all the personal attention needed. ' He was too busy and hurried,' says Sismondi,^ ' to study the question properly himself ; so he entrusted it to writers, who compiled for him various schemes, of which the Ordonnance of 1764 was one.' That ^ Mdmoires, pp. 401, 403. ' Histoire des Franfais, Vol. xxix, p. 327. MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. 109 Statement is probably exaggerated; but it is cer- tainly true that the orders issued lacked lucidity. Montbarey, a great admirer of Choiseul, says that when commander of the troops at Cambrai he found in the new instructions ' excellent general princi- ples, but obscurities in their expression, and many ambiguities ; they exhibited a clear desire to do well, but also a taste for novelty, and showed that they were the work not of one, but of several.' This was not all. Several of the proposed changes aroused much hostility. The abolition of promo- tion by seniority, of commission by purchase, de- signed to cause advancement according to merit, actually opened the way for influence and intrigue. Many old officers looked with disfavour upon the new-fangled ideas of the minister, so that they re- signed in great numbers. Owing therefore to the lack of clearness in instructions, to the opposition aroused by some changes, and to the shortness of his tenure of office, Choiseul's military reforms never had as far-reaching practical effects as he intended. His work in the navy was far more successful. The need for reform was even more urgent here than in the sister service, for the navy was abso- lutely in ruins : harbours were desolate, and silence reigned there as in ' a devastated solitude ' ; ' ships were abandoned and stores depots empty; there were debts on all sides, and not a penny of credit.'^ '■ Mdmoires, p. 405. no THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Even as late as October, 1764, the Comte de Broglie wrote: ' If I was with M. de Choiseul I might let him know the desolation and prostration of the navy, the robberies committed in the offices at headquarters. All we see and hear is painful to any honest citizen. At La Rochelle the harbour is becoming choked up and the town empty, while at Rochefort fifteen months' wag'es are due both to officers and to men. Surely all this must be remedied ? '^ Choiseul's first work was to put armaments on a better footing. During the war ninety-three ships had been lost; and there only remained forty ordinary men-of-war and ten frigates. He determined to ap- peal to the nation for help to restore the navy to a state worthy of its former glory, and the people showed that they deserved the minister's confidence. Private subscriptions flowed in to the amount of thirteen million livres in a few weeks. The etats of Languedoc voted the gift of a man-of-war fully equipped, and their example was followed by those of Burgundy, Flanders and Artois, the order of the Holy Spirit, and several merchant corporations. By this great response the French nation proved that not even the misgovernment of Louis and his minis- ters had been able to dull their patriotism, and that it only needed a capable minister to re-awaken their enthusiasm. As soon as peace was signed, ' je songeai a ap- ^ Comte de Broglio to the Prince de Beaiivonu (Correspondance de Mme. du Defjand, Vol. i, P317). MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. iii prendre la marine que je ne savais pas,' says Choi- seul/ and he obtained instruction from an invalu- able clerk in the naval offices, called Truguet. He tried to put France on her proper naval basis, which he considered was eighty ships of the line and forty frigates; in four years the navy gained nineteen ships and twenty-one frigates, and by 1770 the total numbers of the navy had increased from sixty-five in 1773 to 114.^ For purposes of ship- building special arrangements were made for the obtaining of the necessary stores. All the best wood in France was reserved by law for the use of the navy; more was obtained from Italy and from Turkey, and it was arranged that Bigorre and Beam should contribute their share to this national work by paying the very heavy cost of carrying the timber from the Pyrenean forests to the new dockyards of Lorient and Rochefort, and to the strengthened arsenals of Brest and Toulon. As long as he dealt with ships and dockyards, or was able to appeal to popular feeling, Choiseul was successful. But it was very different when he turned his attention to the men that formed the personnel of the navy. ' It was a body that needed complete reorganisation if it was to be of any use; there was much goodwill, gallantry and even talent among the young- men; but they knew neither sub- mission nor rules, and needed a commander who * Mimoires, pp. 406, 407. ^ Lacour Gayet, La Marine sons Louis XV, p. 394. 112 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. could make himself obeyed and served, of which they were totally ignorant.'^ Although new schools of navigation were opened at Brest, Rochefort and Toulon, diplomas given for engineering and shipbuilding, and the Naval Academy refounded, Choiseul was not able to ob- tain a really efficient and disciplined staff of officers. He had to deal with the prejudices and conventions of many years. The navy was practically a close preserve for the nobility; Choiseul tried to open it to all able young men, and met with strenuous opposition from all quarters; the officers, fearing that the royal navy was going to be crowded with men from the merchant service who had distin- guished themselves in the war, resisted all minis- terial innovations. Another problem that faced Choiseul was the constant friction between the military and the clerical staff, both on board and on shore. All he could do was to define very sharply the duties of the latter and to determine how they should rank in the navy. An attempt was also made to establish a corps of marines, but the jealousy of the sailors foiled the scheme. Those administrative reforms and attempts at re- form had been embodied in the Ordonnance of 1764, thus corresponding exactly to those accomplished in the army. It met with a fate little better than that of its sister scheme ; not that it was ill-con- structed — Truguet and Rodier. who had practically ' Rapport de d'Aiguillon h Belle-isle, 1759 (Papiers du Due de Broglie, Bibliotheque Nationale). MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONLAL POLICY. 113 drawn it np for Choiseul, were men of very great ability — but because it met with opposition and aroused no enthusiasm. In all this work Choiseul never received adequate support : the court cared for nothing; the officers regarded all new ideas with disfavour; popular enthusiasm for naval de- fence had died down very soon after the peace, and the King checked his minister by his complete inertia : the greatest stumbling-block to a states- man. When Choiseul told him he was going to strengthen the navy, he said Choiseul must be mad : ' I have heard all the ministers say the same thing without any of them having ever been able to do anything. Take my advice and give up the idea.' Choiseul wisely took no notice of royal opinion, but this shows what obstacles lay in his way. Thus Choiseul only succeeded in the reform of naval armaments, and his work of staff reorganisa- tion failed. But what he was able to do was thoroughly done, and he put the French navy in a sound state to meet that of England in the Ameri- can war. ' Choiseul and Praslin had put all their intelligence and energy to the satisfying of the patriotic ardour that was seizing France, and it cannot be said that they laboured in vain. Those short seven years from 1763 to 1770 are among those that count most in the history of naval adminis- tration.'^ An important part of Choiseul's naval policy was ^ Lacour Gayet, La Marine sous Louis XVI, p. 26. 114 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. his fixed determination to effect some day an inva- sion of England. He realised that, if successful, such an attack would ruin her prestige, and especially her financial credit, for years to come; and that if he effected a landing he might dictate terms that would go far towards restoring to France her colo- nial empire. That he was right in his idea is shown by the terror caused in England by the mere thought of invasion, both during the Seven Years War and after. In a previous chapter two schemes of invasion were seen to end in failure, in both cases through the defeat of the fleet intended to hold the Channel while troops were shipped across. The preparation of similar plans was actively carried on after the peace. In all cases Choiseul wanted to strike a blow at England without any declaration of hos- tilities, as the war had proved the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of opposing the English fleet for any length of time. During Choiseul's ministry there were no less than four elaborate schemes of descent upon Eng- land, three of which were drawn up by the express instructions of the minister. In 1767 a Scotchman residing in France, Grant de Blairfindy, was sent by Choiseul to make a care- ful examination of the English coast with a view to selecting a suitable place for invasion. He gave a very full and accurate report, as well as a detailed scheme. Fifty thousand men were to be shipped across from Ambleteuse, near Calais, to Deal, while MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. 115 a diversion was being made upon the Sussex shore by half that number from St. Malo. At the same time an army corps was to be landed at Greenore, near Wexford, so as to create a diversion by a vigorous march upon Dublin. This scheme was approved of as practicable, but a different idea was suggested in 1770 by a certain Bleville, who advised one single blow in the shape of a descent upon Corn- wall or Devon — Looe, Fowey, Lyme or Dartmouth being considered suitable spots for landing. Choi- seul himself had meanwhile been designing a gene- ral plan for a combined attack by the united French and Spanish fleets. To those three schemes, which had all received official sanction, is to be added a fourth from a very different source. The strange institution called the King's Secret has been already explained. Its head, the Comte de Broglie, now appears with a detailed scheme, which he has secretly presented to the King. He had first suggested to Louis the idea of an invasion of England in 1763, and the King, approving of the scheme, sent two secret agents. La Roziere and the notorious d'Eon, to examine the English coasts with this object. The results of the enquiry were given to the King in 1765; and in 1768, when the political importance of the King's Secret was over, communicated to Choiseul. The plan was to seize the Channel by two fleets from Brest and from Rochefort, and to land sixty thousand men between Rye and Pevensey. 12 ii6 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. It is more than probable that Choiseul would have used one at least of those schemes in the war against England which was meditated in 1770. His fall put an end to the whole matter. M. Lacour-Gayet bitterly regrets it; but anybody judging from the light of later history will recognise that Choiseul was not likely to succeed where Napoleon failed, and that his fall saved France from a ruinous loss of men, money and prestige. The colonies formed at that time part of the sphere of activity of the minister of marine, and Choiseul had to turn his attention to them. But he was as ignorant of them as of the navy, and he needed equal instruction in that branch. Rodier and Truguet gave him again invaluable advice, and he had memoirs addressed to him by travellers, merchants, and colonial governors, on the state of French commerce and maritime expansion. To this external advice must in truth be attributed much of the successes and most of the failures of Choiseul's work. Although to Choiseul the utility of colonies was strictly commercial, yet he realised their political significance and to what extent they had contributed to England's victory in the last war. His dream was to build up a French colonial empire on the ruins of that of England ; and his colonial policy goes therefore hand in hand with his policy towards England from the peace of Paris to his fall. How he tried to undermine British colonial power has MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. 117 been seen ; and now attention must be turned to his work of re-establishiny and extending what re- mained of the PYench colonial empire. The treaty of 1763 had sadly decreased it. Of Canada and India only fishery or trading" stations were left, St. Pierre and Miquelon in the former, Pondicherry, Mahe, Karikal and Chandernagor in the latter. In the West Indies, France had kept Martinique, Guadelupe, St. Lucia, St. Domingo, St. Martin, Marie Galante and Desirade; Mauritius and Reunion (lies de France et Bourbon) in the Pacific Ocean; Goree in Africa; and a settlement in Guiana. Choiseul's first idea was to make good as far as was possible what France had lost in the war, and he chose the Kourou Valley in Guiana as a suitable spot for a new colony. This choice seems very strange now, but contemporary opinion appears to have considered Guiana in a very favourable light. Advice had been carefully sought from mer- chants and travellers, and all agreed in their op- timistic report. Henry Pauillard, a French mer- chant, wrote of it that ' by means of the two oceans it could easily receive products from the whole universe.'