Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/389

A.D. 1718.] Foiled in these quarters, Alberonl appeared more successful in the north. A negotiation had been opened betwixt the two potentates, so long at bitter variance, the czar and Charles XII. of Sweden. They were induced to meet in the island of Aland, and to agree that the czar should retain Livonia, Ingria, and other Swedish territories south of Finland which he had reft from Sweden; but, in compensation, Charles was to be allowed to re-conquer from George of Hanover and England Bremen and Verden, and Norway from Denmark: and that the two monarchs were to unite their arms for the restoration of Stanislaus to the throne of Poland, and of the pretender to that of Great Britain. The latter enterprise was but the continuation of the old plan of Charles's minister, Gortz, who was now all the more bent on it in revenge for his seizure and imprisonment in Holland at the instigation of the king of England.

The success of these arrangements appeared to Alberoni so certain that he boasted that the northern tempest would burst ere long over England with annihilating fury; but even here he was doomed to disappointment. Charles XII. delighted in nothing so much as some wild and romantic enterprise. Such was that of the conquest of Norway; and he was led by his imagination to commence it without delay. With his characteristic madness, he divided his army into two parts, with one of which he took the way by the coast to Norway, and the other he sent over the mountains at the very commencement of winter. There that division perished in the snow amid the most incredible horrors; and he himself, whilst carrying on the siege of Frederickshall, was killed on the 11th of December, as appears probable, by the treacherous shot of a French engineer in his service. The death of this strange monarch, who had inflicted, by his military mania, the deepest calamities on his own country as well as on the north of Europe generally, was the signal for a total change of administration in Sweden. All his projects were abandoned, his ministers dismissed, his sister Ulrica was placed on the throne in his stead, and his favourite, Gortz, perished on the scaffold. The tempest on which Alberoni had so fondly calculated for the ruin of England, burst only in the north, and left the atmosphere of Britain perfectly serene.

In France, the machinations of the Spanish minister appeared for a time equally promising, yet proved equally abortive. He had dexterously availed himself of all the discontents in France to destroy the regent, and bring Philip of Spain to the French throne. The duke of Maine was engaged in a desperate conspiracy against the regent. It was intended that he should be seized in one of his parties of pleasure near Paris; that the States-General should be assembled, and Philip of Spain, as next of blood, proclaimed the rightful regent, and the duke of Maine his deputy. In this conspiracy the duchess of Maine, a granddaughter of the celebrated Condé, was the chief actor. She was a woman of a passionate and daring character, whom her flatterers had persuaded that she had all the abilities of her ancestor. As for the duke himself, he was weak and timid, but these deficiencies were supposed to be made up by the vigour and talent of his wife. She entered zealously into the conspiracy with Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador and creature of Alberoni, and fomented the many discontents which existed to a head. Almost all parties were indignant at the boundless influence of the profligate Dubois; the military men, especially the marshals d'Huxelles and Villars, were disgusted with the quadruple alliance; the Jesuits were busy intriguing for a return to power; there were complaints of oppressions from the provinces, and the parliament of Paris was plotting to increase its prerogatives.

The conspiracy had reached its height. Manifestoes were already prepared by cardinal Polignac for publication, armed bands, in the disguise of salt smugglers, were collecting on the Somme; and in the beginning of December Cellamare dispatched a young Spanish abbé, Don Vincente Portocarrero, a relative of cardinal Portocarrero, accompanied by a son of the marquis Monteleone, with an account of his proceedings, and with copies of the manifestoes to Madrid, and to bring back Alberoni's last instructions. Portocarrero had arrived at Poictiers, when he was arrested and his papers seized. Securely as the conspirators thought they had been working, they had been long silently watched by Dubois, the French government having been warned both from the court of St. James and from the French embassy at Madrid that a grand plot was in progress. Dubois had let the matter go on till he had full evidence to produce by seizing the emissary with all the papers, which he then laid before the astonished regent. The duke and duchess of Maine were instantly seized, the duke confined at Dourlens, in Picardy, the duchess in the castle of Dijon. Cellamare was arrested, as Gyllenborg, the Swedish envoy, had been in London, his papers examined, and himself conducted to the frontiers. To justify this seizure of an ambassador, two of the letters which he had sent by Portocarrero were printed, and a circular addressed to all the foreign ministers in Paris, explaining his offences. Cardinal Polignac, M. de Pompadour, and other of the chief conspirators were also apprehended, and the scheme was thus completely crushed.

Meantime, the duke of St. Aignan, the French minister at Madrid, aware of what was going on, had demanded his audience of leave. Alberoni had eluded his demands under one pretext or another, anxious to retain him in his hands as a guarantee for the safety of Cellamare; but Aignan, perceiving his drift, quietly departed from Madrid, and made the best of his way towards France. Expecting pursuit and detention, he quitted his carriage near Pampeluna, and took his way across the mountains on a mule, thus safely reaching the frontiers. His apprehensions were soon justified; he was pursued, and his servant arrested in mistake for himself. Alberoni lost no time in warning Cellamare in Paris of what had taken place, and yet urging him, before providing for his own safety, to bring the conspiracy to a crisis. Before his letter arrived the conspiracy had reached a crisis, the reverse of what he hoped; and his letter to Cellamare falling into the hands of the French government, became the public evidence of his clandestine attempts against it. There remained, therefore, nothing for it but for his master, Philip, to hardily justify the Spanish proceedings as measures fairly directed against a spurious and illegal administration in France; and there was nothing for it on the part of the regent but to proclaim war against Spain—a measure which England had long been urging on him. The