Lesur's " Des Progres de la Puissance russe depuis son Origine jusqu'au
Commencement du XlXme. Siecle." The first theory has been dis-
proved; the second, while not disproved, has the balance of argument
against it. The existence of a somewhat similar document as early as
1760 is, however, almost demonstrated. In many respects the policy
advocated in the "testament" has generally been that of the Russian
government. Such a policy would be the natural result of Russia's
geographical position and of the spirit of her people. At the same time
the internal evidence of the language employed, as notably in the ninth
paragraph, would demonstrate that this document was not of Russian
but of foreign origin.
The following is the text of this remarkable paper :
1. To neglect no means of giving the Russian nation European forms
and usages.
2. To maintain the state in constant war.
3. To extend by all possible means toward the north along the Baltic,
toward the south along the Black Sea.
4. To fan the jealousy of England, Denmark, and Brandenburg against
Sweden, which will finally be subjugated ; to interest the house of
Austria in driving the Turks from Europe, and under this pretext to
maintain a standing army, to establish dockyards on the Black Sea, and,
always advancing, at last reach Constantinople.
5. To encourage the anarchy of Poland and finally subjugate that
republic.
6. To maintain by a commercial treaty an intimate alliance with
England, who for its part will favor every project for the enlargement
and perfecting of the Russian navy, by means of which domination on the
Black Sea and the Baltic will be obtained.
7. To realize this truth : that the commerce of the Indies is the com-
merce of the world, and that whoever monopolizes it is the sovereign of
Europe.
8. To mix up at whatever cost in the quarrels of Europe, and above all
of Germany.
9. To employ the ascendency of religion among the separated or schis-
matic Greeks scattered in Hungary, Turkey, and the southern parts of
Poland.
10. To set against each other the courts of France and Austria as well
as their allies, and to take advantage of their mutual feebleness to invade
all. ED.
CHAPTER XXV.
CREATION OF PRUSSIA. HUMILIATION OF FRANCE
AND AUSTRIA.
Regency of the Duke of Orleans ; Ministries of Dubois, of the Duke of
Bourbon, and of Fleury (1715-43). Formation of Prussia and Situ-
ation of Austria. War of the Austrian Succession (1741-48). The
Seven Years' War (1756-63).
THE successor of Louis XIV. in France was only five
years old, Parliament conferred the regency with all the
of P ovver u P on the Duke of Orleans, nephew of
the e fjuke y of Or- the dead king, an intelligent and brave prince,
trfesfof D^bols" but good-natured even to weakness and
of the Duke of shamefully dissolute. To gain Parliament he
Bourbon, and of j .. i j.i j
Fieury (1715-43.). promised it a share in the government, and
some time after he sent it into exile at Pon-
toise because the magistrates were opposed to the experi-
ments of Law upon the national property. He appeared
at first decided to re-establish harmony in religious affairs
by practicing general toleration. But soon he declared
himself in favor of the Jesuits and had the bull Unigeni-
tus registered, which was directed against the Jansenists,
his sole motive being that his principal agent, the Abbe
Dubois, already made Archbishop of Cambrai in spite of
his unfitness, might obtain a cardinal's hat. To remedy
the bureaucratic despotism which the ministers had ex-
ercised under Louis XIV. he replaced them by special
councils composed of nobles; less than two years after he
suppressed these councils.
Two events fill this sad period: abroad, a war against
Spain ; at home, the financiering of Law.
If Louis XIV. had fought fourteen years against Europe
it was not merely to bestow a kingdom upon his grandson ;
it was in order to render Spain an ally of France. The
Duke of Orleans sacrificed the ties of family, the honor and
42 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.
the interests of the country, to the possibility of his becom-
ing King of France in case the child king then reigning
should die. For this purpose he formed an intimate union
with George I., King of England. The latter, menaced by
Jacobites and Tories, felt that his power was poorly estab-
lished. Peace was indispensable would he give stability to
his new and tottering throne. Happily for the Hanoverian
dynasty foreign affairs in France were in the hands of
Dubois. This man, whose scandalous promotion hardly
astonished his contemporaries, openly received an annual
pension from George I. Thanks to the corruption of "the
droll," as the Abbe" Dubois was called by the regent, France
received rather than imposed the conditions of the alliance.
She promised to banish from her territory the pretender
James Stuart, to demolish Mardeck, and to fill up the harbor
of Dunkirk.