^ Choiseul thought that he had selected ' a very valuable territory in America that surpassed in extent and climate actual French colonies, that might compensate for the loss of Canada, produc- ing as it did sugar, cocoa, wheat, rye, oats, and which might form a suitable depot for the Leeward * Daubigny, Choiseul et la France d'outre-nier, p. 35. ii8 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. islands.'^ As a matter of fact, it was the warmest, dampest and marshiest part of South America. Guiana had been for some time a possession of the French crown; a colonising expedition in 1643 — 1664 had been destroyed in the Franco-Dutch war. The Kourou region was now made over to the Dukes of Choiseul and of PrasHn, who received it ' in entire property, dominion and justice, for them- selves and their descendants, with fishery and hunt- ing rights over the whole country.'- They had the administration of the colony, appointed its com- manders, municipal officers, and judges, the sole condition being to watch over its prosperity and defence. The peopling of the colony proved easy. There had been for some time a constant flow of emigra- tion from Normandy and the Cevennes, caused by hard times and excessive taxation. All that was necessary was to direct that flow to Guiana, and in answer to glowing descriptions of an alleged Eldorado a ready response came, especially from Alsace and the neighbouring parts of Germany. The conditions of settlement somewhat recall feud- alism, the emigrants being tenants of a lord for whom they worked, with possibilities of buying back the land through paying rent; the prospect of be- coming a ' lord ' thus attracting rich and adven- turous bourgeois who did not fear a few dangers and hardships. ^Choiseul to Voltaire, July 27, 1763 (Correspondancc , p. 177). * Daubigny, Op. cit., p. 38. MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. 119 Hitlierto matters had been going on fairly favour- ably; but mistakes soon began. The entire direc- tion of the expedition was given to a committee consisting of the newly-appointed governor of the colony, Turgot, a brother of the famous minister; his assistants, Chanvalon and Prefontaine, the latter of whom had lived twenty years at Cayenne, knew the country thoroughly, and was to conduct the first convoy; and Acaron, from the naval ofhce. This was a very unwise step, as they never seemed to realise the great difficulty of the task, but it clears the ministry of much responsibility for what was to come. From the very first the expedition proved a complete failure. Prefontaine left in May, 1763, with 127 emigrants, and on arriving at Cayenne experienced a hostile reception from the governor, who had not been notified of the new scheme, and refused to recognise Prefontaine's authority. By July, however, the colonists were able to set to work. Had they now been left alone under the expert direction of Prefontaine, all might have gone well. He thought that it was better to begin the work with a small number like this, who, with the help of negroes, could for the present confine them- selves to land-tilling and cattle-breeding. But this was not the intention of the authorities at home. Chanvalon soon arrived with fifteen hundred set- tlers; the wet season came, disease appeared, the land was overcrowded, and laziness was soon rife. In February, 1764, another contingent of four hun- 120 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. dred arrived, and had to be settled in the lies du Salut, and to Chanvalon's appeal that no more should be sent/ that any increase in the number of settlers might cause the ruin of the colony, the answer was the despatch of yet another twelve hun- dred, and of several other detachments in quick succession; so that in July, in just a year, no less than eight thousand emigrants had made the jour- ney. But owing to disease, lack of shelter, and often of food, and the hostility of the natives, three thousand of these had perished. In November, Turgot, the governor, arrived at last, his departure having been delayed by quarrels with the officials in Paris, and mutual recriminations and accusations of deliberate intent to ruin the colony. Disregarding Choiseul's instructions, he had Chanvalon arrested, received complaints from the emigrants, and sailed straight home, afraid to stay any longer in that pestilential climate. ' A fortnight after his arrival in the colony he wrote that he wanted to go home, and this letter was the only one he sent during his short sojourn at Cayenne. His whole administration was nothing but a display of incompetence and disobedience.'^ He took home with him all the able-bodied men who had resisted the attacks of fever and might have re- founded the colony. A small number of Alsatians 'To Choiseul, March 19, 1764 (Daubigny, Op. cit., p. 87). ' Rapport sur I'administration de Turgot, May 30, 1768 (Dau- bigny, Op. cit., p. 123). MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. 121 remained, however, who formed the nucleus of the present colony of French Guiana. The failure was complete, and an enquiry was held at once. Chanvalon was condemned to prison, but the protests of the Parlement obtained his par- don in 1773 and his complete acquittal in 1781. A commission was appointed to try Turcot, but owing" to his brother's influence he was only banished. It is very difhcult to apportion Choiseul's share in the blame deserved for this unfortunate expedi- tion.^ He was certainly not responsible for the lack of negro workers, which, by putting all the burden upon the shoulders of the whites, was a great cause of the prevalence of disease and mortality; but he may be justly censured for the extensive over-ad- vertising of the scheme, that caused the quality of emigrants to be as poor as their quantity was great. Further it is difficult to go. The despatch of thou- sands of emigrants was greatly due to Turgot and Acaron, and so was the complete disregard in other matters of Chanvalon and Prcfontaine's expert opinion, and of the orders sent by the ministry. Ml est vrai que j'ai eu du chagrin pour ma colonic de Cayenne ; des sots, dcs fripons et pis que tout celA, dcs ignorants qui croy- aient en savoir beaucoup, m'ont entrain^ dans de faussrs d-- marches ; je suis corrig^. Ce n'est pas une mati^re ais^e k traiter que celle des colonies : j'apprends tous les jours que je suis plus ignorant que je ne croyais la veille. J'ai M trompe sur Cayenne, non pas sur la bont^ du sol, ni sur les moyens de la rendre utile, et ses habitants hcureux, niais sur la maniere dont on a 6xecut6 les plans les mieux combines. Ce n'est pas la faute de I'administration si Ton ne se conduit pas h Kourou comme il a 6t6. combing et ordonn^ h Versailles. — Choiseul to Voltaire, April 3. May 3, 1765 (Correspondance. pp. 190, 194). 122 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Undoubtedly there was too much theorizing at headquarters; but the real truth is that Choiseul, as he says himself, knew little about the colonies, consulted those who were supposed to be efficient in the subject, and was deceived by them. Much of what has been said, however, of the folly of founding a prosperous colony in Guiana has come from a complete misapprehension of Choi- seul's real policy. ' The idea was not to open for France a new market for the one she had lost, but to establish there a race of men capable of help- ing the mother country in her future wars. The ministry had been struck by the important services rendered to England by the North American colo- nists, and wanted to people Guiana because it stood to windward of the French islands in the Gulf of Mexico, and was thus favourably placed to send them prompt help, and even take the offensive against the English islands. The government, how- ever, did not think fit to divulge its policy, and nobody seems to have understood it at the time.'^ Why the government did not do so was probably because of England. But this was a mistake, as emigrants and commanders were thus in ignorance as to what was expected of them. The Kourou expedition was an unfortunate undertaking from be- ginning to end; Choiseul's sole apology is that his intentions and policy were sound : the fault lay in the execution rather than in the conception. It would, however, be a great mistake to judge * Prdcis historique sur I'expedition du Kourou, pp. 3 — 5. MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. 123 Choiseul's work in the colonies solely by his failure in Guiana. He undertook a double work of colo- nial reform, both in the system of administration at home and in external organisation. His chief policy was to suppress the great com- mercial companies, of which two still existed, both founded by Colbert, for the East and for the West Indies. ' At first established for the good of the kingdom, they had now changed ; they kept industry and commerce in a kind of dependence, and reaped alone the benefits from them; their bad administra- tion, their negligence of everything that was not in their interests, their lust for gain at any price, had often placed French establishments in a critical position, so that the companies were condemned by French economists.'^ Choiseul was a thorough believer in the mercan- tile theory, and he thought, as they did, that the object of colonies was for the mother country to carry on trade on better terms than could be ob- tained from neighbouring countries with which ad- vantages were reciprocal, a theory based on the doubtful axiom ' that it was necessary, in order to gain wealth, to sell to foreigners without ever buy- ing from them.' The influence of those theories was to inaugurate the era of official colonisation, taken up by the State under its own responsibility. Thus in French India the company was abolished, an Indian office created in the home ministry of marine, and the ^ Daubigny, Op. cit., p. 20. 124 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. port of Lorient handed over to the government by the company. The African company lost its privi- leges in 1767. The government took over the carry- ing on of the slave trade, the expenses of founding and maintaining commercial stations on the Guiana coast, and in 1767 the complete administration of the islands of France and Bourbon, v^hich were entirely reformed by the intendant Poivre. Be- sides this, the government itself began colonisation in several places. We have already seen the failure of the Guiana expedition; in 1765 the Falkland Islands were colonised by Bougainville, but they were almost immediately handed over to Spain, and proved a source of political trouble until 1771. At Santa Lucia the history of the Kourou colony was almost exactly repeated, though on a much smaller scale; while at Madagascar the efforts of Le Gentil (1761-7) and of Mandave (1768-70) failed to gain adequate support from home, and came to nothing.^ This was not all. Choiseul made an attempt to reform completely the internal laws, organisation and administration of the colonies. He tried to ' give legislative force to certain customs, to deci- sions of superior councils that sanctioned them, to introduce new laws suited to the interests and needs of settlers, to make colonial legislation more uni- form, and to give, as far as possible, that unity of legislation to all French colonies.' ' Mouffle d'Angerville, Vie Privee dc Louis XV, Vol. iv, p. 99; and Daubigny, Op. cit., pp. 130 — 148. MILITARY, NAVAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. 125 But in this, as in many other departments of busi- ness, Choiseul found the execution of his plans a very different matter from their conception. Many colonial reg'ulations he found he could not suppress without arousing more opposition than the reform was worth; many of the colonists were ignorant and untrustworthy.^ However, commissions of enquiry were appointed and some good work was done, especially in Martinique, by centralising the various bodies in each colony, introducing non-political tribunals, and organising already existing institu- tions. The powers of various officials were clearly defined so as to prevent quarrels of precedence ; the arrangements of various colonies were also altered, Cayenne, Martinique and Guadelupe being erected into separate governments, whilst municipal autTior- ities and a representative system were introduced at St. Domingo. The question of colonial defence was also taken thoroughly in hand, the militia being re-organised, whilst the whole of navy reform was meant for the colonies, which could only exist if they were assured of protection against the English. 