BOOKS.

DE BROGME'S FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MARIA THERESA.*

THE Due de Broglie says early in the first of these volumes, and with a characteristically elegant sigh, that " we have not, as yet, any history of the eighteenth century, properly so styled. That which is called history is simply the product of party- spirit, al ways recognisable by one characteristic feature,—a blind credulity, that admits the most baseless suspicions when it can tarn them to adiantage, and contests all evidence which it finds inconvenient." One might ask M. de Broglie what is the particular party-spirit that animates Von Ranks or Mr. Lecky, or even "that eminent English writer, Mr. Carlyle." What the Due de Broglie means, however, no doubt, is that no complete history of the eighteenth century has been written from the stand-point of what may fairly be styled the ante-Voltaire, and ante-Rousseau half of that century, with which alone he has genuine sympathy. His career and works alike prove that he has not got beyond the ideas of that period. He has never forsaken Leibnitz, his early love in religion and philosophy. His recent speeches in the French Senate on Egypt and the Triple Alliance are proof positive that, as regards foreign policy, he has not outgrown the tradi- tion of Guizot,—a tradition that in itself was an attempt to revive that ante-Voltaire, ante-Rousseau Balance of Power which, if Carlyle and Mr. Bright may for once be combined, was but a "monstrous, wigged mendacity," not perhaps constructed, but certainly maintained, to provide incomes for the younger sons of Europe. Even the graces Of M. de Broglie's style, undoubted as these are, are the graces of the earlier half of the eighteenth century, not of the latter half, much less of our own time. He is a maker of phrases, but he has not at his command words that burn, for the good reason that he is not filled with thoughts that breathe the modern spirit. He has knowledge, but he has no desire for that " plebification of knowledge " which Coleridge dreaded, but which is becoming one of the enthusiasms of our times, as a con- tribution to what the wiser Wordsworth appreciated as " joy in widest commonalty spread." Yet stranded politician and "fossil ideologue "though the Due de Broglie must be accounted, he will always deserve and command a certain amount of re- spect, especially for his contributions to literature. If his ideas are those of the Regency somewhat clarified, he has also not .a little of its grand air ; and even if his new volumes were not interesting as a contribution to an important historical con- troversy, they would be enjoyable and valuable for the grace, and high politeness of their author's style.

M. de Broglie does not disguise his real purpose in rewriting. with the aid of the fresh historical material recently supplied from the Berlin and Vienna Chanceries, in the shape of D'Arneth's History of Maria Theresa, Droysen's History of Prussian Policy, and the political correspondence of Frederick the Great, the story of the connection of France from 1740 to

* Prairie* the Great and Maria Theresa, from hitherto Unpublished Docu- ments, 1740-1742. By the Doe de Broglie. From the French by Mrs. Cashel Hoey and Mr. John Lillie. 2 vole. London : Sampson Low and Co. 1888.

1742 with the memorable struggle between Frederick and Maria, Theresa. His volumes are not a direct attack upon the Carlyle, or a direct defence of the Macaiday-Stanhope, theory of Frederick and of his conduct in seizing Silesia, although both are implied in. them. He concerns himself mainly with his own country and with the diplomatic " idea " which at that time gained an ascendancy

there, and which in his opinion has had a baleful effect, even down to our own day. "I think," he says, "I have proved to my readers that on the death of the Emperor Charles VI., it would have been easy to have obtained from his daughter Maria Theresa• each an accession of territory as would have strengthened the defence of our northern frontier, and probably rendered it secure- for ever, by the surrender of the whole or a part of the Low- Countries. To this practical, certain, tangible advantage, France preferred the `idea' of re-establishing the German Empire

according to its primitive conception, that is to say, free from.

Austrian preponderance and heredity For this idea did France rush into a great war, of which she had, ulti- mately to bear the whole cost, and from which under the best of circumstances she could have derived only an imaginary advan- tage. The re-establishment of the German Empire, striven for- under such conditions as these, was simply a conception, under a form consonant with the spirit of the time, of that vague- principle of nationality which we have twice defended, and to- which we have now fallen victims." A passage like this might

fairly be cited as evidence of how little the writer is affected by- the nineteenth-century ideas of nationality and democracy, and'

