of the proudest of Courts could hardly fail
to perceive that their next sovereign, be he who he might, would find
it impossible to avoid sacrificing part of his defenceless and widely
scattered empire in order to preserve the rest; they could not bear to
think that a single fort, a single islet, in any of the four quarters of
the world was about to escape from the sullen domination of Castile. To
this sentiment all the passions and prejudices of the haughty race were
subordinate. "We are ready," such was the phrase then in their mouths,
"to go to any body, to go to the Dauphin, to go to the Devil, so that we
all go together." In the hope of averting the threatened dismemberment,
the Spanish ministers advised their master to adopt as his heir the
candidate whose pretensions it was understood that France, England and
Holland were inclined to support. The advice was taken; and it was soon
every where known that His Catholic Majesty had solemnly designated as
his successor his nephew Francis Joseph, Electoral Prince of Bavaria.
France protested against this arrangement, not, as far as can now be
judged, because she meant to violate the Treaty of Loo, but because it
would have been difficult for her, if she did not protest, to insist on
the full execution of that treaty. Had she silently acquiesced in the
nomination of the Electoral Prince, she would have appeared to admit
that the Dauphin's pretensions were unfounded; and, if she admitted the
Dauphin's pretensions to be unfounded, she could not, without flagrant
injustice, demand several provinces as the price in consideration
of which she would consent to waive those pretensions. Meanwhile the
confederates had secured the cooperation of a most important person, the
Elector of Bavaria, who was actually Governor of the Netherlands, and
was likely to be in a few months, at farthest, Regent of the whole
Spanish monarchy. He was perfectly sensible that the consent of France,
England and Holland to his son's elevation was worth purchasing at
almost any cost, and, with much alacrity, promised that, when the time
came, he would do all in his power to facilitate the execution of the
Treaty of Partition. He was indeed bound by the strongest ties to the
confederates of Loo. They had, by a secret article, added to the treaty,
agreed that, if the Electoral Prince should become King of Spain, and
then die without issue, his father should be his heir. The news that
young Francis Joseph ha