CAMEO XXXIX. Jealousies. 1743. Maria Theresa was in great delight. She entered Vienna in triumph, and had a solemn Te Deum in the cathedral. The French armies were fairly driven out of Germany, and Marshal de Broglie visited the unfortunate Emperor, Charles VII., at Frankfurt to advise him to make peace, so as to save Bavaria, since he must reckon on no more assistance from France. He answered indignantly that he was not to learn how to make peace from those who showed themselves ignorant how to make war; but he did sign a contract of neutrality for his own hereditary states, and tried to obtain a peace by the mediation of George II. and the Prince of Orange; but Maria Theresa was not easy to deal with, insisting that she should keep Bavaria unless he resigned the title of Emperor. Prince Charles of Lorraine, who was betrothed to the Queen of Hungary's sister, was in command on the Rhine. Noailles tried to persuade Louis XV. to confide the defence of Alsace to Count Maurice de Saxe, as he was called in France, the ablest of the French generals; but this the King refused, on the grounds that the Count was careless, that he was a Protestant, and that he chiefly cared for recovering his Duchy of Courland. Hungarian troops under Colonel Mentzel were on the banks of the Rhine, and a proclamation was put forth to the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine that if they did not accept the most gracious Queen of Hungary as their sovereign, they would be treated as rebels, the villages burnt, and the peasants hanged or mutilated. King George and Prince Charles had both crossed the Rhine, and an invasion of France was imminent; but this was prevented by quarrels in the English camp. English and Hanoverians could not agree, there were bitter jealousies; Lord Stair delivered a memorial to the King full of complaints, and in such disrespectful language, that the resignation it threatened was at once accepted, whereupon many other officers of rank threw up their commissions, and as it was now late in the year, the King was obliged to give up his intended campaign and return to England, while the army was quartered in Flanders. A skit in the form of a French dialogue was handed about in the army, and supposed to be written by Lord Stair himself: Que donne-t-on aux officiers qui ne se sont pas trouvés à la bataille?" "On leur donne le cordon rouge." "Et que donne-t-on au Général en chef qui a gagné la victoire?” "Sa congé." 66 Qui a soin des blessés?" "L'ennemi." The victory had not conciliated the English towards what they looked on as a mere war on behalf of Hanover, and when Parliament met, there was a great outcry against Lord Carteret as the "Hanoverian troop minister" ; measures for disbanding, or for refusing payment to "No CAMEO XXXIX. 1744. Hanoverian soldiers were reiterated, toasts were drunk to Hanoverian King," and the Jacobites began to gather confidence. For once, however, Walpole, though above all a peace minister, Dungeness. perceiving in his retirement that to cripple the King's resources at this juncture would derogate from the honour and influence of England, came forth, and though he had once said that he had left his tongue in the House of Commons, he came forward in the House of Lords, and made a powerful speech which enabled the King to triumph over the opposition, and indeed he continually assisted with his advice the First Lord of the Treasury, Henry Pelham. So came in 1744, with the war in full operation, Louis XV. stirred into action by a favourite lady, Madame de Châteauroux; Frederick of Prussia forming an alliance with him and ready to renew the war, and Charles Edward Stuart taking hope from the enmity between France and England, and preparing for an attack on the unpopular Hanoverian sovereign. Lord Orford's last speech was made upon the intelligence respecting this danger, and was full of all his old fire and intelligence, though he was in constant suffering from the disease which the next year put an end to his life. He might well warn the English. Actually in January, eighteen ships of the line were collected at Brest under Admiral Roquefeuille, and sailed for the Isle of Wight with 7,000 troops, and on board, Charles Edward himself, and Count Maurice of Saxe, the ablest general in Europe. The English fleet, under Sir John Morris, had been at Spithead, but had steered to the Downs, where they were joined by vessels which raised their numbers to twenty-one. The French fleet came to anchor off Dungeness, and the two lay opposite to each other. Morris intended to fight in the morning when the tide would be in his favour, but behold, by the late dawn the French fleet had gone! Roquefeuille, seeing the English superiority of forces, had retreated to his own harbours, and a heavy storm which raged for several days, made pursuit impossible. Again had wind and storm defended the English coast. The attempt at invasion was abandoned, but there was a formal declaration of war, and Maurice was made a Field-Marshal and sent to command the army in Flanders. CAMEO Louis XV. 1744. THE threatened attempt at invasion had forced George II. to remain in England with 12,000 soldiers, while Marshal Wade, in the Low Countries, had neither rank nor character sufficient to overawe the Austrian and Dutch generals, who, moreover, had brought so much smaller contingents than had been promised, that he could not make his intended advance into the French territory. However, Charles of Lorraine came up with a considerable army. Then Louis XV. began to stir. "If my country is to be devoured," he said, "it will be hard for me to see it gobbled up (croqué) without stirring to prevent it." When money enough had been collected, he set off for the army at Valenciennes, in unusually high spirits. He visited the hospitals and forts and tasted the patients' soup and the soldiers' bread, and when an envoy came from Holland to sue for an armistice, he replied, “I know what you are come about. I will answer you in Flanders"—speaking with such animation and fire that he seemed at thirty-four years old to be awakening, and people asked one another, "Have we got a king?” Marshal Saxe took various small forts, and the French army seemed triumphant, till Prince Charles being joined by a far better general, Marshal Traun, crossed the Rhine at Philipsburg, and began to ravage that perpetual bone of contention-unhappy Alsace. Louis was at Dunkirk when the tidings