The Rising Storm

often unsupported from home, yet by his skill, forcefulness and personal popularity at foreign Courts again and again thwarting French designs. He saw France as Britain's only serious rival to world power, and did not believe that his country could enjoy permanent safety until her great rival had been entirely isolated and reduced to impotence. Roger remembered this, as the diplomat said quickly:

'Your Grace's wishes are the father to your thoughts. The emptiness of the French treasury does not affect the fact that the population of France is more than twice our own, or that the pride of the whole nation is involved in regaining its lost hold on India and North America. King Louis having been fool enough to disband his Musketeers is no evi­dence whatsoever of his pacific intentions. He still retains the biggest standing army in Europe, builds men-of-war with every sou that he can raise by depriving his nobles of their pensions— yes, even to denying his wife a diamond necklace so that he might build another—and he has spent a greater sum than his father squandered on the du Barri in creating a vast new naval base at Cherbourg, which can have no other purpose than the domination of the Channel and our shores. I would stake my last farthing on it that whatever new form of government may emerge in France out of her present troubles she will find the money somehow, whenever the opportunity seems favourable, to launch another attempt to destroy us root and branch.'

The Duke laughed lightly. 'You overstress the danger, my lord. But should you prove correct we are, largely thanks to your own efforts, now far better situated than we were a few years back to put a check upon any new French aggression. When we emerged from the last conflict in '83 it was only by skilful diplomacy at the Peace of Paris that we saved the shirts on our backs, and after it we were still left entirely friendless. Whereas now that we have formed the Triple Alliance, should we be compelled to march again against the French, Prussia and the Dutch Netherlands will march with us.'

Malmesbury thrust his leonine head forward, his fine blue eyes flashed and he banged his clenched fist on the table. ' 'Tis not enough, Your Grace! Britain can never enjoy full and permanent security until the Family Compact has been broken.'

'In that I think your lordship right,' Pitt agreed. 'All of you know that I have no animus against France. On the contrary, one of my dearest ambitions was achieved when we succeeded in negotiating our Commercial Treaty with the French two autumns back; for 'tis working most satisfactorily and may well bear out my hopes of forming a bridge over which the centuries-old enmity of the two countries may be for­gotten. Again, you know that I am averse to the formation of new military alliances except when they are necessary for our own pro­tection. Had I my way I would see us friends with all but committed to none; but that is impossible as long as there exist foreign combinations which may take up arms against us.'

He paused to pour himself another glass of port, then went on: 'It is just such alliances that breed wars, and no better example of their potentialities in that direction could be cited than the Family Compact just mentioned by my lord Malmesbury. Our recent treaties with the Prussians and the Dutch will secure us their aid in the event of direct aggression by France, and that being so, coupled with her present internal difficulties, I do not believe that we have anything to fear from a renewal of her desire for aggrandizement at our expense. But, un­fortunately, the Bourbon Family Compact still ties her to Spain.

'For a long time past our relations with that country have been far from good, and I do not see how they can be permanently bettered as long as present conditions maintain in South American waters. Spain has ever sought to keep her rich possessions overseas as a closed province from all other nations, whereas being ourselves a race of traders we have striven by fair means and foul to get a footing on the southern continent. Despite numerous formal prohibitions we have winked the eye at many illegal acts by enterprising ship-owners in the West Indies. The smug­gling carried on from the Spanish main to our islands there has assumed enormous proportions, and skirmishes between our people and the Spanish guarda costa vessels have long occurred with considerable frequency. That naturally gives great cause for offence to the haughty Dons, and scarcely a month passes without our receiving heated remonstrances from Madrid, or bitter complaints from the governors of our islands that British seamen have been seized, maltreated and falsely imprisoned while going about their lawful business.'

The handsome Duke of Leeds made a wry grimace. 'I know it well, and have an entire drawer stuffed with such papers at the Foreign Office. But Spain will never bring herself to the point of fighting on that account.'

'I would not wager upon it,' contended Pitt. 'There is always the last straw that breaks the camel's back.'

