picture of portraits in the world,” and as excelling its companion, the “Night Watch” of Rembrandt, represents the City Guard of Amsterdam feasting in honour of the occasion, and is known as the great attraction of the Amsterdam museum. Down to the present day the Peace of Westphalia—the title under which the work of the Congress of Münster and Osnabrück is generally known—is blessed by countless thousands, as having put an end to the most terrible series of carnage which has ever devastated Modern Europe.
The value of meetings like that of Münster and Osnabrück for the settlement of international affairs now became evident to the whole of the civilised world; and before long congresses were reckoned among the recognised modes of political and diplomatic action. Above all, the northern states eagerly adopted this method of terminating their differences, and in less than thirty years after the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia five such assemblies came to be held in different towns of Germany, Prussia, and Holland. These, however, were of local rather than European importance; and the second real great Congress of Nations did not take place till 1712, when the important Spanish War of Succession required a solution as imperiously as the Thirty-Years’ War of the century before. The new theory of the Balance of Power, inaugurated at Münster and Osnabrück, seemed likely to be overturned by the protracted struggle between Louis XIV. and the chief of the House of Hapsburg; and in order to readjust the edifice on which all the enlightened statesmen of the day intended to establish the future peace of Europe, another great meeting of politicians had to be assembled—a meeting known to history as
THE CONGRESS OF UTRECHT.
The political aspect of Europe at the period preceding this meeting, may be sketched, in its chief outlines, as follows. King Charles II. of Spain, dying without direct heirs, had left his crown by will to the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., who thereupon assumed at once the government of the vast empire, consisting, at that time, not only of the Iberian peninsula, but of the Netherlands, Sicily, Naples, the Duchy of Milan, and various large and important transatlantic possessions. The young and feeble duke being merely the nominal ruler, and Louis XIV. evidently the real sovereign of this vast empire, such an acquisition naturally could not pass without arousing the jealousy of all the other States of Western Europe, who already were beginning to feel themselves completely overwhelmed by the growing preponderance of warlike France. To remedy this state of things, and to restore the Balance of Power, the Kaiser of Austria, Leopold I., was the first to take up the sword, pleading some anterior rights of his son, the Archduke Charles, to the crown of Spain, and being seconded in this demand by treaties of alliance with England and Holland, the latter of which States was but too willing to throw off the supremacy of the Court of Madrid. So the war began: Austria, England, and Holland, on the one side; France, allied with the Elector of Bavaria, and some minor German princes, on the other. At first Louis XIV. had decidedly the better of the struggle, his army driving that of the Kaiser everywhere before them; but the arrival of two great military chieftains, each of them worth an army in himself, soon changed the fortunes of the French king into a series of disasters. Marlborough and Prince Eugene had no sooner appeared on the field of action, than the fortune of war began to turn, setting in soon with such might against France, that proud Louis XIV. saw himself compelled to sue for peace in the most humiliating manner. Through his foreign minister, the Marquis de Torcy, who himself went to Amsterdam to negotiate, he offered not only to give up the whole of the Spanish monarchy, but even Alsace and other parts of the actual territory of France; and to furnish, besides, secure guarantees for future peace. This was in the spring of 1709, after the War of Succession had been raging for about eight years, extending over the whole of Spain, Italy, Germany, and Holland. France was very much weakened at this time, and the nation grew clamorous for peace; but the allied Powers being far less exhausted, and feeling themselves in the ascendent, believed themselves to be justified in refusing the conditions offered by De Torcy, in consequence of which Louis XIV. most reluctantly had to begin the struggle again. Fortune now favoured him anew, if not on the field, at least in the Cabinet; for the Duke of Marlborough having got into disgrace at home—and, more than that, the crown of Austria falling, by the death of Kaiser Joseph I., suddenly and unexpectedly on the head of Archduke Charles, the Pretender to the Spanish throne—England as well as Holland at once became favourably inclined to France. The whole policy of Europe had, indeed, become changed by the accession of Charles; for, instead of the preponderance of France, it seemed that it was now that of Austria which was chiefly threatening the Balance of Power. Consequently, in less than a month after the death of Kaiser Joseph, overtures for peace were made to Louis XIV., both by Great Britain and Holland; and the preliminary conditions having been accepted by the French monarch, at the beginning of 1711, a general meeting of the belligerent powers was fixed to take place in the course of the same year. Austria, of course, having everything to fear and nothing to gain from a pacific settlement, was strongly against the proposed meeting, but could not well prevent it; even an embassy of the famous Prince Eugene to London having failed to influence the English Cabinet. On the contrary, the harmony between England, France, and Holland seemed to increase by these and other aggressive movements of the Kaiser; and, in spite of the reluctance of the latter, it was finally arranged that the great Congress should open its sittings in the town-hall of the ancient city of Utrecht, in Holland, in the month of January, 1712.
To prevent any recurrence of the scenes witnessed at Münster and Osnabrück, all questions as to precedence, etiquette, and the general mode of transacting business, had been carefully arranged beforehand for this meeting at Utrecht.