he undivided succession of the
Spanish monarchy to the French claimants."

Charles, as fickle as the wind, still remained undecided, and his
anxieties preying upon his feeble frame, already exhausted by disease,
caused him rapidly to decline. He was now confined to his chamber and
his bed, and his death was hourly expected. He hated the French, and all
his sympathies were with Austria. Some priests entered his chamber,
professedly to perform the pompous and sepulchral service of the church
of Rome for the dying. In this hour of languor, and in the prospect of
immediate death, they assailed the imbecile monarch with all the terrors
of superstition. They depicted the responsibility which he would incur
should he entail on the kingdom the woes of a disputed succession; they
assured him that he could not, without unpardonable guilt, reject the
decision of the holy father of the Church; and growing more eager and
excited, they denounced upon him the vengeance of Almighty God, if he
did not bequeath the crown, now falling from his brow, to the Bourbons
of France.

The dying, half-delirious king, appalled by the terrors of eternal
damnation, yielded helplessly to their demands. A will was already
prepared awaiting his signature. With a hand trembling in death, the
king attached to it his name; but as he did so, he burst into tears,
exclaiming, "I am already nothing." It was supposed that he could then
survive but a few hours. Contrary to all expectation he revived, and
expressed the keenest indignation and anguish that he had been thus
beguiled to decide against Austria, and in favor of France. He even sent
a courier to the emperor, announcing his determination to decide in
favor of the Austrian claimant. The flickering flame of life, thus
revived for a moment, glimmered again in the socket and expired. The
wretched king died the 1st of November, 1699, in the fortieth year of
his age, and the thirty-sixth of his reign.

On the day of his death a council of State was convened, and the will,
the very existence of which was generally unknown, was read. It declared
the Dauphin of France, son of the Spanish princess Maria Theresa, to be
the successor to all the Spanish dominions; and required all subjects
and vassals of Spain to acknowledge him. The Austrian party were
astounded at this revelation. The French party were prepared to receive
it without any surprise. The son of Maria Theresa was dead, and the
crown consequently pas