been published, in the beginning of this year. The second copy was found among the papers of a Mr. Souchai, who gave a complete edition of the works of Pelisson. It is in Pelisson's hand-writing, like the former; and was a present from the librarian, who received the first from the Duke de Noailles. The other copy was given in 1786, by Louis XVI. to General Grimoard, among several other papers of the same nature, with directions to arrange the whole for the instruction of his children. We purpose reserving for the conclusion of this article our reflections on the works and character of Louis XIV.; but we cannot resist placing here the opinion entertained of both, by his ill-fated successor. When Louis XVI, says M. Grimoard, (advertisement to Vol. III.) ordered me to prepare an edition of the Memoirs of Louis XIV, he told me, that notwithstanding the respect due to his memory, I was not to dissemble either his faults, or his imperfections; that, for instance, he had conceived an exaggerated idea of true greatness, which made him continually assume a stately deportment, little short of theatrical representation; that, on the other hand, continual flattery had rendered him vain; that this vanity appeared too frequently in his writings; and particularly in his military memoirs; and that, as the work he intrusted to me, was intended for the education of his children, and that mankind, especially in a tender age, had, unfortunately a stronger propensity to follow evil, than good examples, he would feel obliged to me, (these were the King's expressions) to place in their proper light, those foibles of Louis XIV; thereby pointing out how much greater he would have been in reality, and how much more respectable in the eyes of posterity, if scorning pride, which produces only ridicule and humiliation, he had better known the distinction between inflated pomp and that noble, simple and dignified greatness, so necessary for the maintenance of sovereign power. The fate of Louis XVI. demonstrates that these sentiments are more amiable than useful in a King of France. Louis XIV. understood the nation he had to govern better than his more virtuous descendant; his dazzling qualities, many of them immoral and pernicious, secured their blind obedience. We need not ex patiate here on the dreadful consequences which followed the less politic, though more honourable conduct of the last monarch. The collection before us, is divided into five parts: the first, under the title of Mémoires historiques, given by the editor to the memoirs for the instruction of the Dauphin, contains the most remarkable events of Louis XIV.'s reign, from 1661 to 1668; with appropriate reflexions, for the use of his son. The second is composed of Mémoires historiques et militaires; it is a connected series of relations, with proper documents, of Louis XIV.'s campaigns, from 1667 to 1694. Select letters to various persons form the third. The fourth includes an inconsiderable number of literary productions, entitled to notice only from the character of their author. The fifth and last part does not properly belong to the King; the editor in consequence has entitled it, Additions to the Works of Louis XIV: it contains historical documents, some never published before, others but little known, at least in France, of which a part is translated from Dalrymple's Memoirs, a work well known among us, but not better than it deserves to be. In considering the various topics contained in this collection, we shall of course pay particular attention to those transactions which concern this country; following the chain of events, rather than the order of their distribution in the volumes. We may also add, that setting nationality aside, they certainly form the most interesting part of the work, and fully justify, as far as they go, Dalrymple's representations. Never did the Roman senate more despotically dispose of its tributary kings, and its creatures, than Louis XIV. disposed of Charles II. King of England, from 1668, to his death in 1684. No moral sentiment had sufficient power to repress in him that unfortunate propensity to venality, which derived a constant stimulus from the baseness of his manners. He was, notwithstanding, kept for a time within certain bounds, by the influence of his chancellor, the respectable Clarendon, whom France, not expecting to seduce, endeavoured to ruin with his master. The disgrace of this minister left Charles surrounded only by profligate parasites, and free to obey the infamous dictates of his greedy passions. first he seems to have followed the usual At tactics of those parliamentary orators, who, by a bold and direct attack, attempt to appear at the same time dangerous and useful to those whom they invite to bid for them. By his treaty with the Dutch, Charles gave Louis to understand that he must be feared, or be bought, but at the same instant he demands an explanation; apprehensions vanish, and Louis hastens to meet him half way. From that moment