_ BOOK V. DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND WHAT ELEMENT IT FELL INTO. 1723-1726
(Chapter III cont.)
IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S PRAGMATIC SANCTION
Kaiser Karl meanwhile was rather short of heirs; which formed another of his real troubles, and involved him in much shadow-hunting. His Wife, the Serene Brunswick Empress whom we spoke of above, did at length bring him children, brought him a boy even; but the boy died within the year; and, on the whole, there remained nothing but two Daughters; Maria Theresa the elder of them, born 1717,--the prettiest little maiden in the world;--no son to inherit Kaiser Karl. Under which circumstances Kaiser Karl produced now, in the Year 1724, a Document which he had executed privately as long ago as 1713, only his Privy Councillors and other Official witnesses knowing of it then; [19th April, 1713 (Stenzel, iii. 5222).] and solemnly publishes it to the world, as a thing all men are to take notice of. All men had notice enough of this Imperial bit of Sheepskin, before they got done with it, five-and-twenty years hence. [Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748.] A very famous Pragmatic Sanction; now published for the world's comfort!
By which Document, Kaiser Karl had formally settled, and fixed according to the power he has, in the shape of what they call a Pragmatic Sanction, or unalterable Ordinance in his Imperial House, "That, failing Heirs-male, his Daughters, his Eldest Daughter, should succeed him; failing Daughters, his Nieces; and in short, that Heirs-female ranking from their kinship to Kaiser Karl, and not to any prior Kaiser, should be as good as Heirs-male of Karl's body would have been." A Pragmatic Sanction is the high name he gives this document, or the Act it represents; "Pragmatic Sanction" being, in the Imperial Chancery and some others, the received title for Ordinances of a very irrevocable nature, which a sovereign makes, in affairs that belong wholly to himself, or what he reckons his own rights. [A rare kind of Deed, it would seem; and all the more solemn. In 1438, Charles VI. of France, conceding the Gallican Church its Liberties, does, it by "SANCTION PRAGMATIQUE;" Carlos III. of Spain (in 1759, "settling the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on his third son") does the like,--which is the last instance of "PRAGMATIC SANCTION" in this world.]
This Pragmatic Sanction of Kaiser Karl's, executed 19th April, 1713, was promulgated, "gradually," now here now there, from 1720 to 1724, [Stenzel, pp. 522, 523.]--in which later year it became universally public; and was transmitted to all Courts and Sovereignties, as an unalterable law of Things Imperial. Thereby the good man hopes his beautiful little Theresa, now seven years old, may succeed him, all as a son would have done, in the Austrian States and Dignities; and incalculable damages, wars, and chances of war, be prevented, for his House and for all the world.
The world, incredulous of to-morrow, in its lazy way, was not sufficiently attentive to this new law of things. Some who were personally interested, as the Saxon Sovereignty, and the Bavarian, denied that it was just: reminded Kaiser-Karl that he was not the Noah or Adam of Kaisers; and that the case of Heirs-female was not quite a new idea on sheepskin. No; there are older Pragmatic Sanctions and settlements, by prior Kaisers of blessed memory; under which, if Daughters are to come in, we, descended from Imperial Daughters of older standing, shall have a word to say!--To this Kaiser Karl answers steadily, with endless argument, That every Kaiser is a Patriarch, and First Man, in such matters; and that so it has been pragmatically sanctioned by him, and that so it shall and must irrevocably be. To the other Powers, and indolent impartial Sovereigns of the world, he was lavish in embassies; in ardent representations; and spared no pains in convincing them that to-morrow would surely come, and that then it would be a blessedness to have accepted this Pragmatic Sanction, and see it lying for you as a Law of Nature to go by, and avoid incalculable controversies.
This was another vast Shadow, or confused high-piled continent of shadows, to which our poor Kaiser held with his customary tenacity. To procure adherences and assurances to this dear Pragmatic Sanction, was, even more than the shadow of the Spanish Crown, and above all after he had quitted that, the one grand business of his Life henceforth. With which he kept all Europe in perpetual travail and diplomacy; raying out ambassadors, and less ostensible agents, with bribes, and with entreaties and proposals, into every high Sovereign Court and every low; negotiating unweariedly by all methods, with all men. For it was his evening-song and his morning-prayer; the grand meaning of Life to him, till Life ended. You would have said, the first question he asks of every creature is, "Will you covenant for my Pragmatic Sanction with me? Oh, agree to it; accept that new Law of Nature: when the morrow comes, it will be salutary for you!"
Most of the Foreign Potentates idly accepted the thing,--as things of a distant contingent kind are accepted;--made Treaty on it, since the Kaiser seemed so extremely anxious. Only Bavaria, having heritable claims, never would. Saxony too (August the Strong), being in the like case, or a better, flatly refused for a long time; would not, at all,--except for a consideration. Bright little Prince Eugene, who dictated square miles of Letters and DIplomacies on the subject (Letters of a steady depth of dulness, which at last grows almost sublime), was wont to tell his Majesty: "Treatying, your Majesty? A well-trained Army and a full Treasury; that is the only Treaty that will make this Pragmatic Sanction valid!" But his Majesty never would believe. So the bright old Eugene dictated,--or, we hope and guess, he only gave his clerks some key-word, and signed his name (in three languages, "Eugenio von Savoye") to these square miles of dull epistolary matter,--probably taking Spanish snuff when he had done. For he wears it in both waistcoat-pockets;--has (as his Portraits still tell us) given up breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, with a flash in him as of Heaven's own lightning; but now growing very old and snuffy.
Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the Spanish Crown,--it was such shadow-huntings of the Kaiser in Vienna, it was this of the Pragmatic Sanction most of all, that thwarted our Prussian Double-Marriage, which lay so far away from it. This it was that pretty nearly broke the hearts of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and their Mother and Father. For there never was such negotiating; not for admittance to the Kingdom of Heaven, in the pious times. And the open goings-forth of it, still more the secret minings and mole-courses of it, were into all places. Above ground and below, no Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him agree or not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and with all his heart, agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction; this above ground, in sight of the sun; and rashly fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his horror, he found the Imperial moles, by way of keeping assurance doubly sure, had been under the foundations of his very house for long years past, and had all but brought it down about him in the most hideous manner!-- _