but that she was not informed of that Right that she was but a bare Regent and had no power to alienate any of her Son's Dominions Was it not incumbent to France to let her see the Grounds of this Pretension and that she should not alienate any thing by restoring to every one his own Do they think that this was a Process which could summarily be decided by Bill and Answer and that upon their single assertion denuded of all manner of Evidences she would out of a frolick throw at their faces Eight of the most flourishing and rich Provinces of the ancient Patrimonie of her Familie Meanwhile upon this they raise the Hue and cry they take her Reasons for Refusalls they do not reply to them but by Arms and let her not know what it is they pretend untill they find themselves in a posture able to snatch it away by force It is farther to be observed here that this Answer was not addressed to the Queen nor given in form of a Resolution but onely in the simple terms of an Instruction to the Marquesse de la Fuente in order to his particular Direction that he might try by his prudence gently to divert by a Reason so solid the mind of the most Christian King from a thought so little suiting with his own Glory For the last condition of a just War all Lawyers do require a solemn Declaration by a publick Decree legally intimated to the parties It is an essential condition which the Law of Nations doth prescribe and all Wars destitute of this Formalitie are Robberies except the urging necessity of repelling force by force shall dispense with us therein by the Law of Nature It seems that France not to forget any thing which might render her Attempt more unjust and scandalous would needs omit this Formalitie to make her acting the more unseemly by publishing in her Declarations that she had no design to break the Peace at the same time when she did make us feel all the effects of a War From whence it must be concluded that in regard this Answer cannot be interpreted a Refusal since there was no form in the Demand and at the most cannot pass but for a simple exception of Right which the Queen did object to defend that of her Son there cannot be in it any title for a just War seeing the Laws do not permit even bare Reprisals but when the partie required doth shut up all the ways by which Justice can be obtained L. Vlp. ff de cond indeb And since they have been answered by a juridick Reason it was the part of the most Christian King to overturn it by a stronger before he come to extremities This Denunciation is not onely necessary and requisite by the Law of Nations but also is expresly stipulated in the XXVI Article of the Treatie of Peace wherein it is agreed That if any Rupture shall afterwards happen betwixt the two Crowns which God forbid there shall always six months time he given on the one part as well as the other to retire and transport their goods and persons c. Which of absolute necessity requires a legal and precedent Denunciation without which they can never be able to know when it shall be time to retire themselves and shall finde themselves involved in an unforeseen War It is not sufficient to be indued with Sovereign Authority that he may have right to make War in all cases but the action he doth intend to pursue by Arms must be of such quality that he may act in it as Sovereign that is that he act on the behalf of some publick Interest which concerns the Sovereigntie and in this case his power is to be regulated by the nature of the Sovereigntie or of that Right whereby he acts so that if in this action he depends upon the Civil Laws and be subject to a superiour power what Sovereigntie soever he does otherwise possess he hath not the right of making War but ought to have recourse to those Tribunals before which the Cause is to be decided and is not in this respect considered but as a private person Grotius lib. 2. cap. II. de Jure Belli Experience confirms this every day It is for this that the Fiscal is instituted principally to defend and pursue the particular Actions of Kings by the waies and forms of Justice and this Custome would be unprofitable if Princes were both Judges and Executors of their own Causes They themselves plead every day against their own Subjects they submit themselves to the Decrees of their Tribunals and if they do observe this Justice toward their Inferiours they are much more obliged to keep it toward the direct Lord of those Fiefs which they do claim The reason is because that War is of the Law of Nations and such like Actions are of the Civil Law That the Magistrates and Tribunals are established to hinder particular Violences which otherwise would reign in the World if it were indifferently permitted to seek satisfaction by Arms From whence it follows that when the way of Civil Law is open and that he who intends the Action is subordinate in this particular case to a Superiour Authority he hath not the right of Arms in his power and cannot of himself have recourse to the Right of Nations nor act as a Soveraign in regard he is none in this case Now in this Action the most Chrian King as the Libell it self doth declare doth act in no other qualitie but as prosecuting the Actions of the Queen his Wife and consequently cannot have in that any other Right or qualitie then that which is competent to her self Therefore in this qualitie either he doth proceed as actual Duke of Brabant and Prince of the other Provinces which he claims by a real Action as Lord of those Lands by virtue of a devolved Succession or onely as having a Right to claim them In both cases it is certain that he is not Possessour that his Right is not without controversie that another is in the peaceable possession founded upon very plausible Titles and that if even the most Christian King had by violence thrust him out of his possession the Judges could not pronounce any thing in the principal matter unless the business were restored to its first condition This is a Principle in Law which no Lawyer will call in question It is likewise most certain that in the qualitie of Duke of Brabant he cannot claim his Right by Arms against a peaceable and ancient Possessour seeing he depends upon a Superiour Power to whose Judgement he is bound to submit That his Action being a Right undecided and in controversie he cannot take possession without a decisive Sentence nor consequently establish fully his Jurisdiction in that Dutchie without doing Homage to the direct Lord and taking the Investiture from him France it self will not deny that the Dutchie of Brabant and the most part of the other Provinces which she
Discontents and Afflictions which may be considered and subsequently makes report of divers publick utilities which arise from this Agreement and places it as the essential Foundation of the Peace and of its continuance And to facilitate for the future the Alliances betwixt the two Crowns which otherwise the pretended Salique Law would render alwaies dangerous and not to be practised unless they had agreed amongst themselves upon this Remedie whereupon there are many things to be considered 1. That it is an Agreement made betwixt the two Kings for the good of their Estates that this Renunciation is relative to the V. and VI. Articles of the Treatie of Marriage which was concluded with the most Christian King wherein he intervened as the principal partie as is certain by the Narrative at the beginning of the said Deed. It appears also by the Obligation which he imposes upon himself to ratifie it because if he had not acted in this Renunciation but in the quality of a Husband and not of a partie promising and accepting in his own name he could not nor ought not to have ratified it but onely to have authorized it though he hath ratified it as the Authour himself doth acknowledge and that the Ratification of the Treatie of Peace did necessarily include all that to which it was relative Now it is uncontroverted that the two Kings by common consent at the desire of their People had power to derogate from Laws of private concernment in regard they made them and have the right of repealing them that the Kings of Spain and France for causes of less importance do not onely derogate but change every day their Constitutions and Laws and therefore that which they doe for the private respects of civil Justice they have much more power to doe for the common good of the State otherwise if they should not have the power to derogate from Laws to extinguish Actions and stop the Proceedings of civil Justice by publick Treaties they could grant no Amnesties nor hinder the Right of the Fiscall in the punishment of Crimes nor of private persons for the Restitution of what they have taken the one partie from the other nor impose silence to parties contending nor restore the Goods given upon just Confiscations nor other things of the like nature which fall out in all Pacifications and which make it appear that the necessity and the utility of the Publick good may derogate from Laws when it pleaseth the Sovereign As it is certain that they have had the power it is also clear by the same Instrument that it was their will and that such hath been their intention Without having regard to the said Laws Customs Ordinances and Dispositions by virtue whereof they have succeeded and do succeed to all the aforementioned Kingdomes c. And thereafter To which and every one of them their said Majesties ought to derogate in so farr as they shall be contrary c. And more below And that it is understood by the Approbation of this Treatie they do derogate and hold them to be derogated And in the V. Article it is said With Derogations and Abrogations of all and whatsoever Laws Vsages and Customs c. from which their Catholick and most Christian Majesties ought to derogate and shall be understood from this present to remain derogated from c. But that which is yet of more efficacie and more considerable is that in the Ratification of the Treatie of Peace on the part of the most Christian King this very Derogation is expressly contained Derogating to this end as we do derogate from all Laws Customs and Dispositions to the contrary 2. It is certain by the Authour of the Dialogues own confession that the most Christian King hath ratified this Agreement 't is in page 30. As to the Ratification of the most Christian King it might be of some consequence if there were not other Nullities in the Queen's Renunciation then the defect of the Authorization of the King her Husband Here he doth avow the Ratification though in the same passage he will needs make it pass for a simple Authorization but it is perspicuously seen by all the Clauses of this Instrument that it is an Agreement in which the most Christian King enters as the principal partie that the Renunciation of the Infanta hath its beginning and source from this Agreement to which she did willingly consent so that he must of necessity acknowledge either that the Kings of France have not the power to exempt themselves and free themselves from the Civil Laws in publick Treaties nor to hinder the effects of them in what concerns themselves which is directly against the uniform opinion of their Doctors and offends even common sense or that he grant that the most Christian King nor the Queen his Consort cannot make use to their own advantage of those Actions which Law might give them after they have derogated from them by a solemn Treatie Otherwise men must renounce the faith of Treaties and no Peace shall ever be secure if in it the Actions competent to Parties can by no means be extinguished and if still a gate be left open to the Exceptions in Law 3. That these Writers do suppose a false Principle that the Renunciation was made onely in contemplation of the Portion the Clauses above cited do evidently shew that they are mistaken Things must be looked upon in another light to judge soundly of them The Right of Succession was an essential Obstacle to the Marriage which is certain throughout the Text of the Renunciation The Marriage was a necessary means to the Peace I have already proved it by the same Instrument of Peace The onely remedy against all Pretensions was the Renunciation to conclude the Marriage the Obstacle was to be removed Let us acknowledge then that the Renunciation ought to hold the first place as the Dispositions ought to precede the Form that it is independent of the Portion as having different Causes and Ends that it ought to have been stipulated before the Marriage was ever spoken of or the Portion The whole Text of this Instrument shews that the Portion is in favour of the Marriage and the Renunciation doth regard the good of the two Monarchies the one being founded upon the love and natural obligation of Fathers and the other upon publick benefit The one is a pragmatick Sanction and the other not It is agreed that the King my Lord because and in respect of this Marriage and to the end that I might carrie to it my Portion and proper Goods hath promised that be will give me five hundred thousand Crowns It saith not that because and by virtue of the Renunciation five hundred thousand Crowns shall be given but in regard of the Marriage which supposes that the Impediment of State should be removed by the Renunciation and thus the Cause of the assignation of the Portion is the Marriage the End that she may carry her Portion
