Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/298

270 establishment of peace between two hostile creeds, and for the regulation of territorial questions by common agreement. The Empire was represented by Count Maximilian von Trautmansdorf; France by Count d'Avaux; Sweden by John Oxenstiern, a son of the great chancellor; the Pope by Cardinal Chigi, afterwards himself Pope Alexander VII.; Spain by Count Pefiarandi, and by two of her subjects from Tranche Comte, not to mention lesser names. England had no representative at the Congress of Westphalia. The questions in dispute and the result of these long deliberations (which were not terminated until the 24th October 1648 by the signature of the two great treaties of Munster and Osnabargh) were worthy of the statesmen engaged in them and of the time spent in the negotiations; for the Congress of Westphalia laid the foundations of modern Europe, and its leading principles subsisted not only into the present century, but down to the war of 1870-71. It terminated the long contest between France and Austria. It established the equal rights of th3 Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinistic churches in Germany. It rendered 350 German princes almost independent of the Empire, and it planted the germ of the future greatness of Prussia. This form of the German body remained unaltered till the French Revolution. But it also gave to France and Sweden a right, as mediating powers at Munster, to interfere in the affairs of Germany a right which supported the aggressive policy of Louis XIV., and caused, in the event, innumerable quarrels. The diplomatic communications at Munster all passed through the mediators, and were generally framed in Latin. The discussions were also carried on in that language. A separate peace between the Dutch and the Spaniards was also signed at Munster in 1648, as represented in Terburg's celebrated picture, now in t113 National Gallery, but this was not an act of the Congress.

The term Congress was applied to the diplomatic meetings which negotiated the Peace of Nimeguen in 1678 and the Peace of Ryswick (so called from a castle near the Hague) in 1697. A contemporary French author, De Rouille, remarked that these meetings ought to be termed assemblies, not congresses, since the latter word was coarse and inappropriate. The term has since entirely lost its improper meaning, derived from an obsolete form of ecclesiastical procedure, and the diplomatic signification has triumphed. At Nimeguen England appeared for the first time at a Continental Congress, from the interest she took in the fate of Holland, and was worthily represented by Sir William Temple; France by Colbert de Croissy, D Estrades, and D Avaux; Spain by Don Pedro Ronquillo, governor of the Low Countries; and Holland by the count of Nassau and Beverning. Separate treaties were signed between the various parties. The Congress of Ryswick was of still greater importance to England, for it terminated the war in which we had long been engaged with France, and extorted from Louis XIV. the recognition of the right of William and Mary to the British crown. The peace was of short duration, for the War of Succession broke out in 1701; the grand alliance was formed between England, Holland, and Austria; France was defeated; peace was nearly restored in 1709 at the conferences of Gertruydenberg, which were privately carried on between the marquis de Torcy and the Grand Pensionary, but not finally concluded till 1712, when a Congress of all the belligerent powers (except the king of Spain) assembled at Utrecht. France was represented by the marshal d'Huxelles, England by the bishop of Bristol (it was the last time an English bishop acted in a civil and diplomatic capacity), the emperor by Count Sinzenclorf. The decisive negotiation for peace was, however, carried on secretly and separately between London and Versailles, and whilst the Congress was occupied with formalities, Bolingbroke came to an agreement with France, which broke up the alliance and compelled the other powers to terminate the war. The other Congresses of the 18th century are those of Soissons in. 1727, remarkable for the fact that Cardinal Floury, then prime minister of Louis XV., attended it in person, and of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, which terminated a general war. By each of these Congresses the treaties of Westphalia, Nimeguen, Ryswick, and Utrecht were renewed and con firmed; so that their labours formed a continuous series and identical body of international legislation. No Congress was held at the termination either of the Seven Years War in 1763 or of the American war in 1783, but the style of a Congress was assumed by the German plenipotentiaries who met at Teschen in 1779 to end the war of the Bavarian succession. It hardly deserved the name.

The French Revolution and the wars of the Empire swept away the entire political fabric of continental Europe and the treaties on which it was based. No attempt was made during that period to convoke a Congress for the purpose of a general pacification and territorial settlement; for the Congress of Rastadt, which met in December 1797 and sat till April 1799, was designed mainly to re-establish amicable relations between France and the German empire, and was not attended by the representatives of England, Russia, or Spain. These negotiations proved abortive; war was renewed; the Congress was broken up; and the ministers of the French Directory Bonnier and Eoberjot were massacred by a party of Austrian Szeklers as they quitted the town. The Austrian Government never entirely cleared itself of complicity in this crime against the rights and usages of nations; and the event aggravated the hostility existing between France and Germany.

Upon the fall of Napoleon, it was agreed by the 32d Article of the Peace of Paris, signed on the 30th May 1814 between France and the allied powers, that "within two months all the powers which had been engaged in the war on either side should send plenipotentiaries to Vienna to settle, at a general Congress, the arrangements required to complete the provisions of the Treaty of Peace." The Congress of Vienna, which met, with some allowance for delays, early in November of the same year, was by far the most splendid and important assembly ever convoked to discuss and determine the affairs of Europe. The emperor of Russia, the king of Prussia, the kings of Bavaria, Denmark, and Wurtemberg, were present in person in the Austrian capital at the court of the Emperor Francis. Prince Metternich presided over the Congress. Prince Talleyrand represented France. Great Britain sent the secretary of state for foreign affairs Lord Castlereagh, besides the duke of Wellington, Lord Clancarty, and Lord Cathcart. Mr Stratford Canning, now the sole survivor of that illustrious assembly, took part in the discussion of the affairs of Switzerland, where he was then minister. Prussia was represented by Prince Harclenbergand Baron Humboldt. A hundred sovereigns and ministers were collected in Vienna, all animated by a general desire for peace and a lively sense of their own interests. Chevalier Gent/, who was named protocolist to the Congress, and who in fact drafted the treaties which were ultimately signed by all the powers, has left us a curious account of the secret proceedings of this prodigious assembly. Strange to say, the Congress itself, that is to say, the representatives of all these principalities and powers, never met in council; nor did any formal exchange of their respective credentials take place. The business was entirely transacted by committees of the five great powers Austria, England, France, Prussia, and Russia; to whom, for certain purposes, the ministers of Spain, Sweden, and Portugal were added. Even with this