national sense at critical moments has held the whole
continent to good behaviour. For a half-dozen centuries
there was never a squabble at any remote part of Europe
in which France did not stand ready and willing to take
a hand on the slightest opportunity. That policy, as
pursued particularly by Louis XIV and the Bonapartes,
made a heavy drain in brawn and brain on the vitality of
the race; but despite it all, the peaceful achievements
of France within her own borders continued to astonish
mankind. It is this astounding vigour, this inexhaustible
stamina, this unexampled recuperative power that has at
all times made France a nation which, whether men admire
or condemn her policy, can never be treated with
indifference. It was these qualities which enabled her,
throughout exhausting foreign troubles, to retain her
leadership in European scholarship, in philosophy, art,
and architecture; this is what has enabled France to be
the grim warrior of Europe without ceasing ever to be
the idealist of the nations.

It was during one of her proud and prosperous eras that
France began her task of creating an empire beyond the
Atlantic. At no time, indeed, was she better equipped
for the work. No power of Western Europe since the days
of Roman glory had possessed such facilities for conquering
and governing new lands. If ever there was a land able
and ready to take up the white man's burden it was the
France of the seventeenth century. The nation had become
the first military power of Europe. Spain and Italy had
ceased to be serious rivals. Even England, under the