how full he is of the old eighteenth-century or chess-board doctrine of diplomacy. He would have seen no immorality in France absorbing the Low Countries as the price of assistance to- Maria Theresa, without consulting the wishes of their inhabitants; on the contrary, his book is in effect one long regret that some such step was not taken. Apart from this, however, M. de Broglie- supplies no evidence, beyond diplomatic " sentiments " which counted for less in the middle of last century than they do even• now, that the aged Fleury and the dashing but conceited Belleisle, who entered into alliance with Frederick in 1740; were animated by any such even pseudo-magnanimous idea as that attributed to- them. The one thought only of how with the least trouble he- could seem to pose before France as continuing the " Quatorze "- tradition. The other thought only of how France, as repre- sented by himself, might pose before Europe as controller of its destinies ; and this Frederick evidently believed from the- beginning, as he said at the end, of what was rather a political' liaison than an alliance. As proof of this may be taken a curious document, found in Frederick's political correspondence, which has neither date nor signature, and which, says M. de- Broglie, " had it emanated from any other person, might be called an examination of conscience ": — .

"The document is divided into two parts respectively, entitled as follows A Statement of the Reasons which I may have for re- maining in alliance with France.' A Statement of the Reasons which I may have for making a Peace with the Queen of Hungary-' The for and against is laid out before us; the whole soul of the- writer is revealed. Under the first bead (and even in the first rank)' he thinks proper to place a consideration of honour and morality among the number of the motives that militate for the maintenance- of the French alliance. It is ill done,' he says, 'to violate one's word without reason, and up to the present' time I have no ground of complaint against France nor ray allies' (this acknowledgment is precious, and worth retaining). If one does not carry out one's• projects, and passes often from one side to another, one gains the reputation of vacillation and levity.' Reflections of a more self- interested kind follow ; as, for example, that a fresh victory gained. over the Austrians would place Prussia in the first rank in Europe, and that the King of Prussia would then have all the authority of the Emperor, while the Elector of Bavaria would have only the trouble ; and that the Queen of Hungary (if she were treated with) would always regret the ceded provinces, and would endeavour to retake, them, so that there would never be anything more than a plastered-up- peace. It is, however, under the other head, that which enumerates. the possible advantages of a separate peace, that the true sentiments. of the writer are to be found. First come the usual denunciations of the slowness, the hesitation, the military mistakes of the French Generals, and the impossibility of campaigning with them any longer without sharing the consequences of their errors. Then come com- plaints that to work for the King of Poland is only to aggrandize- neighbours who may repay service by ingratitude. But now let us. note the final trait; The fortunate termination of this war would render France the arbiter of the universe.' This is the final wurd ; • this is the last figure of the reckoning, and it strikes the balance and settles the account."

No one, of course, seeks to defend Frederick's conduct in 1741 in entering into secret negotiations with Maria Theresa, while• bound by a solemn treaty of alliance with France, from the stand-point of high morality, and there was, as Mr. Morley says, in his study of Voltaire, "a gratuitous infamy in hinting to the Austrian General, as Frederick did, how he might assault with advantage the French enemy, Frederick's own ally at the moment." But there is nothing to disprove the Carlylien doctrine that at the time of the Klein-Schnellendorf negotiations of 1741 both Austria and France were playing with cogged dice, and that Frederick "knew it, and sought to profit by his knowledge." Possibly enough, France had not taken steps towards the conclusion of a separate and special treaty with Austria ; and perhaps the most successful historical point made by M. de Broglie is his protest against any such notion. Possibly, too, it was not the possession of Luxemburg that the viewy Belleisle was aiming at, as Frederick thought. But a nation is surely none the less a dicer, if the stake she plays for is the position of " arbiter of the universe." Besides, France, as the ally of Prussia, had played badly. What with Belleisle's ill-fortune, his vanity, which pre- vented him from seeing clearly his own relationship to his surround. ings, and his misfortune in having as his military colleague so obstinate a man and so pedantic a strategist as the Marshal de Broglie, whose faults the Due shows no inclination to screen, " of the immense efforts which his diplomacy has caused to be made there remained nothing but an army of 25,000 Frenchmen, destitute, and blockaded behind dismantled ramparts, far away in Germany." Frederick himself wrote candidly to Belleisle :—" I look upon this affair as a navigation under- taken by several with the same object, but which, being -upset by a shipwreck, places each of the navigators under the necessity of saving himself by swimming, and landing wherever he can." There is nothing magnanimous in a sauve qui peat. But Frederick did not pretend to be magnanimous. He did not even claim, by his own chief apologist's confession, to be "superstitiously veracious," a fact which that apologist evidently thinks a credit to him rather than the reverse, much as Goethe records, as a compliment to Philina, in his Wilhelm, Meister, that her dress was not " superstitiously clean." All he sought to do was to win his stake out of that foul, weltering medley, and go home safe with it, if he could." The events which followed the hollow peace that resulted from the secret negotia- tions of Klein-Schnellendorf proved that Frederick was not wrong in his estimate of the true character of French policy, veiled though it was by the phrases of Belleisle.