Marriage was not the square of the late King's Bountie and was thus expressed onely to satisfie the Forms used in the like Treaties according to the style of the Court but it hath extended it self far beyond that to considerable summs of money which he gave her in Jewels Plate and Silver and to what else could be found rarest in all his Kingdoms and that she her self doth avow in the Renunciation that in consideration of so many Bounties she did renounce with all her heart all her Maternal Goods not onely by way of Renunciation but also of Donation amongst the living regard being had to all those Benefits In the Act of the Renunciation pag. 14. and because he desires and procures her Satisfaction and Advantage with so much love having a joynt regard to the Publick c. This Renunciation was covenanted and agreed with the King of France preliminarilic and before any other Condition was treated of This is evident because the Marriage could not be treated of until the Obstacle was removed from whence this consequence is drawn That whatsoever the King endowed the Infanta with by way of Portion was purely out of his own Stock However if it behaved us to come to a Citizen-like Account one might deduct with Justice from the Maternal Goods all that was expended for her Maintenance ever since the death of her Mother being certain that whenever the Maternal Goods do exceed the value of the Portion the Father is really obliged to supply it out of his own but he may deduct the Aliments which he is not obliged to give when the Daughter is endowed with her own proper Goods Bart. ad L. libertis § 1. num 3. ff de Alim L. si quis § si vel parens ff de Lib. Agn. If we would draw this into an Account it would be found that what hath been already received doth far exceed the Debt The King did inherit from Prince Balthasar his Son all his Maternal Goods which according to the Law of Spain ought to return to the Father The Law which deprives the Fathers and Mothers of this Succession in case of Second Marriages is reproved by the Canons it never had other cause or reason then to put a bridle upon Marriages which are made out of Covetousness to the prejudice of the Children of the First Bed But the Second Marriage of the deceased King was an inevitable Necessitie of State the universal desire of the People and a precise Obligation which he owed unto his Subjects and his House Monarchs should act by Principles quite different from those of the vulgar and if one would tie them in publick Acts to the ordinary Laws all their Conduct would be disordered by rendring of them uncapable to provide freely for the publick Necessities Possibly the Jewels were not delivered in specie to the most Serene Infanta but threefold more at the least hath been given her It is not the custome of Kings to take Acquittances nor to keep Registers of all that they bestow upon their Daughters they pour out upon them with full hands without account and without measure they are not accustomed but to Treaties depending upon sincere faith justly scorning those little Formalities which are not established for them But though all this were not so is it a matter which merits all this stirre that all Europe should be troubled and a War raised again which hath cost so much bloud so many tears and Desolations to Christendome Though the most Serene Infanta could not have renounced her Maternal Rights all she could then pretend would be to be repaired upon this Head L. 1. ff sed mihi de verb. obl Vtile per inutile non debet vitiari We see it almost in all Contracts which have any defective part the Body doth not cease to subsist though some Member of it be cut off providing the substance of the Contract be not altered This is a general Rule which can suffer no exceptions but when the two Members whereof the one is defective and the other legitime L. 7. ff d Arb. are so inseparable that the one cannot subsist without the other or that the Parties have expressly and necessarily joyned them together in the Treatie by some particular Clause But in this present case these are two things of a different nature which have nothing of common to both the one is a Right acquired and present and the other an uncertain hope they are derived from two several fountains they concern different matters and of great inequality as to their importance the one doth not destroy the other the one is a principal and the other accessory the one a Domestick and the other a matter of State in a word they cannot be mixed without bringing all things into confusion He cites two Texts upon this Subject which do make absolutely for us Bened. in cap. Rayâ—ul in Ver. Duas habâ—ns uxores Non excluditur per Renunciationem nisi à successione dotantis unde si de propriis bonis Filia suerit dotata non est exclusa His meaning is that she is not excluded from her Maternal Goods although she have renounced them but that the Exclusion remains firm as to the Goods of him by whom the Portion is constituted against whom she hath an Action to make him pay it out of his own Estate The other passage which he alledgeth out of Covarr doth yet better explicate the former Erit intelligenda haec Conventio in hunc modum ut mille aurei sint dandi ex bonis Paternis non ex Maternis Whereby it is seen that the Renunciation is not annulled but that the Daughter hath onely recourse for the Portion promised her against the Father's Goods He limits farther even this Decretal when the Daughter hath confirmed the Renunciation by Oath unless there be Fraud on the part of the Father or some notorious Laesion on the part of the Daughter and we have made it clear that they cannot here oppose to us either the one or the other It would require great Volumes to make appear by parcells the Falsities it matter of Fact the Allegations out of season the captious Sophisms and the continual Cavills which are packed up into this Work It is a business of more time and leisure then the trouble in which they have put us doth allow I think I have said enough upon this Subject to convince all reasonable understandings and to make an end of confounding our Enemies I will content my self by concluding with this Argument That if they will reduce against all manner of Reason the publick Treaties made between Kings to the Forms and Subtilties of litigious Pleading they ought to follow the same Rules in their Proceeding if they do intend to make a Process of it they should not make it a War Never yet was it seen that Legal Portions or Reliefs were pretended to with a Dagger at the throat nor Contracts rescinded by stroke
of Sword nor the first Citations made by forty thousand men Either let us decide this matter by publick Right and by the Faith of a solemn Treatie made betwixt Crown and Crown or if they have a mind to bring it to the formalities of the Barr let us not stray from its style which doth not permit Violence to usurp upon Justice and that which the Kings of France do not practise towards their own Subjects when there is any Difference between them to be decided by the Civil Laws they ought not to attempt it against a Monarch who doth not hold of them and who is ready to refer his Cause to the Judgement of all the Princes of Europe But they are far from this thought they 'l have no other Arbiter but Arms and if in appearance they do sometimes call for the assistance of Justice it is but to make it serve as an instrument of their Violence They make use of her own Laws against her self they make her raise Difficulties but will not suffer her to resolve them they are content she plead but not that she decide and at the same time when they make her enter into Combat they tie her hands they shut up all the approches to her they will not permit her to pronounce and do so pervert the whole order of things that to establish a Chimerical Right they make it a private Business and that they may put it in Execution they make of it a matter of State ARTICLE V. That the Succession of the Sovereignty of the Dutchie of Brabant and other Provinces specified in these Libells ought not to be regulated by particular Customs THE essential Sovereignty is in God as in its source those which we do reverence here below are Rivolets that flow from thence It descends from Heaven to Earth and spreads it self in divers fashions amongst the Creatures according to the Subordination which is necessary for the Government of the World It communicates it self in the ordinary way principally and immediately to Monarchs to Princes and sometimes unto the whole Body of the People which remits it voluntarily to those Magistrates whom they chuse and reduces it into the form of Government which seems to be fittest for their happiness Some of these are absolute and hold it of God solelie others are Sovereigns in regard of their Subjects but with some tie of Dependencie upon a Superiour Power and as those do derive immediately from the Infinite Power above so these do proceed gradually through the Chanel of that Sovereignty to which they are subordinate this is its Rule and origine having no other Power nor Jurisdiction then that which is conveyed unto it through this Organ because being nothing of it self but according to the will of the Instituters it can exercise no other Right then what it hath so received from it If Sovereignties were regulated by Local Customs it would be as monstrous a thing as if Kings would prescribe limits to the Providence of God or as to see Streams run back upon their Fountain The Order of the World which subsists onely by these degrees of Dependencie of the least upon the greater must be absolutely overthrown the Servants would become Masters the Sovereigns should be Subjects and the hereditary Sovereignties be in the same condition with Villages and Farms The Eternal Law which is the very Wisedom of God is the rule of all Laws and as that is properly the Idea of the Law of Sovereigns so that of Sovereigns is the Model of particular ones which take from it all their strength and vigour If an Equal cannot have any command over his Equal it would be much more unreasonable that the Inferiour should have it over him whom he acknowledges for his Master and that the particular Customs established between Subjects should prescribe unto their Sovereigns the order of their Successions All that there is of Jurisdiction and Power in subaltern Fiefs is found in a more excellent manner in the commanding Fief But all that there is of Servitude Dependencie and Subjection in them regards not the Sovereignty and cannot reflect upon it from beneath upwards these are Restrictions and Limitations which cannot proceed but from a more elevated Power So that the Sovereign Fiefs which hold of a higher Jurisdiction can receive no limits to their Authority but from the direct Lord who is also to regulate himself therein according to the extent of that Power which he hath over them and according to their first Institution for he may not impose new burthens upon them farther then those upon which from the beginning they did agree in the regulating of the Fief To discourse solidly of this matter two things must be carefully examined and taken from their true foundation The one is the nature and the first Origine of the Dutchie of Brabant and of the other Provinces to which France doth pretend the other is the Origine the quality the end and the extent of the Local Custom which hath introduced the Right of Devolution As to the first it is out of controversie that a part of the Dutchie of Brabant though Sovereign in it self doth in some sort hold of the Empire I say in some sort because as well by its own nature as by its Privileges it is exempt from many Subjections which are proper to other Imperial Fiefs though Sovereigns and Lording This then must be considered in two manners the one in the Dependence which it hath of the Empire and the other in the Sovereignty which it hath over its Subjects Touching the first it cannot extend beyond the terms which are expressly prescribed by the Investiture So that it cannot receive from any thing else any other restriction of its Power unless it doth voluntarily impose it upon it self And for the second it belongs to it to establish Laws and communicates its Power to its Inferiours as much as shall be thought good and restrains it within just limits Moreover although these be Sovereignties in themselves they must also be look'd upon as chained together by an undissolvible tie and as annexed to the Body of the Monarchy of which they are the Members and the Parts If we consider them in themselves we shall find that in their Successions the Males ought to be preferred to the Females and that this Order hath been so regularly observed in all times that not so much as one example can be shewn where the Daughters have succeeded to the exclusion of the Males of the same Line as may be seen in the Genealogical Table of the Trophies of the Dutchie of Brabant written by Christopher Butkens I say more that the primitive Institution of the particular Fiefs of Brabant was made in favour of the Males and that the Right of Devolution was afterwards introduced among them for particular Ends so that if the Devolution doth hinder them from Alienating it is but an Obstacle introduced by private persons which hath insensibly gotten the
