WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.

Throughout his reign, French diplomacy was marked by skilfulness and activity, and also by comprehensive far-sightedness, such as the representatives of no other nation possessed. Guizot's testimony to the vigor that was displayed through every branch of Louis XIV.'s Government, and to the extent to which France at present is indebted to him, is remarkable. He says that, " taking the public services of every kind, the finances, the departments of roads and public works, the military administration, and all the establishments which belong to every branch of administration, there is not one that will not be found to have had its origin, its development, or its greatest perfection under the reign of Louis XTV."

And he points out to us that "the government of Louis XIV was the first that presented itself to the eyes of Europe, as a power acting upon sure grounds, which had not to dispute its existence with inward enemies, but was at ease as to its territory and its people, and solely occupied with the task of administering government properly so called.

All the European governments had been previously thrown into incessant wars, which deprived them of all security as well as of all leisure, or so pestered by internal parties or antagonists that their time was passed in fighting for existence. The government of Louis XIV, was the first to appear as a busy, thriving administration of affairs, as a power at once definitive and progressive, which was not afraid to innovate, because it could reckon securely on the future. There have been, in fact, very few governments equally innovating.

Compare it with a government of the same nature, the unmixed monarchy of Philip n. in Spain ; it was more absolute than that of Louis XIV., and yet it was less regular and tranquil. How did Philip IL succeed in establishing absolute power in Spain? By stifling all activity in the country, opposing himself to every species of amelioration, and rendering the state of Spain completely stagnant.

The government of Louis XTV, on the contrary, exhibited alacrity for all sorts of innovations, and showed itself favorable to the progress of letters, arts, wealth—in short, of civilization. This was the veritable cause of its preponderance in Europe, which arose to such a pitch, that it became the type of a government not only to sovereigns, but also to nations, during the seventeenth century,"

While France was thus strong and united in herself, and ruled by a martial, an ambitious, and (with all his faults) an enlightened and high-spirited sovereign, what European power was there fit to cope with her or keep her in check?

"As to Germany, the ambitious projects of the German branch of Austria had been entirely defeated, the peace of the empire had been restored, and almost a new constitution formed, or an old revived, by the treaties of Westphalia; nay, the imperial eagle was not only fallen, but her wings were clipped."

As to Spain, the Spanish branch of the Austrian house had sunk equally low. Philip II, left his successors a ruined monarchy. He left them something worse; he left them his example and his principles of government, founded in ambition, in pride, in ignorance, in bigotry, and all the pedantry of state.

It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that France, in the first war of Louis XIV, despised the opposition of both branches of the once predominant house of Austria. Indeed, in Germany, the French king acquired allies among the princes of the empire against the emperor himself.

He had a still stronger support in Austria's misgovernment of her own subjects. The words of Bolingbroke on this are remarkable, and some of them sound as if written within the last three years. Bolingbroke says, "It was not merely the want of cordial co-operation among the princes of the empire that disabled the emperor from acting with vigor in the cause of his family then, nor that has rendered the house of Austria a dead weight upon all her allies ever since. Bigotry, and its inseparable companion, cruelty, as well as the tyranny and avarice of the court of Vienna, created in those days, and has maintained in ours, almost a perpetual diversion of the imperial arms from all effectual opposition to France.

"I mean to speak of the troubles in Hungary, Whatever they became in their progress, they were caused originally by the usurpations and persecutions of the emperor; and when the Hungarians were called rebels first, they were called so for no other reason than this, that they would not be slaves."

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