IX. 1718. CHAP. nections. Neither of these distinguished rivals altogether prevailed. Cadogan, indeed, obtained the accession of Holland to the Quadruple Alliance; but Landi delayed it for several months, and until the cause of Spain had been struck by further disasters. At the Court of Turin there was no such opportunity for hesitation; the difficulties of Victor Amadeus were pressing and immediate. He found his kingdom of Sicily at the same time claimed by Charles and attacked by Philip. No succour, no hope appeared for him in any quarter; on the one side stood the Quadruple Allies, presenting the treaty and demanding his signature, and on the other side there gleamed 30,000 Spanish bayonets against him. Even after the expedition to Sicily, Alberoni had not altogether lost his hope of cajoling Victor Amadeus; he represented the conquest of the island as only a precautionary measure to prevent its transfer from its rightful owner, and expressed an ardent zeal for the preservation of the Peace of Utrecht. But the artifice was too gross, and easily seen through. The King of Sicily determined, that if he must lose his island, he would at least incline to that power which offered a positive, though insufficient, compensation for it; he therefore broke off all intercourse with Spain, acceded to the Quadruple Alliance, and * "Esta carta (del Cardinal) en la realidad era absoluta"mente inutil, y no debiera haber Alberoni perdido tiempo en "ella." (Ortiz Compendio, vol. vii. p. 336.) IX. 1718. consented to give over to Imperial troops the CHAP. remaining fortresses of Syracuse, Melazzo, and Trapani. His regal title of Sicily was soon after exchanged for that of Sardinia, still held by his descendants; and this was perhaps the only negotiation which the House of Savoy had ever yet carried on without extracting from it some advantage. In Sweden and Russia, the schemes of Alberoni seemed at first more hopeful; and, according to his own expression, there was reason to expect that the northern clouds would break in thunder and hail-storms. A negotiation between Charles the Twelfth and the Czar had been opened in the Isle of Aland, under the mediation of a Swedish agent; and the Duke of Ormond had hastened to Russia as plenipotentiary of the Pretender. † It was agreed that Peter should retain Livonia, Ingria, and other Swedish territories to the southward of Finland; that Charles should undertake the conquest of Norway and the recovery of Bremen and Verden; and that both monarchs should combine for the restoration of Stanislaus in Poland, and of the Stuarts in Great Britain. The latter point was foremost in the wishes of Gortz, who had planned and forwarded the whole design,-who enjoyed more than ever the confidence of his master,—and who had left his Dutch captivity, stung with disappointment at his failure, and burning with re* St. Simon, vol. xv. p. 308. ed. 1829. Amongst the Stuart Papers is the original passport given to Ormond in Russian and Latin, and signed by Peter the Great. Ormond travelled under the name of Brunet. IX. 1718. CHAP. venge against King George and King George's ministers. So active and embittered an enemy was the very man to raise and direct the tempest against England. The tempest was raised; but it burst upon his own head. Charles, pursuing his plans and impatient of delay, led an army into Norway, notwithstanding the severity of winter; and on the 11th of December, with the snow and ice deep around him, he was pressing the siege of the frontier fortress of Frederickshall, when a musket ball from an unknown hand laid him lifeless on the frozen ground. He had begun to reign and (what in him was synonymous) to fight in his eighteenth year; he died in his thirty-sixth; and, during that period, he had been the tyrant and scourge of that nation by whom his memory is now adored! Such is the halo with which glory is invested by posterity! But very different was the feeling at the time of Charles's fall; and a total change of system was so universally demanded as to be easily effected. His sister Ulrica was proclaimed his successor by the Senate; but the form of the monarchy was altered from the most despotic to the most limited in Europe. All his ministers were dismissed, all his projects abandoned; his chief favourite, Gortz, gratified the public resentment by an ignominious death upon the scaffold; and the intended league, which had threatened the throne of England, vanished as speedily and as utterly as one of those thunder-clouds to which Alberoni had compared it. IX. 1718. I have already had occasion to notice the pro- CHA P. jects of Alberoni in France, and the party with which he was connected in that country. Its head was nominally the Duke, but in truth the Duchess du Maine; the former being of a timorous and feeble mind, and the latter abounding in courage and cabals. She was grand-daughter to the famous Condé, and was assured by all her dependants, especially her husband, that she inherited the spirit of that great man, although in truth her character had more of passion than prudence, and more of prudence than dexterity. A single fact from her domestic life will give an idea of her violence: she could not bear the least suspense of hunger, or restraint of regular meals, and had always in her apartment a table with cold meats, of which she partook at any instant that the fancy struck her. This bold virago had opened a secret concert of measures with the Prince of Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador, and used to drive to nightly conferences at his house in a borrowed carriage, with Count Laval acting as coachman. It does not appear that any great number of persons were fully initiated into their schemes *, but it is certain, that though the "Messrs. de Laval et de Pompadour avancaient comme "certain tout ce qui leur passait par la tête, promettant l'entre"mise et l'appui de quantité de gens entièrement ignorans de "leurs desseins, que sur de vaines conjectures ils jugeaient pro"pres à y entrer." (Mém. de Madame de Staal, vol. ii. p. 6.) She was then Mademoiselle de Launay; first a maid and afterwards a companion and confidant of the Duchess du Maine. Her reflections are shrewd and sarcastic. IX. 1718. CHAP. conspirators were few, the malcontents were many. The conclusion of the Quadruple Alliance had provoked great murmurs, there being opposed to it the judgment of the most able statesmen, and, what is far more formidable, the prejudices of the multitude. Marshal d'Huxelles had repeatedly refused to sign that treaty, and only yielded, at length, to the positive commands of the Regent; Marshal Villars presented a strong memorial against what he termed the unnatural alliance of France with England; and in one word, all the adherents of the old Court loudly inveighed against the altered system of the new. Even the wife of the Regent, a sister of the Duke du Maine, was more mindful of her ties by blood than by marriage. The States of Brittany complained of provincial oppression, the Jesuits sighed for a return, and the Parliament of Paris for an augmentation of power; and all with one voice reprobated, as they most justly might, the personal profligacy and boundless influence of Dubois. Nothing could be more various than the views of all these parties and persons, some eager to destroy, others only to restore or to improve; but the skill of Alberoni knew how to combine them for one common movement; and it is precisely by such junctions of dissembling knaves and honest dupes that all revolutions are effected. The project was to seize the Duke of Orleans, in one of his parties of pleasure near Paris, to convoke the States-General, to proclaim |