'Nay. The Dons may bluster, but the days of Spain's greatness are gone; and without the succour that she draws from her Empire in the Americas she would face total ruin. Did she declare openly against Britain our fleets would swiftly cut her off from that Eldorado, and she would even risk its permanent loss.'

'There I agree, should she have the temerity to challenge us alone,' Pitt replied. 'But Your Grace has left out of your calculations the Family Compact. In '79, when we were fully engaged against France, the Court of Versailles called upon the Court of Madrid to honour that treaty and King Carlos III entered the war against us. What guarantee have we that his successor, should he consider himself provoked beyond endurance, Will not also invoke the treaty, and King Louis, however reluctantly, in turn feel obliged to abide by his obligations? I regard all wars as regrettable, and although we could look to the outcome of one against Spain alone with reasonable equanimity, if we were called on again to face France and Spain in combination it might well go exceeding hard with Britain.'

The Duke shrugged. 'I regard the chances of Spain pushing her grievances about the depredations of our privateers to the point of war as exceeding slender; so I think such a situation most unlikely to arise.'

‘Yet, should it do so,' Malmesbury put in persistently, 'Your Grace must admit that we would find ourselves in a pretty pickle; for it should not be forgotten that the French Queen is a Habsburg. The influence she exerts has enabled her to draw the Courts of Versailles and Vienna much closer together than they were formerly, and in the event of war she might well succeed in inducing her brothers to come to the assistance of France. Then we would find Spain, France, Austria, Tuscany and the Two Sicilies all leagued in arms simultaneously for the purpose of our destruction.'

'Indeed, my lord Malmesbury is right,' declared Pitt. 'The nightmare spectacle he calls up could only too easily become a terrible reality did Spain ever invoke that damnable Family Compact. The danger at the moment fortunately appears remote; but it is the one possibility that above all others we should spare no pains to render still more unlikely, or, far better, impossible.'

He had turned, then, to Roger, and said: 'I trust you will bear this conversation in mind, Mr. Brook. Previous to it your new mission called for no more than that you should act as a general observer; but in addition I now request that, should you succeed in becoming persona grata at the French Court, you will pay special regard to all that concerns Franco-Spanish relations; and, should opportunity offer, use your utmost exertions to weaken the goodwill that at present exists between the two nations. 'Tis too much to expect that any personal endeavour on your part could lead to the annulling of this long-standing treaty, but you have shown considerable shrewdness in the past, and you could render no greater service to your country than by suggesting to me some line of policy that would later enable me to bring about the breaking of it.'

That night, when Roger had got back to Amesbury House, in Arlington Street—where he had a standing invitation to stay when in London with the Marquess of Amesbury's younger son, Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel—he and his tall, foppish friend, who, from his perpetual stoop, was known to his intimates as 'Droopy Ned', had spent an hour in the fine library, delving into a score of leather-bound volumes to find out all they could about the Family Compact.

Both of them knew well that it was one of the major instruments that had governed European relations for several generations, but Roger was anxious to secure details of its origin and Droopy, being a born bookworm, was the very man to help him. In due course their researches produced the following information.

King Carlos II of Spain, who had died in the year 1700, was the last male descendant in the direct line of the Houses of Castile and Aragon; so the succession had reverted to the descendants of his eldest aunt.

This princess—known to the world owing to her Imperial descent as Anne of Austria, but nevertheless of Spanish blood—had married the head of the House of Bourbon, Louis XIII of France. In con­sequence, theoretically, the Spanish throne devolved upon her son Louis XIV. But as the two countries were not prepared to unite and the Spaniards were determined to have a King of their own, the immediate heirs to France were ruled out, and Louis XTV's second grandson, the Duke of Anjou, had been selected. The choice had been strongly opposed by the late King Carlos's close relatives in Bavaria and Austria, which had resulted in the War of the Spanish Succession, but France had emerged triumphant and the Duke D'Anjou had ascended the Spanish throne as Philip V. Since then a branch of the Bourbon family had ruled in Spain; and more recently relatives of the Spanish Kings had also reigned