The policy of the Spanish government drew still closer
the bonds which united England and France. Alberoni,
prime minister of Philip V., wished to restore to Spain the
territories of which the treaty of Utrecht had deprived her;
to succeed therein he did not hesitate to risk a general con-
flagration. Austria, France, and England had united for
the maintenance of the treaty of Utrecht. Alberoni under-
took to keep Austria busy with the Ottomans, to overthrow
the regent by a conspiracy, and to re-establish the Stuarts
by the sword of Charles XII. But Prince Eugene defeated
the Ottomans at Peterwardein and Belgrade (1710-17);
the conspiracy of Cellamare and the Duchess of Maine was
a failure (1718); Charles XII. perished in Norway (1718).
Then the regent declared war against Spain. "This was a
civil war," said Voltaire; it was above all an absurd war;
for France fought against Spain, her natural ally, to the
great joy of England, who at that time was still her natural
enemy. Philip V. was careful to have the three lilies
emblazoned on all the standards of his army. The same
Marshal Berwick who had gained battles to establish
Philip's throne commanded the French army. The Eng-
lish destroyed a Spanish fleet near Messina and captured
Vigo in Galicia; then all the schemes of Cardinal Alberoni
having come to nought, this minister, who for six months
had been considered the greatest of statesmen, was regarded
only as a headstrong blunderer. He was obliged to quit
the ministry, and Spain adhered to the quadruple alliance
CHAP. XXV.] CREATION OF PRUSSIA. 43
which France, Great Britain, Holland, and Austria had
concluded. The Duke of Savoy received Sardinia in
exchange for Sicily, which was left to the emperor. The
Queen of Spain obtained for the eldest of her children
promise of survivorship to the duchies of Parma, Piacenza,
and Tuscany (1720).
The peace established had no solid basis and was pre-
carious. Spain still cherished the hope of recovering her
former possessions. She sought success by diplomacy;
then commenced complicated negotiations, wherein the dif-
ferent cabinets of Europe showed astonishing versatility.
The treaties of Prado, Seville, and Vienna (1728, 1729,
1731) at last reconciled everybody. The duchies promised
to Spain were guaranteed, and in 1731 the infante Don
Carlos took possession of those of Parma and Piacenza;
the pragmatic sanction of the emperor Charles VI. of
which we shall speak later on was accepted ; finally, the
Ostend Company, established by that prince to compete
with the English and Dutch in the East Indies, was aban-
doned to itself and fell to pieces.
The saddest legacy bequeathed by the reign of Louis
XIV. was the financial ruin. The State owed 2,400,000,000
francs, one-third of which was immediately due. The next
two years' revenue had been spent. On imposts amounting
to 165,000,000 francs the treasury received 69,000,000 while
expending 147,000,000; deficit, 78,000,000. The regent
at first endeavored to correct the evil by remedies in detail,
such as suppression of offices, reduction of interest, a court
of judicature for the revenue farmers; but these tyrannical
or insufficient measures only ruined credit. St. Simon
advised convening the States General that they might decree
bankruptcy. The regent rejected this remedy, not as
immoral, but as dangerous. He preferred to adopt the plans
of the Scotchman Law.
This daring financier, compelled to flee from Great Britain
on account of a duel, had first proposed his project to the
Duke of Savoy, who replied he was not strong enough to
ruin himself. He had then offered it to the controller
general, Desmarets ; but this was during a disastrous war
when all confidence was lost, and the basis of Law's system
was confidence. He was more successful with the regent.
He wished to create a new power, credit, taking as his basis
a principle which is only half true: that abundance of specie
44 THE EIGHTEENTH CE.\'TL'RY. [BOOK VI.
causes the prosperity of commerce and manufactures;
thence he drew the absolutely false consequence that it is
advantageous to substitute for hard currency, which cannot
be indefinitely created, paper currency or paper money,
which can be multiplied indefinitely. Law at the beginning
limited himself to founding a private bank. The bank at
first, at an annual rate of 6 per cent., and soon at 4 per
cent., discounted commercial bills which before that time
found takers only by paying 2^ per cent, monthly; the
bank itself also issued bills which it paid at sight in specie
of invariable weight and value. Afterward everybody
rushed thither and contended for its paper, whereby com-
mercial transactions were facilitated in a marked degree.
