Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/230

222 While the congress at Utrecht remained in this inactive state, the queen proceeded to perfect that important article for preventing the union of France and Spain. It was proposed, and accepted, that Philip should renounce France, for himself and his posterity; and that the most christian king, and all the princes of his blood, should in the like manner renounce Spain.

It must be confessed, that this project of renunciation lay under a great disrepute, by the former practices of this very king Lewis XIV., pursuant to an absurd notion among many in that kingdom, of a divine right annexed to proximity of blood, not to be controlled by any human law.

But it is plain the French themselves had recourse to this method, after all their infractions of it, since the Pyrenean treaty; for the first dauphin, in whom the original claim was vested, renounced for himself and his eldest son, which opened the way to Philip duke of Anjou; who would however hardly have succeeded, if it had not been for the will made in his favour by the last king, Charles II.

It is indeed hard to reflect with any patience, upon the unaccountable stupidity of the princes of Europe for some centuries past, who left a probability to France of succeeding, in a few ages, to all their dominions; while, at the same time, no alliance with that kingdom could be of advantage to any prince, by reason of the salique law. Should not common prudence have taught every sovereign in Christendom, to enact a salique law with respect to France? for want of which, it is almost a miracle that the Bourbon family has not possessed the universal monarchy by right of inheritance. When the French assert