But the will of Charles the Second,annulling these renunciations,took away the sole foundation of the Austrian pretensions;for,however this act might be obtained,it was just as valid as his father's,and was confirmed by the universal concurrence of the Spanish nation to the new settlement he made of that crown.Let it be,as I think it ought to be,granted,that the true heirs could not claim against renunciations that were,if I may so say,conditions of their birth:but Charles the Second had certainly as good a right to change the course of succession agreeably to the order of nature and the constitution of that monarchy,after his true heirs were born,as Philip the Fourth had to change it,contrary to this order and this constitution,before they were born,or at any other time.--He had as good a right,in short,to dispense with the Pyrenean treaty,and to set it aside in this respect,as his father had to make it:so that the renunciations being annulled by that party to the Pyrenean treaty who had exacted them,they could be deemed no longer binding,by virtue of this treaty,on the party who had made them.The sole question that remained therefore between these rival houses,as to right,was this,whether the engagements taken by Louis the Fourteenth in the partition treaties obliged him to adhere to the terms of the last of them in all events,and to deprive his family of the succession which the king of Spain opened,and the Spanish nation offered to them;rather than to depart from a composition he had made,on pretensions that were disputable then,but were now out of dispute;it may be said,and it was said,that the treaties of partition being absolute,without any condition or exception relative to any disposition the king of Spain had made or might make of his succession,in favor of Bourbon or Austria;the disposition made by his will,in favor of the Duke of Anjon,could not affect the engagements so lately taken by Louis the Fourteenth in these treaties,nor dispense with a literal observation of them.This might be true,on strict principles of justice;but I apprehend that none of these powers,who exclaimed so loudly against the perfidy of France in this use,would have been more scrupulous in a parallel case.The maxim,"summum jus est summa injuria,"would have been quoted,and the rigid letter of treaties would have been softened by an equitable interpretation of their spirit and intention.His imperial majesty,above all,had not the least color of right to exclaim against France on this occasion;for in general if his family was to be stripped of all the dominions they have acquired by breach of faith,and means much worse than the acceptation of the will,even allowing all the invidious circumstances imputed to the conduct of France to be true,the Austrian family would sink from their present grandeur to that low state they were in two or three centuries ago.In particular,the emperor,who had constantly refused to accede to the treaties of partition,or to submit to the dispositions made by them,had not the least plausible pretence to object to Louis the Fourteenth,that he departed from them.Thus,I think,the right of the two houses stood on the death of Charles the Second.
The right of the Spaniards,an independent nation,to regulate their own succession,or to receive the prince whom their dying monarch had called to it;and the right of England and Holland to regulate this succession,to divide and parcel out this monarchy in different lots,it would be equally foolish to go about to establish.One is too evident,the other too absurd,to admit of any proof.But enough has been said concerning right,which was in truth little regarded by any of the parties concerned immediately or remotely in the whole course of these proceedings.Particular interests were alone regarded,and these were pursued as ambition,fear,resentment,and vanity directed:I mean the ambition of the two houses contending for superiority of power:the fear of England and Holland lest this superiority should become too great in either;the resentment of Spain at the dismemberment of that monarchy projected by the partition treaties;and the vanity of that nation,as well as of the princes of the house of Bourbon:for as vanity mingled with resentment to make the will,vanity had a great share in determining the acceptation of it.
Let us now consider the same conjuncture in a view of policy.The policy of the Spanish councils was this.They could not brook that their monarchy should be divided:and this principle is expressed strongly in the will of Charles the Second,where he exhorts his subjects not to suffer any dismemberment or diminution of a monarchy founded by his predecessors with so much glory.
Too weak to hinder this dismemberment by their own strength,too well apprised of the little force and little views of the court of Vienna,and their old allies having engaged to procure this dismemberment even by force of arms:
nothing remained for them to do upon this principle,but to detach France from the engagements of the partition treaties,by giving their whole monarchy to a prince of the house of Bourbon.As much as may have been said concerning the negotiations of France to obtain a will in her favor,and yet to keep in reserve the advantages stipulated for her by the partition treaties if such a will could not be obtained,and though I am persuaded that the marshal of Harcourt,who helped to procure this will,made his court to Louis the Fourteenth as much as the marshal of Tallard,who negotiated the partitions;yet it is certain that the acceptation of the will was not a measure definitively taken at Versailles when the king of Spain died.The alternative divided those councils,and,without entering at this time into the arguments urged on each side,adhering to the partitions seemed the cause of France,accepting the will that of the house of Bourbon.
