The first event that gave a turn to the war was the relief of Arras. The siege of this city was undertaken by the prince of Condé, the archduke Leopold, and the count de Fuensaldagna, and pressed with great vigour. The marshals Turenne and De la Ferté, who had formed the siege of Stenay, a place strong and well defended, came and encamped in the neighbourhood of the Spaniards, and tried every method to oblige them to abandon their enterprise, but without effect. At length, Stenay surrendered, and another division of the French army, under the marshal de Hoquincourt, joined Turenne, who, contrary to the opinion of his principal officers, resolved to force the Spanish lines. This he performed with great success, and made himself master of the baggage, artillery, and ammunition of the enemy.(1) Condé, however, gained no less honour than his rival. After defeating the marshal de Hoquincourt, and repulsing De la Ferté, he retreated gloriously himself, by covering the flight of the vanquished Spaniards, and saving the shattered remains of their army. "I am informed," said Philip IV. in his letter of acknowledgment to the prince," that every thing was lost, and that you have recovered every thing.”(2)

This success, which Mazarine vainly ascribed to himself, because he and the king were, at the time, within a few leagues of Arras, was nearly balanced by the relief of Valenciennes, where fortune shifted sides, and taught Condé, his victorious competitor, to seek, in his turn, the honours of war in a retreat. The siege of that place had been undertaken by Turenne and De la Ferté, with an army of twenty thousand men. The lines were completed, and the operations in great forwardness, when the prince of Condé and Don John of Austria, bastard son of Philip IV., advanced towards, with an equal if not superior army, and forced, in the night, the lines of the quarter where the marshal De la Ferté commanded. Turenne flew to his assistance, but all his valour and conduct were not sufficient to restore the battle. He carried off his artillery and baggage, however, unmolested; and even halted, on the approach of the enemy, as if he had been desirous to renew the combat. Astonished at his cool intrepidity, the Spaniards did not dare to attack him. He continued his march; and took Capelle, in sight of Don John and the prince of Condé.(3) It was this talent of at once inspiring confidence into his troops, and intimidating his enemies by the boldness of his enterprises, that made Turenne superior to any general of his age. Conscious that his force would be estimated by the magnitude of his undertakings, after he had acquired the reputation of prudence, he conquered no less by his knowledge of human nature than of the art of war; and he had the singular good fortune to escape the most imminent dangers, by seeming to be above them.

Thus for a time the balance was held almost even between France and Spain, by the address of two able ministers, and the operations of two great generals. But when the crafty Mazarine, by sacrificing to the pride of Cromwell, drew England to the assistance of France, Spain was no longer able to maintain the contest. Dunkirk, the most important fortress in Flanders, was the first object of their united efforts. Twenty English ships blocked up the harbour, while a French army, under Turenne, and six thousand English veterans, besieged the town by land. The prince of Condé and Don John came to its relief: Turenne led out his army to give them battle; and by the obstinate valour of the English, and the impetuosity of the French troops, the Spaniards were totally defeated near the Downs, in spite of the most vigorous exertions of the great Condé. Dunkirk surrendered ten days after, and was delivered to the English according to treaty. Furnes, Dixmude, Oudenarde, Menin, Ypres, and Gravelines, also submitted to the arms of France:(4) and Spain saw the necessity of suing for peace.

One great object of Mazarine's policy was, to obtain the house of Bourbon the eventual succession to the Spanish monarchy. With this view he had

(1) Hist. de Vicomte de Turenne, tom. iv.

(2) Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV. tom. i. c. 5.

(3) La Vie de Turenne, p. 296. Hainault, Chronol. Hist. de France, tom. ii. Voltaire, Siècle tom. i. c. 5 (4) Id. ibid.

formerly proffered peace to Philip IV.. by proposing a marriage between the infanta, Maria Theresa, and Lewis XIV. But as the king of Spain had, at that time, only one son, whose unhealthy infancy rendered his life precarious, the proposal was rejected; lest the infanta, who might probably become heiress to the Spanish dominions, should carry her right into the house of an enemy. That obstacle, however, was now removed. The king of Spain had got another son, by a second wife, and the queen was again with child. It was therefore agreed, that the infanta should be given to Lewis XIV., in order to procure peace to the exhausted monarchy; and, the better to settle the preliminaries of a treaty, cardinal Mazarine and Don Lewis de Haro met on the frontier of both kingdoms, in the isle of Pheasants in the Pyrenees. There, after many conferences and much ceremony, all things were adjusted, by the two ministers, to the satisfaction of both parties. Philip agreed to pardon the rebellious Catalans, and Lewis to receive Condé into favour; Spain renounced all pretensions to Alsace; and the long-disputed succession of Juliers was granted to the duke of Neuburg.(1)

