Dubois carried to the Hague the propositions of the regent. King George was expected there; the clever diplomat concealed the object of his journey under the pretext of buying rare books. He went, he said, to redeem from the hands of the Jews the famous picture of the Seven Sacraments, by Poussin, recently stolen from Paris. The order of the succession to the crowns of France and England, conformably to the peace of Utrecht, was guaranteed in the treaty. It was the only decided advantage to the regent, who hoped thereby to confirm the renunciation of Philip V. Dubois had demanded that all the conditions of the treaty of 1713 should be recognized. Stanhope formally refused. "It has taken me three days to get out of this with the Abbé Dubois," wrote he to England: as to the remainder, all the concessions came from France; her territory was forbidden to the Jacobites, and the Pretender, who was established at Avignon, was to be invited to cross the Alps. The English demanded the abandonment of the works on the canal at Mardyke, destined to replace the port of Dunkirk. The Dutch claimed commercial advantages. Dubois yielded upon all these points, but defended to the last, with a vain tenacity, the title of King of France, that the English still disputed to our monarchs. Stanhope was urged to terminate the negotiations. Diplomatic complications that threatened to lead to war in the north gravely pre-occupied George I., always absorbed in the interests of his patrimonial States. "The scope of his mind does not extend beyond the Electorate." said Lord Chesterfield; "England is too large a morsel for him." {155} Unfriendly relations had long existed between King George and the Czar, Peter the Great, that powerful and erratic genius, who by his personal merit laid the foundations of a great empire. He had made advances to France.