In this way do the Pragmatic people eat their own Covenant, one after the other, and are not ashamed;--till all have eaten, or as good as eaten; and, almost within year and day, Pragmatic Sanction is a vanished quantity; and poor Kaiser Karl's life-labor is not worth the sheepskin and stationery it cost him. History reports in sum, That "nobody kept the Pragmatic Sanction; that the few [strictly speaking, the one] who acted by it, would have done precisely the same, though there had never been such a Document in existence." To George II., it is, was and will be, the Keystone of Nature, the true Anti-French palladium of mankind; and he, dragging the unwilling Dutch after him, will do great things for it:
but nobody else does anything at all. Might we hope to bid adieu to it, in this manner, and never to mention it again!--Document more futile there had not been in Nature, nor will be.
Friedrich had not yet fought at Mollwitz in assertion of his Silesian claim, when the poor Pope--poor soul, who had no Covenant to eat, but took pattern by others--claimed, in solemn Allocution, Parma and Piacenza for the Holy See. [Adelung, ii. 376 (5th April, 1741)] All the world is claiming. Of the Court of Wurtemberg and its Protestings, and "extensive Deduction" about nothing at all, we do not speak; [Ib. ii. 195, 403.] nor of Montmorency claiming Luxemburg, of which he is Titular "Duke;" nor of Monsignore di Guastalla claiming Mantua; nor of--In brief, the fences are now down; a broad French gap in those miles of elaborate paling, which are good only as firewood henceforth, and any ass may rush in and claim a bellyful. Great are the works of Belleisle!--CONCERNING THE IMPERIAL ELECTION (Kaiserwahl) THAT ISTO BE: CANDIDATES FOR KAISERSHIP.
At equal step with the ruining of Pragmatic Sanction goes on that spoiling of Grand-Duke Franz's Election to the Kaisership:
these two operations run parallel; or rather, under different forms, they are one and the same operation. "To assist, as a Most Christian neighbor ought, in picking out the fit Kaiser," was Belleisle's ostensible mission; and indeed this does include virtually his whole errand. Till three months after Belleisle's appearance in the business, Grand-Duke Franz never doubted but he should be Kaiser; Friedrich's offers to, help him in it he had scorned, as the offer of a fifth wheel to his chariot, already rushing on with four. "Here is Kur-Bohmen, Austria's own vote,"counts the Grand-Duke; "Kur-Sachsen, doing Prussian-Partition Treaties for us; Kur-Trier, our fat little Schonborn, Austrian to the bone; Kur-Mainz, important chairman, regulator of the Conclave;here are Four Electors for us: then also Kur-Pfalz, he surely, in return for the Berg-Julich service; finally, and liable to no question Kur-Hanover, little George of England with his endless guineas and resources, a little Jack-the-Giantkiller, greater than all Giants, Paladin of the Pragmatic and us: here are Six Electors of the Nine. Let Brandenburg and the Bavarian Couple, Kur-Baiern and Kur-Koln, do their pleasure!" This was Grand-Duke Franz's calculation.
By the time Belleisle had been three months in Germany, the Grand-Duke's notion had changed; and he began "applying to the Sea-Powers," "to Russia," and all round. In Belleisle's sixth month, the Grand-Duke, after such demolition of Pragmatic, and such disasters and contradictions as had been, saw his case to be desperate; though he still stuck to it, Austrian-like,--or rather, Austria for him stuck to it, the Grand-Duke being careless of such things;--and indeed, privately, never did give in, even AFTER the Election, as we shall have to note.
The Reich itself being mainly a Phantasm or Enchanted Wiggery, its "Kaiser-Choosing" (KAISERWAHL),--now getting under way at Frankfurt, with preliminary outskirts at Regensburg, and in the Chancery of Mainz--is very phantasmal, not to say ghastly;and forbidding, not inviting, to the human eye. Nine Kurfursts, Choosers of Teutschland's real Captain, in none of whom is there much thought for Teutschland or its interests,--and indeed in hardly more than One of whom (Prussian Friedrich, if readers will know it) is there the least thought that way; but, in general, much indifference to things divine or diabolic, and thought for one's own paltry profits and losses only! So it has long been; and so it now is, more than usual.--Consider again, are Enchanted Wiggeries a beautiful thing, in this extremely earnest World?--The Kaiserwahl is an affair depending much on processions, proclamations, on delusions optical, acoustic; on palaverings, manoeuvrings, holdings back, then hasty pushings forward;and indeed is mainly, in more senses than one, under guidance of the Prince of the Power of the Air. Unbeautiful, like a World-Parliament of Nightmares (if the reader could conceive such a thing); huge formless, tongueless monsters of that species, doing their "three readings,"--under Presidency or chief-pipership as above! Belleisle, for his part, is consummately skilful, and manages as only himself could. Keeps his game well hidden, not a hint or whisper of it except in studied proportions; spreads out his lines, his birdlime; tickles, entices, astonishes; goes his rounds, like a subtle Fowler, taking captive the minds of men;a Phoebus-Apollo, god of melody and of the sun, filling his net with birds.