UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND.

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Europe the Milanese and the two Sicilies, Belgium, andFranche ComtA In America her dominions still spread, onboth sides of the equator, far beyond the limits of the torridzone. But this great body had been smitten with palsy, andwas not only incapable of giving molestation to other states,but could not, without assistance, repel aggression. Francewas now, beyond all doubt, the greatest power in Europe.Her resources have, since those days, absolutely increased,but have not increased so fast as the resources of England.It must also be remembered that, a hundred and eighty yearsago, the empire of Russia, now a monarchy of the first class,was as entirely out of the system of European politics asAbyssinia or Siam, that the House of Brandenburg was thenhardly more powerful than the House of Saxony, and that therepublic of the United States had not then begun to exist.The weight of France, therefore, though still very consider-able , has relatively diminished. Her territory was not in thedays of Lewis the Fourteenth quite so extensive as at present:but it was large, compact, fertile, well placed both for attackand for defence, situated in a happy climate, and inhabitedby a brave, active, and ingenious people. The state im-plicitly obeyed the direction of a single mind. The greatfiefs which, three hundred years before, had been, in all butname, independent principalities, had been annexed to thecrown. Only a few old men could remember the last meetingof the States General. The resistance which the Huguenots,the nobles, and the parliaments had offered to the kinglypower, had been put down by the two great Cardinals whohad ruled the nation during forty years. The governmentwas now a despotism, but, at least in its dealings with theupper classes, a mild and generous despotism, tempered bycourteous manners and chivalrous sentiments. The meansat the disposal of the sovereign were, for that age, trulyformidable. His revenue, raised, it is true, by a severe and

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CHAP.

II.