In little more than a year after signing the Pyrenean treaty died cardinal Mazarine, and left the reins of government to Lewis XIV., who had become impatient of a yoke which he was afraid to shake off. Historians have seldom done justice to the character of this accomplished statesman, whose political caution restrained the vigour of his spirit, and the lustre of whose genius was concealed beneath his profound dissimulation. If his schemes were less comprehensive, or his enterprises less bold than those of Richelieu, they were less extravagant.(2) He has been accused of avarice, and seemingly with justice; yet if we reflect that, being an indigent foreigner himself, he married seven nieces to French noblemen of the first distinction, and left his nephew duke of Nevers, we shall perhaps be inclined partly to forgive him. So many matches could not be formed without money: and the pride of raising one's family is no contemptible passion. He had the singular honour of extending the limits of the French monarchy, while France was distracted by intestine hostilities; and of twice restoring peace to the greater part of Europe, after the longest and most bloody wars it had ever known. Nor must we forget his attention to the Spanish succession, which has since made the house of Bourbon so formidable to its neighbours, and is a striking proof of his political foresight. His leading maxim was, That force ought never to be employed but in default of other means; and his perfect knowledge of mankind, the most essential of all mental acquisitions for a minister, enabled him often to accomplish his views without it. When absolutely necessary, we have seen him employ it with effect.

The affairs of Germany and the northern crowns now claim our attention. That tranquillity which the peace of Westphalia had restored to Germany continued unmolested till the death of Ferdinand III. in 1657, when an interregnum of five months ensued, and the diet was violently agitated in regard to the choice of a successor. At last, however, his son Leopold was raised to the imperial throne; for although jealousies prevailed among some of the electors, on account of the ambition of the house of Austria, the greater number were convinced of the propriety of such a choice, in order to prevent more alarming dangers. While the Turks remained masters of Buda, the French in possession of Alsace, and the Swedes of Pomerania, a powerful emperor seemed necessary.(3)

The first measure of Leopold's reign was the finishing of an alliance,

(1) Voltaire, ubi sup. P. Daniel, tom. v.

(2) Voltaire has placed the talents of these two ministers in a just point of view, by applying them to the same object, along with a less worthy associate, in order to make the illustration more perfect. "If, for example," says he, "the subjection of Rochelle had been undertaken by such a genius as Cesar Borgia, he would, under the sanction of the most sacred oaths, have drawn the principal inhabitants into his camp, and there have put them to death. Mazarine would have got possession of the place two or three years later, by corrupting the magistrates, and sowing discord among the citizens. Cardinal Richelieu, in Imitation of Alexander the Great, laid a boom across the harbour, and entered Rochelle as a conqueror; but had the sea been a little more turbulent, or the English a little more diligent, Rochelle might have been saved, and Richelieu called a rash and inconsiderate projector!" Siècle, tom. i. c. v.

(3) Annal. de l'Emp. tom. ii.

which his father had begun, with Poland and Denmark, in opposition to Sweden. But we shall have occasion to notice the events to which this alliance gave birth, in tracing the history of the northern kingdoms.

Sweden had been raised to the highest pitch of military reputation by the victories of Gustavus Adolphus, who was considered as the champion of the Protestant cause; but who gratified his own ambition and love of glory, at the same time that he protected the liberties of Germany, which his immature death only perhaps prevented him from overturning. And his daughter Christina, no less ambitious of fame, though neither in the camp nor cabinet, immortalized her short reign, by declaring herself the patroness of learning and the polite arts. She drew to her court Grotius, Vossius, Des Cartes, and other eminent men, whom she liberally rewarded. But her studies, in general, were too antiquated and abstract to give lustre to her character as a woman; and, by occupying too much her attention, they were injurious to her reputation as a queen. She acceded to the peace of Westphalia, as I have formerly had occasion to observe, from a desire of indulging her passion for study, rather than out of any regard to the happiness of Sweden or the repose of Europe. That peace lightened the cares of government; but they were still too weighty for Christina. "I think I see the devil!" said she, "when my secretary enters with his despatches."(1)

In order to enable the queen to pursue her literary amusements, without disadvantage to the state, the senate of Sweden proposed, that she should marry her cousin, Charles Gustavus, prince palatine of Deux-Ponts, for whom she had been designed from her infancy. But although this prince appears to have been a favourite, and Christina's conduct proves that she was by no means insensible to the passion of the sexes, like our Elizabeth, she did not choose to give herself a master. She prevailed, however, with the states to declare Charles Gustavus her successor; a measure by which she kept herself at liberty, secured the tranquillity of Sweden, and repressed the ambition of some great families, who might, in case of her death, otherwise have offered pretensions to the crown.

