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Updated: June 28, 2025
Communications were opened between Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, and those English politicians who had always professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the greatest dread and dislike of the French ascendency. The most upright of the Country Party, William Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did not scruple to concert with a foreign mission schemes for embarrassing his own sovereign.
The aims of the Country party were the same as those of the French king, and even before the Peace of Nimeguen the French ambassador, Barillon, had succeeded in opening a correspondence on these points with its leaders, with Shaftesbury, Halifax, and Lord Russell.
We will suppose, then taking a simple phrase as the fairest for the experiment that Mr. Macaulay found Barillon saying in French, "le drôle m'a fait peur," or Burnet saying in English, "the fellow frightened me." We should be pretty sure not to find the same words in Mr. Macaulay. He would pause he would first consider whether "the fellow" spoken of was a Whig or a Tory.
Barillon would have followed to the king's group, but His Majesty looked up with a quiet insolence that sent the ambassador to another circle. Then a page-boy touched my arm. "Master Stanhope?" he questioned. "Yes," said I. "Come this way," and he led to a tapestried corner, where sat the queen and her ladies. Mistress Hortense stood behind the royal chair.
Accordingly, that minister waited the next morning upon Barillon, and after having repeated and enlarged upon the reasons for calling a parliament, stated, as an additional argument in defence of the measure, that without it his master would become too chargeable to the French king; adding, however, that the assistance which might be expected from a parliament, did not exempt him altogether from the necessity of resorting to that prince for pecuniary aids; for that without such, he would be at the mercy of his subjects, and that upon this beginning would depend the whole fortune of the reign.
Of these Lord Russel and Lord Hollis alone refused to touch any French money: all the others received presents or bribes from Barillon. But we are to remark, that the party views of these men, and their well-founded jealousies of the king and duke, engaged them, independently of the money, into the same measures that were suggested to them by the French ambassador.
Mr. Echard, and Bishop Kennet, two writers of different principles, but both churchmen, assign, as the motive of this vote, the unwillingness of the party then prevalent in parliament to adopt severe measures against the Protestant dissenters; but in this notion they are by no means supported by the account, imperfect as it is, which Sir John Reresby gives of the debate, for he makes no mention of tenderness towards dissenters, but states as the chief argument against agreeing with the committee, that it might excite a jealousy of the king; and Barillon expressly says, that the first vote gave great offence to the king, still more to the queen, and that orders were, in consequence, issued to the court members of the House of Commons to devise some means to get rid of it.
It was well known that one chief end of his politics was to add the Belgian provinces to his dominions. England was bound by a treaty which had been concluded with Spain when Danby was Lord Treasurer, to resist any attempt which France might make on those provinces. The three ministers informed Barillon that their master considered that treaty as no longer obligatory.
Another thing that angered him was because I visited the President Barillon, then prisoner at Amboise, concerning remonstrances made to the Parliament, and that I should do it at a juncture which made my journey the more noticeable.
An intimate connection with the court of Versailles being the principal engine by which the favourite project of absolute monarchy was to be effected, James, for the purpose of fixing and cementing that connection, sent for M. de Barillon, the French ambassador, the very day after his accession, and entered into the most confidential discourse with him.
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