without destroying the Substance and this Mask of words would pass for a jearing sharper then single Expressions I beseech the Reader to be persuaded that my onely drift is to speak of Things without touching of Persons and if my Subject doth forcibly draw me into complaints and some reproches I do here solemnly protest That I pretend the most Christian King 's Sacred Person to be excepted and that I do ascribe all the Evils which are intended towards us onely to those mean Incendiarie Writers who out of a desire of Noveltie and perhaps with purposes more dangerous to their own King then to ourselves have so lightly and unseasonably sounded to horse THE CONTENTS I. Of the Ends which France doth propose unto it self in this War and in these Libells II. That the Entry of the King of France into the Estates of the Catholick King in the Low Countries is an evident Rupture III. That this Rupture is unjust admitting the Right of the Queen of France were well founded IV. That the Renunciation of the French Queen is just irrevocable necessary and usefull to the Publick good nor contains in it self any cause of Nullitie or Laesion and that the Queen of France hath been duly Doted V. That the Succession of the Soveraigntie of the Dutchy of Brabant and the other Provinces which are specified in these Libells ought not to be regulated by the particular Customes VI. A Discourse of the Interest of the Christian Princes in this War and of the precise Obligation which the Estates of the Empire have to warrant the Circle of Burgundy THE BUCKLER OF STATE JVSTICE AGAINST The Design manifestly discovered of the Vniversal Monarchy under the vain pretext of the Queen of France her Pretensions ARTICLE I. Of the Ends which FRANCE proposeth unto it self in this War and in these Libells THE Author of these Libells employs a great deal more of care and art to colour the Designs of his Party then to establish the Grounds of his imaginary Right In this last his Pen is both dry and crawling In the other it doth spread it self with a pleasant stream of words into a Thousand superfluous expressions endeavouring as much as it can to present without discovery a false Light hoping to change the Nature of things by changing only their Names He extolls the love which his Master hath for Peace at the very instant when he is breaking it he complains at the same time when he strikes he takes away by violence when he asks he pleads and decides at once he requires Peace and brings War attaques without Rupture forces without constraint and plaies with so much contempt upon the Ignorance and Credulity which he supposes to be in the Judgment of his Readers that he will needs have the way of Fact to pass for Justice Violence for Moderation Usurpation for Title and Defence for a Crime and so he can but onely take away the odious name of War from the Attempt which Frame is now making he thinks that she may freely practise all manner of Hostilities under that of Peace Which is the effect of the excellent opinion they have of the abilities of all other Nations whom they esteem barbarous or simple enough to believe things of this nature and afterwards glory in their jesting according to their obliging custome of turning into ridiculous the most Illustrious Nations That they took us for Germans This dull conceit tends evidently unto two Ends The one to extenuate a little the ugliness of their Enterprise and the Scandal and Confusion which they foresee it will produce throughout all Europe and that they may make all the cares which we shall take for our Defence pass for as many Contraventions of the Peace and by this means get some pretext whereby either they may press their Allies to joyn their Arms to theirs in favour of their Design or else may one of these daies bring the War upon themselves for having failed in performing the Obligation of their League of Warrantie By which it is obvious to all sorts of capacities that the Absolute Empire which they do equally affect over their Friends Enemies makes them act so Magisterially both with the one and the other So that to keep Peace with them it is requisite to give them all that they require and to satisfie the Alliances made with them it 's necessary to help them to take all But to judge of the injustice of this Pretension it is sufficient to read over the Treatie of the Peace of the Empire in the Article of Warrantie and that of the League of the Rhine and then it will be clearly seen that the Obligation of reciprocal Succours doth extend no farther then to those Lands which France did possess in the Empire at the time when these Leagues were concluded that they do not reach any new Conquests or Claims and ought not to be understood but against Aggressours Else the Princes of the Empire had imposed an horrible Servitude on themselves to be the Ministers and Instruments of the Ambition of an Allie to inlarge his Limits at the price of their bloud and of their own safetie and to be bound to take arms into their hands as often as the Writers of France should think fit to put their hand to the pen to frame to their Crown some new Rights It is not enough to understand the cunning of the Ends of their proceeding but it concerns all the World to penetrate farther even into the bottome of their Designs If we will take it upon their faith they have no other End but an honest Accommodation with Spain They themselves invite Forreign Princes to intermeddle in it They protest that they will suffer themselves to be brought to moderate Conditions That they do make War against their stomachs That they would lay down their arms with pleasure That they would submit themselves to the Judgement of those who are willing to imploy their pains in it Let us see then whether their behaviour doth suit with their words Spectemur agendo All their Actions and Motions tend towards a vast and deep Design This proud arming this prodigious expence this excessive profusion in their forreign Negotiations this forwardness in making of Leagues to gain Ministers to keep them in business who may give them jealousie the reiterated instances and the large offers which they have tendred to the Swedes to embroil the Empire the extraordinary application to force the Polanders by corruption and violence to chuse a Successor contrary to their Fundamental Laws are proofs capable to convince the darkest understandings that all this immense Preparation of Arms and Intrigues hath something in it of greater extent then the bare Conquest of some Provinces which our over-much Credulity hath exposed to them as a prey and ends not in a simple desire of tearing away a few pieces of them by a Treatie These huge Mountains are not to bring forth Mice but to vomit out Flames as the
Vesuve to set the whole neighbouring Countries on fire The first * The Bishop of Rodes Governour of the most Christian King hath given him for a Modell the Life and Designs of his Grandfather Henry the Fourth as may be seen in the Book which he hath published This Prince as well by his own Genius as by the happy success of his first Undertakings hath relished such Instructions and hath solelie proposed to himself this Example for the Rule of his Actions The History of this Great King hath been his most ordinary study He hath in imitation of him taken great care to accumulate much Treasure sought for Alliances abroad and at length hath raised most powerfull Armies We must therefore conclude that he acts upon the very same Draughts and that all we see at present are but renewed Projects and the effects of those Impressions which he hath sucked in with his milk To draw the Consequences from these Principles we need onely reade the Memorials of Henry the Fourth those of the President Jannin and of the Bishop of Rodes and conclude that whatsoever that Potent King had conceived in his imagination this King intends to bring forth by the power of his Armies But as the desire of Glory hath no bounds and that his years and present condition put him in a capacitie to run a longer course then Henry the Great so we cannot reasonably expect that the swiftness of the Rhine shall be able to stop him His Writers have taken a great deal of pains to nourish him in these thoughts and as that sort of men have no other studie but to observe the weakness of their Prince the better to insinuate their Flatteries they have freely sacrificed their mercenarie Pens to tickle this natural desire of Glory which they have discovered in him The Rewards they have received are authentick marks of his Acceptance and this acknowledgment in a young spirit that believeth himself to be in a posture to execute all that pleaseth him and which hath drunk in this Maxime That to take possession by the Sword any Title is sufficient must needs be esteemed a dangerous forerunning Sentence against all those upon whom he shall believe that he hath any thing to pretend Which yet more clearly to make appear to us we onely need reade the printed Books which have lately been dedicated unto him and principally one above the rest which carries the Title of THE JVST PRETENSIONS OF THE KING OF FRANCE TO THE EMPIRE where having laid down for a Ground That the Dominions of Sovereign Princes have always been the Dominions and Conquests of their Estates and That the Dominions and Conquests of Crowns can neither be alienated nor prescribed he adds the two Articles following 1. That the greatest part of Germanie is the Patrimony and ancient Inheritance of French Princes 2. Charlemagne did possess Germanie as King of France and not as Emperour I leave to those who will vouchsafe to reade over this Treatise to form the Consequences from such Premisses If one may judge of what is to come by what is past all Europe will have cause enough to stand upon her guard if it doth but reflect upon the conduct of France since the close of the Pyrenean Peace till this minute Hardly did we see that Treatie established upon the most religious and inviolable Laws that humane Prudence could devise when presently upon a small punctilio of difference for the precedency of Embassadors which had been always in dispute and was left undecided by the Peace they proceeded to the uttermost extremities against a Father-in-Law at the same time when they suffered without murmuring the unheard-of Indignities which the Grand Vizier at Constantinople caused to be committed against the Royal Person of the most Christian King in that of his Embassador and when they did admit without taking the least offence thereat the Competition for place betwixt the Swedish Embassadors and theirs which is so much the more remarkable that even in the Pyrenean Treatie the two Crowns marched equally hand in hand together and that in one of the Instruments thereof Spain was the first nominated and in the other France Why then did they conclude the Peace with this Equalitie if they were resolved to break it afterwards upon the point of Competition Which makes it evidently seen that from the very day of the Peace they have always