But the Swedes, among whom refinement had made little progress, but whose martial spirit was now at its height, and among whom policy was well understood, could not bear to see the daughter of the great Gustavus devote her time and her talents solely to the study of dead languages; to the disputes about vortexes, innate ideas, and other unavailing speculations; to a taste for medals, statues, pictures, and public spectacles, in contempt of the nobler cares of royalty. And they were yet more displeased to find the resources of the kingdom exhausted, in what they considered as inglorious pursuits and childish amusements. A universal discontent arose, and Christina was again pressed to marry. The disgust occasioned by this importunity first suggested to her the idea of quitting the throne. She accordingly signified her intention of resigning, in a letter to Charles Gustavus, and of surrendering her crown in full senate.

But Charles, trained in dissimulation, and fearing the queen had laid a snare for him, rejected her proposal, and prayed that God and Sweden might long preserve her majesty. Perhaps he flattered himself, that the senate would accept her resignation, and appoint him to the government, in recompense for his modesty; but he was deceived, if these were his expectations. The senate and the chief officers of state, headed by the chancellor Oxenstiern, waited upon the queen. And whether Christina had a mind to alarm her discontented subjects, and establish herself more firmly on the throne, by pretending to desert it, or whatever else might be her motive for resigning; in a word, whether having renounced the crown out of vanity, which dictated most of her actions, she was disposed to resume it out of caprice; she submitted, or pretended to submit, to the importunity of her subjects and successor, and consented to reign, on condition that she should be no more pressed to marry.(2)

(1) Mem. de Christine.

(2) Puffend. lib. vi. Arckenholtz tom. i.

Finding it impossible, however, to reconcile her literary pursuits, or more properly her love of ease and her romantic turn of mind, with the duties of her station, Christina finally resigned her crown in 1654; and Charles Gustavus ascended the throne of Sweden, under the name of Charles X. After despoiling the palace of every thing curious or valuable, she left her capital and her kingdom, as the abodes of ignorance and barbarism. She travelled through Germany in men's clothes; and having a design of fixing her residence at Rome, that she might have an opportunity of contemplating the precious remains of antiquity, she embraced the Catholic religion at Brussels, and solemnly renounced Lutheranism at Inspruck.(1) The Catholics considered this conversion as a great triumph, and the Protestants were not a little mortified at the defection of so celebrated a woman; but both without reason; for the queen of Sweden, who had an equal contempt for the peculiarities of the two religions, meant only to conform, in appearance, to the tenets of the people among whom she intended to live, in order to enjoy more agreeably the pleasures of social intercourse. Of this her letters afford sufficient evidence to silence the cavillers of either party.

But Christina, like most sovereigns who have quitted a throne in order to escape from the cares of royalty, found herself no less uneasy in private life: so true it is, that happiness depends on the mind, not on the condition! She soon discovered, that a queen without power was a very insignificant character in Italy, and is supposed to have repented of her resignation. But how. ever that may be, it is certain she became tired of her situation, and made two journeys into France; where she was received with much respect by the learned, whom she had pensioned and flattered, but with little attention by the polite, especially of her own sex. Her masculine air and libertine conversation kept women of delicacy at a distance. Nor does she seem to have desired their acquaintance; for when, on her first appearance, some ladies were eager to pay their civilities to her, "What," said she, “make these women so fond of me? Is it because I am so like a man?" The celebrated Ninon de l'Enclos, whose wit and beauty gave her the power of pleasing to the most advanced age, and who was no less distinguished by the multiplicity of her amours than the singularity of her manner of thinking, was the only woman in France whom Christina honoured with any particular mark of her esteem.(2) She loved the free conversation of men; or of women, who, like herself, were above vulgar restraints.

