The plenipotentiaries were to sit promiscuously at a round table, without any order of rank, birth, or age; and it was particularly settled that none of them should be allowed to ride in a carriage with more than two horses to the townhall. These points being satisfactorily arranged, the Congress was solemnly opened on January 29th, 1721, by a speech of the Bishop of Bristol, Chief Commissioner of Great Britain, in which the envoys of all the Powers were particularly and earnestly entreated to conduct the negotiations without the least loss of time. This desire was in some measure fulfilled; for, already on the 11th of February following, the French commissioners sent in their propositions, which were at once, however, rejected as unsatisfactory. It was now the turn of the Austrian ambassadors, who had meanwhile arrived at the Congress, to make counter-proposals; which they did, but these also were not accepted by the other Powers. Things were in this state when a curious little affair, as futile as unimportant, but characteristic of early Congress life, threatened for the moment to upset all negotiations for peace. The ambassador of the Netherlands, Count von Rechtern, on the 27th of July, was passing in his carriage the house of the French envoy, M. de Menager, when the servants of the latter, who were standing at the door, uttered some offensive words against the Dutch footmen. This was construed into a personal offence by Count von Rechtern, who thereupon demanded from his colleague the punishment of the offenders. The demanded satisfaction not being given, the quarrel spread among the French and Dutch lackeys; and on one occasion a gentleman in plush, of the latter nation, treated a valet in the establishment of M. de Menager to a box on the ear. The ambassador reported the insult at once to Paris, and Louis XIV., in return, sent orders to his plenipotentiary to break off all negotiations until reparation of the heinous offence had been made by the Government of the States-General. It was intimated at the same time that nothing less would be accepted than the immediate recall of Count von Rechtern. The Dutch Government, naturally unwilling to make such a sacrifice on account of so trifling an affair, at first flatly refused; and it seemed for the moment as if the peace and welfare of the whole of Europe were to be given up to the offended honour of a French valet de chambre. Fortunately, Count von Rechtern, a man of sound good sense, resolved immediately, in order to prevent further difficulties, to ask for permission to retire; and this being given, the affair at last was allowed to drop. Meanwhile, however, the work of the Congress had been stopped for nearly six months, solely on account of this trumpery quarrel.
The British commissioners, who had more pressing instructions for hastening on the desired peace than any of the other envoys, were greatly irritated at this unwarranted delay, and to make up for lost time, they soon after directed a kind of ultimatum to the French, Dutch, and Austrian plenipotentiaries, submitting final propositions. To these the first two powers assented; but the Kaiser being as reluctant as ever to come to terms, it was determined finally to leave him to his fate, and to make peace without him. This was assented to, after renewed debates, by the rest of the commissioners, and the conditions of peace having now been agreed on with comparative ease, the instrument embodying them was ready to be signed on the 11th of April, 1713. On that day all the plenipotentiaries present at the Congress, with the sole exception of those of Austria, assembled at the residence of the British minister; and the parchment containing the Peace of Utrecht was successively signed by the ambassadors of England, France, Savoy, Portugal, Prussia, and the Netherlands. Travellers, curious in these matters, may still see the ancient building—now called the House of Loo—in which this ever-memorable act was accomplished.
The chief stipulations of the Peace of Utrecht were as follows. Spain—the cause of the whole war—was to remain with Philip of Anjou, but completely separated from France; and Naples and Sardinia were to fall to the Kaiser. The Duke of Savoy obtained the Island of Sicily, and several smaller territories in Northern Italy; and Great Britain received Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and sundry more or less important French transatlantic possessions, among others the immense districts of New Caledonia and Newfoundland in North America.
Austria, as was foreseen, did not accept these conditions of peace, and the war between the Kaiser and France therefore continued uninterrupted after the conclusion of the Utrecht negotiations. But it did not continue with the old severity and bitterness. The French and Austrian generals—Marshal Villars and Prince Eugene—contented themselves with watching each other across the Rhine, and were nothing loth when after a twelve months so passed they received orders from their respective sovereigns to meet personally for the purpose of concluding peace. Both of them lost no time in obeying this command; and as if to show the world that military commanders could do, if necessary, the work of peace better than diplomatists, they no sooner met than they agreed. On the 6th of March, 1714, after only a few weeks’ negotiations, all the conditions of peace had been settled, whereupon a couple of soldier-clerks were ordered to copy the rough draught out on legible parchments. This task having been fulfilled under the personal superintendence of the two chieftains, Marshal Villars and Prince Eugene signed the documents between three and four o’clock on the morning of the 7th of March, by the light of a stable-lantern, and then sank into each others arms, full of joyous enthusiasm at having been enabled to crown their victorious career by this work of union. The peace so concluded did not alter anything in the position of the European states as fixed by the Congress of Utrecht, and was, in fact, only the necessary supplement of its labours.
The next important assembly of peace-plenipotentiaries to which we come in the history of Europe, was the meeting which took place from 1797 till 1799, between the commissioners of Republican France and the envoys of the different states of Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and