watched for the occasions of War and concluded this Treatie onely to take a little breath to settle their Revenues at home and make an end of reducing their people under the yoak The Bonesires which were every where kindled for joy of the Peace were not quite extinguished when an evident breach of the Treatie was seen by the Succours which France sent into Portugal at the beginning under the name of the Marshal of Turenne and a little while after without any kind of disguise A Sedition which happened at Rome to the great displeasure of the Pope by the Souldiers who were provoked with an infinity of Insolencies committed by the French Embassador's Familie The Duke of Creqny was near putting all Italy again into Combustion had not the tears of his Holiness stopt it by sacrificing his own Kindred and erecting a Pyramide to France for an unworthy Trophie of the spoils of the glory of the Vicarie of Jesus Christ and the common Father of whom they style themselves the Eldest Sons A little after they obliged the Duke Charles of Lorrain to sell them his Dutchy to the prejudice of the lawful Successor and the Contract not being valid they forced him with violence to put the onely place which was left him into their hands by means whereof revoking their Bargain they got the thing without paying the price The Bishop of Munster who was included in the League of the Rhine seeing himself attaqued in the Empire by the States of Holland in vain implored their assistance by virtue of the Warrantie but when he began to resent it he was straight assaulted by the French Troups and if his own Enemies had not shewn more moderation towards him then their Allies his Countrey which is of the Patrimony of the Church had been at present totally reduced into Ashes The War of England against the States of the Vnited Provinces which was raised by the French practices and fomented by their industry in giving the counterpoise to him who for the time appeared the weaker hath sufficiently instructed all the World that the Game of France is to depress all Powers which are capable of obstructing the torrent of their Enterprizes But to stray no farther from the matter which I have in hand I will be contented to note onely two plain Arguments which evidently prove that their Design is to drive on their Conquests as far as ever the fortune of War will suffer them and that those Overtures of Peace which they do make are but to amuse the neighbouring Princes and to bridle their own Subjects
People without discussing the Cause is unjust inconsistent with the Divine Laws with the obligation of their Consciences and drawing after it most pernicious Consequences against all Princes to render the Fidelity of their Subjects exposed to all Winds and in conclusion That the care which they take for their Defence is a precise and undispensable Duty and cannot without Calumnie be termed by the name either of Rebellion or Rupture If we consider this business according to publick Right and the Law of Nations all States-men and Lawyers will agree that to a just War the subsequent conditions are necessarie Sovereign Authority a just Title a preceding Requisition of that Satisfaction which is pretended joyned to an obstinate and invincible Refusal by the contrarie partie in such sort that the Dammage cannot be otherwaies repaired but by Arms and finally a legal Denunciation of War formally intimated by a solemn Decree to the Partie Here it might be said that the most Christian King doth not act in this occasion in the quality of a Sovereign and ought not to be considered but as a particular Pretender in matter of Succession in regard he grounds all his Right upon the Provincial Customes established between private persons by their own consents without interposition of the supreme Authority so much as by a Decree of simple Approbation and which by consequence cannot give him any right to make War But I reserve this matter to be treated of more fullie in another place The just Title is wanting Though we should suppose that his Right were well grounded which notwithstanding is controverted the contrarie partie is in peaceable Possession founded upon the common Right of sovereign successions upon a Treatie of Peace upon an authentick Renunciation upon a Testament and upon a continual Custome In doubtfull cases the favour of the Laws is for the Possessor It is the part of the Actor to prove and verfie his Right The Judges themselves cannot pronounce sentence without duely hearing of the parties Qui statuit aliquid parte inauditâ alterâ c. It is much more unjust that the parties should doe Justice to themselves without form of Process If it were permitted to Kings and Potentates to right themselves instantly and to seise by force of Arms whatsoever they believe they may have cause to pretend to there would be no Possession secure in this world If it be sufficient to have made a Book be composed by an Advocate to justifie a Right and to be able thereafter to prosecute it by force if no Treaties nor Renunciations nor Prescriptions are able to stop the current of it there is no more security in the world for England Germanie Holland Lorrain Italie Corsica and Castile all the Preparations are already framed for their Ruine the Books are already composed the Cause is judged in the Tribunal of France the right of War is established the Arms are ready there wants nothing but an Occasion to take possession of their Estates by a Right proved by the same forms and adjudged by the same Authority which hath determined their Pretensions against us Cassan Aubery Arroyus Peter du Puy and the nameless Author of the Treatie of the Interests and Maximes of Princes with an infinitie of other turbulent spirits wherewith France doth abound are as competent Arbiters in this point as the Writer who forged the Rights of the Queen France by the same moderation which it uses towards us void of Ambition to extend its Limits of the desire of Glorie of the intention of Rupture but onely for publick good Officii Religione impulsa may drive them out of their Possessions to establish her own and yet they should not be able with reason to complain of any Injustice if they should suffer them freely to introduce this dangerous Prejudication If the Propositions of these Scribblers be true That all that hath been acquired by the Kings of France hath been united to the Crown Arroy fol. 90. That the Authority of Charlemagne which was over Germanie Italy and spain ought to be in Lewis the Just and consequently in Lewis the XIVth Arroy fol. 86 If this Right be unalienable by virtue of the Salique Law which they would have pass for Divine idem fol. 81 In fine if the greatest part of Germanie be the Patrimonie of the Kings of France Auber Lib. 2. pag. 93. Can a juster Title be required to take possession of it And will he not have much better ground to redemand his own Patrimonie then he believes to have now to pretend to a foreign Succession It is not enough to have a legal Pretext and Sovereign Authority to render a War just there must be some fault and an invincible obstinacie on the other side Vt seilicet illi qui impugnantur propter aliquam culpam impugnationem mereansur D. Thom. 22. Quaest 40. Art I. which he establishes upon the Doctrine of S. Augustine in lib. 83. super Josue Quaest 10. Si gens vel civitas plecl enda est quae vel vindicare neglexerit quod à suis improbè factum est vel redde re quod per injuriam ablatum est Whence it may be inferred that the Injury must needs be very great to deserve so violent a Reparation and that it must be irreparable by any other way that it may be lawfull to come to the last remedy All War that is not absolutely necessary is against the Law of God and Nature as the same S. Thomas doth explicate it in the same place and is not permitted but as the last means when all others are found to be ineffectual Extrema primo nemo tentavit loco To judge from these grounds of the Justice of this War we must examine by parcells the proceeding which France hath held in seeking Satisfaction and it will clearly be seen that she hath carefully shunned the true means of obtaining it by lawfull courses that she hath provoked us with divers Injuries as I shewed before that not onely her first end and sole design hath been to renew the War but also to surprize us by a false pretext of Peace and Friendship The Conduct which Decency and the Law of Nations seemed to prescribe to them in this occasion was to advertise the Queen presently after the death of the late King by an authentick and legal way according to the Custome amongst Monarchs as by some Envoy or by their ordinary Embassador at the Court of Spain to acquaint her with the subject of their Pretensions and to shew * The QUEEN-Regent of Spain her the reasons and instructions of them to require Satisfaction or else to propose ways of Agreement in case of refusal to declare solemnly that they should be forced to take Arms if they could obtain nothing by Reason and fair means After all this it became them according to all manner of Law to have had recourse to the immediate Lord of those Fiefs to which they pretended either for submitting themselves
to his Arbitration or at least for seeking his Interposition and laying open their Rights before him But far from all this they began with Leagues with Aids sent to the Portugueses with secret Practices amongst our People and a thousand unworthy Intrigues forerunners and evident discoveries of a formed Design of War and in place of all intimation or seeking after amicable ways they have contented themselves with a simple familiar Discourse which passed in Conversation between the Queen of France and the Marquess de la Fuente Here it is wherein evidently doth appear a proceeding full of Artifice which cannot tend but to two ends the one to have in time and place a fitting occasion to bring War upon us and in some kinde to justifie by that Demand the Violence which they did resolve to found upon our Refusal the other That they might be able to surprise us and make us neglect the care of our Defence and Safetie and might avoid those Obstacles which by the good offices of the neighbouring Princes and interessed in the Cause they foresaw would certainly have been employed from all parts to prevent a War from which they would not be diverted by any manner of Agreement They feared that if they had observed all the Formalities which I have above related they should have given us an Alarm out of season and have awakened us out of that profound Sleep into which our confidence in their Treaties and words had lulled us They judged reasonably enough that all the neighbour-States would sufficiently apprehend the Consequences of this War to make use or all their care and power to terminate this Difference by an Accommodation They saw that an express Declaration of their Design might open the eyes of all the World and that on the other part a sudden Invasion without any preceding Formalitie would bring an universal blame upon them and convict them of manifest Injustice They have chosen this weak middle betwixt those two extremes to throw in the aire an empty Proposition without matter and without form to the end they might take the advantage of our Answer when their business should suffer it knowing very well that upon such a weak ground we were not able to make any Reply to their full satisfaction They believed that by this cunning they should have wherewithal to convince us without giving us the Alarm and wherewith to prove their Moderation without being obliged to desist from their Violences But God is not so cheated nor men of sound understanding these are Spiders webs which are good for nothing but to catch flies Yet of those things do they make the Frontispice of their work and the Foundation of their Building they do move and bestir themselves upon them with that life which is so natural unto them imagining that having this Shield we shall not carry in a stroak upon them which they shall not be able to ward To judge well of the matter we must enter upon the truth of the Fact which the Author of these Libells falsifies in all its circumstances The very first words of his Preface contain a palpable Untruth which is A little after the deceased Queen-Mother had paid to the Memorie of the Catholick King her Brother all the Duties and all the Civilities which are usual in such occasions she sent to call the Marquess de la Fuente c. It is certain by the Relation of the Marquess de la Fuente and by the date of his Letters written to Spain