The French minister had not yet engaged his master openly in the war;but when the Dutch grew impatient,and threatened to renew their truce with Spain,unless France declared;when the king of Sweden was killed,and the battle of Nordlingen lost;when Saxony had turned again to the side of the emperor,and Brandenburg and so many others had followed this example,that Hesse almost alone persistence in the Swedish alliance:then Richelieu engaged his master,and profited of every circumstance which the conjuncture afforded,to engage him with advantage.For,first,he had a double advantage by engaging so late:that of coming fresh into the quarrel against a wearied and almost exhausted enemy;and that of yielding to the impatience of his friends,who,pressed by their necessities and by the want they had of France,gave this minister an opportunity of laying those claims and establishing those pretensions,in all his treaties with Holland,Sweden and the princes and states of the empire,on which he had projected the future aggrandisement of France.The manner in which he engaged,and the air that he gave to his engagement,were advantages of the second sort,advantages of reputation and credit;yet were these of no small moment in the course of the war,and operated strongly in favor of France as he designed they should,even after his death,and at and after the treaties of Westphalia.He varnished ambition with the most plausible and popular pretences.The elector of Treves had put himself under the protection of France:and,if I remember right,he made this step when the emperor could not protect him against the Sivedes,whom he had reason to apprehend.No matter,the governor of Luxemburg was ordered to surprise Treves and to seize the elector.He executed his orders with success,and carried this prince prisoner into Brabant.Richelieu seized the lucky circumstance;he reclaimed the elector:and,on the refusal of the cardinal infant,the war was declared.France,you see,appeared the common friend of liberty,the defender of it in the Low Countries against the king of Spain,and in Germany against the emperor,as well as the protector of the princes of the empire,many of whose states had been illegally invaded,and whose persons were no longer safe from violence even in their own palaces.All these appearances were kept up in the negotiations at Munster,where Mazarin reaped what Richelieu had sowed.The demands that France made for herself were very great;but the conjuncture was favorable,and she improved it to the utmost.No figure could be more flattering than hers at the head of these negotiations;nor more mortifying than the emperor's through the whole course of the treaty.
The princes and states of the empire had been treated as vassals by the emperor:
France determined them to treat with him on this occasion as sovereigns,and supported them in this determination.Whilst Sweden seemed concerned for the protestant interest alone,and showed no other regard,as she had no other alliance;France affected to be impartial alike to the protestant and to the papist and to have no interest at heart but the common interest of the Germanic body.Her demands were excessive,but their were to be satisfied principally out of the emperor's patrimonial dominions.It had been the art of her ministers to establish this general maxim on many particular experiences,that the grandeur of France was a real,and would be a constant security to the rights and liberties of the empire against the emperor:and it is no wonder therefore,this maxim prevailing,injuries,resentments,and jealousies being fresh on one side,and services,obligations,and confidence on the other,that the Germans were not unwilling France should extend her empire on this side of the Rhine whilst Sweden did the same on this side of the Baltic.These treaties,and the immense credit and influence that France had acquitted by them in the empire,put it out of the power of one branch of the house of Austria to return the obligations of assistance to the other,in the war that continued between France and Spain,till the Pyrenean treaty.
By this treaty the superiority of the house of Bourbon over the house of Austria was not only completed and confirmed but the great design of uniting the Spanish and the French monarchies under the former was laid.
The third period therefore begins by a great change of the balance of power in Europe,and by the prospect of one much greater and more fatal.
Before I descend into the particulars I intend to mention,of the course of affairs,and of the political conduct of the great powers of Europe in this third period;give me leave to cast my eyes once more back on the second.
The reflection I am going to make seems to me important,and leads to all that is to follow.
