Historic Bubbles. Frederic Leake
and the best beloved of his children; but Du Maine was immediately confronted by a spirit more potent than his own, in the person of Philip of Orleans, Louis’ nephew, a prince whom Louis had feared more than he had loved. It was this Philip who had led the household troops at Neerwinden. He had married Du Maine’s sister, but he pushed him aside and seized the regency as his birthright. Though his private morals were deplorable he governed France with vigor and ability till the majority of Louis XV.
This change of rulers worked no prejudice to Berwick. The Regent Philip offered him the government of Guienne one of the finest of the provinces; and he accepted it. When the patent was made out, he was surprised to find it made to Du Maine under whom he was to act as lieutenant. He refused to do so. The Regent sent for him and explained to him how necessary he found it to flatter and conciliate his brother Du Maine. My Lord Duke, said Berwick, nobody knows better than I the difference between a genuine prince of the blood like you, and a spurious one like myself and like Du Maine; and I will not take civil service under one of the latter sort. Philip knew what an obstinate fellow he was dealing with, and he yielded. The patent was made out direct to Berwick.
One would think that Philip V. owing his crown to his French relations, would have kept at peace with them; and he would have done so but for that Farnese creature. He and the Regent fell into a dispute and then into a quarrel and then into hostile array; and Berwick took the field. In the Spanish army was his son the duke of Liria, and it might happen that father and son should meet face to face in battle. Berwick wrote to his son to sink all filial regard for him, and to serve his king as if he were a born Spaniard. The two Philips however became reconciled before much mischief was done.
In 1716 Marlborough died. The British idea seems to be that his career of victory did not end at that sad event. In the Tower of London some years ago, I was shown a cannon which the warden who spoke by the authority of the three kingdoms, declared was taken by Marlborough at the battle of Dettingen. When I let fall a timid doubt, he repeated the statement with an indignant emphasis which silenced cavil. History does indeed record one other case of the sort. You remember at Rome, near the Cloaca Maxima, a spring where women were washing. It is there that Castor and Pollux watered their horses after the battle of Lake Regillus. Those two warriors had already been dead many years, and placed in the firmament where we still behold them.
Eugene had retired from active life, and Berwick now shared with Villars the reputation of being the foremost of living generals. The war of the Polish succession came in the following manner:—Early in the eighteenth century Charles XII. of Sweden—that name at which Doctor Johnson said the world grew pale—burst into central Europe and turned everything upside down. He drove Augustus-the-strong from the throne of Poland, and put in his place Stanislas Leczinski; not that he thought Stanislas a better man than Augustus, it was merely his propensity to upset things. But he tried to upset one man who was too square-built for him; and that was Peter Romanoff, Peter-the-great. Peter beat him at Pultowa, and put things back in their places. Stanislas, driven from the throne upon which he had been so suddenly set, fled to Wissenbourg in Alsace, and was living there with his wife and daughter Maria on a small pension granted by the French court. They were poor but pious, and morning and evening they knelt and thanked God that although they no longer had a throne to sit upon, they still had a roof over their heads.
One day there was a knock at the door; a stately official entered and bowing to the floor, gave Stanislas a letter. It was a portentous missive, a foot square and sealed with half a pound of wax. What was it? Were they troublesome at Wissenbourg? Was it a mandate to quit? Where should they go? Mother and daughter gathered at the side of the father as he opened it. It was a despatch from the duke of Bourbon prime minister of France, asking the hand of Maria for the young king.
Louis XV. and Maria Leczinska were soon married; and a few years later Louis undertook to restore his father-in-law to the Polish throne. Villars and Berwick took command of the French armies; but the crown of Poland was not recovered. The Emperor and Louis compromised the matter by the former giving to Stanislas the duchy of Lorraine a fief of the Empire; and that is the way Lorraine became French.
Peace was not the normal state of things between France and the Empire; and Villars and Berwick were not long permitted to be idle. In 1734 as Berwick was reconnoitring the enemy’s position at Philipsbourg, he was struck by a cannon ball and instantly killed. This was that second wound which he does not mention in his autobiography. His death was similar to that of Turenne who had fallen sixty years before at Salsbach.
Berwick was in his sixty-fifth year. Villars who was eighty-two, only lived long enough to learn the death of his brother in arms. Berwick said he, has always been lucky; and now he has died as a soldier would wish to die.
Bolingbroke who was associated with Berwick in furthering the pretentions of his half brother James III., says that the duke of Berwick was the best great man he ever knew.
He was twice married. Both of his wives were Irish: the first was the daughter of the earl of Clanricarde; the second the daughter of a gentleman who had married one of the maids of honor of Queen Mary Beatrice. In his memoirs Berwick despatches his two wives in just ten lines, five to each. He does not even tell us their christian names. He was too busy fighting to think of the women.
He had an own brother, the offspring like himself, of James II. and Arabella Churchill, and bearing like him the surname of Fitzjames. This brother also rose to distinction: he took to the church and became bishop of Soissons. It was he who stood at the bedside of Louis XV. when the king was supposed to be dying, and refused him absolution and extreme unction till he would dismiss his favorite, Madame de Chateauroux. The king yielded; the favorite was sent away, and he was absolved and anointed for Heaven; but
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