that the Queen-Mother held this discourse with him on the 13. of August and all the world knows that the King died not till the 17. of the Month following 'T is a thing of bad presage to the success of this Writing that the first words of the Preface should begin with so notable a Lie which gives just cause to believe that the Conclusion of the same Work which promises to our people a Haven of Benedictions if they will come under their power shall be of the same nature and that the Epilogue will correspond to the Exordium by the just Conformitie which such a great Oratour without doubt ought to have observed in all the parts of a Piece which he began to meditate from the very day of the Peace since in effect he is not ashamed to avow that they did not consent to the Act of Renunciation but with a formed design to break it Thus all that he doth alledgin consequence of that Commission which the Queen-Mother gave to the Marquess de la Fuente to write to the Queen of Spain on this subject is but a weaving of the same Untruth since no body can be ignorant that the Queen had no hand in Business whilst the King lived and that she would by no means have intruded in a matter whereof she had no manner of knowledge and which was not then within the extent of her Sphere That he may not give himself the lie he continues still to accumulate Lies upon Lies The Discourse which the Queen-Mother held with the Marquess was altogether of another strain then that which he citeth This wise Princess who considered the Peace as her own work and who knew the unquietness of the French humor and the desire of Glory which boiled in the heart of her Son thought fit to declare confidently her thoughts of it to the Marquess de la Fuente that they might search joyntly for some means to stay his Impetuositie She ingenuously represented unto him the trouble which the bad Suggestions which were infused into her Son upon vain pretensions did occasion to her and she intreated him to advertise the King her Brother thereof that he might make such Reflections thereon as were necessary that she would wish that after he had given so much for the Peace he would yet yield in something to preserve it and stop the mouths of all such as carried on the King her Son to violent Resolutions that for her part she would inculcate all the Moderation that she did wish in him Thus did that Royal and prudent Princess speak and witnessed sufficiently by her discourse that she had in horrour a Pretension which she did not sustain but by the fear of a greater evil The Marquess de la Fuente did never charge himself with this Commission contrary to what this Author doth relate with the same fidelitie that he hath done all the rest for it is clear by the Relation which he sent into spain upon this subject and all those who are but a very little versed in the management of publick affairs will judge that he could not doe it without he had been ignorant of the Duty of an Embassadour which cannot be presumed of a Minister of so long experience and who deserves the general applause by his good behaviour in so many great Embassages He knew too well that being the Catholick King 's Minister he might not act as solicitor for the most Christian King that he could not enter
pretends to are Fiefs depending upon the Empire which she her self doth seem of her own accord to acknowledge very clearly by these words which she hath inserted in the end of her Preface That his intention is to possess the Estates which are fallen to the Queen in the Low-Countries by the same Title by which the Catholick King hath possessed them in reference to the Empire She declares it yet more openly in the same Libells wherein for a principal foundation of the pretended Devolution of the Sovereigntie of Brabant she alledges the Decree of the Emperour Henry in favour of Prince Henry against his Father Though I shall answer this Objection in its proper place for the present it 's sufficient I draw this advantage from it that she doth acknowledge the Emperour for the supreme and lawfull Judge of the Differences which may arise for the Sovereigntie of Brabant and even in this particular case which they draw by the hair to that of the Devolution and that the said Emperour did prohibit the Duke to undertake any thing in it to the prejudice of his Children Whereby the Author of this Writing pretends fully to establish the Emperour's Right of Judging pronouncing and interdicting which are all effects of a Supreme Authority And though in that there may be many exceptions and limitations without farther examining the matter we will be content in this place to make use of their own Allegations ' to fight them with their own Weapons so much the rather because the Privileges granted to the Dutchies of Brabant Limbourg and the other Provinces of the Netherlands by the Emperour Charles the IV Sigismond Maximilian and others evidently confirm that a part of Brabant and of the other Provinces hold of the Empire besides it is set down in express terms that the said Provinces are Fiefs of the Empire No person is ignorant that they compose one * The Empire is divided into Circles Circle of it and consequently that for what concerns publick Right they are subject to the Laws reserving nevertheless their particular Privileges and Jurisdiction It is out of controversie that all the Processes and Differences which arise touching Successions Investitures Rights and Pretensions upon Fiefs of the Empire depend of the Supreme Jurisdiction of the direct Lord and that no Prince of this great Body can seise the Estates of another by way of fact what just Pretension soever he may have without contravening the Order and Imperial Constitutions and obliging all the other Princes to take Arms against the Aggressour Experience shews us this in an infinitie of Processes of this nature which are still depending before their lawfull Tribunals As also no body will deny but that the Treaties of Munster and Osnabrug are made use of at this day as a Fundamental Law to regulate the Affairs of the Empire And this is expressly declared Inst Pacis Germano-Gall § Pro majori Sit haec Transactio perpetua Lex pragmatica Imperit Sanctio And France is so much the more obliged to conform it self to this Rule because it hath reaped most abundantly the chiefest Fruits of this Peace It is also unquestionable that by the same Treatie the Circle of Burgundie is expressly included in these words § Vt eò sincerior Circulus quidem Burgundicus sit maneátque Membrum Imperii post Controversias inter Galliam Hispaniámque sopitas hâc Pacificatione comprehensus and by consequence it ought to enjoy all Rights Immunities and Prerogatives of the Circles of the Empire specified in the § Vt autem and in the following and of the general and reciprocal Warrantie expressed in the same Instrument of Peace In the § Tam univers are infringed and annulled all attempts and waies of fact formerly committed or which shall be commenced for the future quae nullo praecedente legitimo Juris Executionis ordine fieri attentarÃve poterunt And in the § Vt autem provisum sit it is provided that to avoid new Controversies all the Princes of the Empire shall remain in the peaceable possession and enjoyment of their Rights and Prerogatives ut à nullo unquam sub quocunque praetextu de facto turbari possint In the § Pax verò conclusa it is expressly ordained against all waies of Fact Et si quid eorum à quocunque violari contigerit laesus laedentem inprimis à via Facti dehortetur causâ ipsâ vel amicabili Compositioni vel Juris disceptationi submissâ And in the § following the term of three years is appointed to terminate the Difference either by the one or the other way And in case that without having recourse to or putting in practice the one or the other of these means any one before the said term of three years do undertake any thing by the way of Arms teneantur omnes singuli hujus Transactionis consortes junctis cum parte laesa that is to say he who is attaqued by force consiliis viribúsque Arma sumere ad repellendam Injuriam à passo moniti quòd nec Amicitiae nec Juris viae locum invenerit By which it is clear that it is not permitted to any to take up Arms untill he hath tried for the space of three years the means of Accommodation or of Justice The words that follow in the same § do yet more clearly explain it Et nulli omnino Statuum Imperii liceat Jus suum vi vel armis persequi sed si quid Controversiae sive jam exortum sit sive posthac inciderit unusquisque jure experiatur secùs faciens reus sit fractae Pacis Either then the most Christian King will act in this Cause in the name of the Queen his Consort as she is a Princess of the Empire or as a private person by virtue of the Municipal Laws of Brabant In the first case he ought as a Vassal to have recourse to the Sovereign Tribunal where the Controversies about the Ducal Succession are tried In the second case he ought to submit himself to the Judgement of the Feodal Court which is the onely Interpreter of the Customes of the Countrie and the supreme Judge of the particular Actions touching Fiefs As to the Declaration which they do make in the same Writing that they 'l possess these new Conquests under the same Laws and Dependences on the Empire whereby our Kings have held them It is a Protestation contrary to the Act and their proceeding doth destroy it absolutely How can it be hoped that they I subject themselves to the Laws of the Empire in the fruition of those Estates when they do violate them all by the Invading of this Circle All the Pretensions of the Princes of the Empire one against another have alwaies been left to the Supreme Judicatory they have ever been begun by some Process And those who wearied with their tediousness have laboured to right themselves have still found opposition and been discountenanced by the * Which is the Imperial
very remote The Testament of the King is nothing else but a Confirmation of this same Deed which he supposed to be Legal being framed upon the platform of those things which were established by the Peace And if the Renunciation be just it must of necessity follow that the Testamentarie disposition which is but a consequence of it is so likewise All the vain Exclamations which the Authors of these Libells do make upon that Subject are but the extravagant digressions of an affected Eloquence to astonish the people 'T is the like too of all those majestical Consequences which they draw from thence to exaggerate the Injuries which have been done to his Successours If the thing be just in it self and received in the person of the Mother it cannot be unjust in her Successours who have no Right but what they derive from her And if it be permitted to private persons to make Entails to the exclusion of Daughters and their offspring in favour of collateral Lines if the Salique Law may perpetually deprive them and all their Descendants of an Hereditary Kingdome what Injustice can be found in this that Spain hath desired this Renunciation to the end they fall not into the Dependencie upon a stranger-Kingdome The Daulphin of France had never been in the world nor had any share in the Crown of France if the Queen had not renounced and if he cannot be at one time King both of France and Spain he must lay the fault on the Salique Law which devours all that it possesses and obliges all other Kingdomes to provide for their own safety by fitting Precautions and by the natural Law quod quisque Juris The source which they leave for the Queen to re-enter into her Rights in case that God should afflict her with a Widowhood without Children is an effect of the Fatherly Tenderness and Justice which would needs establish her Happiness in all cases by putting her in a condition either to reign gloriously in France by her Fruitfulness or to have wherewithall to comfort her in case of Barrenness by re-entring into her Rights to the Monarchy of Spain This doth clearly shew that in this Renunciation her Person was not regarded but onely the Obstacle inconsistent with the Reason of State which did suspend the effects of that Love which they had for her and that renders the Renunciation the more valid because it is not absolute and leaveth the Gate still open for her Re-entry as often as the essential Impediment shall not come in the way far from wishing her Barrenness or exclusion of her Offspring whenever they may be received without subjecting the Kingdome Instrument of Renunciation fol. 13. The way is opened to place her and her Successours upon the Throne of