we behold the French monarch entangling the English King in his toils, tampering with him incessantly, and dexterously making the most of his bargain. Purse in hand, Louis dictates such treaties as suit his ambitious views: Louis dictates, Charles subscribes. No less than eight such treaties occur; secret, negociated by women, by ministers of different factions, by catholics, by protestants; some genuine, others only ostensible; some written in Charles's own hand, for security; others too dangerous to be entrusted to paper, but confided to verbal conventions known only to the parties. The conferences, correspondence, sidesteps, and manoeuvres by which those unlawful conventions were effected, exceed whatever can be found in history. What a strange pair of characters do these two Kings present! Incessantly tormented by the distresses and cupidity which attend a prodigal, one exerts all his powers to convert whatever he possesses into money; his personal character, political and religious, the laws and institutions of his country, the liberty and existence of his allies the Hollanders, the spoils of Spain, the fate of Europe; after he had parted with Dunkirk, it is said, that he even attempted to derive a profit from his empty title as King of France! For a few millions of livres, argent comptant, he covenants to declare himself a catholic; he concurs in the destruction of a country wherein he had repeatedly found an asylum; he promotes the extension of an unjust power, already too extensive; and, in spite of his convictions to the contrary, he becomes himself the slave, and would have reduced his country to slavery, to a monarch whose ambition he could not but dread, and whose tyranny he could not but feel, had not his soul been rendered callous by the urgency of his necessities. Forced by the indignation of Europe and of his country to renounce his first alliance, he devises pretexts to retain the profits of it; he attempts to cajole his associate by offers of service; he endeavours to actuate his fears; threatens to call a parliament; receives cash, and engages to govern without a parliament he wants a fixed salary, and obtains it! A King of England receives a fixed salary from a King of France! His people detect the engagement, and oblige him to break it; he pretends a mistake in the accounts, affects to be angry, threatens, is pacified, renews his negociations, and degrades himself by a third alliance;-and this, while the rest of Europe is resisting the inordinate concupiscence of the common oppressor. The taking of Luxembourg by Louis, was a million of livres hush-money to Charles ;-even the factions of his kingdom, the dissatisfaction of his people, the dangers, real or imaginary, which he foresaw or pretended, were all converted by him to motives of pecuniary advantage! But in this strange traffic, the part acted by Louis is no less extraordinary. Rejoicing in the vicious habits which held Charles enslaved, he adds fuel to his passions, selects the most beautiful woman of his kingdom to gratify his wishes; and the Most Christian King even makes a settlement on the issue to which this illicit connection may give birth! He enthralls his friend in a treaty, which to publish would ensure his ruin; then threatens him with the publication, to make him feel his dependency. He pensions the King, pensions the courtiers, pensions the factions which opposed the court; he threatens the court with the vehemence of the factions; the guilty court shrinks from the too hazardous ordeal. The very man whom he had employed to pay Charles for declaring himself a catholic, is the very man who urges him to exile his brother for a similar declaration. The support of the catholic party had been the pretence of both Charles and Louis in their mutual engagements; yet the Test, that mortal blow to the English catholics, is the work of a cabal excited by the pious monarch, the eldest son of the church of Rome : At one time money is lavished to enable Charles to govern without a parliament; at another it is distributed among the popular parties to rouse the passions of the parliament against their sovereign. The Prince who had urged the duty of disregarding the British constitution, and of assuming absolute monarchy, agitates the three kingdoms with resistance to authority, and excites the Presbyterians of Scotland, the Catholics of Ireland, the Whigs of London, and even the remnant of Cromwell's adherents, the exiled republicans, to opposition, fierce opposition! When Louis had, by dint of money, obtained the junction of Charles against the Dutch, in a most secret treaty, he immediately acquaints his enemies with this new compact, and they hasten to render it useless, by signing the peace of Nimeguen. Afterwards, when the friendship of Charles became useless, through the remonstrances of his subjects, who detested the alliance; when Charles was obliged to suspend his intercourse and abandon his friendship, Louis sought revenge in rendering his former intimate infamous, and caused to be secretly printed at Paris, a detailed account of his most guilty and private transactions; of the treaty of Dover, that polluted, but prolific, source of so many shameful bargains, and so many disgraceful engagements! This nefarious traffic is but too fully proved by the documents published by Dalrymple, and by others in the present collection. We shall give in Louis's own words the history of the part he took in the marriage of Charles II. and his own statement of his motives on that occasion. 