Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/256

246 R. M.Johnston those in high places were plagues that occasionally brought terrible results. While in one part of France a surplus of wheat brought its owners no return, in a neighboring province the people would be eating grass, and dying of starvation. The finances of a country, that a very few years of good administration should have made wealthy, had been reduced by the long infliction of divine right, incapacity, and aristocratic robber>', to a state of chaos and bank- ruptcy ; under an unintelligent and obstinate king and senseless and venal ministers, France was fast sinking into the gulf of revolution. The chief preoccupation of the western powers was the ques- tion of Holland. The curious constitution of that country, an incompatible mixture of monarchism and republicanism, was always giving rise to trouble between stadholders of the House of Orange and the democratic party. One of these periodical difficulties was now engrossing the attention of European diplomacy. Wilhelmina, niece of Frederick, sister of the Prince of Prussia, afterwards Fred- erick William H., was the wife of the stadholder, so that the House of Orange had a family claim to the support of the royal house of Prussia as well as to that of Great Britain. The English diploma- tists were striving hard to effect a rapprochement between the two powers on this question, thereby hoping to strengthen their country's European position by bringing her into line once more with the great military power of Frederick. France, in a spirit of half- hearted opposition to England, had been supporting the democratic party in Holland ; the questions a French statesman might well ask himself were these : How would the probably early death of Fred- erick affect the situation ? Would Austria be persuaded to bring pressure to bear on Prussia, either in the direction of Silesia, or by attempting the succession of the childless Elector of Bavaria ? Could an understanding on the question of Holland be effected ? How could a rapprochement or alliance between England and Prussia be prevented ? In his memorial to Calonne, which is dated June 2, 1786, Mirabeau predicts the death of Frederick within two months (a very shrewd guess as will be seen). After brilliantly summing up the international position, not without a passing stab at Esterno, he concludes that the best line of policy for France is to come to terms with Prussia and England on the basis of a reciprocal guarantee of actual possessions. For bait to England, he places foremost a commercial treaty which he well knew would coincide with the views of Pitt, of his friends in Paris, and of the French ministers. France had one or two good cards" to play and the diplomatic volte-face recommended by Mirabeau was not only feasible, but