Genoa and landed at Barcelona. Here he boasted loudly of what he had accomplished.

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Spain and the emperor now united," he said, "will give the law to Europe. The emperor has one hundred and fifty thousand troops under arms, and in six months can bring as many more into the field. France shall be pillaged. George I. shall be driven both from his German and his British territories."

From Barcelona Ripperda traveled rapidly to Madrid, where he was received with almost regal honors by the queen, who was now in reality the sovereign. She immediately appointed him Secretary of State, and transferred to him the reins of government which she had taken from the unresisting hands of her moping husband. Thus Ripperda became, in all but title, the King of Spain. He was a weak man, of just those traits of character which would make him a haughty woman's favorite. He was so elated with this success, became so insufferably vain, and assumed such imperious airs as to disgust all parties. He made the most extravagant promises of the subsidies the emperor was to furnish, and of the powers which were to combine to trample England and France beneath their feet. It was soon seen that these promises were merely the vain-glorious boasts of his own heated brain. Even the imperial ambassador at Madrid was so repelled by his arrogance, that he avoided as far as possible all social and even diplomatic intercourse with him. There was a general combination of the courtiers to crush the favorite. The queen, who, with all her ambition, had a good share of sagacity, soon saw the mistake she had made, and in four months after Ripperda's return to Madrid, he was dismissed in disgrace.

A general storm of contempt and indignation pursued the discarded minister. His rage was now inflamed as much as his vanity had been. Fearful of arrest and imprisonment, and Yarning with that spirit of revenge which is ever strongest in weakest minds, he took refuge in the house of the British am

bassador, Mr. Stanhope. Hostilities had not yet commenced. Indeed there had been no declaration of war, and diplomatic relations still continued undisturbed. Each party was acting secretly, and watching the movements of the other with a jealous eye.

Ripperda sought protection beneath the flag of England, and with the characteristic ignominy of deserters and traitors, endeavored to ingratiate himself with his new friends by disclosing all the secrets of his negotiations at Vienna. Under these circumstances full confidence can not be placed in his declarations, for he had already proved himself to be quite unscrupulous in regard to truth. The indignant queen sent an armed force, arrested the duke in the house of the British ambassador, and sent him, in close imprisonment, to the castle of Segovia. He, however, soon escaped from there and fled to England, where he reiterated his declarations respecting the secret articles of the treaty of Vienna. The most important of these declarations was, that Spain and the emperor had agreed to drive George I. from England and to place the Pretender, who had still many adherents, upon the British throne. It was also asserted that marriage contracts were entered into which, by uniting the daughters of the emperor with the sons of the Spanish monarch, would eventually place the crowns of Austria and Spain upon the same brow. The thought of such a vast accumulation of power in the hands of any one monarch, alarmed all the rest of Europe. Both Spain and the emperor denied many of the statements made by Ripperda. But as truth has not been esteemed a diplomatic virtue, and as both Ripperda and the sovereigns he had served were equally tempted to falsehood, and were equally destitute of any character for truth, it is not easy to decide which party to believe.

England and France took occasion, through these disclosures, to rouse the alarm of Europe. So much apprehension was excited in Prussia, Bavaria, and with other princes of the

empire, who were appalled at the thought of having another Spanish prince upon the imperial throne, that the emperor sent ambassadors to these courts to appease their anxiety, and issued a public declaration denying that any such marriages were in contemplation; while at the same time he was promising the Queen of Spain these marriages, to secure her support. England and France accuse the emperor of deliberate, persistent, unblushing falsehood.

