"Accept my Pragmatic Sanction," said the Kaiser, "let that be the preliminary of all things."-- "Not the preliminary," answered Fleury; "we will see to that as we go on; not the preliminary, by any means!" There was the rub.
The sly old Cardinal had his private treaties with Sardinia; views of his own in the Mediterranean, in the Rhine quarter; and answered steadily, "Not the preliminary, by any means!" The Kaiser was equally inflexible.

Whereupon immensities of protocolling, arguing, and the Congress "fell into complete languor," say the Histories.

[Scholl, ii.
215.] Congress ate its dinner heartily, and wrote immensely, for the space of eighteen months; but advanced no hair's-breadth any-whither; no prospect before it, but that of dinner only, for unlimited periods.
Kaiser will have his Pragmatic Sanction, or not budge from the place; stands mulelike amid the rain of cudgellings from the by-standers; can be beaten to death, but stir he will not .-- Hints, glances of the eye, pass between Elizabeth Farnese and the other by-standers; suddenly, 9th November, 1729, it is found they have all made a "TREATY OF SEVILLE" with Elizabeth Farnese; France, England, Holland, Spain