Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/616

 580 1692-97. it was the ruin of the French fleet, the shipwreck of King James s cause. In the Netherlands Louis in person invested Namur, and, again baffling William III., took that strong place, which carried the line of the Meuse, in June, This, which might have been the decisive success of the war on land, brought with it no results ; the victory of Steenkirke, in which Luxembourg defeated William, ended the Nether lands campaign. Elsewhere, as had been planned, the operations of the war were insignificant. The campaigns of 1693 were also indecisive; although Luxembourg again defeated William at Neerwinden, the capture of Charleroi was the only result. The aggressive period of the war was coming to an end. In 1694 it became almost entirely de fensive ; and the death of Marshal Luxembourg in the first days of 1695 took from Louis his most fortunate general. Villeroy, who succeeded him, was a poor officer ; the ancient credit of the French army was upheld by Vauban and Catinat. The war in that year was exceedingly lan guid. The generals were afraid of the court ; the king re warded and promoted the less able over the heads of the more capable. The recovery of Namur by William III. in this year showed how France had lost strength since 1G92. In 1696 Louis succeeded in detaching Victor Amadeus from the allies by abandoning Casale and Pinerolo to him, and securing to him his Savoyard territory ; and the duke s daughter was betrothed to the duke of Burgundy, the eldest son of the dauphin, the father of Louis XV. This defection of Savoy, the appearance of Catinat in the Netherlands in 1697, the renewed vigour of the French arms, the difficulty of governing England now that Queen Mary was dead, at last led William III. to accept the mediation of Sweden. Louis XIV. was at least as willing to come to terms ; France was worn out with the long war and its great sacri fices ; and, above all, it was seen that Charles II. of Spain had not long to live. To be ready to deal with the great questions of the Spanish succession Louis agreed to terms which he otherwise would not have granted. The peace of The llyswick in 1697 was soon agreed to. Louis recognized peace of William III. as king of England, and Anne, second Ryswick. daughter of James II., and a decided Protestant, as his successor. He ceded to the allies all places won from England, Holland, or Spain since the peace of Nimwegen, and consented to a Dutch garrison in each of the Spanish- Netherland barrier-fortresses. These three powers had no fault to find with the treaty of liyswick ; Germany, how ever, was not so well pleased. She had made war chiefly to reduce the French hold on the Ilhine ; William had pledged himself that Strasburg should be restored ; but, as neither England nor Holland would support him in demanding this of Louis, he was fain to make peace without it. The emperor and the princes were very unwilling to come in ; at last,. however, they signed a separate peace, in which they got back all places taken by France since Nim wegen, excepting Strasburg, and recovered all the strong holds on the right bank of the Ilhine. Lorraine was re stored to its German duke ; the French candidate for the electorate of Cologne was abandoned ; and the claims of the Princess-Palatine on the Lower Palatinate commuted for a sum of money. Germany had fair cause therefore to be well pleased with the result. Louis now turned all his The attention to the Spanish question ; and the failure of his Spanish candidate for the throne of Poland, the prince of Conti, in 1697, perhaps made him all the more anxious to prepare the way for the great triumph which he hoped might be won at Madrid. The closing years of the century were passed in active negotiations for this object. The three houses which hoped to gain by the death of Charles II., for nations were now treated as the private inheritance of princes, were the house of Bourbon, the house of Austria, and the house of Wittelsbach. Austria and France desired succes sion. [HISTORY. to acquire the whole heritage ; the Bavarian elector would have been satisfied with a partition. The emperor Leopold, head of the house of Austria, desired the Spanish throne for his younger son the archduke Charles, nephew (by marriage) of Charles II., and grandson of Maria of Spain, spouse of the emperor Ferdinand III.; he was therefore only very distantly related to the dying king. Louis XIV. claimed, in spite of renunciations, for Philip his grandson, grandson of Maria Theresa, half sister to Charles II., Philip s elder brother, Louis duke of Burgundy, waiving his claim on his behalf. Lastly, Maximilian Emmanuel, elector of Bavaria, claimed for his son Joseph Ferdinand, on behalf of the child s mother, Maria Antonia, daughter of Leopold I. and Margaret Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain. Leopold I. was the only male cousin of the Spanish king, and his nearest male relation ; and Charles II. had also married Maria Anna of Neuburg, Leopold s sister-in- law. Moreover, his rights had never been renounced, while Maria Theresa, on marrying Louis XIV., had renounced hers, and so also had Maria Antonia, mother of the Bavarian electoral prince. The knotty question, however, was not to be solved by paper-considerations ; it was a matter for the law of the stronger, and the more unscrupulous ; Louis XIV. therefore won. William III., earnest in his desire for peace, and anxious that France should get no additional strength, threw in his lot with the Bavarian prince, and thought that such a partition might be made as would satisfy all. Charles II. also was strongly in favour of the same cause, and made a will in favour of Joseph Ferdinand. This, however, pleased neither Austria nor France, and Count Harrach, the Austrian envoy, got the will annulled, though he could not persuade the king of Spain to recognize the archduke Charles as his heir. Directly after the signature of the peace of Ryswick, Louis XIV. sent the Marquis d Harcourt, a most successful choice, to represent his interests at Madrid, and ordered Tallard to amuse William III. with a scheme for a partition-treaty. Harcourt was to intrigue for the whole succession at Madrid, while Tallard should make sure of a part at St James s, in case Harcourt s difficult mission failed. William III. was only too glad to enter into the scheme ; and a first partition-treaty was drawn up, by which France, Austria, and Bavaria each should get its part. This treaty Louis used against itself ; for it was one of the most cogent arguments by which Harcourt succeeded in persuading the Spanish court and people that if they would keep the great inheritance unbroken, and not destroy the ancient kingdom, they must have the French prince as their future monarch. In spite of much ill-will and great dis couragement, Harcourt won his way into the complete con fidence of the court of Spain, and utterly outstripped the rough and unwise Austrians. Early in 1699 the young electoral prince died, and the first partition-treaty became void. A second treaty followed, though it was not accepted by Austria; and Louis XIV. in accepting it had no inten tion of keeping his word, unless it suited him to do so. French influences, from the moment that this second treaty became known at Madrid, were omnipotent with the Spanish court; and in 17UO Charles II. signed another will, in which he left the whole of the grand inheritance to Philip duke of Anjou. After some simulated, and perhaps a little real hesitation, Louis XIV. accepted the will for his grandson, and enjoyed for a brief while the triumph that it brought, the triumph of successful diplomacy and of a vastly enlarged influence and power. As time went on, it became clear that the king of Spain would not always be the obedient servant of the king of France, and that the connexion between the monarchies was a source of weak ness rather than of strength. War did not break out in consequence, as had been ex pected ; the English, who had disliked the partition-treaties,