reached him, but he hastened at once to Metz, and all was in preparation for a great battle. "A crisis is imminent," he himself had written when on the night of the 4th of August he fell ill of a fever, and in a few days was in great danger. The Duchess of Châteauroux lodged in a neighbouring | abbey (!!), but a gallery had been made by which she could visit the king, and she, with her supporter, the Duke of Richelieu, at first excluded every one, and chiefly, the king's almoner, Fitz James, the Bishop of Soissons, a son of the Duke of Berwick, a Jansenist, good, upright, and with all his father's courage. But on the 12th of August the king was so ill that the Count of Clermont, a prince of the Condé line, but in Holy Orders, forced his way in and then followed Fitz James. On preparing to say mass, the latter asked if the king would confess. "Not yet," said Louis; but he was uneasy, and two days later, when he had a fainting fit, he was filled with terror, and shrieked out for his confessor. The bishop came to him, and as soon as the interview was over, the king sent for the Duke of Bouillon, "You can serve me now," he said, "I have sacrificed my favourites to what the Church requires from the most Christian king and the eldest son of the Church." The bishop proceeded to the room where the Duchess of Châteauroux was waiting with her sister and the Duke of Richelieu, and told them that the king's orders were that the ladies should retire. Richelieu had the insolence to declare that, in the name of the king, he opposed commands extorted at a moment of feverish excitement. Then the bishop commanded that the tabernacles of the Host should be closed till the ladies were gone; and he won the day, so far as to expel them, even from the city, before he would administer to the king the last sacraments; and though he must have felt how little real repentance there was all the time, extreme unction was given, and all France was in a passionate transport of grief. "He is dying for having tried to save us !" was the cry, and there were fervent prayers and bitter lamentations. The queen was on her way to Metz, and so was the dauphin, his only son. The regular physician had entirely given up the patient, and a chance practitioner was allowed to come in, who gave him a violent emetic, the effect of which saved his life, so that the Paris doctor arriving at last declared him on the way to recovery. Thus, the poor queen was very coldly received; and to the dauphin his father would scarcely speak, supposing that the poor boy of thirteen had only come out of eagerness for the succession; and, indeed, he was never forgiven entirely, but was always an object of jealousy. Richelieu was recalled. He was the king's evil genius, and he privately advised Madame de Châteauroux not to return without compensation for the humiliation she had suffered. Meanwhile the nation was in an ecstasy of thankfulness and joy, returning thanks in every church, writing addresses and poems without end to Louis le Bien Aimé, as he was termed, even apostrophising the dose which brought about his cure. Thenceforth, though the faithful Bishop of Soissons could not be punished, he was never allowed to come to court. Yet Louis never came within his diocese without receiving a strong letter of rebuke and exhortation. His illness had slackened the proceedings of his generals, and though CAMEO XL. Illness of Louis XV. 1744. XL. 1745. CAMEO Charles of Lorraine was not forced to give battle, his retreat from Alsace was not hindered. Moreover, the King of Prussia, who had Madame de made up his mind to win Bohemia, had laid siege to Prague, which was Pompadour surrendered in a fortnight's time. However, here his success ended. All Bohemia declared against him, either out of affection for their queen, or from dread of his troops, and the peasants fled to the hills, carrying off their cattle and provisions. Not a messenger, a guide, nor a spy could be procured; the Prussian envoys were seized, the communications cut off, the army began to suffer from hunger, and the French sent no troops to pursue the campaign, so that Frederick was obliged to retreat, and quit Bohemia altogether. Louis, though quite recovered, did not endeavour to assist him, but spent his time taking the towns of Lorraine and Alsace until the end of the campaign. When he returned to Paris for the winter, the people received him with ecstasy, and he was so much affected as to exclaim with tears, "How sweet it is to be so much loved! What have I done to deserve it?" Even then a wise counsellor or a good wife might have turned this touch of feeling to good account; but poor Marie Lecsinska was not only dull but stiff, cold, and unforgiving, and continued, if not to repel him, at any rate to make no effort for his recall; and though he was in a way fond of his daughters, to whom he gave the pet names of Loque, Chiffe, and Coche, he let them lead the dullest of lives, and left them almost uneducated till their brother, the dauphin, took them in hand, and actually taught them himself. Louis soon summoned Madame de Châteauroux to return to him; but she exacted the banishment of all concerned in her expulsion. Louis did not consent in all cases, some being too useful to him; but her plans were cut short in the midst, for she died after eleven days of illness, fancying herself poisoned. The king did not mourn long. Jeanne Poisson, daughter of a rich tradesman, and wife of Monsieur Normand d'Etioles, a farmer of the taxes, was already laying herself out to become the prime power in the kingdom. When the king was hunting in the forest of Senart, near her château, she joined the chase, sometimes in the supposed costume of Diana, sometimes in a blue robe, in a rose-coloured phaeton. She was really beautiful, and very clever, and soon attracted the king. At a ball at the Hôtel de Ville, she contrived to drop her handkerchief. The king picked it up, and restored it, and there was a general whisper, "He has thrown the handkerchief." She pretended to be afraid of her husband, and thus made the king give her apartments at Versailles. To give her rank, she was created Marquise de Pompadour, and by that name ruled Louis and France for the rest of her days. Under old Cardinal Fleury the finances had been well managed, and in spite of all their regular burthens, the peasantry looked well fed and cheerful; but the war brought them additional taxes, and the exactions, |