第68章 LETTER 8(10)

Let me recall here what I have said somewhere else.They who are in the sinking scale of the balance of power do not easily,nor soon,come off from the habitual prejudices of superiority over their neighbors,nor from the confidence that such prejudices inspire.From the year one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven,to the end of that century,France had been constantly in arms,and her arms had been successful.She had sustained a war,without any confederates,against the principal powers of Europe confederated against her,and had finished it with advantage on every side,just before the death of the king of Spain.She continued armed after the peace,by sea and land.

She increased her forces,whilst other nations reduced theirs;and was ready to defend,or to invade her neighbors whilst,their confederacy being dissolved,they were in no condition to invade her,and in a bad one to defend themselves.

Spain and France had now one common cause.The electors of Bavaria and Cologne supported it in Germany:the Duke of Savoy was an ally,the Duke of Mantua a vassal of the two crowns in Italy.In a word,appearances were formidable on that side:and if a distrust of strength,on the side of the confederacy,had induced England and Holland to compound with France for a partition of the Spanish succession,there seemed to be still greater reason for this distrust after the acceptation of the will,the peaceable and ready submission of the entire monarchy of Spain to Philip,and all the measures taken to secure him in this possession.Such appearances might well impose.They did so on many,and on none more than on the French themselves,who engaged with great confidence and spirit in the war;when they found it,as they might well expect it would be,unavoidable.The strength of France however,though great,was not so great as the French thought it,nor equal to the efforts they undertook to make.Their engagement,to maintain the Spanish monarchy entire under the dominion of Philip,exceeded their strength.Our engagement,to procure some outskirts of it for the house of Austria,was not in the same disproportion to our strength.If I speak positively on this occasion,yet I cannot be accused of presumption;because,how disputable soever these points might be when they were points of political speculation,they are such no longer,and the judgment I make is dictated to me by experience.

France threw herself into the sinking scale,when she accepted the will.

Her scale continued to sink during the whole course of the war,and might have been kept by the peace as low as the true interest of Europe required.

What I remember to have heard the Duke of Marlborough say,before he went to take on him the command of the army in the Low Countries in one thousand seven hundred and two,proved true.The French misreckoned very much,if they made the same comparison between their troops and those of the enemies,as they had made in precedent wars.