Maria Theresa figures in M. de Broglie's pages, especially in the second volume, as well as Frederick. We are told once more how pure she was, how devout, how attached to her hus- band, how she felt but a patters eldenne (the translators might have spared their explanatory note about this phrase), 'without him. M. de Broglie has given us the most coherent and accurate narrative that has yet appeared of her memorable visit to Hungary, in which she aroused into a passion of loyalty the people which once reckoned " the divine right of rebellion " as a prominent article in its Constitution; although his de- scription of the touching spectacle which so affected that plain Englishman, Sir Thomas Robinson, is not so brilliant as Macaulay's. But Maria Theresa's great part in European his- tory, even her great part in her own magnificent vendetta, was played after 1740; and almost in spite of himself, Frederick is the hero, or rather, if we may borrow from the vocabu- lary of cricket, the " demon bowler," of M. de Broglie's volumes. Not, indeed, that he proves anything fresh against Frederick, except, perhaps, that he would at the beginning of his struggle with Maria Theresa have preferred an English to a French alliance. He took the latter as a pis-aller ; and he ultimately found in Pitt what he failed to find in Walpole, whom M. de Broglie quite inadequately, though also quite characteristically, describes as an English Fleury. He has little that is really original to say on Frederick's claims to the Silesia which he seized ; on the contrary, he passes too lightly over the fresh his- torical material Droysen has collected to prove that, after all, Silesia was, so far as Prussia was concerned, " a stolen horse." There is, indeed, not much more to be written on this subject than what Mr. Seeley says in his Life of Stein :—" The true view of Prussia in the eighteenth century seems to be that it was a State which founditself unable to be safe without being dangerous at the same time, which created, for legitimate purposes, a weapon it was always suspected of wishing to use, and sometimes did use, for illegitimate." After all, this is but the polite interpretation which " historical science " places on Frederick's own confession that, having a well-filled treasury and an army ready to act, he was bound to do something with them. For the rest, how true it is, as Carlyle says, that " Frederick, after such trial and proof as has

seldom been, got his claims on Schlesien allowed by the Desti- nies; his claims on Schlesien and on infinitely higher things, though he had not been consciously thinking of them in making that adventure !" But M. de Broglie has constructed from a variety of sources a very interesting account of Frederick's explanation of his conduct to Sir Thomas Robinson, the English Minister, who visited and remonstrated with him, which deserves quotation :-

" When the day of audience arrived, he hardly gave Sir Thomas time to state his proposals, before he rose and stood before him in an

attitude of simulated surprise and indignation. The offer (which was indeed a mistaken one) to pay him two hundred thousand pounds for retiring out of Silesia, seemed to exasperate him particularly. 'Am

I a beggar,' he exclaimed, that I should be offered money ? Have I made war for that ? Am I supposed to want to sell the fame and the interests of my house ? Go and offer money to a petty prince,

like the Duke of Gotha and his fellows ; I am of those who would rather give money than take it; but where should the Court of Vienna get it to give ? That is just like its usual pride and effron-

tery.' The proposed cession of Austrian Gnelderland was equally

ill received. Podewils,' said the King, turning to his Minister, who was present at the audience, how much of the Duchy of

Guelders is still in the possession of Austria ? Very little,' replied the Minister, with a bow.—' You see, this is another beggarly trick (gireuRerie) that they propose to play me.' So violent was his anger,

that Sir Thomas Robinson thought the moment had come for bring-

ing out the Limburg proposal. ' I cannot understand,' said the King, how Austria can think of stripping her frontier in this way. Has she any right to do it ? Has she not treaties with Holland that pre- vent it ?' Frederick was right ; by a treaty made with Holland in 1713, and which is known in diplomatic history as the Barrier Treaty,

Austria had pledged herself to maintain a line of defensive fortifica- tions against France on the Netherland frontier, and this, of coarse. implied that she should never alienate that territory. Besides,' continued Frederick, do not want to have anything to dispute

about with either Holland or France ; they have not offended me, and they would be disturbed if I came into their neighbourhood. And then, who is to guarantee these cessions That you propose to me P. Robinson begged the King to observe that his Government, by acting as mediator, also gave guarantees. Ah, guarantees r exclaimed Frederick, 'and who cares about guarantees now-a-days ? Did not everybody guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction ? Did you not guar- antee it yourselves ? Why don't you all come to the aid of the Queen, then ?'—' We cannot answer for everything,' said Robinson' but if

