in the secret, it is impossible to learn any thing about it in this country.

LOUIS XIV. TO COUNT TALLARD.

Marly, April 10. 1698.

Your letters of the 31st of last month, and of the 3rd instant, inform me of your arrival in London, of the attention which the principal people of the nation have shown you, and of what you have learned respecting the affairs of the kingdom. I am very well satisfied with the precise account which you give me of all these points. Your account of the debts and revenue of the King shows me that the English have reduced that prince to the necessity of taking all his resolutions in concert with the nation, and there is reason to believe that, exhausted as it seems to be by the late war, it would be difficult to induce it to engage in another.

You will discover this better when you have made a longer stay in London, and yet I shall be very glad to learn that the troops still on foot are disbanded. Mine will make no movement which can occasion any uneasiness.

The elector of Bavaria has to have an envoy in London.

of the one who is now sent,

not been accustomed

Hence the

Hence the presence on the part of the

Elector, to the king of England, can have no other motive than that which you assign to it. It is

probable that the bad health of the king of Spain obliges him to take, if he can, some measures with the king of England, and I am persuaded that you will soon acquaint me with the feelings of the nation on an event so calculated to excite a new

war.

I have learnt by a letter which the Marquis d'Harcourt wrote to me on the 19th, from Madrid,

*

* Ambassador of France to the Court of Spain. He was created Duke at the accession of the Duke of Anjou to the Spanish throne. He had arrived at Madrid at the end of December, 1697. "C'était," says Saint Simon, "un beau et vaste génie d'homme, un esprit charmant, mais une ambition sans bornes, et quand il pouvait prendre le montant, une hauteur, un mépris des autres, une domination insupportable; tous les dehors de la vertu, tout son langage, mais, au fond, rien ne lui coutait pour arriver à ses fins; le plus adroit de tous les hommes en ménagements et en souterrains, et à se concilier l'estime et les vœux publics sous une écorce d'indifférence, de simplicité. Il savait tout allier et se rallier. Il était assez supérieur à lui,—même pour sentir ce qui lui manquait du côté de la guerre, quoiqu'il en eut des parties, mais les grandes, il n'y atteignait pas; aussi tourna-t-il court vers le conseil dès qu'il espéra y pouvoir entrer. Aucun seigneur n'eut le monde et la cour si généralement pour lui, aucun n'était plus tourné à y faire le premier personnage, peu ou point de plus capâble à le soutenir; avec cela beaucoup de hauteur et d'avarice, qui toutefois ne sont pas des qualités attirantes. Pour la première, il la savait ménager; mais l'autre se montrait à découvert jusque par la singulière frugalité de sa table à la cour. Il mélait avec grace un air de guerre à un air de cour, d'une façon tout à fait noble et naturelle. Il était gros, point grand, et d'une laideur particulière, et qui surprenait, mais avec des yeux si vifs et un regard si perçant, si haut et pourtant doux, et toute une physionomie qui pétillait d'esprit et de grace, qu'à peine le trouvaiton laid; naturellement gai et aimant à s'amuser."

that the health of the king of Spain was a little better, but, at the same time, it appears to me that we must not calculate much on the life of that prince.

WILLIAM III. TO THE PENSIONARY HEINSIUS.

Kensington, April 1-11. 1698.

I find people begin here more and more to fear the death of the king of Spain, which they consider as a signal for war. In that case, it appears that they are resolved to engage in it; but they would contribute little or nothing except to the navy, and abandon the care of the war by land to the Republic and the other allies. So far from this, I see no likelihood of inducing the Parliament to give money sufficient to keep so considerable a body of troops in the Spanish Netherlands, as I had in the last war; and without that I see no possibility of defending them.

Count Tallard has had a private audience of me to-day, and made the same propositions as Pomponne and Torcy have done to the Earl of Portland. I told him the affair was of too delicate and important a nature, to be able to give any answer to these propositions, or for me to make any, as he desired, seeing that I and the Republic are in alliance with the princes interested in the question of the succession; but that I was willing to enter

into a discussion with him, on the subject, without coming to any engagement. We had therefore a very long conversation on this important matter, and much reasoning on both sides. I gave him to understand that I foresaw no possibility of accommodation, unless at least all the Spanish possessions in Italy should be ceded to the Emperor, and the Spanish Netherlands to the elector of Bavaria, not in the condition they now are, but with a stronger and greater barrier, which might be discussed hereafter; to us, some ports in the Mediterranean, and in the West Indies, for the security of the commerce of both nations. This is a summary of what passed in the conversation, of which he will not fail to make a report; and I have no doubt but he will speak to me further about it. I think I have not gone too far; and I have certainly come under no engagement.

WILLIAM III. TO THE EARL OF PORTLAND.

Kensington, April 1-11. 1698.

The journey which you have taken to see the Prince of Vaudémont* is probably the reason why

* "Portland fit un trait au milieu de son séjour qui donna fort à penser, mais qu'il soutint avec audace sans faire semblant de s'apercevoir qu'on l'eut même remarqué. Vaudémont passait des Pays Bas à Milan, sans approcher de la cour. Soit affaires, soit galanterie pour l'ami intime de son maître, il partit de

I have received no letters from you since the 2d of this month. I shall doubtless have some tomorrow or the day after: however, I think it necessary to inform you of what passed to-day at a private audience, for which Count Tallard had applied. He told me that he had been made acquainted with what has passed between you and the ministers, and with the proposals which they had made to you, to prevent a war in the event of the death of the king of Spain, and that he had orders to repeat the same proposals to me, not doubting that you had informed me of them, and desiring to know my sentiments on the subject. I replied that I wished for nothing more than the continuation of peace, and that I should be very glad to take all possible measures to prevent a war; that the affair of which he spoke was of too important and delicate a nature (as there were princes interested in it, with whom I was in alliance), for me to offer any suggestion on my part, or reply to the proposal which had been made to you, and which was now repeated to myself; but that I was nevertheless ready to enter into conversation with him on this momentous question. He then began by repeating the same things, which I believe the ministers said to you, and which it is not necessary for me to repeat. Upon this, I entered into a long argument, and expressed my conviction that I saw no appearance of an accommodation, unless all the

Paris et s'en alla à Notre-Dame de Liesse, auprès de Laon, voir Vaudémont, qui y passait." - Mémoires de Saint-Simon.