tian Republic tendered at this crisis, advancing the absurd proposition that the King of Denmark had been commissioned to preside over the entire negotiations at Osnabrück and therefore could not be displaced by another !48 Considerable time was consumed in haggling over this point, concurrently with the long controversy at Münster over the form of the credentials of various plenipotentiaries; but in the end the proposal to negotiate in writing without a mediator was adopted.49 Thus was removed one of the final obstacles to the opening of the negotiations directly bearing upon peace, and on November 23, 1644, the Swedish Ambassadors received the first proposition of the Emperor as a basis of the peace treaty.

V. CONGRESS: ITS ORIGIN AND MEANING

50

A congress is usually defined as a formal meeting of the plenipotentiaries of several states for the purpose of negotiation. In modern treatises on diplomatic procedure it is customary to begin the list of the great European congresses with the Congress of Westphalia; and the student of international law, unless he is cautious, will assume that in 1644 a new diplomatic practice sprang full-fledged into being." This, however, is not a correct view, for although the Congress of Westphalia was the first assembly of plenipotentiaries from nearly all of the great Powers of Europe, yet there had been earlier gatherings of diplomatic representatives of several states, as, for instance, 48 Meiern, I, 201, 211, 215-218, 256-257, 266; Gärtner, II, 338, 347, 361, 363, 371, 449, 483, 681; III, 18.

49 Meiern, I, 218-219, 266, 309-311; Gärtner, III, 316, 456, 501; Le Clerc, I, 150, 290; Wicquefort, II, 172, 206.

50 A. F. Berner, Kongresse und Friedenschlüsse der neureren Zeit in J. C. Bluntschli-K. Brater, Deutsches Staats-Wörterbuch (1857), V, 666; H. Bonfils, Manuel de Droit International Public (1912), 504; C. Calvo, Droit International (1887), III, 409; F. de Cussy, Dictionnaire du Diplomate et du Consul (1846), 169; Fabrizi; I Congressi Diplomatici dal 1648 al 1878; G. de Garden, Traité Complet de Diplomatie (1833), III, 424; A. W. Heffter, Europäische Völkerrecht (1888), 471; F. von Holtzendorff, Handbuch des Völkerrechts (1885), III, 679; C. de Martens-F. H. Geffcken, Guide Diplomatique (1866), I, 179; E. Nys, Droit International, II, 486; P. Pradier-Fodéré, Cours de Droit Diplomatique (1881), II, 305; and his Traité de Droit International Public (1885), VI, 229; E. Satow, Guide to Diplomatic Practice (1917), I, 3; W. Zaleski, Völkerrechtliche Bedeutung der Congresse (1874).

the negotiations at Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559 between the plenipotentiaries of Spain, France and England. Moreover, the term congress was employed in diplomatic speech long before the assemblage of negotiators at Münster and Osnabrück, and it did not have its origin, as a late writer has implied, in the Latin phraseology of the peace treaty of 1648.

51

The Latin word which the diplomats of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries used for designating an assembly of monarchs or plenipotentiaries, was conventus. Grotius employed it in his De jure belli ac pacis and in his letters as Swedish ambassador at Paris to the Chancellor of Sweden, where he repeatedly used the term in referring to the Congress of Cologne in 1636 and the following years. Richelieu and the French diplomats spoke of these conferences as assemblées.52 But the Italians called them congressos-a term by no means of recent invention, for Guicciardini in his Storia d'Italia, written about the year 1540, referred to the celebrated conference between Louis XII and Ferdinand of Aragon at Savona in 1507 as a congresso.53 In the seventeenth century we find that Mazarin, the papal nuncios, and the Venetian ambassadors at the European capitals, employed the term in their diplomatic correspondence.54 The Spaniards also used it.55 In the meantime, the Latin expression ad congressum became a stock phrase in the Imperial German correspondence upon the subject of the proposed assemblage of negotiators for peace; frequently the phrase was changed to the hybrid form zum congressum; and, before the plenipotentiaries exchanged their credentials at Münster and Osnabrück, the Imperialists had abandoned this round-about method of referring to the assembly, and had adopted

51 De jure belli ac pacis, lib. II, cap. xxiii, 8; Grotii epistolæ ad Oxenstierna, II, ii, 217, 276, 289, etc.

52 Avenel, V, 705, 974; VI, 37, 275, 1024, 1030; VIII, 139, 300, 311, 324, 337, 373.

53 Edition of G. Rosini (Pisa: 1822), III, 192. Guicciardini called the negotiations at Mantua in 1512, a congregazione.—Ibid., V, 19.

54 Compare Chéruel, op. cit., I, 218; Barozzi and Berchet, op. cit., II, ii, 306, 355; Gärtner, I, 17, 28, 30, 594.

55 Colección de Documentos inéditos para la Historia de España, LXXII, 4, 7, 8; A. Cánovas del Castillo, op. cit., I, 392, 396, 397.

the abbreviation of the Italian word, which has ever since been retained in the vocabulary of diplomacy.56

VI. THE SEAT OF THE CONGRESS

The Treaty of Hamburg provided that the plenipotentiaries for negotiating the general peace were to meet at two towns in Westphalia,-Münster and Osnabrück,-although these two conferences were to be regarded as constituting one and the same congress, and presumably the results of the negotiations were to be amalgamated into one and the same treaty. This division of the congress into two separate groups was due partly to the Papal policy of unfriendliness toward the Protestant Powers, and partly to the fear of the Swedes that their prestige and interests would be injured by treating in the same conference with their ally, France. Early in the year 1636, Oxenstierna had given a qualified assent to the proposal for sending plenipotentiaries to Cologne; but the Papacy failed to give the Swedish Government a formal invitation to accept its mediation at Cologne, and by the time that the Venetian offer of mediation reached Stockholm, the Swedes had begun to fear the pre-eminence of France in any general peace congress.57