Spain If for publick Conveniencies and just Considerations she should marry with the consent of the Catholick King and the Prince of Spain her Brother Whereby it is manifest that the fundamental and sole cause of this Renunciation is to exclude France from the right of being able to annex the Monarchy of Spain to his Realm and Laws and not to deprive the Queen or her Issue of it when no other thing shall hinder them from being admitted Meanwhile upon this the French do make a great noise they convert the Honey of this Deed into Poison and make an Injury of a Benefit and testifie thereby that it is not the love of the Queen but their own Covetousness to devour all under colour of her Rights which doth throw them into this inordinate passion Upon these indubitable Principles it will not be difficult to establish and ground in Law the validity of the Queen's Renunciation upon the following Rules 1. It is lawfull for Princes to resign and renounce their Hereditary Kingdom in favour of the next Heir The example of Charles the Vth Philip the II d and the Queen Christina doth evidently prove it And even in Elective Kingdomes where it seems that the Obligation to reign is more indispensable and less capable of being retracted then in those which be Hereditary because it is established by a reciprocal Covenant and by an Obligation which such Kings have willingly imposed upon themselves we have seen Henry the III d renounce openly by his flight And if the French themselves could constrain Childeric the III d and some other of their Kings to throw themselves into Monasteries and make them renounce their hereditarie Crowns even in favour of Strangers why shall it not be permitted to Princes to devest themselves thereof willingly to obtain a greater benefit or for the simple desire of Quietness Gen. 3. John King of Armenia quitted the Kingdome to his Nephew Leon Clem. 5. Greg. 11. to enter into the Order of Saint Francis A great many Princes and Princesses lawful Heirs of Hereditary Kingdoms have validly renounced them either for the Publick good or their private Tranquillity to embrace Religious or retired life as Saint Bridget in Sweden and others in Hungarie Germanie and Spain France also furnishes us with examples of this kind Carloman the eldest Son of Charles Martel parted with his Kingdom to his Brother Pepin that he might wholly dedicate himself to the Service of God What those Princes have been able to doe either out of Devotion or the love of Liberty the Infanta might doe with a juster title for the good of the Peace of two Monarchies The Fundamental Law which called her to the Succession was in her favour and not for constraining her It is a Right that is given them but not a necessitie imposed upon them 't is not a forbidding Law which we cannot renounce The King her Father could not without the consent of the States exclude her against her will or make her uncapable of the Succession but she might voluntarily renounce for her greater good and for that of the State it self and that too with the general applause of the people over whom she might have been Queen 2. Though the ancient Laws were in some kind against the Renunciation of future Successions the practice of them is now abolished for this respect and the contrary so well established over all the World that the French Laws do unanimously agree unto it and even that He who hath renounced some future Succession cannot recall by the happening of Children what he hath quitted Epeisses Tom. 1. pag. 407. The Constitution of Pope Boniface Con. ad cap. Quamvis p. 3. Const Bon. which the Author of these Libells cites on this Subject determines it clearly the practice of it is commonly received in Spain In Brabant and in all the King's Dominions and since he himself doth nor disagree with it I think it would be superfluous to seek any greater proofs 3. That the Right of Devolution according to the Custome of Brabant being neither Succession nor Proprietie nor a real assured Estate but casual and in suspence it may be validly renounced and that the use of it is common
to it But the Cause and the End of the Renunciation is For the publick good of the Kingdoms the conservation of the Greatness and the Glory of their Majesties to avoid the Discontents of the People and the Dammages which might arise from thence and to facilitate thenceforwards the Marriages between the Children and the Descendents of the two Kings and lastly to avoid the Hinderance which Reason of State brought to this Marriage and consequently to the Peace All these Causes are in their own nature irremoveable unalterable and of absolute necessity nor can be tied to a private Deed as is the payment of the Portion nor limited by any restrictive Conditions and on the contrary the obligation for payment of the Portion may depend as to its execution upon many Conditions and the effect thereof may be suspended for just causes In the Renunciation the Infanta hath obliged her self to the whole State in the Assignation of the Dowrie the King hath obliged himself to the most Christian King as the future Spouse of his Daughter The delay in the payment of the Portion is a prejudice in a pecuniarie matter which may easilie be repaired by paying the Interest which the Civil Law doth appoint after the term of payment is past to shew that deficiencie in the payment doth not annull the Contract since the Law hath provided for it by another remedie But the defect of the Renunciation would bring along with it a dammage which could never be compensed nor repaired whereby it may be judged that it hath not nor could not be the intention of the Parties to tie the Renunciation to the payment of the Portion and make so necessary a thing depend upon one so casual that it may be retarded by a thousand accidents The Renunciation also is conceived in terms of doing presently and the payment of the Portion in these of doing hereafter And from this present time I do hold my self content and entirely paid all that belongs or may belong unto me And as to the payment of the Portion it is said And this Summe shall be paid in the manner following c. It cannot likewise be conceived how this Scribbler dares to publish that the Spaniards did make the Infanta ratifie it posteriourly to her Marriage by some secret Acts which France hath never seen seeing he himself doth acknowledge that the most Christian King did ratifie it and that it is expressly set down in the VI. Article of the Contract of Marriage that the Queen should pass an Act of Renunciation before she shall marry in words importing the present time and afterwards shall approve and ratifie it joyntly with the most Christian King as soon as she shall have celebrated her Marriage And though France had never seen those Articles she cannot pretend any cause of ignorance of any of the Clauses contained therein seeing that by the same Article of the Treatie the most Christian King doth consent that this Renunciation should be made in the most effectual and fitting form which could be for their validity and firmness with the Clauses Derogations and Abrogations c. To which in the same Article he consented and hath approved them as if they had been already made They are held already made now for then by virtue of this Treatie But the Subtiltie of this Writer who seeks by all means to fasten himself upon such smooth ice leaves all the Substance of the Case behind to take hold of one word of the same Article which is providing the payment c. and would inferr that this Renunciation is absolutely relative not onely to the payment of the money but also to the terms of the payment designed in the Second Article which cannot subsist without altering the whole nature of the Treatie and giving a violent interpretation and opposite to the sense and to the conception of this Article and of the Renunciation because it is not said in this place that in case of payment she shall renounce but that she shall be content with the said Portion which declares no other thing but that when her Portion shall be pay'd she shall be content therewith it being certain that she could not be satisfied in this respect before she should be pay'd So that the defect of payment within the terms mentioned gives her a just right to pretend to it with the Interests which run from the time limited by the Laws if some just cause do not hinder which regularly would not be due without an express Promise unless that it were in favour of the Portion and cannot be extended farther L. 1. ff de Usutap And albeit there should be in that some obscurity of terms it is certain that in the Interpretation of such Treaties which are of upright Faith the Intention of the Parties is onely to be respected so that the Scruples which may arise from the Ambiguity of the words may not prejudge the principal end L. 1. de Legatis And it is the more manifest in this case because the Renunciation ought to be made in present and positive terms before the terms of payment should have been run out Wherefore to put the Queen in the right of re-entring into all her Pretensions by defect of punctual payment they should have declared it by an express Clause which should have reserved those Rights to the Queen in case of failing the rather because in the same Renunciation they do specifie two other cases in which she may be re-established in her Rights If the intention of the parties had been to extend it to this they would not have failed to explain it as clearly as the rest being that it was as important and as likely to happen By which it may be seen that this word providing is no restrictive Condition which suspends the Act of Renunciation or which can annull it because it is not said that in case of payment she shall renounce for in that case she would not have been obliged to renounce till after the payment or at least under the same condition but thereby it is onely meant that she shall content her self And he subjoyns the cause independent of the Portion By reason she ought to remain excluded of all of whatsoever condition or nature c. which cannot signifie any other thing but that by a preceding Agreement between the two Kings for the Reasons of State above mentioned she was to remain excluded In effect there can be no probability that for five hundred thousand Crowns of Gold she would ever have renounced the hopes of so great a Succession if some other more powerfull Motive had not given the weight to this Resolution and albeit even the payment of the Portion were one cause of the Renunciation they cannot deny but there are others more principal and superiour which do concurr thereunto and in this case respect is to be had to the chief and predominant and to the End that was proposed in this Deed. In