1661. "I could not doubt but that the Spaniards had been the first to infringe, in thousand ways, the treaty of the Pyrenées; and I would have thought myself wanting in proper attention for the welfare of my realms, had 1, by keeping it more scrupulously than themselves, allowed them the liberty of conquering Portugal; for they would then have attacked me with their united force, regardless of the tranquillity of Europe, to oblige me to restore what I had acquired by that treaty. The clauses by which I was pre vented from assisting that yet tottering power, were so extraordinary, and so numerous, that it was evidently never expected that I would execute them; and I thought myself bound no farther by them, than to afford assistance to that country only in cases of necessity, with reserve, and moderation, which might be done the easier through the medium and under the name of the King of England, if We learn by a letter from Pelisson, that the King complained of six and twenty arti cles of that treaty being left unfulfilled, but he quotes none of these infractions, which proves that they were but slight. he was once brother-in-law to the King of Portugal. "I accordingly neglected nothing to bring about that marriage; and, as money is in general very powerful in that court, as English ministers had been often suspected of being in the pay of Spain, and as chancellor Hyde, a very able man for managing the interior affairs of that kingdom, seemed to have a great influence over the King, I opened a very secret negociation with him, unknown even to my ambassador in England. I sent over to him a very clever man,† under pretence of purchasing lead for my buildings, and I gave him a credit of 500,000 livres, (about 40,0001. sterling, from the value of silver in that time) which he offered to that minister, in return for his friendship only. But that chancellor refused my offers; and in so doing he had the greater merit, as he owned to my envoy, that he was himself favourable to that marriage, as being advanta geous to the King his master, to whom he afterwards privately introduced him. "The Spaniards, on the other hand, were proposing to the King of England the Princess of Parma, with a portion equal to that of an Infanta of Spain; and when I had effected the rejection of this proposition, they offered him the daughter of the Prince of Orange, with the same advantages; regardless of their boasted zeal for the faith, and not considering, that to give a protestant queen to that country, was depriving the catholics of the only consolation, and the only support, they could expect. But I managed things in such a way, that this proposition was rejected like the first; and even accelerated the conclusion of what I had wished for, with Portugal, and its Infanta." In order to connect two transactions of great importance between Louis XIV. and Charles II. we shall here insert the particulars of the sale of Dunkirk, although of the year following, 1662. We have never seen it so fully detailed; and Cromwell's first negociations for the acquisition of that place seem to have been utterly unknown to political writers. This extract may, at the same time, serve as a specimen of the style and composition of this famous monarch. "Few people have known by what chain of events this considerable place This marriage was agreed upon that year, but the ceremony was not performed till some time afterwards. + La Bastide de la Croix, employed before in negociations with Cromwell. This affair was afterwards managed and concluded by Count d'Estrades, French ambassador in London. if once more brought into power. passed into the hands of the English, during ster from whom he might expect any thing, the ministry of cardinal Mazarin. We must go back for this to the times of my minority, and to those troubles which twice compelled that minister to leave the kingdom. "Cromwell, from his genius, from the circumstances and misfortunes of his country, had imbibed notions far above his birth. At first a subaltern officer in the rebellious army of the Parliament, then a general, and afterwards Protector of the Commonwealth, secretly wishing for the title of King while he openly refused it in public; elevated by those successes which had crowned all his enterprises, he deemed nothing, however great, above his pretensions, either in his island or out of it. The multiplicity of his affairs at home, did not prevent him from considering the troubles of my kingdom