aulters in their engagements; it was proved to Prince
Eugene that the imperial army had not been increased by two regiments in
consequence of the war the emperor's ambassador, M. de Galas, displayed
impertinence: he was forbidden to come to the court; in spite of the
reserve imposed upon the English ministers by the strife of parties in a
free country, their desire for peace was evident. The queen had just
ordered the creation of new peers in order to secure a majority of the
upper house in favor of a pacific policy.

[Illustration: The Grand Dauphin----505]

The bolts of Heaven were falling one after another upon the royal family
of France. On the 14th of April, 1711, Louis XIV. had lost by small-pox
his son, the grand dauphin, a mediocre and submissive creature, ever the
most humble subject of the king, at just fifty years of age. His eldest
son, the Duke of Burgundy, devout, austere, and capable, the hope of good
men and the terror of intriguers, had taken the rank of dauphin, and was
seriously commencing his apprenticeship in government, when he was
carried off on the 18th of February, 1712, by spotted fever (_rougeole
pourpree_), six days after his wife, the charming Mary Adelaide of Savoy,
the idol of the whole court, supremely beloved by the king, and by Madame
de Maintenon, who had brought her up; their son, the Duke of Brittany,
four years old, died on the 8th of March; a child in the cradle, weakly
and ill, the little Duke of Anjou, remained the only shoot of the elder
branch of the Bourbons. Dismay seized upon all France; poison was spoken
of; the Duke of Orleans was accused; it was necessary to have a post
mortem examination; only the hand of God had left its traces. Europe in
its turn was excited. If the little Duke of Anjou were to die, the crown
of France reverted to Philip V. The Hollanders and the ambassadors of
the Emperor Charles VI. recently crowned at Frankfurt, insisted on the
necessity of a formal renunciation. In accord with the English
ministers, Louis XIV. wrote to his grandson,--

"You will be told what England proposes, that you should renounce your
birthright, retaining the monarchy of Spain and the Indies, or renounce
the monarchy of Spain, retaining your rights to the succession in France,
and receiving in exchange for the crown of Spain the kingdoms of Sicily
and Naples, the states of the Duke of Savoy, Montferrat, and the Mantuan,
the said Duke of Savoy succeeding you in Spain;