Yet France and Sweden were bound by solemn agreement to nego tiate only concurrently with the Empire. Such had been the stipulation of the Treaty of Wismar (March 20, 1636).58 Neither ally was to receive proposals from the enemy for peace or for suspension of hostilities without the knowledge of the other, and there was to be no negotiation except conjointly and with common consent. Thus it was clear that if France used the mediation of the Papacy in treating with the Empire and Spain, and if the Swedes refused to undergo the humiliation of coming to Cologne without an invitation from the

56 Meiern, I, 25, 27, 31, 65; Gärtner, I, 55, 63-65, 74, 76, 109, 127, 176, 181, 183, 199, 201, 204, 605. The French appear to have been somewhat reluctant to adopt the term congrès. Compare Furetière, Dictionaire Universel (1690), I; Richelet, Nouveau Dictionnaire François (1719), I, 322; Dictionnaire Universel François et Latin (1732), II, 121; Richelet, Dictionnaire de la Langue Françoise (1759), I, 559.

57 Hallendorff, V, ii, 371; Avenel, V, 463. 58 Hallendorff, V, ii, 370.

principal mediating Power, then the negotiations must needs be conducted simultaneously in two different places. Accordingly, when d'Avaux and Salvius concluded the new Franco-Swedish alliance at Hamburg, it was agreed that in the peace negotiations France should treat at Cologne, and Sweden at Hamburg or Lübeck, while at either place the German adherents of France and Sweden might attend and participate in the negotiations. The two conferences were to be in close communication. The treaty also provided:

An agent of Sweden shall be present at Cologne and an agent of France at Hamburg, both without power for treating with the common enemy and without votes in the proceedings, but with the understanding that they shall attend the sessions and report upon the negotiations to their plenipotentiaries, and also give their advice if necessary. But nothing shall be concluded in either conference without the knowledge and consent of both allies.59

60

Of course, the cities of Cologne and Hamburg were too far apartto say nothing of the distance between Cologne and Lübeck-for the successful conduct of such negotiations as were contemplated in the treaties of 1636 and 1638. And it was a happy decision on the part of the French to propose a pair of towns in closer proximity. Richelieu disliked the plan of holding separate conferences: it would excite jealousy, he said, between the two sets of negotiators, and still more between the mediators, who would dispute the glory of being the first to achieve the drafting of a treaty and thus too hastily conclude a peace! Acting upon instructions from Paris, d'Avaux proposed to Salvius that the Swedes should treat with the Emperor at Osnabrück, Frankfurt-am-Main, or else Cologne, while the French should treat with the Emperor at Münster, Mayence or Wesel. Later in the negotiations d'Avaux himself limited the proposal to Münster and Osnabrück. Both of these towns were in Westphalia; the former was within the jurisdiction of the Elector of Cologne and was a place

59 "Intersit tamen tractatui Coloniensi Agens Suecicus, Hamburgensi Gallicus, uterque tam sine potestate agendi cum hoste communi quam sine voto, sed honesta cum sessione, ut audiant, referant ad Plenipotentiarios quisque suos, et sicubi opus, præstentes moneant: Nihil autem illis insciis aut inconsultis utrobique tractetur."-Hallendorff, V, ii, 427.

60 Avenel, VIII, 371; Bougeant, I, 392-393.

altogether fitting and proper for a legate of the Pope to appear. On the other hand, Osnabrück was a Protestant town, or at least the greater number of the burghers had inclined toward the Lutheran faith in the Reformation, and at the present moment it was occupied by the military forces of the Swedes. The distance between the two towns was but thirty miles, so that the couriers of the plenipotentiaries could easily pass from one to the other in less than a day's ride. And all in all, the selection of these two places seemed the most practical solution for complying with the unusual requirements as to unanimity of negotiation in two separate conferences demanded by the FrancoSwedish treaty of 1638, as well as for meeting the scruples and prejudices of the Papacy and of all other Powers concerned.

Salvius at first objected to the French proposal to change the stipulations of the treaty of 1638 in regard to the place of the peace conferences. No diplomat ever knew better than he how to play the game of quid pro quo and how to take exceptions to propositions, if for no other reason than for the purpose of gaining concessions elsewhere. The German Diet also raised objections to Münster and Osnabrück, proposing instead the towns of Speier and Worms, or Frankfurt and Mainz. In the end, however, the French proposal prevailed. The new alliance between France and Sweden, signed on June 30, 1641, stipulated that the future peace congress should be held in two towns near together, like Münster and Osnabrück;61 while the preliminary treaty of peace signed on December 25, 1641, by the plenipotentiaries of the Empire, France and Sweden, contained the following provision:

The places for conducting the general negotiations shall be Osnabrück and Münster in Westphalia. . . The two congresses shall be regarded as one. And not only the roads between Osnabrück and Münster shall be secure for the parties concerned to go and come with complete freedom and safety, but also a station between the two cities as shall be convenient for the intercommunication of the particular negotiators shall enjoy the same security as the aforesaid cities.62 61 Hallendorff, V, ii, 473. The Latin text is also in Bougeant, I, 425. A summary in French is in Léonard, V; and Bernard, III, 414.

62 "Loca universalis tractatus sint Osnabruga, et Monasterium in Westphalia Uterque congressus pro uno habeatur; atque ideo non solum itinera inter utramque urbem omnibus, quorum interest, ultro citroque libere, secureque com