as a favourable opportunity for obtaining a footing in France, by means of some considerable establishment, which would be to his advantage, whether the kingly power was finally settled in his person, and in his posterity, or whether the caprices of the people, and of fortune, which had raised him so high, should in return occasion his downfall. He knew in what manner almost all the governors of towns treated Cardinal Mazarin : and that there was hardly any other fidelity among my subjects, than what was purchased by money, or by marks of honour according to the price each individual set upon himself. He sent the colonel of his guards to Count D'Estrades, governor of Dunkirk, to induce him to take into his consideration the present state of things; and, to avail himself of it for his own advantage, he offered him as high as two millions (of livres) to be paid either in Amsterdam, or in Venice, if he would deliver him the town; promising, at the same time, never to make peace with France without obtaining for him whatever dignities and employments he might expect. He added, that the affairs of the Cardinal his benefactor, who had given him that command, were irretrievably lost; that there was no likelihood that this minister could ever by his own forces reassume the ministry, or even return into the country, as a price had been set on his head: that he could not alone afford him effectual assistance, however he might retain possession of Dunkirk, but that he would share in his downfall. That if, however, he was determined to carry to extremes his affection and his gratitude towards him, he should seize this occasion of serving him, by making use of, perhaps, the only way his good fortune had still reserved for him that he might at all events, on condition of surrendering Dunkirk to the English, offer the two millions to the Cardinal, with such assistance in troops, as would be necessary to establish him in France; that he would thus highly recommend himself to that mini The conduct of D'Estrades was highly praise-worthy; for, after compelling this envoy to make his propositions before a council of war, and afterwards to sign them, he sent him back to Cromwell with his answer: he complained in it, of having been thought capable of such a breach of trust, as that of surrendering the town upon any orders but mine; that all he could do, was to propose to myself the condition of the two millions, with a close alliance between the two countries, by which the Protector should bind himself to attack the Spaniards by sea and by land; to furnish me with 10,000 foot, and 2,000 horse, to assist me in making war against them in Flanders; to keep thrity men of war on the coast, during the six summer months, and fifteen in winter, to cruize at sea; and to act together according to the plan which might be jointly agreed upon. Cromwell accepted these proposititons, which were immediately sent to me by D'Estrades, at Poictiers, where I then was: I received them two days only, after the return of Cardinal Mazarin. This minister considered them as being very advantageous for his maxim was, to provide, at any rate, for present exigencies; well convinced that the remedy to future evils would be found in futurity itself. But the keeper of the seals, Chateauneuf, whom the troubles had caused to be reinstated, prevailed in the council, with the Queen my mother, and procured the absolute rejection of these terms. Cromwell, on that very day he received this answer, signed a treaty with the Spaniards, and furnished them with 10,000 men, and 25 men of war, for the siege of Dunkirk and Gravelines; which were, in consequence, taken from me the same year; one at the end of May, the other on the 22d of September, but both were retained by the Spaniards. My authority being however strengthened in the country, and factions which had been long fomented, being dissipated, the Spaniards were a short time after hardly able to resist the efforts of my arms in Flanders. Cromwell, who had joined them only for that particular enterprise, and who ever since had greatly risen in Europe, both in power and in consideration, saw his friendship courted at the same time by them and by me. They saw in him their last and only resource, to retrieve their affairs in Flanders; and I considered him as the only possible obstacle to the progress of mine; at a time when the conquest of the whole of these provinces appeared to me almost certain, unless I obtained my own terms of peace. Cromwell, who had never lost sight of his plan to obtain a considerable post on this side of the sea, was still unwilling to support either party but on that condition; he was at the same time proposing to the Spaniards, to join them in the war, and to take Calais, provided it should be delivered to him, which proposal they were ready to accept with pleasure; and offering to me on the same terms to besiege Dunkirk, but when taken to keep it in his own hands. Cardinal Mazarin, who was no stranger to this