Austria is pushed to 'extremity, she will have friends.'—' Who are they ?'—' There will be the Russians, who cannot resist Turkey with- out Austria.'—' Good ! As to the Russians, I have nothing to say, buh

I have means of taking care of myself with them.'—' There are other Powers who have engagements, and will fulfil them, however painful those duties may appear.' The King laid his finger on his nose, and cut Sir Thomas short, by saying, No threats, Sir, if you please, no threats !' Podewils, in a terrible fright, struck in at this point with a few words of conciliation, and Robinson, recovering from a momen- tary emotion, said quietly, I use no threats, Sire, I only state that which cannot fail to occur ; it is my zeal for the public good that. brings me here.'—' The public ought to be very much obliged to you but hear me : as for Russia, I have told you about that ; I have no- thing to fear from the King of Poland ; the King of England is my kinsman, he will not attack me, and if he does, the Prince of Anhalt has an army which will take care of him.'—' But,' said Robinson, are you not afraid that the Queen, in despair, may throw herself into the arms of France ?' On this point the King would not make-

any answer, but said, with a raised voice and theatrical emphasis, I am at the head of an invincible army, I am master of a country which I will have, which I ought to have, and I would rather die with.

all my men than let myself be driven, or rather bought, out of it. My ancestors would come out of their graves to reproach me with betraying the rights that I hold from them. And what would be said of me if I were to abandon an enterprise which has been the first act of my reign,.

entered upon after due reflection, steadily pursued, and which I am re- solved to carry out to the end ? Is it for a Protestant sovereign to coun-

sel me to replace poor, oppressed Protestants under the dominion of a persecuting Catholic clergy ? After all, I am the conqueror, and ib is for the conqueror to make conditions. To-day I demand Silesia and Breslau, and if I do not obtain them to-day, in six weeks I shall

demand four more duchies.'—' Is this your Majesty's final decision,' asked Robinson, 'and the answer that I am to take to the Queen ?'— Yes, it makes me as sick as a pregnant woman to have the same question put to me over and over again.' Sir Thomas Robinson begged that he might at least be allowed to explain in detail to

Podewils the bearing of the Queen's proposals, on handing him the text of them, but the King said, 'No' Sir, it is useless to think of it.'

He then turned his back, took up his hat, and retired behind the- curtain that divided the tent. Sir Thomas remained alone with Podewils ; the one was as much disconcerted as the other. 'Yon

trust in France,' said Sir Thomas ; she will forsake you.'—' No, no !' replied Podewils ; France will not leave us in the lurch ; unless, in- deed,' he added, after a few moments' hesitation, ' we were to leave her in the lurch ourselves.' " It is quite-unnecessary to say that this book is well written ; for M. de Broglie cannot write badly.. Had space permitted, we should have quoted his estimates of the characters of Fleury and Belleisle, his description of the state of French society at the time that Frederick took the step that led to such tremendous results ; and, above all, his narrative (Vol. I.. pp. 38-45) of Frederick's remarkable and incognito visit to Strasburg, the governor of which at the time was the second Marshal de Broglie ; " a circumstance to which I owe the advantage of possessing a narrative of this little affair at first hand, written on the spot, and more correct than the stories that appeared in the gazettes, and are to be found in the memoirs of the time." A work of such a kind as this does not give scope for M. de Broglie's skill in shooting individual char- acter, while on the wing, with an epigram. Still, he occasionally retires from the dusty road of special pleading into the •-tviting hostelry of pure literature, where he composes such a sentence as,—" First to encourage and then to trade upon the affec- tions and the wounded pride of a young woman was a game that came easy to an octogenarian, whose age, while it rendered him insensible to the passions of the heart, made him all the more skilful in manipulating its weaknesses." Occasionally, indeed, M. de Broglie quotes from his authorities rather too lavishly, and so overweights his narrative, without strengthen- ing his arguments. But even readers who dispute his conclu- sions will frankly allow that his work is a very valuable one, and has high merits, both literary and historical. M. de Broglie writes such delicate French, that the translation of it into excellent English without doing injustice to the inevitable nuances must have been no easy task. This, Mrs. Cashel Hoey and Mr. Sohn Lillie, who have already done so much good work of a similar kind, have accomplished with a success that may fairly be described as perfect.