Opinion of Fenelon.

at Frankfort in 1658, to which Louis XIV acceded, and which was intended to secure the neutrality of the empire in the war which still continued between France and the Spanish branch of the house of Austria.

The principle of intervention in order to maintain the balance of power is stated with great accuracy, and at the same time great moderation, by Fenelon in his Examen de la Conscience sur les Devoirs de la Royauté written for the instruction of his pupil the duke of Burgundy. In this work he cites, as an example of the cases in which the principle became applicable, the undue aggrandizement of the house of Austria under Charles V. and his successor Philip II. who after having conquered Portugal sought to make himself master of England. Supposing his right to the English crown to have been as incontestible, as it was manifestly unfounded, Fenelon asserts the right of Europe to prevent the addition of the British islands to the vast dominions of Spain, Italy, Flanders, and the East and West Indies, which together with his immense naval power, would have enabled him to dictate laws to all the other states of Christendom. "A particular right of succession or donation," says he, "ought to yield to the natural law of security for so many nations. In one word whatever disturbs the equilibrium, so as to render imminent the danger of universal monarchy, cannot be just even when founded on the written laws of a particular country. The reason is that these laws established by one people cannot prevail against the natural law of the general liberty and safety written upon the hearts of all the other nations of the world. When a given power is manifestly rising to that point in the scale of nations where all the neighboring powers combined would be incapable of opposing effectual resistance, they have a right to unite together for the purpose of preventing this aggrandizement before it is too late to defend their common independence. But to render such an alliance lawful, the danger must be imminent and real. In general, a defensive alliance only, is, in such a case, allow

able; and it can only be rendered offensive where the aggressive design renders it indispensably necessary; and even in such cases the treaties of offensive alliance ought to specify with great exactness the objects of the league so as not to destroy a power under the pretext of moderating it.

"Defensive leagues are then just and necessary when they are truly designed to prevent the undue aggrandizement of a particular power so as to endanger the general safety. The power in question has no right to consider such an alliance as a ground of hostility, since it is formed in the exercise both of a right and a duty on the part of the contracting states.

"As to an offensive alliance, it depends upon circumstances: it must be founded upon some positive infraction of the existing peace, the invasion of an ally's territory, or some other ground of peril equally certain and imminent. Even in such a case, as I have already observed, such treaties should be restrained within such limits as may prevent, what is but too often seen that a particular nation may unite with others to abate, the aggrandizement of one power which threatens the establishment of universal tyranny merely in order to take its place."g

After laying down these general principles, he proceeds to apply them practically to regulate the policy of Europe, and inculcates the system France ought, in his opinion, to pursue in her relations with the neighboring states; a system very different from that actually pursued by Louis XIV. His natural and reasonable policy would seem to have been to preserve the preponderance of France over both branches of the house of Austria, as secured by the peace of Westphalia and that of the Pyréneés, instead of seeking to disturb the state of possession established by those treaties. His ambitious projects threatened the in

Oeuvres de Fenelon, tom. III. p. 361. ed. 1835.

dependence of Holland, and with it, the security of Germany and the Spanish Netherlands. The coalition of the Empire, Spain and the United Provinces, against France was dissolved in 1678 by the peace of Nimiguen, which secured to the latter a considerable accession of territory, and planted the seeds of another war which broke out in 1689. The revocation of the edict of Nantz, 1682, produced a reaction against the Catholic principle represented by Louis XIV. His alliance with James II. for the purpose of rendering that monarch absolute and establishing the Catholic religion in England, precipitated the revolution of 1688, which seated the Stadtholder of Holland on the English throne by the choice of the nation. The accession of England to the league of Augsburg completed the confederacy of the Protestant states of Europe with the Catholic house of Austria, including both its German and Spanish branches, against the new danger with which Europe was menaced from that power which under Henry IV. and Richelieu had saved it from the universal monarchy of that same house of Austria. William III. placed himself at the head of the principle which had raised him to the throne. The fortune of war compelled Louis XIV. to give up all his conquests, and to acknowledge the Protestant usurper as a lawful sovereign at the peace of Ryswick, 1692.

Spanish suc- The male line of the Spanish branch of the house of cession war, Austria was about to become extinct in the person of

1701-1713.

