162

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XXIV.

mils.

effected by friendly compromise and a partition effected bymeans of a long and devastating war.

There seems, therefore, to be no ground at all for pro-nouncing the terms of the Treaty of Loo unjust to the Em-peror, to the Spanish monarchy considered as a whole, orto any part of that monarchy. Whether those terms wereor were not too favourable to France is quite another ques-tion. It has often been maintained that she would havegained more by permanently annexing to herself Guipus-coa, Naples and Sicily than by sending the Duke of Anjouor the Duke of Berry to reign at the Escurial. On thispoint, however, if on any point, respect is due to theopinion of William. That he thoroughly understood thepolitics of Europe is as certain as that jealousy of thegreatness of France was with him a passion, a ruling pas-sion, almost an infirmity. Before we blame him, there-fore, for making large concessions to the power which itwas the chief business of his life to keep within bounds, weshall do well to consider whether those concessions maynot, on close examination, be found to be rather apparentthan real. The truth is that they were so, and were wellknown to be so both by William and by Lewis.

Naples and Sicily formed indeed a noble kingdom,fertile, populous, blessed with a delicious climate, andexcellently situated for trade. Such a kingdom, had itbeen contiguous to Provence, would indeed have been amost formidable addition to the French monarchy. Buta glance at the maxi ought to have been sufficient to un-