ecret negotiation
with France, at length embraced the offers of that crown, and privately
signed a separate treaty of peace at Loretto, to which place he repaired
on a pretended pilgrimage. The French king engaged to present him with
four millions of livres by way of reparation for the damage he had
sustained, to assist him with a certain number of auxiliaries against all
his enemies, and to effect a marriage between the duke of Burgundy and
the princess of Piedmont, as soon as the parties should be marriageable.
The treaty was guaranteed by the pope and the Venetians, who were
extremely desirous of seeing the Germans driven out of Italy.
King William being apprized of this negotiation, communicated the
intelligence to the earl of Galway, his ambassador at Turin, who
expostulated with the duke upon this defection; but he persisted in
denying any such correspondence, until the advance of the French army
enabled him to avow it without fearing the resentment of the allies whom
he had abandoned. Catinat marched into the plains of Turin at the
head of fifty thousand men, an army greatly superior to that of the
confederates. Then the duke imparted to the ministers of the allies the
proposals which France had made; represented the superior strength
of her army; the danger to which he was exposed; and, finally, his
inclination to embrace her offers. On the twelfth of July a truce was
concluded for a month, and afterwards prolonged till the fifteenth of
September. He wrote to all the powers engaged in the confederacy, except
King William, expatiating on the same topics, and soliciting their
consent. Though each in particular refused to concur, he on the
twenty-third day of August signed the treaty in public which he had
before concluded in private. The emperor was no sooner informed of his
design, than he took every step which he thought could divert him from
his purpose. He sent the count Mansfeldt to Turin with proposals for a
match between the king of the Romans and the princess of Savoy, as well
as with offers to augment his forces and his subsidy; but the duke had
already settled his terms with France, from which he would not recede.
Prince Eugene, though his kinsman, expressed great indignation at his
conduct. The young prince de Commercy was so provoked at his defection
that he challenged him to single combat, and the duke accepted of
his challenge; but the quarrel was compromised by the intervention of
friends, and they p