proposal, and who had formerly approved of it, when Dunkirk was in the hands of the French, was of course, strongly inclined to it now; and though I was at first averse, I at last gave up the point; not only because I greatly valued his advice, but also from the essential advantage I saw in it for the war in Flanders; and from the imperious necessity of choosing the smaller of two evils. And, indeed, since the English were to obtain footing in France, there was no great difficulty in determining whether it was preferable to have them as friends, or as foes; and to run the risk of losing Calais, part of my possessions, or to promise them Dunkirk, which did not belong to me. It was then, in virtue of this agreement, that after having retaken Dunkirk, I delivered it to the English, and it is not to be doubted, but that their alliance with me was the last blow, which prevented Spain from being able to defend herself; and which procured a peace so glorious, and so advantageous for me. always be a ready asylum for the rebellious; would afford that nation the means of establishing intelligences in the whole country: and particularly among those naturally connected with them, by the common interest of religion. In giving up Dunkirk, I did not perhaps purchase too dearly the advantages I reaped from the peace of the Pyrenees; but, that once obtained, it is certain I could not make too great sacrifices to recover that town. this I was, indeed, already determined; but it did not then appear an easy undertaking. On However, as the first step towards any enterprise is, to think it possible; so early as the year 1661, when I again sent D'Estrades to England, I gave him a most express charge, carefully to study whatever might conduce 10 this purpose, and to make it his main busi ness. The King of England, recently re-established on his throne, was in the greatest want of money to maintain himself. I knew by the state of his revenue, and of his expenditure, that there was an irremediable deficiency of two or three millions of livres yearly; for the essential defect in the constitution of that monarchy, is, that the Prince cannot raise extraordinary supplies without Parliament; nor can he keep his Parliament assembled, without greatly lessening his authority, as the example of the last King had abundantly proved. Hyde, the Chancellor, had always been sufficiently well disposed towards France: at this time he felt his credit with the King daily lessening, though it was not yet perceived he saw in the kingdom a powerful cabal, hostile to him; which reduced him the more to the necessity of seeking friends and protectors in foreign courts: from all these considerations combined, he was inclined to oblige me, whenever my interests and those of the King his master could coincide. I own however, that the detention of the town in the hands of the English, gave me a good deal of uneasiness. I thought, that the catholic religion was interested in the circumstance; I recollected, that they were the ancient and inveterate foes of France, which had been saved from them only by a miracle. That their first establishment in Normandy, had cost us a hundred years of war, and the second in Guienne three hundred; during all which time, war was always waging in the centre, and at the expense of the kingdom, to such a degree, that we thought ourselves happy, when we could make peace, and send the English home with large sums of money for the damage they had committed; and this they had been brought to consider as a fixed revenue, or a settled tribute. I knew very well that times were changed; but I knew also that they might change again; and I was hurt at the very idea, that my most remote successors might reprcach me one day with As to D'Estrades, he used to approve having been the cause of such great evils, every thing proposed, remarking only some should they ever be exposed to them. Without inconveniencies in the situation; and above extending conjectures so far into futurity, I all, the vast sums necessary to expend in garknew what e mcus sums the town of Ca- risoning that town, and keeping it in repair; lais, the last they had possessed, had cost insomuch, that Cardinal Mazarin, who knew France, by the wasteful incursions of the it from experience, had often doubted whegarrison, and by the facility it had afforded to ther it were advantageous for France to posdescents. I knew, that this post, or any sess. Dunkirk, had it been possible. The other in the kingdom, in their hands, wouldKing answered to this, that he might very · D'Estrades, in execution of my orders, and dexterously availing himself of the free and familiar access he always had to the Prince, easily introduced the subject of Dunkirk in their private conversations. The King, who then used to say that he intended making it his chief military establishment, willingly discoursed with him on that subject, as to a man who might give him useful information, he having been a long time governor of that town. |