and cause it to be Registred in the Parliament of Paris He denies that this was done and declares that the King never saw it He maintains that the Portion was necessarily and inseparably tied to the Renunciation they have not satisfied this necessary and inseparable Condition and for their failing to have satisfied they will needs impugn the Renunciation because of the delay of payment which could not be accomplished until that they had given the Securities requisite for the Renunciation We leave it therefore to be judged of to whom the delay of payment is justly to be imputed which hath been offered divers times and is offered to them at present if they would but perform the Condition which was promised Moreover it is clear in Law that the payment of a Debt may be retained by way of compensation oâ— another liquidated pretension And so was it practised at the payment oâ— the Portions of the two Princesses Anne Infanta of Spain and Elizabetâ— of France married to Philip the IVâ—â— and Lewis the XIIIth It is certain that in the VI. Article of the Peace his Majestie doth absolutely renounce all his Rights and Pretensions upon Alsatia This Renunciation is founded upon a Proviso much more efficacious then that which is contained in the Queen's which cannot be imputed to any other cause then that which is expressed in the words following By means of which Renunciation his most Christian Majestie offers to satisfie the payment of three millions of livers which he is bound to pay unto the Arch-Dukes of Inspruck This Obligation is contained in the same Instrument of the Peace which is all but one Deed with the Treatie of Marriage and Renunciation by which the Portion is promised the one and the other are equally obliging If the most Christian King have been able to dispense with himself without breaking or annulling the Treatie he cannot pretend that the delay in paying of the Portion is more rigorously interpreted There was no cause on our part which hindred him from satisfying this Obligation It serves for nothing to say that it was not the King to whom he owed this summe since it concerned the King that it should be pay'd that it is he who hath renounced and that it is he to whom the Promise was made in the Treatie and consequently it is to him that the most Christian King hath contracted the Obligation to satisfie the most serene Arch-Duke By these Principles the second Objection falls to the ground of it self Though we should acknowledge that the Infanta hath not been endowed with her Paternal Goods the Renunciation would not cease to remain in its force as being established upon more powerful Foundations then that of the Portion and at the worst the Queen would not have in this case any other right then to pretend a Legal Portion But to shew that our Right abounds in Reasons and that on which side soever it be attaqued they can finde no weakness in it I will briefly demonstrate that all this discourse which he urges so strongly is built upon a false Supposition The Queen was provided not onely according to the practice accustomed to the Princesses of Spain but much beyond that as it appears by the very Deed of Renunciation in these terms It is a very competent Portion and the greatest which hath yet been given to any Infanta of Spain and this in consideration of the Person of the most Christian King Portions as I have already said are not regulated betwixt Kings by the estimation of the legal Portion but by a Custome which they establish in their Royal Families which passes in ordinary style and is subject to no Controversie else to take it in rigour the Princesses of France would have been very ill provided with five hundred thousand Crowns The essential reason of this Custome is because the Princes who are the Authours and Interpreters of Laws consider the Soul more then the Body and without staying upon words ought solely to take hold of the Reason from which they have taken their first beginning Now it is certain that the Portion given in Marriage is instituted to help the Husband to undergo the charges of the Marriage and the Legal Portion to keep the Children out of necessity and after the death of the Father to supply the defect of the Aliment which he did owe them whilst he lived All these Reasons do cease amongst great Monarchs whose high Fortunes shelter them from ordinary Wants and who ought to propose unto themselves in their Marriages more noble and solid Interests then that of a petty summe of Money This is the reason why they do rarely come to the discussion of Goods the supplement of Legal Portions Inventories and other such ways of redress which are introduced in favour of private persons and are in respect of them but meer Trifles but rather content themselves with that which the Custome of those Courts with which they treat hath established for this purpose esteeming it to be much below their Honour to cheapen a Wife and to make it appear that they seek any other thing in her but Greatness and Vertue In fine the most Christian King did content himself the Queen remained satisfied with it All this did pass by a Treatie of Peace into the strength of a publick Law there is no more any remedie I say yet farther that she hath been endowed with her Paternal Goods in two sorts The one because all which was granted unto the most Christian King by the Treatie of Peace was done in contemplation of the Marriage as the Marriage was concluded solely in order to the Peace It is a reciprocal Relation an inseparable Connexion one and the self-same Treatie Cause and End they cannot possibly be divided without overthrowing the whole foundation of the Peace His Majestie hath sacrificed so many fair Provinces to the Satisfaction and Good fortune of his Daughter and the Infanta gave up her Pretensions for the good of the State to the Happiness of this Marriage and to the Gratitude which she owed to the Bounty of her Father The Renunciation was reciprocal that of the most Serene Infanta to her Pretensions was accompanied also with the King 's to so many rich Domains and even to the Right which he had to Alsatia Nor can it be presumed with any apparence of Reason that he would have devested himself with such facility of so great an Estate if he had not been invited thereunto by the Love of his Daughter and the desire to see her reign happily by heaping Benefits and Satisfactions upon the King her Husband And if there remained any doubt or ambiguitie as to this the presumption is in favour of the Father Before I do enter into an exact Account with such severe Merchants 1. Fin. Cod. dot prom Alex. in ad Bart. in d.l. .. in l. 1. ff Soluto Mat. I must first declare that the specification of the Portion contained in the Treatie of
reduced into one Province but that they compose all together one aggregate of many Bodies which cannot be disjoyned So that 't is properly to distribute Gape-seed and amuse all Europe with the tricks of Jugglers in alledging for the proof of the contrary that the King in his qualities uses all the Titles of these Provinces severally as if by having united them he had lost those Titles and were less Count of Hainault for having rendred it inseparable from the Dutchie of Brabant If the Divisibility could be inferred from the difference of the Titles it is clear that how succinct soever those of the most Christian Kings be it might be concluded by the same reason that that part of Navarre which they do possess might be separated from France whereunto notwithstanding they will never condescend The passage of Grotius which he alledges but doth not quote is not to the purpose and toucheth not the fact in question but onely the Design of Charles the Vth which presently I have related He speaks of the change of the state of the Government of the Countrie and not of the Union and Indivisibility of the Provinces which may be established among them without any alteration in the Form of their Government and without changing any thing of the particular Customs unless it be in what they have of inconsistent with this Union It is with the same confidence that he presumes to say that this Pragmatick doth not contain in its dispositive one word of this Vnion And what would then the first Clause which I cited operate which is not onely dispositive but the ground of all the other Dispositions which are contained in the same Law It is the Cause and the End of it and the sole Reason why the Emperour established the Representation is to preserve the Countries in one Mass and that they be inseparably possessed by one Prince alone This Representation in which he labours to lodge solely all the Dispositive is but a pursuit and a means to attain to the principal End which he hath proposed to himself of the Indivisibility but by the discourse of this Authour the Cause would be of less strength then its Effect the Accessory would have the place of Dispositive and the Principal serve onely as a simple Narration This Truth is confirmed by the Constitution of Charles An. 1549. whereby though he doth confirm the Succession of the Daughters for want of Heirs-male he supposes notwithstanding for the ground of the Sanction Nos per Pragmaticam Sanctionem super Jure Successionis universalis harum Provinciarum Inferioris Germaniae patrimoniali ac haereditario Jure ad nos pertinentium providere velle quòd scilicet eaedom Provinciae nostrae in una Massa deinceps beneficio Repraesentationis generaliter in Successione Principis locum recipientis serventur nec ampliùs unquam ab invicem separentur And to shew that it was at the desire of the People he adds Id quad jam antea à Statibus Geldriae petitum Whereby two things are clearly seen The one That the Representation was not introduced into this Sanction but as a means for attaining to the principal End of the Indivisibilitie the other That when he admitted the Daughters in the defect of Heirs-male he would yet preserve in them the same Indivisibilitie and that they might not be divided even among many Daughters as is certain by the words following Nè scilicet à Ducatu nostro Brabantiae Comitatu Hollandiae in quibus Foeminae ex antiqua consuetudine succederunt distraherentur And in the dispositive Clause wherein he confirms the Succession of Women he doth expressly adde this Restriction non exstantibus Masculis haeredibus succedere possint Whereby it is seen that in no case they can succeed so long as there are any Heirs-male I should never have done if I would stop at each of their Cavills The Declaration which he doth alledge of Philip the Second is one but so ill fitted to the purpose that it makes me pitty them He saith that in the Confirmation which he made of the Privileges of Brabant he declared that the onely Estates that should be united for perpetuity with Brabant were Limbourg Antwerp and those beyond the Maese Here by the way it is to be observed that Limbourg was never united to Brabant as Stockmans doth note fol. 174. But what Union soever there might be should they be so ill Logicians as to inferr from thence that the other Provinces are not indivisibly united with Brabant Should it be possible that he should hope to throw dust in our eyes with this petty Equivocation by the which he confounds and improperly applies the word Union Antwerp as he says was united to Brabant as to a principal Body to enjoy with it the same Privileges and Seals and to make up together the Jurisdiction of one Councel We never pretended that by the Sanction of Charles the Vth the other Provinces were united after the same manner nor that they ought to participate with them in their Privileges See I beseech you what force this Argument hath Antwerp alone and Limbourg were united to the Dutchie of Brabant to enjoy the same Privileges therefore the Sanction of Charles the Vth never intended that the other Provinces and Brabant it self should be preserved in a Mass to be inseparably possessed by one Prince alone Antwerp and Limbourg onely shall enjoy the particular Privileges of Brabant therefore all the other Provinces shall be untied from all Union and may pass under different Masters Philip the Second prohibited the Infanta Isabella to divide the Provinces therefore they were not united On the contrary this very Prohibition must suppose that they were united since nothing can be divided but what is united It makes my heart bleed to see poor Aristotle so often buffetted and the whole form of right Reasoning which he so ingeniously invented overthrown On the contrary the Prohibition of Philip the II d is a Confirmation of the Sanction of Charles the Vth And if the Discourse of this Authour could take place all the Commandments of God and of Kings might be destroyed When a Father commands his Child not to be a Murtherer it might in the same manner be inferred that God hath not forbidden Murther when a King exhorts his Subjects to Fidelitie a consequence might be drawn from thence that they are not obliged to Fidelity by natural Duty and by their Oath then which nothing can be more irrational He goes astray after the same manner by taking the Effect for the Cause when he saith that this Sanction was onely made to introduce the Representation into the Succession of the Sovereign Whereas quite contrary it appears by the terms before alledged that the Representation is introduced onely to establish the Indivisibilitie which he himself acknowledges two lines thereafter Dial. p. 4◠by a terrible Giddiness of head when he mentions the Cause which gave occasion to this Representation To