To his bank, which became in 1718 the Royal Bank, Law
added a commercial company, which obtained the exclusive
privilege of the working and commerce of Louisiana and of
the entire Mississippi Valley, then of Senegal and the Indies.
The first success of Law made men believe in the second.
Such were the foolish hopes built upon this enterprise that
shares emitted at 500 francs were bought at ten, twenty,
thirty, and forty times their nominal value.
The Rue Quincampoix, in which the Royal Bank was
situated, overflowed with a crowd of people, pressing upon
each other to suffocation. Paris, all France, and foreigners
even hurried thither, thirsty for gain. All classes gave
themselves up to frenzied speculation. Enormous profits
were made in an instant. He who in the morning was a
valet in the evening found himself a master.
However, the bank attained its end; it lent the state
1,200,000,000 francs in paper money, with which it repaid
its creditors, and which then returned to the bank in
exchange for shares in the company. But there must be a
loss somewhere ; it was the nation which sustained it. In
vain Law wished to moderate the emission of paper; he
was no longer able: to sustain the prodigious movement of
commerce, and to satisfy so many rapacious appetites, it was
necessary to create and keep on creating paper values;
these exceeded 3,000,000,000 francs at a time when all the
specie in France did not amount to more than 700,000,000.
This disproportion hastened on the catastrophe. The sys-
tem held together only by public confidence, and that confi-
dence could not long be maintained. To save the company,
that is to say, the venturous part of the system, Law united
CHAP. XXV.] CREATION OF PRUSSIA. 45
it to the bank, that is to say, to the serious and useful part.
It was the ruin of both. As early as the close of 1719 the
enthusiasm of a few became cooled ; the more prudent
began to realize and presented themselves at the bank for
specie. This example caused alarm and became contagious;
the realizers multiplied; they sold their shares at the highest
current rate, and with their bills bought gold, silver, dia-
monds, lands. The shares ceased to go up, fluctuated, then
rapidly went down. Law, become controller general,
struggled desperately against the realizers: specie payments
were forbidden; it was prohibited to have at one's house
gold or silver; then came prosecutions, domiciliary visits,
denunciations; a son even denounced his father. But con-
fidence in the bills went on diminishing. Then suddenly
tacking, the state,, which had lately proscribed hard money,
announced that it would receive no more payments in paper;
this was giving the death blow to the system.
Law escaped from France pursued by public curses (De-
cember, 1720). He had come into the country with 1,600,-
ooo francs; he carried away only a few louis. It remained
to liquidate accounts. The brothers Paris-Duverney con-
ducted the operations, by which the state acknowledged
itself debtor to the creditors of the company to the amount
of 1,700,000,000 francs. The public debt was increased by
40,000,000 in annuities. But the extinction of a large
number of offices and the redemption of many branches of
alienated revenues compensated for this increase. The
state was in almost the same financial position as that in
which Law had found it.
Such is the history of this famous system. It showed the
power of credit; it gave an energetic impulse to manu-
factures and maritime commerce ; it delivered the country
from amass of onerous immunities; finally, if it ruined indi-
viduals, it ameliorated the general condition by a distribu-
tion of property more favorable to the humbler classes; but
also, by reversing previous conditions and fortunes, it
increased the disturbance which had already begun in
morals and ideas, and which afterward resulted in still greater
disorder. This epoch has attained a sad celebrity for the
depravity of its morals.
At the beginning of 1723 Louis XV. was declared of age
and the regency of the Duke of Orleans terminated. But
the king was to remain much longer under guardianship;
406 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.
the duke, in order to retain the power after laying down
the regency, had formerly given Dubois the title of prime
minister, which he assumed himself after the death of that
sorry person, but which he kept only four months. He
died December 2, 1723. France had been eight years in his
hands; this period had sufficed for the outburst of the moral
revolution made ready during the last days of Louis XIV.
To avert its political and social consequences a great reign
would have been necessary; but the prince who was about
to rule was to set the example in every scandal, to develop
every abuse, and to humble France before the foreigner.
