Bab Bab 42 · The Balance Of Power

IN FRANCE ON THE OTHER HAND THE “DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS” CONTINUED

WITH GREATER POMP AND SPLENDOUR THAN EVER BEFORE AND THE AMBITION

OF THE RULER WAS ONLY TEMPERED BY THE NEWLY INVENTED LAW OF THE

“BALANCE OF POWER”

As a contrast to the previous chapter, let me tell you what happened in

France during the years when the English people were fighting for their

liberty. The happy combination of the right man in the right country at

the right moment is very rare in History. Louis XIV was a realisation

of this ideal, as far as France was concerned, but the rest of Europe

would have been happier without him.

The country over which the young king was called to rule was the most

populous and the most brilliant nation of that day. Louis came to the

throne when Mazarin and Richelieu, the two great Cardinals, had just

hammered the ancient French Kingdom into the most strongly centralised

state of the seventeenth century. He was himself a man of extraordinary

ability. We, the people of the twentieth century, are still surrounded

by the memories of the glorious age of the Sun King. Our social life

is based upon the perfection of manners and the elegance of expression

attained at the court of Louis. In international and diplomatic

relations, French is still the official language of diplomacy and

international gatherings because two centuries ago it reached a

polished elegance and a purity of expression which no other tongue had

as yet been able to equal. The theatre of King Louis still teaches us

lessons which we are only too slow in learning. During his reign the

French Academy (an invention of Richelieu) came to occupy a position

in the world of letters which other countries have flattered by their

imitation. We might continue this list for many pages. It is no matter

of mere chance that our modern bill-of-fare is printed in French. The

very difficult art of decent cooking, one of the highest expressions of

civilisation, was first practised for the benefit of the great Monarch.

The age of Louis XIV was a time of splendour and grace which can still

teach us a lot.

Unfortunately this brilliant picture has another side which was far

less encouraging. Glory abroad too often means misery at home, and

France was no exception to this rule. Louis XIV succeeded his father in

the year 1643. He died in the year 1715. That means that the government

of France was in the hands of one single man for seventy-two years,

almost two whole generations.

It will be well to get a firm grasp of this idea, “one single man.”

Louis was the first of a long list of monarchs who in many countries

established that particular form of highly efficient autocracy which we

call “enlightened despotism.” He did not like kings who merely played

at being rulers and turned official affairs into a pleasant picnic. The

Kings of that enlightened age worked harder than any of their subjects.

They got up earlier and went to bed later than anybody else, and felt

their “divine responsibility” quite as strongly as their “divine right”

which allowed them to rule without consulting their subjects.

Of course, the king could not attend to everything in person. He was

obliged to surround himself with a few helpers and councillors. One

or two generals, some experts upon foreign politics, a few clever

financiers and economists would do for this purpose. But these

dignitaries could act only through their Sovereign. They had no

individual existence. To the mass of the people, the Sovereign actually

represented in his own sacred person the government of their country.

The glory of the common fatherland became the glory of a single

dynasty. It meant the exact opposite of our own American ideal. France

was ruled of and by and for the House of Bourbon.

The disadvantages of such a system are clear. The King grew to be

everything. Everybody else grew to be nothing at all. The old and

useful nobility was gradually forced to give up its former shares in

the government of the provinces. A little Royal bureaucrat, his fingers

splashed with ink, sitting behind the greenish windows of a government

building in far-away Paris, now performed the task which a hundred

years before had been the duty of the feudal Lord. The feudal Lord,

deprived of all work, moved to Paris to amuse himself as best he could

at the court. Soon his estates began to suffer from that very dangerous

economic sickness, known as “Absentee Landlordism.” Within a single

generation, the industrious and useful feudal administrators had become

the well-mannered but quite useless loafers of the court of Versailles.

Louis was ten years old when the peace of Westphalia was concluded and

the House of Habsburg, as a result of the Thirty Years War, lost its

predominant position in Europe. It was inevitable that a man with his

ambition should use so favourable a moment to gain for his own dynasty

the honours which had formerly been held by the Habsburgs. In the year

1660 Louis had married Maria Theresa, daughter of the King of Spain.

Soon afterward, his father-in-law, Philip IV, one of the half-witted

Spanish Habsburgs, died. At once Louis claimed the Spanish Netherlands

(Belgium) as part of his wife’s dowry. Such an acquisition would have

been disastrous to the peace of Europe, and would have threatened the

safety of the Protestant states. Under the leadership of Jan de Witt,

Raadpensionaris or Foreign Minister of the United Seven Netherlands,

the first great international alliance, the Triple Alliance of Sweden,

England and Holland, of the year 1664, was concluded. It did not last

long. With money and fair promises Louis bought up both King Charles

and the Swedish Estates. Holland was betrayed by her allies and was

left to her own fate. In the year 1672 the French invaded the low

countries. They marched to the heart of the country. For a second time

the dikes were opened and the Royal Sun of France set amidst the mud of

the Dutch marshes. The peace of Nimwegen which was concluded in 1678

settled nothing but merely anticipated another war.

[Illustration: THE BALANCE OF POWER]

A second war of aggression from 1689 to 1697, ending with the Peace

of Ryswick, also failed to give Louis that position in the affairs

of Europe to which he aspired. His old enemy, Jan de Witt, had been

murdered by the Dutch rabble, but his successor, William III (whom you

met in the last chapter), had checkmated all efforts of Louis to make

France the ruler of Europe.

The great war for the Spanish succession, begun in the year 1701,

immediately after the death of Charles II, the last of the Spanish

Habsburgs, and ended in 1713 by the Peace of Utrecht, remained

equally undecided, but it had ruined the treasury of Louis. On land

the French king had been victorious, but the navies of England and

Holland had spoiled all hope for an ultimate French victory; besides

the long struggle had given birth to a new and fundamental principle

of international politics, which thereafter made it impossible for one

single nation to rule the whole of Europe or the whole of the world for

any length of time.

That was the so-called “balance of power.” It was not a written law

but for three centuries it has been obeyed as closely as are the laws

of nature. The people who originated the idea maintained that Europe,

in its nationalistic stage of development, could only survive when

there should be an absolute balance of the many conflicting interests

of the entire continent. No single power or single dynasty must ever

be allowed to dominate the others. During the Thirty Years War, the

Habsburgs had been the victims of the application of this law. They,

however, had been unconscious victims. The issues during that struggle

were so clouded in a haze of religious strife that we do not get a very

clear view of the main tendencies of that great conflict. But from

that time on, we begin to see how cold, economic considerations and

calculations prevail in all matters of international importance. We

discover the development of a new type of statesman, the statesman with

the personal feelings of the slide-rule and the cash-register. Jan de

Witt was the first successful exponent of this new school of politics.

William III was the first great pupil. And Louis XIV with all his fame

and glory, was the first conscious victim. There have been many others

since.