Charles II. The succession to the vast dominions of the Spanish monarchy was claimed by the reigning houses of France, Austria, and Bavaria, all deriving their titles through females who, by the ancient laws of Spain were capable of inheriting and transmitting the inheritance. The claim of the house of Bourbon had been expressly renounced by the treaty of marriage between Maria Theresa and Louis XIV. But this renunciation did not prevent the latter from claiming this rich inheritance for the descendants of that marriage. During the long and complicated negotiations,

to which the question of the Spanish succession gave rise, his object was to secure a portion of this inheritance, and above all to prevent its being entirely grasped by Austria. The object of the Spanish nation was to prevent the dismemberment of their monarchy; and that of Europe to prevent the crowns of France and Spain, or of Austria and Spain, being united on the same head, which might give to the house of Bourbon or to the house of Austria a fatal preponderance. William III. was induced, for the sake of maintaining peace and the continental balance of power, to consent to the treaty of partition proposed by Louis XIV. and signed at the Hague in 1698, between France and the two maritime powers, England and Holland; by which Spain, the Indies, Belgium, and Sardinia were assigned to the electoral prince of Bavaria; the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, the Spanish places and islands upon the coasts of Tuscany, the marquisate of Final, and the province of Guipuzcoa, to the dauphin of France; and the Milanese to the Archduke Charles. The Spanish court remonstrated against this treaty as contrary to the fundamental laws of the monarchy and the independence of the nation. These remonstrances were answered by an appeal to the right of intervention, in order to prevent the reconstruction of the monarchy of Charles V. with its menacing preponderance of forces, and the alternative danger of uniting the crowns of France and Spain. Charles II., roused from his lethargy by this attempt to dispose of his dominions during his life, made a testament by which he declared the electoral Prince of Bavaria his universal heir, and by which he hoped to preserve the integrity of the Spanish monarchy whilst he sacrificed the pretensions of the German branch

h M. de Torcy repondit "qu'il s'agissoit d'un traité secret et de pure éventualité, et que le droit public européen n'empêchoit pas que les puissances intéressées ne prissent les précautions nécessaires pour empêcher que la monarchie de Charles Quint ne fût reconstituée avec toutes ses forces menaçantes pour l'indépendance et la sureté des autres Etats."

of 1713.

of his own house. The Prince of Bavaria having died, a second treaty of partition between the same parties was concluded in 1700, by which Spain and the Indies, Belgium, and Sardinia were given to the Archduke Charles, and the share of the succession alloted by the first treaty to the dauphin was augmented with the duchies of Lorraine and Bar. Charles II., equally dissatisfied with this arrangement as with the former, made a new testament in favour of the Duke d'Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. and Maria Theresa. A long and bloody war was the consequence of the acceptance of this testament by Louis XIV., which was finally terminated by the peace of Utrecht, 1713.i

§ 3. Peace The peace of Utrecht was for France what that of MunUtrecht, ster had been for the house of Austria. The emperor Joseph I, having died without male heirs, and his brother the archduke Charles having succeeded him, the junction of the Spanish monarchy with the Austrian branch was again apprehended by the powers interested in maintaining the continental equilibrium, who had already reduced the power of France so low by the events of the war that they preferred to recognize the claim of a younger branch of the

i M. Mignet, in the introduction to his edition of the documents relating to the Spanish succession, has shown that Louis XIV, by accepting the crown of Spain for his grandson the Duc d'Anjou, not only violated the faith of treaties, but departed from all the rules of sound policy. The second treaty of partition of 1700 secured to him the means of obtaining for France her natural boundary of the Rhine and the Alps, by exchanging a part of the Italian possessions, assigned to the dauphin by that treaty, for the Spanish Low Countries, Savoy, and the county of Nice. M. Mignet well observes: "Louis XIV. avait à choisir entre une couronne pour son petit fils, ou un aggrandissement de ses états soutenu par l'Europe; entre l'extension de son systéme au delà des Pyrénées et des Alpes, par l'etablissement d'une branche de sa maison en Espagne et en Italie, et une extension de sa propre puissance; entre l'honneur de la royanté et l'avantage de son royaume; entre sa famille et la France." He preferred the interest and honour of his family to those of his country. (Mignet, Négociations relatives à la Succession d'Espagne sous Louis XIV, tom. i. Introd. p. Ixix.