To the Duke of Orleans succeeded the Duke of Bourbon,
who was controlled by a contemptible woman, the March-
ioness of Prie. Sold to England, she was able to cause a
rupture with Spain only by sending back the infanta, who
had been brought up at the French court as the betrothed
of the king, and by making Louis XV. marry the daughter
of Stanislaus Leczinski (1725). She had reason for hoping
that the new queen, Mary Leczinska, as her beneficiary,
would support her through gratitude. But she had counted
without Fleury, Bishop of Frejus. He was the tutor of the
king, and perhaps the only man for whom Louis XV. had a
sincere attachment. During the regency he had concealed
his ambition, waiting patiently till some place was vacant
that he might slip into it by stealth. The government of
the Duke of Bourbon had become odious by his persecu-
tions of the Protestants and by the vexatious imposts that
he decreed. The last of the four brothers Paris-Duverney,
who controlled the finances, had just irritated the privileged
classes by an income tax of two per cent., which all were
obliged to pay. Despite the opposition of the nobility and
the clergy, Duverney forced its registration by means of a
bed of justice.* The public hatred against the Duke of
Bourbon was still further increased by a famine which was
* A solemn and extraordinary session of Parliament, wherein the king sat
in a pile of cushions surrounded by princes of the blood and high nobles,
was called a bed of justice. Such sessions were held for the compulsory
registration and enactment of decrees, which Parliament had refused to
approve. The ceremonies were Oriental rather than European in their
pomp and in the accompanying adulation paid the sovereign. Nothing
created greater resentment than these despotic beds of justice, and noth-
ing in old France showed more clearly that the government was that of
an absolute, irresponsible monarchy. ED.
CHAP. XXV.] CREATION OF PRUSSIA. 47
less attributed to the rainy season than to the carelessness
of the government. The duke hastened his ruin by attack-
ing the Bishop of Frejus. One day he succeeded in separat-
ing him from the person of the king at the hour of the
council, but in the evening Louis asked for his tutor.
Fleury, who had retired to Issy, returned; the Duke of
Bourbon was exiled to his lands, and Paris-Duverney sent
to the Bastille (1726).
Fleury assumed power at the age of seventy-three, and
kept it till his death in 1743. With a modest exterior and
without taking any other title than that of minister of state,
he was in reality as absolute as Richelieu. His administra-
tion, wise, though destitute of grandeur, brought the country
out of the distress into which it had been plunged during
the last years of Louis XIV. by so many disastrous wars,
and during the regency by the empiricism of Law. Eco-
nomical even to avarice, Fleury reintroduced order into the
finances. He reduced and suppressed the two per cent.,
reduced the taxes by 10,000,000 francs, raised from 100,-
600,000 to 140,000,000 the annual lease of farms and the
general receipts, and put an end to the abuses arising from
the fluctuation of the coin by giving to specie an equitable
and fixed value. The skillful financier Orry, whom he
made controller general, employed loans with prudence and
slightly reanimated public credit, which had been utterly
crushed after the fall of Law. Agriculture, manufactures,
and commerce received encouragement. But what the
cardinal owed most to commerce, and what he did not give
it, was a powerful navy. Fleury, like the regent, sacrificed
French maritime interests to the English alliance. Pacific
by nature and system, he endeavored in concert with his
good friend Horace Walpole, brother of the celebrated Eng-
lish minister, to maintain harmony among the European
powers.
The death of Augustus II., King of Poland, rendered a
conflict inevitable. The immense majority of the Poles
chose Stanislaus Leczinski; the Elector of Saxony was
nominated under the protection of Russian bayonets
(1733). The King of France could not without shame
refuse to support his father-in-law. Fleury was carried
along by the popular outcry. But instead of dispatching a
fleet into the Baltic, he sent thither one vessel and 1500 men
to release Stanislaus, who was besieged in Dantzig; the
408 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.
Count of Ple"lo, French ambassador at Copenhagen, blushing
for his country, put himself at the head of the detachment
and was slain. La Peyrouse, commander of the troops,
resisted a whole month with a handful of men. Stanislaus
escaped from a thousand dangers and returned to France
(1734).
Something had to be done to wipe out this disgrace.
Fleury concluded with Savoy a treaty which promised the
Milanais to the King of Sardinia, and to the Bourbons of
Spain the kingdom of Spain for the infante Don Carlos.
By promising he would not attack the Netherlands he
obtained the neutrality of England and Holland. Then he
sent two armies, one upon the Rhine, which captured Kehl,
and one into Italy, which gained the victories of Parma
(June) and Guastalla (September). The Milanais was con-
quered by the French, and Naples by the Spaniards at the
victory of Bitonto. This was a beautiful awakening for
France; but the timidity of the cardinal prevented his
reaping all the fruits of these successes.