'All this showed,' said a grateful colonist, 'lofty souls that are never checked by false jealousies when anything is to be done for the public good.'^ The chief interest in Choiseul's colonial policy lies more in the insight it gives into his ideas and versatility of genius than in the actual work carried ' ' Des ignorants charges de dettes et crapuleux ne sont pas des magistrats.' — d'Estaing to Choiseul (Daubigny, Op. cit., p. 150). - Daubigny, Op. cit., p. 168. 126 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. out. He suffered throughout from his want of per- sonal knowledge of the question, and mistakes ap- pear when he had to rely on the information of others. But his general views were original and accurate; he realised the political value of colonies, and endeavoured to use them as more than trading stations ; and he can truly be said to have been the real author of the renaissance of French naval and colonial power in the American war of independence. CHAPTER VI. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. While Choiseul was actively engaged in foreign policy, in naval and military reforms, and in colo- nial expansion, he had to deal at home with one of the greatest crises that hastened the end of the An- cien Regime. He had been called upon to save France when there did not seem to be one capable statesman left, and he soon attained to the power, if not to the title, of a prime minister. Officially he was minister for foreign affairs from 1758 to 1761, and again from 1766 to 1770; for the navy and colonies, from 1761 to 1766; for war, from 1761 to 1770, as well as Surintcndant des Posies and colonel of the Swiss Guards; but in truth he ' reigned,' as M. Vandal says, during the whole of that period. ' He controlled all affairs of state, alone dealt with the clergy, the Parlement, the philosophers, and was supposed to have some new and daring scheme on every matter of government. He was less the courtier of his master than the servant of the pub- lic; he restored to the royal authority some of its lustre if not some of its actual strength.' 128 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. To be a national minister may be regarded as the mainspring of Choiseul's home pohcy. Although a faithful servant of the Crown, he was strongly inclined towards the new philosophical school, in which he recognised a future power in the State, and shared its regard for public opinion. He was essentially a Frenchman before being a subject of Louis XV, and when absolutism and national liber- ties clashed he took the part of the nation. It is no exaggeration to say that he had the spirit of a con- stitutional minister, to whom the will of the people is the supreme law. It was as such that ' he entered into a strict alliance with the Parlement, which by its dignity, its prin- ciples, its opposition to taxes, to ecclesiastical per- secutions, to arbitrary imprisonment, had succeeded in persuading the people that to a great extent it represented the nation and sacrificed itself to the de- fence of the true interests and liberties of France.'^ Formerly a purely judicial body, the Parlement of Paris had been gradually gaining political powers, chiefly through its right of refusing to ' register ' royal edicts, and thus compelling the King to resort to coercion for the passing of such measures. Its re- sistance to tyranny and its defence of the few liber- ties in France had earned for it the gratitude of the people, and it became clear that on important occa- sions the Parlement truly voiced the opinion of the nation. It was thus natural that Choiseul should hope to find in it a powerful ally. • Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, Vol. xxix, p. 216 THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 129 The quarrel over the Bull Unigenitus (17 13) and over the Rcfus de sacrements (1751) was the real origin of the preponderating influence of the Parle- ment/ which assumed from the beginning the de- fence of the Jansenist party, and thus made opposi- tion to the Jesuits one of the chief points of its policy. While at Rome, Choiseul had obtained a partial settlement of the quarrel, and now, almost as soon as he came to power, he found himself involved in a fresh phase of the struggle. On this occasion, however, the sides were re- versed, and the Jesuits were the victims instead of being the aggressors. For some years the move- ment against them had been steadily growing. Their opposition to free thought and individual action provoked the attack of philosophical ration- alism, ' whose commands the Parlement uncon- sciously obeyed ' f and once the signal was given, the onslaught became general, all being weary of the domination the Order had been exercising for years past. The Universities complained that the Society had too long monopolised education . Kings and ministers were jealous of its power and influ- ence ; * they could no longer breathe under the pressure of Jesuitism; they could not conceive a scheme, take a step, move a finger without finding that the Jesuits spied on them by their side, in- " See Chapter I. M'Alembert to Voltaire, May 4, 1762 (Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire genirale, Vol. vii). K I30 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. formed against them at Rome, sought to check them everywhere ' ; while ' the unhmited power of a for- eign general over their subjects seemed unto them directly subversive of their own power and of the laws of the kingdom.'^ The looseness of their moral teaching, proved by the fact that accusations of incentive to regicide, adultery and other crimes could be brought against the Order in all serious- ness, alienated many. Another thing that con- tributed very greatly to its ruin was ' its intellec- tual mediocrity and lack of great men : had it con- tained two or three distinguished preachers or writers, it would have weathered the storm, for the public would have remonstrated on their behalf. Besides this, all the other religious orders, and, generally speaking, the whole French clergy, were incensed by the arrogant way in which the Jesuits behaved towards them. Moreover, the Jesuits and their friends did themselves all that was necessary to hasten their fall. They exclaimed that the cause of religion was lost if they were got rid of, that their expulsion was to be followed by the establish- ing of incredulity and heresy in France ; and thereby they poured oil on the flames, instead of extinguish- ing them.'^ Events then served the enemies of the Order. The revolt in the Jesuit colony in Paraguay (1758), the attempt upon the life of the King of Portugal ' St. Priest, Histoire de la chute des Jisiiites, Introduction. ^ Bernis, M^ moires. Vol. ii, p. 102 ; and d'Alcmbert, De la des- truction des Jesuites en France, p. 240. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 131 and the troubles in Spain, which were, rightly or wrongly, attributed to Jesuit influence (1759), and the failure of Father Lavalette's settlement in Mar- tinique (1760) brought the matter to a crisis. The Society was expelled from Portugal and was sued for their losses by Lavalette's creditors. It now played entirely into the hands of its enemies by de- claring that, according to its constitutions, the cor- porate Order was not responsible for the debts of one of its members, and, by appealing to its worst enemy, the Parlement, 'hoping to disarm that tribu- nal by that ill-timed and ridiculous act of confi- dence.' The Parlement examined the constitutions, ordered the Company to pay Lavalette's creditors in full, and published a report declaring that ' the constitution, rules and books of the Jesuits proved the existence of a secret and mysterious legislation, often bold and immoral, subversive of all the pre- cepts of the Gospel, over-riding the laws and con- stitutions of all states, in order to erect and impose upon all a theocracy, the oracle of which was the So- ciety itself, incarnated in the person of its general.'^ By tacit consent on both sides, there was a year's truce, during which the Jesuits endeavoured to bor- row money from the Spanish government to pay their creditors, and Choiseul tried to induce it to grant the loan. But Charles and Grimaldi refused to accept the possessions of the Jesuits in France as sufficient security; and the Spanish section of the ^ Robidou, La Chalotais et les Jdsuites, p. xi. K2 132 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Society refused to help their French confreres by allowing- their goods to be surety. ' Such conduct,' wrote Choiseul to d'Ossun,^ ' could only be regarded as a failure of the mutual support owed to each other by members of the same body.' Meanwhile the publication of the report of en- quiry upon the Society opened wide the floodgates of popular resentment. The provincial Parlements began pouring forth decrees and measures against it, closing its schools and declaring it to be a public danger. Before this outburst the government took alarm and advised the reform of the order; Ricci, its general, gave the famous answer, ' Sint ut sunt, aut non sint.' and on the 6th of August, 1762, the Parlement of Paris pronounced the dissolution of the Society.^ Various estimates have been given of the part played by Choiseul in this expulsion. He has been accused of being the soul of the anti-Jesuit party, of urging Pombal and d'Aranda to expel the Order ^ Bourguet, Lc Due de Choiseul et les Jisuites {Revue cfhistoire diplomatique, 1902). " Ce faisa.nt declare ledit Institut inadmissible par sa nature dans tout ^tat polic^, comme contraire au droit nature!, attenta- toirc h toute autorit6 spirituelle ct temporelle, et tendant h in- troduire dans I'Eglise et dans les ^tats sous le voile sp^cieux d'un Institut religieux, non un ordre qui aspire v^ritablement et unique- ment k la perfection (^vang^lique mais plut6t un corps politique, dont I'essence consiste dans une activity continuelle pour par- venir par toutes sortes dc voies directes et indirectes, sourdes et publiqucs, d'abord k une ind^pendance absolue et successivement h Tusurpation de toute autorit^.' — Arret du 6 AoOt, 1762, journal du Parlement de Paris. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 133 from Portugal and Spain,' and of inciting the Parle- ment against the Society. The Jesuits were to be made the scapegoats of national decadence; their rich spoils were to cover the huge expenses of the war. Other writers maintain that the destruction of the Society was a means of carrying favour with the Parlement and the people at large. ' He seduced the Philosophers, won over the Parlement, became an admirer of the Jansenists, flattered Madame de Pompadour, amused the King, the most difficult of all his successes; and then, when he had dragged everybody over to his side, in order to retain his popularity, he directed his onslaught against the Society of Jesus. '^ To others, foreign policy was his true motive ; he expelled the Jesuits with a view to flattering Spain. His worst enemies say that all he did was purely in order to keep up his credit with Madame de Pom- padour, who hated the Jesuits because they inter- fered in her relations with Louis XV ; and his friends urge that, far from being actuated by any petty feeling of ambition or jealousy, he realised the dan- ger to the state coming from such a powerful or- ganisation, and swept it away as an obstacle to political progress. The very divergence of those opinions shows that * See, among others, Coxe, The Bourbons in Spain. Vol. iv, pp. 324-5, where Choiseul is accused of ' employing all the re- sources of intrigue,' ' circulating forged letters,' and ' propagat- ing reports of the most odious and criminal nature against the members themselves individually.' ' Sismondi, Op. cit.. Vol. xxix, p. 233. 134 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. none of them can be wholly true. The events lead- ing up to the fall of the Order prove that there was no scheme formed against it, either by Choiseul or anybody else.^ The failure of Lavalette was acci- dental; the report of the Parlement was the result of the folly of the Jesuits in appealing to a body they well knew to be hostile to them, and as soon as it was published, the question became a national one, and no minister could dare withstand the general storm of indignation against the order, — much less Choiseul, whose policy it was to obey the call of the people. He might, however, have checked the movement by getting the first edict against the Jesuits of August, 176 1, annulled. His alliance with the Par- lement was not yet efifected, and a decisive step • might have prevented the whole matter from going any further. But, as Besenval shows, and as he said himself, Choiseul did not care what happened to the Society, to the fate of which he was quite indifferent. ' Chancellor Lamoignon brought the first decree of the Parlement against the Jesuits to the King. The King asked M. de Choiseul what he thought of it. M. de Choiseul replied that he could not give an opinion at once, but that the question did not lie there : did the King want to keep the Jesuits or to get rid of them ? If the latter, then all he had ' ' Ce qui Ics a perdus, ce n'est ni la politique, ni la philo- sophic : c'est tout simplement ie hasard.' — St. Priest, Op. cit., p. XIV. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 135 to do was to let the Parlement have its own way; if the former, then the decree must at once be an- nuUed. But if there was any delay this first decree would be followed by many others, so that it would become impossible to draw back. The King" told the Chancellor that he would annul the decree. But the Chancellor, who was far from being- so enlightened as M. de Choiseul, said that it was yet too early to resort to violent measures, and persuaded the King to wait. M. de Choiseul's prophecy came true. The Parlement continued to take proceedings against the Jesuits, and the matter had gone so far that it had to be carried out.'^ Hitherto, then, Choiseul's policy had been one of complete indifference. ' Chance had begun the affair; the events in Spain had hastened its conclu- sion. Having just ended an unfortunate war, over- burdened with business, he only saw with indiffer- ence the fall or the maintenance of a community of monks. '^ Much less did he take any steps towards their expulsion from Portugal. ' We should ob- ject,' he said,^ ' if the King of Portugal were to urge us to proceed against them for events which have taken place in Lisbon, and which do not destroy the good opinion the King still has of the morals and uprightness of the Jesuits in his kingdom.' The decree of August, 1762, however, altered the * Besenval, Mimoires, Vol. 11. ^ Choiseul, Memoir to Louis XVI (Cr6tineau-Joly, Clement XIV et les Jesuites, p. 122). ^ Choiseul to Rochechouart (St. Priest, Op. cit., p. 52). 136 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. situation. The Order had been dissolved, but indi- vidual members were still allowed in France, and the quarrel raged more fiercely than ever. It was too late to annul the whole prosecution, but some settlement must be arrived at. Strong in his recent union with the Parlement, Choiseul urged and obtained the banishment of the Society. Both he and the King really acted for the peace of the realm (1764).^ The expulsion of the Jesuits from France did not prove, however, a final conclusion to the contro- versy; and it is necessary to anticipate chronology somewhat in order to obtain a clear view of the question. The expulsion of the order from Parma brought the matter to a head. Clement XIII, who had some legal hold over the duchy, pronounced its duke de- posed because of his action against the Society. Parma, a Bourbon power, was bound to France by the Family Compact; and Choiseul found himself involved in a conflict with the Papacy, and naturally at the same time with what remained of the Society of Jesus. He felt that their intrigues would never cease; 'that their existence was now becoming as harmful to the Catholic religion as to the sovereigns who had proscribed them,' and 'that the abolition ' Je n'aime point cordialcment les Jesuites, mais toutes les Wr^sies les ont toujours d^test6s, ce qui est leur triomphe. Je n'en dis pas plus. Pour la paix du royaume si je les renvoie contre mon gr6, du moins ne veux-je pas qu'on croie que j'ai adh^r6 h tout ce que les parlements ont fait et dit contre eux. — Louis XV to Choiseul (St. Priest, Op. cit., p. 46). THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 137 of the Company was essential to the welfare of re- ligion, to the peace of Catholic states, and to the true interests of its individual members.'^ He dealt a blow at the Pope by seizing Avignon and the Comtat-Venaissin, a most valuable acquisition, and when Cleme-nt XIII died he determined to obtain from his successor a settlement of the wearying strife in the form of the complete abolition of the whole Order. Bernis and Luynes, the two French Cardinals, arrived at the conclave with instructions to exact from the new Pope a pledge to that effect, and it was on that distinct understanding that Cardinal Ganganelli became Pope Clement XIV (1769). After the election, Bernis remained at Rome as ambassador, thus ending his political career where Choiseul had begun his. The question was now to exact the fulfilment of the promises made, and France and Spain worked together towards this end. It is probably true, as M. Masson says, that the motive of Choiseul's policy against the Jesuits had now become the maintenance of the Spanish alliance,^ Charles III being bent on the destruction of the Order, and insisting on receiving the support of France in his dealings with the new Pope. Clement XIV was not at all anxious to dissolve '■ Choiseul to Bernis and Luynes, May 23, 1769 (Masson, Lc Cardinal de Bernis, p. 103). *Je serais tres aise qu'il n'y eut plus de J6suites, mais je suis encore plus attach^ k ce que le roi d'Espagne n'ait pas a se plaindre de la France.' — Choiseul to Bernis, Oct. 9, 1770 (Mas- son, Op. cit., p. 158). 138 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. the Society, and began a policy of systematic delay that made Choiseul lose his temper in unmistak- able fashion : ' The Jesuits have been plaguing me for ten years,' he wrote, 'and I am heartily sick of them (J'en ai par dessus la tete). They say and believe in France that I had them expelled. In Spain they declare that I love and support them. Both are wrong, I swear it before the world. There is nothing I have ever cared for less than the Jesuits : but just now I am worn out with them, for they have reduced all courts to madness, so that in Madrid they forget England, M. Pitt, and the real and important matters, to think about the Jesuits and to weary me with them. May they go to the devil, and the Pope too if he does not rid me of them.'^ Choiseul was unsuccessful, for it was not until 1773. three years after his fall, that the Order was finally dissolved. But it was to his efforts that the beginning of the second campaign against the Jesuits and the acquisition of Avignon and the Comtat-Venaissin were due. Choiseul's attitude towards the Society from 1768 to the end shows that he wanted its abolition be- cause of his profound weariness at the endless quarrel and from political expediency. For the order in itself he cared but little : the Pope had promised to abolish it; Spain wanted to keep him to his word and France must support Spain.- He "Choiseul to Bcrnis, Aug. 2, 1769 (Masson, Op. cit., p. 151). " ' Je trouve que le Papc s'est fort engage avec le Roi d'Espagne, et d'une telle maniere qu'il lui sera impossible de reculer, car il THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 139 never liad any settled scheme against the Society, but simply followed step by step popular and politi- cal feeling-. ' The negotiation at Rome for the banishment of the Jesuits was only at last concluded for the potent reason that in this world everything must come to an end.'^ Seen under this light, the expulsion of the Jesuits becomes a mere incident in Choiseul's career instead of being his chief title to the hatred of some and to the praise of many. This digression was essential for a clear view of Choiseul's policy towards the Jesuits. It is now necessary to retrace one's steps back to the begin- ning of his ministry. The enormous powers given to Choiseul had naturally excited much jealousy among all his possible rivals, and the story of his administration is the account of the rise and ulti- mate triumph of the opposition directed against, him. It was naturally from the ranks of the party hos- tile to Madame de Pompadour that his enemies were first recruited. At their head was the Dauphin, who as early as 1760, if Choiseul is to be believed, faut Ic pr6venir que Sa Majesty Catholique est I'homme le plus exact que j'aie connu, et k qui il est dangereux de manquer parole. A la place du Pape je me tirerais cette ^pine du pied, et je d(5truirais ces moines pour n'en entendre plus parler. II n'y a qu'i Icur donner des constitutions un peu diff^rentes, les habiller de blanc et les vouer k la Vierge, gagner les supi^rieurs k cette metamorphose. Ceux qui voudront conserver les J^suites les auront dans leurs 6tats sous le nom de Virginiens ; nous n'en aurons ni en France, ni en Espagne, et tout serait dit. ' — Choiseul to Bernis, Jan. 16, 1770 (Masson, Op. cit., p. 161). 'St. Priest, Op. cit., p. 55. I40 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. was vainly intriguing against him. After 1762 the Jesuits became the minister's most bitter foe. Ac- cording to some writers they had always been hos- tile to him. Ever since his embassy at Rome, when he had to obtain from the Pope a Bull somewhat favourable to their enemies, Choiseul had been a marked man, and his indifference towards the order was really culpable negligence.^ That is possible. What is certain is that the Jesuits were always opposed to the royal mistress, and Choiseul, as her friend, was certain to be included in their attacks. But it was only in 1762 that the opposition be- came definitely organised, and that the two parties in the state clearly appear : the Jesuit faction, against Choiseul and the Parlements. This union Choiseul soon found to involve him in serious trouble, for the decree of August, 1762, against the Society of Jesus had only been the first step in the Parlement's bid for political power. In order to replenish a treasury left empty by the Seven Years War, the Comptroller-General of Finances, Bertin, introduced a new scheme of taxa- tion that included the continuation of two important taxes, the ' two-twentieths ' and the ' gratuitous gift,' a new assessment of landed property, and the re-establishment of the Sinking Fund. These mea- sures met with violent opposition from the Parle- ments in Paris, where they had to be forced through in a Lit dc Justice (May — June, 1763), and in the provinces, where the royal authority had to resort * Mdmoires, pp. 171, 189. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 141 to coercive measures, especially at Grenoble, Tou- louse, Pau and Rouen. It is probable that Choiseul had not expected the Parlements to take such a decided stand against taxation, which to a great extent he knew to be necessary, as he was himself responsible for the expenses of the war. He realised that to support so violent an opposition would be detrimental to his interests; but at the same time he did not wish to abandon the Parlements, in which he might find valuable future support. He determined, therefore, to conciliate them by appointing three of their num- ber to office : Bertin, the Comptroller, and Lamoig- non, the Chancellor, were dismissed,^ Laverdy and Maupeou taking their places; and Maupeou's son became first president of the Parlement, while really exercising his father's functions. Choiseul had hoped to quell the disturbances in the Parlements. and to gain the goodwill of the new officials ; but he failed completely in both. From Laverdy, indeed, he had little to fear save his utter incapacity ; but in Maupeou he put into power one of his most dangerous enemies. The Maupeous had hitherto been strong supporters of the Parle- ments to which they belonged, and the son owed much to Choiseul. But the first taste of office com- pletely altered his outlook; he saw that as long as Choiseul was supreme no one could have but a ' The Chancellor was irremovable ; and as Lamoignon refused to resign, Maupeou was only vice-chancellor and keeper of the seals. But as Lamoignon was exiled, Maupeou was chancellor de facto, if not de jure. 142 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. secondary power and that the path to success lay in superseding the minister. Choiseul was thus to find foes where he had hoped to find alhes, and at the same time he lost his strongest supporter, Madame de Pompadour, who died in April, 1764. His position became critical, and there was some talk of the brothers de Broglie suc- ceeding him and Praslin.^ The opposition, however, had not yet enough on which to base their attacks, and Choiseul's hold upon the King himself was still too strong. But henceforth, although he lost none of his actual powers, life was to Choiseul a per- petual struggle against the Maupeou faction and the clerical party. To these was going to be added a yet more dan- gerous foe. The Governor of Brittany, the Due d'Aiguillon, had been formerly a friend of Choi- seul's; he now became the head of the opposition. He was a strong partisan of the Jesuits, and was chosen by them as a suitable champion. But what made him more than anything else hostile to Choiseul was personal ambition; like Maupeou, he realised that only opposition would lead to power, and as his birth and training were fully equal to those of the minister, he aspired to overthrow and succeed him. It was through the Parlements that Choiseul might best be attacked, and d'Aiguillon became the centre of the clerical and monarchical movement. ' It became clear that France, stirred by questions 'Sismondi, Op.cit., Vol. xxix, p. 322. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 143 of liberty and of reform, was dividing itself into two camps, one progressive and the other re- actionary, the leaders of which seemed to be the Dukes de Choiseul and d'Aigiiillon.' It was in Brittany itself that d'Aiguillon found his opportunity. The Edicts of April, 1763, em- bodied in a milder form in a Declaration passed by Maupeou in November, aroused violent opposition in that always turbulent and seditious province ; and the governor forced them through by flagrantly un- constitutional methods. Brittany had two local bodies, a judicial Parlement at Rennes and ' Etats provinciaux,' in which the three orders, clergy, nobility and bourgeoisie were represented, the con- sent of which was necessary to any taxation. D'Aiguillon secured the passing of the edicts by excluding the nobility, around which resistance was centred, and relying on the consent of the clergy and Third Estate. This illegal neglect of the iinivcrsalite, or unan- imity of the three orders, was only the climax of a regular system of harshness and tyranny : corvees, increased local taxation, persistent hostility to the public bodies that guarded Breton liberties, all these culminated in this last deliberate violation of the constitution of the province. ' A new enemy ap- peared, a thousand times more cruel than war, in the despotism of the governor, who had violated the laws, oppressed the magistrates, abused royal authority. Property was no longer safe, privileges no longer sacred; the fundamental laws of the 144 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. State were in jeopardy '^ (June, 1764). The action of the King only made matters worse. He gave d'Aiguillon full powers to deal with the rebellious province, and when the Parlement of Rennes answered by resigning in a body, committed the grievous mistake of having the Breton leader, La Chalotais, and a few other magistrates arrested on a charge of rebellion and seditious writing. The result of this was that the storm spread from Brittany to the whole of France. All provincial Parlements began pouring in remonstrances; public opinion became violent against d'Aiguillon, and in the disaffected province itself all government was at a standstill.^ The position of Choiseul was now one of extreme difficulty. There could be no doubt that the agita- tion in Brittany was the joint work of his two greatest enemies, the Jesuits and his rival d'Aiguil- lon, and extreme caution must be used so as to avoid being accused of supporting the King's enemies. Choiseul also found hidden forces at work against him : ' The King's Secret ' was not confined to foreign affairs, but was also at work at home. In his dread of a prime minister such as ' Remontrances du Parlement de Bretagne (Marion, La Bre- tagne et la Due d'Aiguillon). - ' Une de vos plus grandes provinces est depuis plusieurs ann^es dans la situation la plus affligeante, sans tribunal souverain.^les habitants vex^s, ses privileges presque an^-antis, en proie h I'in- quisition la plus odieuse, et aux intrigues d'ennemis dangcreux. La chaine de ces maux tient k peu de chose ; elle s'est fortifi6e en s'allongeant. Le d^sordre est n^ lorsque les droits et les usages anciens ont ^t^ violas.'— Remontrances du Parlement de Rouen, 1766 (Floquet, Histoire du Parlement de Normandie). THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 145 Choiseiil was evidently fast becoming, Louis XV sought to check him in his internal administration ; and to this end he instructed the Abbe de BrogHe, uncle of the marshal and of the Count de Broglie, to consider any complaints brought against Choiseul by officials in Paris or in the provinces. D'Aiguillon eagerly seized this opportunity of undermining Choiseul's influence, and was soon intriguing with the King against the King's minister. But by the chance discovery of an incriminating document, Choiseul found out that some secret machinations were on foot against him, and as soon as he under- stood that the King was really plotting with his foes, his conduct became marked by increased caution. This explains his apparent inaction in Brittany, where he took no steps either to defend the Parle- ment or to prevent La Chalotais' arrest; although a further explanation doubtless is that he realised that such violent measures, by alienating popular opinion, were more detrimental to reactionary in- terests than to the cause of the Parlements. In this he judged rightly. The complete anarchy in Brittany, the helplessness of the Bailliage d'Aiguil- lon, as the 'rump' of the Rennes Parlement was called, the danger to the monarchy from the grow- ing union between the hitherto separate and self- centred provincial Parlements, induced the King to listen to Choiseul's representations ' that the strug- gle was taking every day a graver aspect, that the public, astonished at seeing the government favour 146 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. the vengeance of the Jesuits, was getting to beHeve that d'Aiguillon, and not La Chalotais, was the true culprit, and refused to entertain on the latter's part the charges of conspiracy and sedition,'^ and that unless something was done the matter would be past repair. Louis had the sense to see the truth, and annulled the procedure against La Chalotais; but to avoid attack from the reactionaries he main- tained the sentence of exile against him (December, 1766). This did not prove sufficient to restore peace in Britanny, and coercive measures had to be resorted to. A new Parlement was elected and d'Aiguillon given full powers to deal with the rebellious pro- vince. But the disturbances continued ; the provin- cial ' Etats ' refused to carry on any business as long as d'Aiguillon was governor, and suspended their sittings, thus rendering all administration impos- sible, as no governor, however despotic, dared try and rule without them. D'Aiguillon realised the hopelessness of his position and resigned (1769). During that time the fortunes of Choiseul were fluctuating. In January, 1766, he was described as ' very fluttering, unsettled ' ; but three months later ' it was plain, though not believed till then, that he was all powerful ' ;^ and for two years he was able to maintain his position. But it was only at the price of a similar change in policy. Rendered cautious ' Lacretelle, Histoire de France an i8e siecle, Vol. iv, p. 3. ^ Horace Walpole to Thomas Gray, Jan. 25 ; to Hon. Seymour Conway, April 8, 1766 (Letters, Vol. vi, pp. 403, 452). THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 147 by the intrigues of 1765, he became somewhat kike- warm in his support of the Parlenients, and sanc- tioned the coercive measures of 1767. The truth was, that although his sympathies were with the Parlenients, he was beginning to see that their interests and his no longer coincided as much as before. They represented resistance to taxation, but he needed money for his work of re-armament, and, as Terray said, money could only come out of private pockets, that is, through taxation. Finding therefore that the complications of home politics were getting quite beyond him, Choiseul resumed in 1766 the direction of foreign affairs and to a certain extent abandoned the cause of the Par- lements. There is no proof of the double dealings he is charged with, keeping up intercourse with the opposition, and re-assuring it as to the appearances of despotism that had to be resorted to, and promis- ing ultimately to sacrifice royal authority. He found war and diplomacy better suited to his abili- ties; selfishness it may have been, but not treachery. The year 1768 opens the last stage of Choiseul's ministry : the crisis became once more acute, and difficulties w-ere ever increasing". The election of Maupeou to the Chancellorship, which was at last vacant, proved to be the beginning of the end. Now at the summit of honours, he threw aside any reserve he had left; violent and open hostility to Choiseul became his leading principle. But danger now appeared from another quarter, the new royal mistress Madame du Barry. Much L2 148 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. has been said to prove that she engineered Chois- eul's fall as Madame de Pompadour caused his ad- vancement; but the desire for a neat parallel has induced many writers to exaggeration. That Choiseul, in a regard for morality which is rather startling, and urged on by his wife and sister, became the new favourite's open enemy is certain, but it is doubtful whether she ever consciously be- came very hostile to him. Madame du Barry, a fille de joie from the gutter, never interfered in politics like her predecessor; and would have been willing to make friends with Choiseul at any time. The Maupeou faction, however, found in Choiseul's attitude towards her a powerful weapon against him, and they used it in two ways, by denouncing the minister for the insult which he offered to the King, and turning to their own advantage Madame du Barry's influence over Louis XV. From this moment most contemporaries seem to have regarded the minister's fall as inevitable and near at hand. The elevation of Maupeou seemed to indicate clearly that the royal favour had turned against Choiseul, and in January, 1769, Horace Walpole was in ' constant ' and ' hourly expectation of hearing the Due de Choiseul be the victim in a change of administration.' ^ The conquest of Corsica, the temporary victory of the Turks over Russia, and the resignation of ' Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 31, 1769 {Letters, Vol VII, p. 252). THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 149 d'Aiguillon suddenly improved Choiseul's position.^ But it was only for a short time. In November ' he held, but only by a thread which was going to snap soon.'^ Maupeou was rapidly gaining ground. In December he succeeded in dismissing the Comp- troller-General Maynon d'Invau, the successor of Laverdy and a creature of Choiseul, and in appoint- ing instead the Abbe Terray. It was a great blow to Choiseul, who hoped to have a friend of his at the head of the finances; it is not impossible that he may have aspired himself to the post, however little fitted he was for it.^ He had great need of money for his foreign affairs and for the army, and Praslin for the navy; and for finances to be in the hands of the Maupeou faction meant insuperable difficulties in carrying on any enterprise. The accession of Terray to power marks the beginning of what was called the ' Triumvirate ' Maupeou, Terray and d'Aiguillon, whose double policy was to crush Choiseul and the Parlements. ^ ' M. de Choiseul carries all his points. He has taken Cor- sica, made a Pope, got the Czarina drubbed by the Turks, and has restored the Parlement to Bretagne in spite of the Duke d'Aiguillon.' — Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, July 19, 1769 {Letters, Vol. vii, p. 300). ^ Horace Walpole to Hon. Seymour Conway, Nov. 14, 1769 {Letters, Vol. vii, p. 331). " ' Pour Dieu, ne lui donnez pas le contr61e-g^n6ral ; il fricasse- rait tout en deux ans ; tout I'argent irait en gratifications, pen- sions, bienfaits, magnificences. II ne se corrigera jamais de son humeur g6n6reuse et bienfaisante.' — Voltaire, April 24, 1769 (Maugras, La Duchesse de Choiseul et le Patriarche de Ferney, p. 6). 150 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. Financial difficulties were the first battle-field, and on this Choiseul was victorious. Confronted by an almost bankrupt exchequer Terray resorted to dis- honest expedients, refusing to reimburse loans to the state, confiscating" money from the sinking fund, and reducing life annuities. He went too far when in March, 1770, he refused funds for the army and made an attack on the financial part of Choiseul's war and foreign administration. After a triumphant vindication of his own policy in a memoir to the King, Choiseul's position seemed to be assured. But appearances were deceiving. Choiseul him- self realised that he was in a precarious situation : ' I was convinced,' he says,^ ' that they would finally obtain my banishment, and thought of retiring of my own accord. But my friends pointed out that there would be more glory in being dismissed by Madame du Barry than in deserting my post and that I might perhaps checkmate some of Maupeou and Terray 's most dangerous moves.' Affairs were again in a critical condition in Brit- tany. The departure of d'Aiguillon by no means brought quiet to that unhappy province. The Parlement of Rennes refused to submit so long as La Chalotais was still in exile, and finally decided to prosecute d'Aiguillon for tyranny and maladmin- istration (March, 1770). ' It was really a matter of politics rather than of law. The question was really whether the d'Aiguillon party would be able ' M^moires, p. 235. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 151 to bring' sufficient discredit upon Choiseul to close to him the ministry for ever; and the judge was public opinion.' '■ The case was taken before the Parlement of Paris which in July, 1770, decided that d'Aiguillon should be excluded from the Chambre des Pairs until the legality of his adminis- tration in Brittany should be settled. The King answered by annulling" the whole procedure.' The storm this action raised almost baffles des- cription. Everybody was persuaded that Louis had taken this step at the instigation of Madame du Barry, ' la blanchisseuse de cet infame d'Aiguillon'^ in order to rescue the ex-governor from certain condemnation. The Parlements of Paris and the provinces again became hotbeds of disaffection, and began pouring in remonstrances; and the arrest of the leaders did not tend to quiet matters. Finally in November an edict was prepared forbidding Par- lements to discontinue their sessions, to unite in any way and to make any attempt to voice public opinion. This was only a step towards the complete dissolution of the Parlement of Paris in 1771. Meanwhile Choiseul had endeavoured to keep to a strictly neutral attitude. ' He has conducted him- ' Cruppi, Linguet, p. 212. ''C'est donner gain de cause au Parlement de Paris; c'est vous d6clarer coupable, mais coupable favoris(5, que la toute Puissance enl^ve au supplice ct non pas h I'infamie.' — Linguet to d'Aiguillon, Oct. ii, 1770 (Linguet, Mcmoire pour le Due d'Aiguillon). ^ From a contemporary skit (Vatcl, Madame du Barry, Vol. i, p. 382). 152 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. self in the affairs of the Duke d'Aiguillon with the greatest prudence,' wrote Robert VValpole, 'and has avoided dehvering his sentiments one way or the other in Council or in the Court of Peers.. . . Though he sees with a secret satisfaction the odium that the Chancellor has brought upon himself, and the difficulties in which the Duke d'Aiguillon is, his friends are not without their anxiety upon his ac- count. As yet everything has turned out as for- tunately for the Duke de Choiseul as possible. . . . However his situation appears to be very delicate, for he dares not go out of his own department to deliver his opinion and advice to His Most Christian Majesty upon the state of things, and in every re- spect his conduct is very nearly examined.' A little later the English minister thought that Choiseul ' had the probabilities and the chances in his favour, that the indiscretion, severity and intemperance of the other party might bring upon them the odium of the public and their own ruin, unless they should first succeed in their artful suggestions that the Parlements were underhand exasperated by the Duke de Choiseul, and persuade His Most Chris- tian Majesty that by sacrificing him as the instru- ment of commotion the tranquillity of the kingdom might be restored. . . . He seemed now to rely more upon his abilities and experience in his department, and his temper in not interfering with the views and actions of the new court, and the indiscretion and violence of his enemies in what concerned the Duke d'Aiguillon's affair, than on his personal THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 153 credit with His Most Christian Majesty.' ' The truth is, that Choiseul reahsed that all hopes of ultimate success were gone unless a diversion was created. This diversion he sought in foreign affairs. In that department he thought himself more secure than ever; in May, 1770, the marriage of the Dau- phin to Marie-Antoinette of Lorraine, daughter of Maria-Theresa, strengthened the Franco-Austrian alliance; and the common negotiations at Rome against the Jesuits made the Family Compact stronger than ever. Choiseul thought an European war would divert attention from internal affairs, and endeavoured to engage France in a quarrel with England. He thought he saw his opportunity in two inci- dents which, taken separately at any other time, would have probably ended without any disturb- ance of the friendly relations between France, Spain and England. At Chandernagor the East India Company took rather too hasty steps against a sup- posed infringement by the French of the agree- ment that their settlements in India were to have no fortifications. At Port-Egmont, in the Falkland Islands, the quarrels between the English and Spaniards, that had been going on since 1763, came to a head when the English commander gave a hos- tile reception to two Spanish ships and demanded a complete evacuation of the islands. 'Robert Walpole to Lord Weymouth, July 18 and Aug. 22, 1770 (Record Office, State Papers, France, Vol. 281). 154 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. If war could be declared against England, Choi- seul thought, and rightly, that his credit would be restored, for he and his cousin would become indis- pensable for war and foreign affairs, and the money needed could only be obtained by new taxes or grants, which must be assented to by the Parle- ments, who were certain first to insist upon the dismissal of Maupeou and Terray. So Choiseul resolved to transform the two quarrels mentioned above into casus belli for a double war : if France joined issue with England, Spain must take part in the contest because of the Family Compact ; which also bound France to assist Spain if she first found herself in hostility to England. It was this latter aspect of the matter that pre- dominated. Choiseul did, it is true, despatch a memoir to England to protest against her action in India. But the Falkland dispute proved more im- portant, and served his purpose better. He did not succeed at first in inducing Spain to declare war upon England. ' Both the King and his ministers,' wrote the French ambassador at Madrid, 'desire the continuation of peace; and Spain needs at least two years before she is pre- pared for war.' But the aggressive policy of the Spanish commander in the Falklands forced upon Spain the option between war or an ignominious retreat. Spain chose war.^ ' d'Ossun to Choiseul, July 23, Aug. 17, 27, 1770 (Flammcr- mon, Le Chancelier Maupeou et Ics Parlemciits, pp. 157, 159, 160). THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 155 Clioiseul had thus attained his object. But he fully realised that this war policy put him in a dangerous situation. It revived the opposition against him ; for war, involving as it did the down- fall of the Maupeou faction, was certain to be de- nounced by them with the utmost violence, as well as by the King, to whom it meant another quarrel with the Parlement. When the prosecution of the ' Triumvirate ' was delayed, the minister under- stood the need of caution and the risk of compro- mising himself in any way. Vague hints thrown out in the royal council showed him that some already accused him of inciting Spain to war, and he knew that if such a charge were proved against him his dismissal would be certain. He therefore decided to follow the advice of Grimaldi and Mercy, ^ to reverse his policy, and to try and induce Spain to accept the terms offered by England. But we may reasonably question the sincerity of those concilia- tory endeavours; if he counselled peace it was only because he knew that war was unavoidable and must include France. This new line of conduct, however, made his position at home secure and would not prevent the outbreak of the war he desired. ^ ' Jc n'ai pas lieu de douter que le Due de Choiseul ait cru que la guerre pourrait raffcrmir ct rendre son ministere n^cessaire. Aussitot que je me suis apergu de cette id^e j'en ai d6voil6 toutes les consequences k I'ambassadeur d'Espagne et, agissant de con- cert, je me flatte que nous sommes parvenus k convaincre le Due de Choiseul de la fausset6 de son calcul.'— Mercy to Maria- Theresa, Sept. 19, 1770 {Correspondance : Arneth et Geoffroi). 156 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. In October matters came to a head. Spain, eager for immediate revenge upon England, com- plained that France was making no preparations for the struggle in which the Family Compact involved her; and Choiseul was forced to bring the question before the King's Council. Strangely enough, his request for eight million livres towards the navy was not opposed, Maupeou even declaring that war was inevitable. This attitude of his enemies was doubtless caused by the hopes that Choiseul, meet- ing with no resistance, would betray himself and urge an immediate attack upon England; but he saw the trap set for him, and promised to make every possible effort to keep France at peace. Warlike preparations were nevertheless actively carried on. But the money granted for the purpose was not forthcoming, and every time Choiseul asked for it in the Council or spoke of the probability of war the King adjourned the meeting. This seemed to prove clearly that Choiseul was doomed if hos- tilities were not avoided; and confirmation came when on the 6th of December, Terray confessed of his own accord that the treasury was empty and French credit ruined. This bold avowal showed that he felt confident of royal support: if Louis kept Terray in office after such an exposure of his incapacity it meant that Choiseul had completely lost the King's favour. Terray was not dismissed ; the Council began to attack violently a treaty that made France go to war on behalf of two miserable little islands, and THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 157 the outbreak of hostilities was imminent. And still Choiseul seems to have been hopeful of his own safety, while Lord Harcourt wrote : ' The minis- ter's influence seemed to decline, but not so much as to make me give credit to a report I have just heard that the Duke de Choiseul is to be displaced in two or three days.'^ The report was quite cor- rect, however. Choiseul's enemies were straining every effort to obtain his dismissal, urging that his fall would oblige Spain to accept England's terms, and deprive the Parlement of its strongest ally. Maupeou and Terray both declared that they would at once resign if Choiseul was not removed. Louis XV had a last interview with Choiseul, and on ascertaining that war was unavoidable, exclaimed, ' I had told you I did not want war ' (Dec. 23, 1770). The next morning, at ten o'clock, the Duke de la Vrilliere gave Choiseul a note from the King, com- manding him to resign his offices as Secretary of State and Superintendent of the Postal System, and to retire to Chanteloup until further orders. The Due de Praslin was dismissed in even harsher terms. Considering that the fear of war was evidently what made Louis XV take the decisive step of dis- missing his only capable minister, it is curious to conjecture what would have taken place if a certain despatch from the French ambassador in London had arrived before instead of the day following the ' Lord Harcourt to Lord Weymouth, Dec. 16, 1770 (State Papers, France. Vol. 281). 158 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. 24th of December. Frances declared that English feeling was strong against the war, that North was bent on peace as his only chance of keeping in office, and that Weymouth had been forced to resign be- cause of his attitude of hostility towards Spain. ^ This showed that at the last minute England would have probably offered terms more acceptable to Spanish pride, and that the struggle would thus have been averted,^ so that there would have been no immediate cause for exiling Choiseul. But to return to the main issue. Put in a con- densed form, the causes of Choiseul's fall were these : fundamentally, there was the revolt of the Parlements, with one of its features, the expulsion of the Jesuits, intensified; the crisis was brought to a head by an external event, Choiseul's war plans; and there were some minor but aggravating fea- tures, such as Choiseul's hostility to Madame du Barry, his excessive power, and the general accusa- tions and attacks levelled at him. It will be well to dismiss first the subsidiary causes. Something has already been said of the vexed question of the part played by Madame du Barry. Her coming did not cause Choiseul's fall; it is probable that it did not even precipitate it; it was merely an additional, useful, but superfluous ^ Frances to Choiseul, Dec. 22, 1770 (Flammermont, Op. cit.. - As it eventually was. With Choiseul no longer in office, Spain could not hope Jfor the enforcement of the Family Com- pact ; and realising that by herself she could not cope with Eng- land, she accepted the original English terms. