He has effected this great change, which every other man
would have thought impossible, in the interior of the Court,
not by plausibility, flattery, and address, but with a high hand,
with frequent railleries and sarcasms which would have ruined any other,
and, in short, by a clear superiority of spirit and resolution."[862]
[Footnote 862: _Stanley to Pitt, 6 Aug. 1761_, in _Grenville
Correspondence_, I. 367, _note_.]
Choiseul was vivacious, brilliant, keen, penetrating; believing
nothing, fearing nothing; an easy moralist, an uncertain
ally, a hater of priests; light-minded, inconstant; yet a kind of
patriot, eager to serve France and retrieve her fortunes.
He flattered himself with no illusions. "Since we do not
know how to make war," he said, "we must make peace;"[863]
and he proposed a congress of all the belligerent Powers at
Augsburg. At the same time, since the war in Germany was
distinct from the maritime and colonial war of France and
England, he proposed a separate negotiation with the British
Court in order to settle the questions between them as a
preliminary to the general pacification. Pitt consented, and
Stanley went as envoy to Versailles; while M. de Bussy came
as envoy to London and, in behalf of Choiseul, offered terms
of peace, the first of which was the entire abandonment of
Canada to England.[864] But the offers were accompanied by the
demand that Spain, which had complaints of its own against
England, should be admitted as a party to the negotiation, and
even hold in some measure the attitude of a mediator.
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