England and Holland offered their mediation to Austria ;
she accused them almost of treason in not having followed
her upon the battlefield, and treated directly with France.
It was possible, as was advised by Chauvelin, keeper of the
seals, the strongest head in the council, to exact from the
emperor an entire renunciation to Italy just as France for
her part had denied herself any acquisition there ; he was
simply made to renounce all claim to the kingdom of the
Two Sicilies; moreover, he was thoughtfully indemnified by
the cession of Parma and Piacenza for himself and of Tus-
cany given to his son-in-law in exchange for Lorraine. The
King of Sardinia had only two Milanese provinces, Novara
and Tortona. By a supplementary clause, due to Chauve-
lin, as compensation for the throne of Poland, which was
left to Augustus, Lorraine and Barrois were assigned to
Stanislaus, and after his death to revert to France. This
acquisition was precious, though long since inevitable.
These conditions constituted the treaty of Vienna (1735-
38). This was the fairest period of the ministry of
Fleury; France in this war, which peculiarly resembles that
of 1859, had acquired a little glory, and her government had
appeared as the mediator of Europe. "After the peace of
Vienna," said the great Frederick, "France was the arbiter
of Europe." Her armies had triumphed in Italy and in Ger-
CHAP. XXV.] 'CREATION OF PRUSSIA. 49
many. Her minister at Constantinople, the Count of
Villeneuve, had concluded the peace of Belgrade, the last
glorious treaty signed by Turkey, whereby she regained
Servia with Belgrade and a part of Wallachia. At that
moment Austria everywhere recoiled, in Italy as well as
upon the Danube. She was going to recoil still further
during the two Seven Years' wars, and at the same time to
drag France with her toward her fall.
In 1417 Frederick of Hohenzollern, Burggrave of Nurem-
berg, bought of the Emperor Sigismund the margravate of
r Brandenburg, to which was attached one of
Formation of , , , , , ,
Prussia and the seven electoral votes ; such was the humble
Austria 1 ' " f or ig m of that monarchy which in the eigh-
teenth century counterbalanced the Austrian
influence in Germany and succeeded to the Swedish influ-
ence in the north, and in the nineteenth has become a
menace to all the powers of Europe.
Frederick II., the Iron Tooth (1440), acquired a part of
Lusatia (Cottbus) and bought the New Marches (Custrin
and Landsberg between the Oder and the Netze) from the
Teutonic order. His brother Albert, "the Ulysses and the
Achilles of the North" (1469), decreed that his younger
sons should have Anspach and Bayreuth, original posses-
sions of the family in Franconia, but that the other domin-
ions, present and prospective, should be attached to the
electorate, which was to form an indivisible mass, capable
of increase, but incapable of diminution. This measure was
a guarantee of power for the new house. Under Joachim
I.,surnamed "Nestor" (1499-1535), Albert of Brandenburg,
prince of the younger branch and grand master of the
Teutonic order, embraced the Reformation (1525) and
secularized ducal Prussia (Koenigsberg) ; under Joachim
II. (1535) Lutheranism was introduced into the electorate,
to which John Sigismund (1608-19) reunited ducal Prussia
as son-in-law and heir of the last duke. This same prince
asserted his right to the succession of Juliers, of which
George William (1619-40) obtained half, that is to say,
the duchy of Cleves with the counties of Mark near the
Rhine and of Ravensberg in Westphalia.
Thus the house of Hohenzollern had by the middle of
the seventeenth century risen above the other princely
houses of the empire. Its dominions, scattered from the
Niemen to the Meuse, formed three distinct groups. To
410 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTU'RY. [BOOK VI.
unite these groups in one was of prime necessity, for their
master could not pass from one to the other without asking
the permission of his neighbors. This was the constant
endeavor of Frederick William, who is called the Great
Elector. By the conventions of 1648 he gained Magde-
burg on the Elbe, Halberstadt and Minden on the Weser,
Cammin at the mouth of the Oder with all Farther Pomer-
ania along the Baltic from the Oder toward the Gulf of
Dantzig. He had a considerable army ; he employed it in
a war between Sweden and Poland, seasonably betrayed
both parties, and by the treaty of Weslau (1657) freed
Prussia from Polish supremacy by obtaining the cession of
Elbing east of the Vistula. Within his dominions the
elector had emancipated himself from the control of the
Provincial States, which were replaced by a simple consulta-
tive committee ; following the example of Louis XIV. in