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 159 weapon in the hands of his enemies; she took no steps of her own deHberate will, and exercised no decisive hostile influence. What was considerably more important was the King's view of Choiseul's power, which he must have considered as almost tyrannical. At all times Louis had feared a prime minister; his years of tutelage under Fleury had in- spired him with aversion for such a rule, and almost as soon as any minister, such as Bernis, seemed on the way to supreme authority his fall became certain. Nevertheless this predominance was not a very important factor in Choiseul's fall. He had thoroughly learnt the art of making him.self indis- pensable to Louis, who, in spite of his many faults, did know a capable man when he saw one, and recognized the invaluable work done by his minis- ter in foreign affairs and national defence. "^ Had he really feared Choiseul's power, the King would have banished him long before the concentration of nearly the whole government of the state in his hands. As Maria-Theresa said,- 'the Choiseuls' indiscretions and impertinences, tolerated for so m.any years, could not be the real cause of their fall; there must be some other motive.' The same ' ' A prime minister here has very extensive power, and I am convinced that none of the Due de Choiseul's predecessors ever enjoyed it in a greater extent. He has made himself absolutely indispensable to the French King ; and though much abuse is vented in private against him, it avails but little, and I see not the least probability of his losing any ground unless war was to break out, in which case his friends seem to be apprehensive for him.' — Rochford to Chatham, Nov. 28, 1766 (Chatham Corr., Vol. Ill, p. 131). A striking prophecy ! ^ To Mercy, Jan. 4, 1771 (Correspondance, Arneth et Gcoffroi). i6o THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. can be said of the various attacks made on the minister's private and pubHc Hfe, most of which fell to the ground by their very nature, such as that of having poisoned the late Dauphin, Madame de Pompadour, and others who were supposed to ob- struct his path. Choiseul's popularity showed that these reports never found credence among the public; and were probably never seriously enter- tained by those who made them. They cannot be taken into real account when examining the causes of his fall. One is therefore driven back to the really impor- tant questions of Choiseul's home administration, his support of the Parlements and the position they took during the years 1762 to 1770. One aspect of the matter should be briefly noticed. The expulsion of the Jesuits was certainly impor- tant in that it threw against Choiseul the whole clerical party, so that it was said by some ' that the exile of the Duke de Choiseul had saved religion in France, as it was evident his scheme was to crush it out.'^ But, as has already been pointed out, this was not more than an additional and subsidiary motive ; the King was never a tool of the Jesuit faction, and the clerical party was by no means under Louis XV what it had been under Louis XIV. Choiseul fell because of a strong opposition cen- tred round the political rise of the Parlements. The ostensible cause, that made his fall certain, was the ' Mercy to Maria-Theresa, May i8, 1773 {Correspondance, Arneih et Geoffroi). THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. i6i charge brought against him of inciting the Parle- ments to revolt against royal authority. Louis XV believed the charge and thought that ' it needed the mad audacity and prestige of Choiseul to arouse those great bodies so elusive and so cumbrous, so antiquated and yet so modern, to marshal them around an idea, to march them against the mon- archy';^ and Mercy d'Argenteau said that 'the enemies of the Duke persuaded the King that he was exciting the Parlements in their disobedience, and that a rising in the kingdom might be the result if the minister was not promptly overthrown.' ' Two things troubled the King's last years, finances and the Parlements. Terray offered to rid him of the one and Maupeou of the other provided that Choiseul was dismissed.'^ Such was evidently the contemporary view. But it has been made clear that Choiseul did not incite the Parlements; that when he entered into a tacit union with them he did not expect them to carry resistance so far; and that it was the sudden con- flict in his mind between his duty to the King and his sympathies with national feeling that caused the vacillation of his policy from 1765 to the end, and prevented him from taking a definite line along which he might resist the attacks of his enemies. * One of two things was bound to happen : either a revolution in the state, transforming the Parlements ^ Vatel, Madame du Barry. Vol. i, p. 443. ^ Tocqueville, Histoire philosopJiique du regne de Louis XV. Vol. II, p. 457. M i62 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. into deliberative assemblies; or a decisive and final crushing of the resistance of those great bodies.'^ Choiseul never had the courage to choose once for all, and thus lay open to attack from both sides. There is no knowing, however, how long the question might have dragged on had not the matter of war brought the crisis to a head. ' Choiseul de- clared he was ready to keep to the Family Compact ; Louis XV, brought up in a holy terror of England's naval power, dismissed his minister.'^ In truth, it was more than that; it was ' a very vast scheme conceived and prepared as a revenge for the out- rages committed by England, and for the humiliat- ing peace she had forced upon France.'^ The wis- dom of the plan does not really matter; whether as Choiseul said, ' France was absolutely ready in all material affairs save for funds, of which she never lacked when they were really needed ' ;* or whether Choiseul was embarking France upon ' a foolhardy campaign out of which it would have been impossible to come out safe, France having against her England, Prussia and Russia, and on her side only lukewarm Austria and already crushed Tur- key,'^ had not a very vital bearing upon Louis' action; he would not hear of war in any case, and ^ De Broglie, Le Secret du Roi, Vol. ii. * Gu6rin, Histoire maritime de la France, Vol. II, p. 488. ^Journal historique, June 10, 1772 (Flammermont, Op. cit.). •'Choiseul to d'Ossun, Aug. 20, 1770 (Flammermont, Op. cit., P 158)- 5 De Broglie, Op. cit.. Vol. 11. THE JESUITS AND THE PARLEMENT. 163 when this conipHcation was added to the difficulties with the Parlements, he took the decisive step, and ahhotig'h Choiseul's warHke schemes were well thought out, it was a good thing for France that war was avoided. The cost of peace may, however, have been too great. Choiseul fell the victim of his constant policy. His support of the Parlements, although wavering towards the end, was the direct result of his prin- ciple that public opinion was really the final court of appeal in the State; and the party of opposition, based on these grounds, was certain ultimately to succeed. The crisis was hastened by the attempt at realisation of the one aim of Choiseul's foreign policy, revenge upon England. The King was naturally opposed to the rise of the Parlements, which was, if logically pursued, subversive of royal authority ; and when to this became added the terror of war he gave way. Had a moderate and wise administration succeeded, Choiseul's fall might not have been an unmitigated evil, but ' the change did not give more ability to council or more satisfaction to the people,'^ and the end of Choiseul's ministry removed the one controlling hand that might have held together a little longer the disrupted elements of the French monarchy. ^Chatham to John Calcraft, Dec. 29, 1770 (Chatham Corr., Vol. IV, p. 64). M2 CHAPTER VII. FIFTEEN YEARS OF RETIREMENT. — CONCLUSION. If adversity be the true test of a man's character, Choiseul had indeed a firm and virile mind, for he bore the blow with much fortitude and resignation. Contemporaries say that they looked in vain for signs of anger or dissatisfaction. Not indeed that he did not feel very keenly his disgrace; he was essentially a masterful man, and much regretted having to abandon his office, as a letter written, but never sent, to the King, shows. The King's harsh step immediately alienated whatever sympathies were on his side, and Choiseul became a martyr, sacrificed to the petty resentment of a royal mistress and to the jealousy of a hostile faction. His journey to Chanteloup was one trium- phant ovation, and his popularity at court and with the people became enhanced. ' His fall was the occasion for the first public manifestation against royal authority.' The prohibition issued by the King for anyone to visit Chanteloup was immediately set at naught, and visitors and friends flocked round Choiseul in his FIFTEEN YEARS OF RETIREMENT. 165 exile. ' One went to Chanteloup to purify oneself from the air of Versailles.'^ There was until the end a miniature court at the Choiseuls' stately man- sion ; and * never did favour make a minister as celebrated as this disgrace.'^ But if his personal influence and popularity were still as great as before, if he still retained the regard of his old friends, including the Queen and Maria- Theresa,^ his political importance was indeed gone. The Maupeou faction went into ofifice, and d'Aiguil- lon took the direction of foreign affairs; and they were not satisfied until they had stripped the fallen minister of the last shred of distinction he had to lose, the position of Colonel of the Swiss Guard : his resignation was demanded and at once given (1771). But as Besenval says, 'there are some people whom fortune always favours. A grandson of the King (the Comte d'Artois) did not fear to ask for the place, and Choiseul had the satisfaction of seeing him compelled to withdraw, with the mor- tification which follows the miscarriage of some pet scheme. The only advantage d'Aiguillon, the prin- cipal author of the intrigue, reaped was the increase of his unpopularity.' For three and a half years this semi-regal exile was maintained at Chanteloup. Then in 1774 Louis XV died. ^ Paulin de Chanrobert, Notice sur le Due de Choiseul. ^ Mcmoires de Lauzun, p. 103. ' J'userai avec toute la circonspection de la permission que me donne votre Majesty de faire savoir qu'elie continue sa haute protection et ses graces aux Choiseul.' — Mercy d'Argenteau to Maria-Theresa, Feb. 25, 1771 {Correspotidance, Arneth et Geoff roi). i66 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. It was only natural that Choiseul should hope to see a revival of his good fortune. The daughter of Maria-Theresa was now upon the throne, and several years had elapsed since Choiseul had quar- relled with the present King. After many delays, the sentence of exile was indeed revoked, and Choi- seul returned to Paris, ^ ' where he was welcomed as our Lord was at Jerusalem,' said a contemporary." His return to Paris naturally excited hopes in the minds of his friends that, having the Queen's sup- port, he might be recalled to office.^ But this was not to be ; and although the ' Triumvirate ' was dis- missed, to all requests and solicitations Louis XVI answered ' that he did not want that man's name mentioned,' and not even in the direst stress of sub- sequent years was there ever any serious discussion of Choiseul's claims to come to the help of the tot- tering monarchy. The truth was that matters were in such a state that a minister with a very strong policy like Choi- seul might prove dangerous. As it was said, 'the difficulties in Poland and Turkey would not have ^' M. de Choiseul re9ut Vendredi lo de ce mois la permission de venir faire sa cour ; il arriva dimanche 12 a 8 heures du soir ; il fut le lendemain lundi k 9 heures du matin k la Muette ou il fut tr^s bien regu ; il revint diner et souper k Paris et partit le mardi k 8 heures du matin pour Chanteloup ou il ^tait attendu pour souper. '—Mme. du Dcffand to Voltaire, June 10, 1774 (Maugras, La Disgrdce du Due de Choiseul). ' Maugras, Op. cit., p. 301. ^ ' Le Due de Choiseul est ici, ct cela fait beaucoup de bruit. Ja ne serais pas du tout surpris s'il reprend les renes, car (passez- moi le jeu de mots) il a d6]k la reine.' — Horace Walpole to Hon. il. S. Conway, Oct. 6, 1775 (Letters, Vol. ix, p. 263). FIFTEEN YEARS OF RETIREMENT. 167 passed off quietly had the Due de Choiseul been at the head of affairs.'