Surrenderer was bound The Authour of the Queen's Rights doth yet run out with more licence upon the same Subject Pag. 206. by falsely citing of Meteren in his History of the Low-Countreys To make this Historian speak to his fancie he adds to his Narrative a meer Fiction contrary to the sequell and to the sense of his story Those of Brabant says he were so afraid lest it should be thought that the Infanta Isabella to whom this Dutchy belonged by the right of Devolution should be conceived to hold it by virtue of the Donation because no mention was made of any Right In the end he applies to this false Preamble that which Meteren relates of the Protestation made by the States that this Donation might not hurt nor prejudice their Rights and Privileges wherein also he doth maliciously change the terms of the Protestation which speaks not of the Rights of the Dutchie as he alledges with his accustomed ingenuitie but onely of their proper Rights and Privileges de observandis Patriae Privilegiis as the passage it self expresses which he hath cited elsewhere But at the bottom there will nothing be found in Meteren that can either directly or indirectly prove that the States of Brabant made the least reflexion upon the Right of Devolution nor that they refused to accept the Donation in this qualitie but on the contrary that they admitted it under the same Title as also the Consent of the Prince Philip which was contrary to the Right of Devolution and that the repugnancie which this Historian saith divers shewed in this rencounter was founded on other causes viz. That it would be held strange that the Eldest Daughter should be bestowed upon a * The Archduke Albert whilst he was a Cardinal Prince who was provided of many Ecclesiastical Estates and to prefer him before the Elder Brothers as the Emperour was Which he delivers as discourses and popular Reflexions according to the style of Historians and would not have omitted to have spoken of the Devolution if it had been but mentioned among the ordinary reasonings of the people Even the States of the Province as this same Authour reports never resolved to mingle the Devolution among those Causes which they alledged for the aversion which they had to the change of a Master but Meteren l. 9. fo 412. on the contrary they produce other Reasons which seem to destroy the Devolution Their principal Reason was Because they had lived so many years under the just and equitable Government of so good a King and that remembring so many Favours they conceived that it was not possible to quit their Obedience to him without a continual remorse of Conscience Which shews that they acknowledged him for their true Proprietor else what remorse of Conscience could they have had for going to their lawful * The Infanta Isabella Heir by the Right of a Succession Devolved of which according to the French doctrine the King his Father possessed but the bare use and profits whereof he might have denuded himself without giving them any cause to think strange of it since that is ordinarily practised by the Fathers in the Marriages of their Children to release unto them the enjoying of those Proprieties which they have acquired What follows renders the business much more evident They submitted themselves nevertheless notwithstanding the considerations which they had to the contrary to the will of the King alledged this Reason for their so doing viz. to give them for their Princess his most dear Daughter of whose goodness and Vertue they had heard so much and withall for coupling her with a Husband c. They do consent in consideration of the goodness and Vertue of the Princess and the great Qualities of the Husband at the same time when they profess that he gives her unto them for their Princess they acknowledge her not to have been so before and if it is the King who gave her unto them it cannot be the Devolution that placed her in the Throne It is for this that in the Consent which they gave to it they say that it was to conform themselves to the will of the King and provided that his Majestie would command them so to doe which they would never have said if so be that they had held the Infanta for their lawfull Princess by a Right already devolved This Consent clearly expresses that it was in the quality of a Portion and Donation that the States did receive the Infanta to be their Mistress as is manifest by the relation of the said Historian and that they themselves required the Consent of the Prince her Brother in which he doth declare that he was induced thereunto for certain great Reasons and respects of the Common good and to the end that his Sister might he provided for according to her quality and great merit he he qualifies it also with the title of Donation All this is so contrary to the Devolution that I cannot admire enough the blindness of this Writer in having touched upon this string so palpablie out of time But though by an excess of Indulgence all that they alledge were granted to be true they are not able to draw any other consequence from it but that the States by accepting of this Surrender did pretend that they were to remain in their ancient Rights and forms of Government and this cannot be understood of any but those Rights which relate to themselves without pretending thereby to touch those of the Prince nor to subject the Sovereignty to their Customs since in effect that would have been an unjust and ridiculous Pretension and which would have made to their own Disadvantage Let us remove from this point to that of the Surrender and perpetual Alienation made in favour of the Estates of the United Provinces by Philip the IVth Which was done at the Treatie of Munster in the year 1648 of one part of Brabant and some other Provinces This Donation ought to be null according to all the Rules of these Writers not onely for what concerns the Lands where the Devolution hath place but for all the others likewise As to the first it is certain that the Case of the Devolution was already come to pass in favour of the Prince Balthazar and failing of him in favour of the Queen of France when they were surrendred If this Right be a present and certain Succession if it be a Propriety which can never validly be renounced it is the duty of the States of the United Provinces to think either handsomly to restore them or else to defend their possession by the Sword the Sentence is already pronounced The most Christian King not out of a covetous desire to conquer but according to the precise obligation of his Duty and Conscience is reduced to the necessity of entertaining them in the same fashion as he doth us he cannot abandon the Rights of his Wife without failing in what he owes unto
Children of the First Bed so much the more because that in the 94. the Eldest carries away all the Fiefs without distinction of the first or second Marriage and succeeds for his share with the Children both of the one and the other Bed The Texts which he alledges against this drawn from the 4th Article Chapter 105 and from the 3d Article Chapter 91 and others are applied by this Authour directly against the true sense and the ordinary practice of the Custome For if we consider Hainault as a Fief it is out of doubt that the Males of the Second Bed do exclude the Daughters of the First of which the practice is so regularly observed in all the Tribunals of that Province that it is to goe directly against a known Truth to bring this Question so much as in Controversie From whence it follows that the Customs which he cites cannot be understood in reference to Fiefs but where there is a concurrence of Male against Male or of Daughter against Daughter of two Beds in which case the Male of the first Marriage carries it before those of the Second Bed and the same doth the Daughter of the First Marriage before those of the Latter But when the Question is betwixt Male and Female the thing is out of all debate in favour of the Male. But if on the contrary they will make Hainault pass for a Freehold it is indubitable that the Father may dispose of it by Advice and by Testament and also by Substitution as is certain by the 6. Article of the same Chapter 105. The 9. Article of the 94. Chapter which he cites speaks onely of those Fiefs that come by Collateral Succession and cannot be made a Precedent in relation to Free-holds which the Parents may dispose of and that which he adds that according to the same Custome the direct Donations do pass for Purchaces is absolutely false when the Donation is made under the Title of a Portion and it is a monstrous thing that they should offer to make pass for a Purchace the Reversion of those Provinces in the person of Philip the IVth since it was expressly provided in the said Donation and that King Philip the Second and the Prince his Son had never consented to it but under this Clause of Reversion so that in the recovery of these Fiefs they are returned into their first nature of being the Legal Patrimonie of the Line of Philip the II d and they did alwaies remain such notwithstanding the Donation and chiefly in what relates to Hainault For if it be considered as a Free-hold having been given with a Clause of Reverting it staies alwaies in its qualitie of Patrimonie and if it be a Patrimonial Fief it is in the same qualitie likewise that it returns back again to the Giver We might also say that as being a Fief it could not be legally given away since it is certain that the Fathers in the County of Hainault may not dispose of them by Advice but by way of Disinheriting so that on which side soever it be taken it is impossible France should finde their advantage But 't is to dwell too long upon these Customary practices and to injure Princes to weigh their Rights in so weak and so unequal a Balance I cannot here omit in passing to desire the Reader to observe one notable Artifice by which France would give a false weight to her bad Cause by begg'd Authorities and subtilie stolen by a wittie Surprize The Authour of the Queen of France's Rights makes his great Batterie thereof and thinks to confound the Readers with these specious words of Universities which France hath consulted of Doctours from all parts who have subscribed to their Opinions and if we will believe him our Condemnation is decreed by the unanimous consent of all the most renowned Lawyers But because he is in possession of never reporting matters of fact in their true circumstances his bad memory ought to be a little helped and he made remember that they have indeed attempted some Universities and particular Doctours to maintain these Opinions of which some have fallen into the Trap and now detest their inconsiderate Lightness others have had a sharper sight and would give no Decision upon so indeterminate a fact and ill explicated The Question hath been proposed to them under borrowed names without reducing it to the terms of the true Fact whereof at present we are treating they never mentioned to them that Sovereignties were the thing in question whereof some are Fiefs of the Empire and others independent they concealed the Act and the Clauses of the Renunciation as well as its Causes and the End thereof they never knew that it was covenanted by a Treatie of Peace between two Kings agreed to by a Contract of Marriage inseparable from that of the Peace they were never told of the causes which France had given to the delay of the Payment of the Portion they took a great deal of care not to make it appear that the Goods which they pretended to were inseparably united among themselves by a Fundamental Law of the State and without furnishing them with any of those instructions which might have been usefull to them in the framing of a solid judgment they satisfie themselves with the meer questioning them upon the right of Devolution and with the inquiring of them whether a Father could alienate his Goods to the prejudice of a Right devolved to his Children If a Daughter might renounce a Succession which was fallen to her If a Minor might be relieved against an enormous Laesion If a Renunciation made purely in contemplation of the Portion ought to hold when the Portion hath not been assigned upon the Goods of the Father and that the very payment had not its effect and so of the rest They have answered to these Propositions according to the disposition of Common Law and the practice of the Local Customs But from whence comes it that the French Writers who have stuffed their works with so many unusefull Allegations durst never produce any of these Consultations which no doubt had they touched the Case would have been of more force then all that they have alledged in their works The cause of this silence is easily to be divined It is by reason that they could not spread them abroad without discovering at the same time the vain illusion of their captious proceeding and overturning all the strength of these same Authorities by detecting that they were all surreptitiously extorted But to put the business home to them we shall willingly consent that the fact be reduced to its true Species and that it be referred to the Judgment of the most famous Universities in Europe excepting onely those who by preoccupation of mind or by the common subjection of their Countrey are not in a condition to think that which they ought nor to utter ingenuously that which they think Let us conclude this Article then with a Dilemma