The modest women in France, however, repaid Christina's contempt with ridicule. And happy had it been for her character, had she never excited, in the mind of either sex, a more disagreeable emotion; but that was soon succeeded by those of detestation and horror. As if not only sovereignty but despotism had been attached to her person, in a fit of libidinous jealousy she ordered Monaldeschi, her favourite, to be assassinated in the great gallery of Fontainebleau, and almost in her own presence. (3) Yet the woman who thus terminated an amour by a murder did not want her apologists among the learned: and this atrocious violation of the law of nature and nations, in an enlightened age, and in the heart of a civilized kingdom, was allowed to pass, not only without punishment, but without inquiry!

Christina found it necessary, however, to leave France, where she was now justly held in abhorrence. She therefore returned to Rome, where, under the wing of the vicar of Christ, the greatest criminals find shelter and consolation; and where the queen of Sweden, a dupe to vanity and caprice, spent the remainder of her life in sensual indulgences and literary conversa. tions, with cardinal Azzolini, and other members of the sacred college; in admiring many things for which she had no taste, and in talking about more which she did not understand.

While Christina was thus rambling over Europe, and amusing herself in a manner as unworthy of her former character as of the daughter of the great Gustavus, her successor Charles X., was indulging the martial spirit of

(1) Mem. de Christine. VOL. II.-K

(2) Ibid.

(3) D'Alembert, ibid.

the Swedes, by the conquest of Poland. This he accomplished, after several signal victories, in which he discovered both courage and conduct. Warsaw, the capital, was obliged to surrender; and Casimir, the Polish king, took refuge in Silesia. But that conquest was of small advantage to Sweden. The Poles revolted, in violation of the most solemn oaths and engagements; and the Russians, the Danes, the elector of Brandenburg, and the emperor Leopold, assisted them in expelling their invaders.(1)

But the king of Sweden, though assailed by so many enemies, was not discouraged. Depending on the valour of his troops, he suddenly entered Denmark, then governed by Frederic III., and laid siege to Copenhagen, which must have surrendered, if it had not been relieved by a Dutch fleet. He made a second attack on the same capital the year following, though without success; and the ardour of his spirit being still unabated, he was taking measures to push the war with redoubled vigour against all his enemies, when he was carried off by an epidemical fever that raged in his camp.(2)

As the son of this warlike and ambitious monarch was yet a minor, peace now became necessary to Sweden. A treaty of general pacification for the north was accordingly concluded at Oliva; by which Polish Prussia was restored to Casimir, who ceded Esthonia and the Northern Livonia to Sweden. The Danish monarch, still under the terror of the Swedish arms, made also considerable sacrifices.

We must now, my dear Philip, return to the transactions of England, become powerful and formidable under a republican form of government; and which, during the latter part of the period that we have been reviewing, was the terror and admiration of all Europe.

LETTER IX.

The History of the Commonwealth of England to the Death of Cromwell; with an Account of the Affairs of Scotland, Ireland, and Holland.

THE progress of Cromwell's ambition is an object worthy of a philosophic mind. No sooner was the monarchy abolished than he began seriously to aspire after-what Charles had lost his head for being suspected to aim atabsolute sovereignty. But many bars were yet in his way, and much blood was to be spilled, before he could reach that enormous height, or the commonwealth attain the quiet government of the three kingdoms.

After the dissolution of that civil and religious constitution, under which the nation had ever been governed, England was divided into a variety of sects and factions, many of which were dissatisfied with the ruling powers, and longed for the restoration of monarchy. But all these were overawed by an army of fifty thousand men, by which the republican and independent faction was supported, and of which Cromwell was the soul. The commonwealth parliament, as that inconsiderable part of the house of commons that remained was called, finding every thing composed into seeming tranquillity by the terror of its arms, therefore began to assume more the air of legal authority, and to enlarge a little the narrow foundation on which it stood, by admitting, under certain conditions, such of the excluded members as were liable to least exception. A council of state was also named, consisting of thirty-eight persons, to whom all addresses were made; who gave orders to all generals and admirals; who executed the laws, and who digested all business before it was introduced into parliament. (3) Among these counsellors were several peers, who gave still more weight to the government; particularly the earls of Denbigh, Mulgrave, Pembroke, and Salisbury. But although the force of the armv kept every thing quiet in England, and

(1) Puffend. lib. vii.

- Id. ibid.

(3) Parl. Hist. vol. xix