The emperor seems now to have become involved in an inextricable maze of prevarication and duplicity, striving in one court to accomplish purposes which in other courts he was denying that he wished to accomplish. His embarrassment at length became so great, the greater part of Europe being roused and jealous, that he was compelled to abandon Spain, and reluctantly to sign a treaty of amity with France and England. A general armistice was agreed upon for seven years. The King of Spain, thus abandoned by the emperor, was also compelled to smother his indignation and to roll back his artillery into the arsenals. Thus this black cloud of war, which threatened all Europe with desolation, was apparently dispelled. This treaty, which seemed to restore peace to Europe, was signed in June, 1727. It was, however, a hollow peace. The spirit of ambition and aggression animated every court; and each one was ready, in defiance of treaties and in defiance of the misery of the world, again to unsheath the sword as soon as any opportunity should offer for the increase of territory or power.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHARLES VI. AND THE POLISH WAR.

FROM 1727 TO 1735.

CARDINAL FLEURY. THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA URGES THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION.HE PROMISES HIS TWO DAUGHTERS TO THE TWO SONS OF THE QUEEN OF SPAIN.FRANCE, ENGLAND AND SPAIN UNITE AGAINST AUSTRIA.-CHARLES VI. ISSUES ORDERS TO PREPARE FOR WAR.-HIS PERPLEXITIES. SECRET OVERTURES TO ENGLAND. THE CROWN OF POLAND.--MEETING OF THE POLISH CONGRESS-STANISLAUS GOES TO POLAND.-AUGUSTUS III. CROWNED.-WAR.-CHARLES SENDS AN ARMY TO LOMBARDY.-DIFFICULTIES OF PRINCE EUGENE-CHARLES'S DISPLEAS URE WITH ENGLAND.-LETTER TO COUNT KINSKY.-HOSTILITIES RENEWED.

THE

THE young King of France, Louis XV., from amidst the orgies of his court which rivaled Babylon in corruption, was now seventeen years of age, and was beginning to shake off the trammels of guardianship and to take some ambitious part in government. The infamous regent, the Duke of Orleans, died suddenly of apoplexy in 1723. Gradually the king's preceptor, Fleury, obtained the entire ascendency over the mind of his pupil, and became the chief director of affairs. He saw the policy of reuniting the Bourbons of France and Spain for the support of each other. The policy was consequently adopted of cultivating friendly relations between the two kingdoms. Cardinal Fleury was much disposed to thwart the plans of the emperor. A congress of the leading powers had been assembled at Soissons in June, 1728, to settle some diplomatic questions. The favorite object of the emperor now was, to obtain from the European powers the formal guarantee to support his decree of succession which conveyed the crown of Austria to his daughters, in preference to those of his brother Joseph.

The emperor urged the Pragmatic Sanction strongly upon the congress, as the basis upon which he would enter into friendly relations with all the powers. Fleury opposed it, and with such influence over the other plenipotentiaries as to secure its rejection. The emperor was much irritated, and intimated war. France and England retorted defiance. Spain was becoming alienated from the emperor, who had abandoned her cause, and was again entering into alliance with France. The emperor had promised his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, to Carlos, son of the Queen of Spain, and a second daughter to the next son, Philip. These were as brilliant matches as an ambitious mother could desire. But while the emperor was making secret and solemn promises to the Queen of Spain, that these marriages should be consummated, which would secure to the son of the queen the Austrian, as well as the Spanish crown, he was declaring to the courts of Europe that he had no such plans in contemplation.

The Spanish queen, at length, annoyed, and goaded on by France and England, sent an ambassador to Vienna, and demanded of the emperor a written promise that Maria Theresa was to be the bride of Carlos. The emperor was now brought to the end of his intrigues. He had been careful heretofore to give only verbal promises, through his ministers. After his reiterated public denials that any such alliance was anticipated, he did not dare commit himself by giving the required document. An apologetic, equivocal answer was returned which so roused the ire of the queen, that, breaking off from Austria, she at once entered into a treaty of cordial union with England and France.

It will readily be seen that all these wars and intrigues had but little reference to the welfare of the masses of the people. They were hardly more thought of than the cattle and the poultry. The only purpose they served was, by unintermitted toil, to raise the wealth which supported the castle and the palace, and to march to the field to fight battles, in which