^ He was not the man to restore to France a sound financial system ; and would have prematurely involved her in wars that would have proved disastrous. Disappointed in his hopes of oflfice, Choiseul re- turned to Chanteloup and sought to solace his exile by writing on current political matters, such as free commerce in corn, and publishing short memoirs on various parts of his career. In 1777 he entered into some intrigues against the ministry which never had any practical results. His last years were troubled by financial distress, the natural conse- quence of his extravagant mode of life. Already in 1 77 1 he had been in sore straits and had had to sell much plate and many pictures ; a crisis was reached in 1784, when his house in Paris had to be sold; even a loan of four million livres from the King proved insufficient, and Chanteloup had to be parted with. The grief this supreme loss caused probably hastened Choiseul's end; in April, 1785, he fell ill of inflammation of the lungs, and died on the 8th of May. In accordance with his will, he was buried at Amboise. So passed Choiseul. ' Le Due de Choiseul est mort; il n'y a pas grand mal,' wrote Frederick the Great. But in France 'the death of the King would not have caused a greater stir,'- and he re- ^ Pichler, secretary to Maria-Theresa, to Mercy, July 4, 1775 {Correspondance, Arneth ct Geoffroi). * Maugras, La Disgrdce du Due de Choiseul, p. 14. i68 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. ceived in his death the tribute so many denied him during his Hfe. Of his private life there is httle to be said. Soldier, courtier or minister, he was always the same, a typical eighteenth century French noble- man. ' Small, reddish-haired, almost ugly, he never- theless had a most winning countenance, and his appearance alone told in his favour. His anima- tion, his dazzling wit made him irresistible. No- body has ever possessed as he did the genius of attractiveness ; his frank and gracious manner won him all hearts. " He is as charming as ever; it is only in him that grace, tact, gaiety are to be found; apart from him everything is stupid, extravagant, pedantic." '^ His faults were as typical of his times as his qualities. Even for a licentious age, Choiseul led a notoriously immoral life, and acted throughout upon the precept that conjugal fidelity was only fit for mere bourgeois. Nevertheless, his home life was happy; he had a sincere affection for his wife, who worshipped her husband to the day of her death. He made many faithful friends, chief among whom was Voltaire; but when the philosopher felt himself bound to take Maupeou's part against the Parlements, Choiseul considered it as a personal insult and never forgave him. His servants were devoted to him ; he won the regard of all the various ^ Maugras, Le Due et la Duchesse de Choiseul, p. 395. FIFTEEN YEARS OF RETIREMENT. 169 foreign statesmen he had to deal with; in truth, ah those who ever were in personal contact with him came under his spell. But all his qualities were strongly coloured by a boundless belief in himself, his talents and his powers; conceit, justified, per- haps, was engrained in him; and his friends were rather his admirers, refusing, perhaps unable, to see his faults, and regarding him as the incarnation of French genius. This same self-reliance is very marked in the public aspect of Choiseul's charcter. He could brook no superior; he even disliked having to let subordinates do any part of his work, and went so far as to resent strongly the King's interference in politics. Louis should have been a mere figure- head; and this explains Choiseul's ingratitude to a monarch who, despicable enough in himself, had nevertheless been the author of his rapid advance- ment and immense power. In 1765 and 1769 he wrote to Louis with protestations of devotion and affection : ' Through your kindness. Sire, I have been the most successful man of your reign; not a day passes without my remembering the extent of your benefits towards me. The total abandonment of my person to your will is the least sacrifice I owe to my gratitude and sincere attachment to your Majesty.' But after his fall he wrote that the King was 'a man without a soul or mind; loving evil, with all the defects of the vilest and darkest soul, but lacking the power to make his vices burst forth; he would have liked, but dared not, to set Paris on 170 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. fire as Neio did Rome, and to go and watch public executions on the Place de la Greve.'^ This ingratitude to the King went with a great diiticulty to recognize the merits of anybody, or at least of any politician. Every one of his rivals at home was to Choiseul a villain of the deepest dye; he could not see any true ability in any of his sub- ordinates, and his attitude towards Frederick the Great is typical of what he thought of his enemies. In truth, he was not a good judge of men, the most striking instance of this being his selection of the commanders for the Kourou colony expedition ; and this inability to choose good servants and entrust them fully with the carrying out of his schemes was one of the chief reasons why their execution so often failed. Their conception, however, was brilliant and, even when somewhat daring, sound. Choiseul had original ideas on every department of state, and had he had time and means to carry them out fully, he might have done a great work. But they were vitiated by the critical condition of the age in which he lived, by the danger of making experiments, and by the difficulty of obtaining sufficient resources for them. Towards the intellectual revolution of the eigh- teenth century he was very sympathetic without giving it complete adherence. He looked with favour upon the growth of philosophy and free thought; he believed in religious toleration, and ^ Mdmoires, pp.216, 447. FIFTEEN YEARS OF RETIREMENT. 171 even made an attempt in that direction in 1764, which was checked, however, by St. l^lorentin and the bishops; his wife was the leader of a semi- atheistic movement among the ladies at court. He typified the new genre in French nobility, gener- ally sceptical, inclined towards the new theories of Rousseau and his school as long as they were not put into practice, faithful subjects of the King as long as they were dependent on him, but in sym- pathy at heart with the English idea of constitu- tional monarchy; with a boundless belief in their own capabilities, and looking upon the bourgeoisie with a somewhat contemptuous pity, not unmixed with fear as to its future. ' The Duke de Choiseul is one of the most in- teresting figures in the eighteenth century; he em- bodied most of the qualities and vices of his time, and it can be said of him that he was not only the man, but also the minister of his century. He dazzled his contemporaries by showing to them triumphant and glorified in his person the quality they made the most of, wit; and he had the rare good fortune to see his popularity survive his power. When he fell, France was stirred, philo- sophy sang his praises, and he was hailed as great by the most considerable or at least the most noisy part of public opinion. History has not yet passed on him a final judgment, and it would be difficult for her to do so ; in that ministry, not to say in that reign so fertile in initiatives of all kinds, good and evil, one mixed to such an extent that it may seem 172 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. equally unjust to number oneself among the apolo- gists of Choiseul as among his detractors.' In M. Vandal's brilliant summary of Choiseul's career the statement that Choiseul was the minister of his century is worth considering in more detail. In the eyes of one of his contemporaries, Besenval, ' all that was wanting to put Choiseul in the first rank among ministers was for him to have appeared at some other period than the confused end of the reign of Louis XV,' but Montbarey thought Choi- seul was one of those people who came in the nick of time, and adds that to be born at the right time is often the secret and the real cause of many a brilliant career. From the standpoint of European politics the former judgment is better warranted by facts. It was Choiseul's misfortune to have to lead a weak nation allied to a decadent country against two rapidly-extending powers commanded by two of the greatest military and political geniuses the world has known. Both France and Austria had insuffi- cient resources and little reserve forces to fall back upon in the time of need, whilst Prussia, and to a great extent England, were inspired by the energy and confidence of national youth. And Choiseul was not a genius of the calibre of his two oppo- nents. He was indeed an astute diplomatist and a capable minister, but he lacked the divine spark that inspired his rivals. In being called upon to with- stand such redoubtable foes he could bemoan his misfortune in not having lived some ten years later FIFTEEN YEARS OF RETIREMENT. 173 as regards England, and some thirty years later as regards Prussia. But France could esteem herself happy that at a critical moment a man arose endued with an exten- sive, if not a very intensive, talent. At a time when she had no diplomatists, generals, admirals, ad- ministrators, either at home or abroad, she found a man who could conduct her diplomacy, rebuild her army and her navy, re-establish her colonies and control the government. And Choiseul himself was fortunate in having come on the scene when a man of all-round ability was wanted, and when there was no one of overwhelming genius to overshadow him. His versatility, however, prevented him from reaching true excellence in any of his undertakings. His military and naval reforms were never properly put into execution; his colonial policy suffered throughout from his lack of personal knowledge; he never truly understood until it was too late what was the real issue between the King and the Par- lements. In his foreign policy the same failure is visible to obtain a thorough mastery of one single aspect of the problems he had to face. He passed from the Austrian alliance to the Family Compact ; then turned his attention towards England and America, was startled into bewildered interference by the suddenness of events in Poland, and in the last months of his ministry reverted in vain to his former schemes against England. The truth is that two opposite principles struggled for mastery in his mind : the one was based on a misconception of 174 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. European politics; he did not realise the Prussian peril and the insatiable ambition of Frederick. It was still in Austria that he saw the enemy of German liberties; he did not understand that she was fast losing her place as a first-class power. Wishing therefore that France should retain her control over German affairs he considered the per- petuation of the Austrian alliance the best means of accomplishing such an end. At the same time, however, he saw as in a vision the possibilities for France of naval and colonial expansion, and their consequence : a life and death struggle with England. He was thus constantly divided between the continent and the sea ; and this hesitation gives the key to the apparent incon- sistencies of his policy, explains his alternating between the alliance with Austria and that with Spain, between peace and extensive schemes for war campaigns. What Choiseul failed to realise was that the two principles of his policy were contradictory and mutually exclusive, that France could not be both the guarantor of the treaties of Westphalia and England's rival in America and Africa. Not con- centrating his whole powers and those of France on one of these objects, he failed to attain either. There is much to be said, however, in defence of Choiseul. In the first place he inherited a double policy : had he wanted to he could not get rid either of the Austrian alliance, or of the French attempt to keep Canada and the American fisheries. FIFTEEN YEARS OF RETIREMENT. 175 He was thus bound by the actions of his predeces- sors. It may next be urged that the insecurity of his position at home prevented him from adopting a bold or energetic pohcy. His credit rested to a very great extent on that of Madame de Pompa- dour ; this made him all powerful as long as it lasted, but if it was to disappear the minister was sure to fall with the favourite, and throughout Choiseul's tenure of office there were reasons for thinking this might happen any day .Finally, the internal condition of France, the state of her finances, the incompetence of her generals, must be taken into consideration : and for these Choiseul cannot be held responsible. Besides, his work was not one huge failure. He could have echoed Pitt's words as to his being the saviour of his country, and although his capabilities were not equal to Chatham's, he proved not un- worthy of his great rival. He was able to do some- thing for France in every department at home, on every continent abroad, at a time when inertia and neglect had hitherto been the watchwords of her ministers; he helped to restore French diplomacy from the discredit into which it was in danger of falling; and thus saved his country from utterly sinking into insignificance. This was his great work. Choiseul had found France embarking, when it was already too late, upon the dilhcult course of following a new foreign policy, and this under a weak minister. He took in hand the diplomatic and military conduct of the 176 THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL. war itself, saved France from being overwhelmed in the continental struggle, directed her attention to her real danger, without however enabling her to regain the ground she had lost, secured for her a new ally and reasonable terms of peace, fortified her coasts and frontiers, strengthened her army, increased her fleet in numbers and efficiency, and showed her that colonial expansion was the true aim of her policy. He left her with much of her former prestige restored, and well-prepared to take revenge upon England; which revenge he was to see without fulfilling his hope of taking an active part in it. He gave France a renewal of greatness and power, temporary indeed and brief, but real and fruitful. Surely he deserved well of his country. IL ETONNA l'eUROPE PAR SON GENIE, LA PERSUADA PAR SA FRANCHISE, LA PACIFIA PAR SA SAGESSE. 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