OCR Text |
Show [ 50 ] . ! . of Enemies, the bafeft, falfeft, moft trickilh, moft perfidious Court under Heaven : .for that the French Court is and. has !Jeen tlm)l out of mind. So that even in a.J difputable Cafe which this is far from being, 'twou'd be abford to credit them before out' Fri~nds, efpedally in an Affair, where 'tis ~f• the ul:· moft Importance to them to decetve ; apd therefore a 11 the Words they can ufe, be they ever fo folemn, ought n?t ~upo~ their bare credit to have any wetght wtth us. Th~; grand ProjeCt of a Univ~rfal Mon~rchy is now upon the point 9f bemg fintlh d or deftroy'd; 'tis now at its crifis ; one or other mull: •in a .little time be tbe Fate of i t : and can we think t hey will frick at faying any thing, true or falfe, to. prevent the ruin of it ? No : what they wtll or rather will not do to fecu re their ProjeCt, now they have brought it to foch a Point, you can't better judge, than by feeing what they ~ou:d bring themfelves to do for the lake of IE m its Infancy· when it was bot jolt thought of, and then hard I y feem'd praCticable. There is in the Memoirs of the Treaty of Munfler Ia'tely pubtilh'd, fo remarkable an Inltance of this as lbou'd deter a Man as long as he rem~mbers it from giving credit eafily. t~ any Aileverations whatfoever of a Fren:IJ Mmtfter, when 'tis· for the Jnter.elt of h~s gr~at Malter, to which all good Fatth and Sl_ncer.lty molt bend. There mull: be no fque~mt!h kind of Honour · no Integrity rnult be mfiex:tble; ' tis the Ki~g, he mult be obey'd! and n~tliing mull: be boggled ac. that IS f~r h1s Service. The Cafe was this: The Unwn of France [ 51 J France and Spain was a Project Cardinal Maz..a. r:in was-extremely fond of; and to facilitate this, he. hop'd at the Treaty of .Munfter to get fr~oni Spain the Low Countrys , which he. propos'd to do two ways : Firft, To have them in Exchange for Catalonia ; which the Fren,b had taken from the Spaniards in the War they were then endeavouring to put an end to. Secondly, By .way of Dowry upon a Marriage of the Infanta with the King. This Defign the Cardinal was fo full of, that one meets with it in almoll: all his In~ ftruaions and Letters to the French Plenipotentiaries from one end of the Memoirs to the other; and he had endeavour'd to draw the Prince of Orange into it, upon a Promife of the Marquifat of Antwerp. This Matter fome how or other took air and alarm'd the States extremely, who were then in League with France. Their Plenipotentiaries at Munfter complain'd of it to the Miniftry of France, who protell:ed nothing of that kind had ever been propos'd to them by the Spaniards. But this did not fatisfy the States; the Ye3r after J 64 7• one of their Ambaffadors, Monf. Ser~ 'llren, went to HoUand, and to allay the Jealuufys and fears this Affair had given the ~tates, he protell:s there is nothing in it, m a manner the molt folemn that can be imagin'd : he writes a Letter in April , about fix: Weeks after the Prince of Orange was dead, to each of the Provinces, and therei~ tells them_, that as to the pretended Treaues of Marnage or Exchange, 'tis fo grofs an Invention ( une f ourbe fi gro.ffiere) that there is no Man, who underftands any H ~ thing |