Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Volume 11Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
History
Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Volume 11
Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
France -- Court and courtiers; France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715; France -- History -- Regency, 1715-1723
Various things relating to this monarch have been seen in their place;
his various journeys to Holland, Germany, Vienna, England, and to several
parts of the North; the object of those journeys, with some account of
his military actions, his policy, his family. It has been shown that he
wished to come into France during the time of the late King, who civilly
refused to receive him. There being no longer this obstacle, he wished
to satisfy his curiosity, and he informed the Regent through Prince
Kourakin, his ambassador at Paris, that he was going to quit the Low
Countries, and come and see the King.
There was nothing for it but to appear very pleased, although the Regent
would gladly have dispensed with this visit. The expenses to be defrayed
were great; the trouble would be not less great with a prince so powerful
and so clear-sighted, but full of whims, with a remnant of barbarous
manners, and a grand suite of people, of behaviour very different from
that common in these countries, full of caprices and of strange fashions,
and both they and their master very touchy and very positive upon what
they claimed to be due or permitted to them.
Moreover the Czar was at daggers drawn with the King of England, the
enmity between them passing all decent limits, and being the more bitter
because personal. This troubled not a little the Regent, whose intimacy
with the King of England was public, the private interest of Dubois
carrying it even to dependence. The dominant passion of the Czar was to
render his territories flourishing by commerce; he had made a number of
canals in order to facilitate it; there was one for which he needed the
concurrence of the King of England, because it traversed a little corner
of his German dominions. From jealousy George would not consent to it.
Peter, engaged in the war with Poland, then in that of the North, in
which George was also engaged, negotiated in vain. He was all the more
irritated, because he was in no condition to employ force; and this
canal, much advanced, could not be continued. Such was the source of
that hatred which lasted all the lives of these monarchs, and with the
utmost bitterness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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