of the young king was greeted with transport.  Pitt still reigned over Parliament and over England, governing a free country sovereign-masterlike.  His haughty prejudice against France still ruled all the decisions of the English government, but Lord Bute, the young monarch’s adviser, was already whispering pacific counsels destined ere long to bear fruit.  Pitt’s dominion was tottering when the first overtures of peace arrived in London.  The Duke of Choiseul proposed a congress.  He at the same time negotiated directly with England.  Whilst Pitt kept his answer waiting, an English squadron blockaded Belle-Isle, and the governor, M. de Sainte-Croix, left without relief, was forced to capitulate after an heroic resistance.  When the conditions demanded by England were at last transmitted to Versailles, the English flag was floating over the citadel of Belle-Isle, the mouth of the Loire and of the Vilaine was blockaded.  The arrogant pretensions of Mr. Pitt stopped at nothing short of preserving the conquests of England in both hemispheres; he claimed, besides, the demolition of Dunkerque “as a memorial forever of the yoke imposed upon France.”  Completely separating the interests of England from those of the German allies, he did not even reply to the proposals of M. de Choiseul as to the evacuation of Hesse and Hanover.  Mistress of the sea, England intended to enjoy alone the fruits of her victories.

[Illustration:  ANTWERP——­233]

The parleys were prolonged, and M. de Choiseul seemed to be resigned to the bitterest pill of concession, when a new actor came upon the scene of negotiation; France no longer stood isolated face to face with triumphant England.  The younger branch of the house of Bourbon cast into the scale the weight of its two crowns and the resources of its navy.

The King of Spain, Ferdinand VI., who died on the 10th of August, 1759, had not left any children.  His brother, Charles III., King of Naples, had succeeded him.  He brought to the throne of Spain a more lively intelligence than that of the deceased king, a great aversion for England, of which he had but lately had cause to complain, and the traditional attachment of his race to the interests and the glory of France.  The Duke of Choiseul managed to take skilful advantage of this disposition.  At the moment when Mr. Pitt was haughtily rejecting the modest ultimatum of the French minister, the treaty between France and Spain, known by the name of Family Pact, was signed at Paris (August 15, 1761).

Never had closer alliance been concluded between the two courts, even at the time when Louis XIV. placed his grandson upon the throne of Spain.  It was that intimate union between all the branches of the house of Bourbon which had but lately been the great king’s conception, and which had cost him so many efforts and so much blood; for the first time it was becoming favorable to France; the noble and patriotic idea of M. de Choiseul found an echo in