“It is an error of this and the preceding century to think that the strength of a nation consists in the large number of regular forces kept on foot. To be convinced of the falsity of this notion, we have only to cast an eye on the wars of Europe within these four or five hundred years. As soon as an army is beaten on the frontier, the prince, whose troops are vanquished, has no other resource left but to clap up a peace: his country lies open to the enemy, and he has only cowardly burghers and disheartened peasants to oppose to veteran soldiers. He loses a whole province as soon as the capital of it surrenders. He is reduced to bury himself under the ruins of his throne, or to comply with the conditions prescribed by the conqueror.
“But when princes undertook only to lead their people in defending their country, they reckoned as many soldiers as subjects: the whole state was a frontier against the enemy, who were sure to meet with opposition so long as they fought to conquer. Every inch of ground was disputed. When a city or town surrendered, after repeated assaults, it did not capitulate for the other towns within its jurisdiction. Every borough, every village cost a siege. So long as a prince kept but a corner of his country, he might hope to drive the enemy from what they possessed, and to recover all he had lost. The most powerful prince in Europe was dreaded only as his ambition might give disturbance and uneasiness to his neighbours. They were sure that time would impair his strength, like a body worn out by too frequent attrition.
“The difference between the reigns of Charles VI. and Louis XIV., in France, shows this contrast in its full light. The King of England was then master of the finest provinces in France, quiet possessor of its principal cities, and crowned at Paris; while his adversary, though reduced to the single lordship of Bourges, was able to hold out against him. Louis XIV. sees a frontier province invaded by two of the enemy’s generals; he offers, at St. Gertrudenberg, the fruit of twenty victories, to persuade them to retire. His kingdom is still untouched: millions of his subjects have not so much as heard the sound of the enemy’s cannon, and yet he does not think himself able to make a stand against seventy or eighty thousand men. He has not as yet lost one battle on his ancient territories; nevertheless, he thinks that nothing more remains for him than to die gloriously, pushed on by temerity and despair. The enemy is still two days’ journey from the frontier, which this kingdom had at the time when Philip Augustus withstood and triumphed over the joint efforts of all Europe; and Louis the Great believes it impossible to hinder the enemy from making a conquest of his kingdom. Though he has a country two hundred leagues in extent behind him, above a hundred on each side of him, yet he does not think this sufficient to secure him an honourable retreat. Jandrecy and Quenoy determine the fate of France. Valenciennes and Dunquerque, Arras, Amiens, Cambrai, Maubeuge and so many other strong-holds, which his predecessors either never possessed, or, if they did, afterwards resigned, without imagining they weakened thereby their throne; all these places, I say, to him appear as of no sort of use, because he has no regular troops to defend them.
“If the land forces of Spain had been upon this footing in the beginning of the present century, the nation would have beheld with as much security as contempt, the combination of the Courts of Vienna and London to impose a master upon her, and to divide her possessions. With the advantages in regard to war, which this kingdom has even from nature, it might have bidden defiance to France herself conspiring with the other Powers, to oblige her to submit to the treaty of partition.”
It was quite intelligible to me now, that three great rival nations should concert to banish Alberoni from the counsels of the grandson of Louis XIV. He had penetrated to the Gothic foundations of the society of the peninsula, and had ascended to those Gothic pinnacles, from which he could survey the littleness of his contemporaries. He foresaw in the event of a general military despotism, the possibility of Europe’s being recovered by the latent energy of the Spanish people, and the ultimate range of his provision and prophecy was Southern and Western Europe quelled, and its rivalries composed by the intrusion of the two northern powers, Prussia and Russia.
He was above the arts of government, and knew where the greatness of his adopted country resided. He scouted acquisitions as a source of splendour to the state, or patronage as a means of strength to the government.
The great men of the period attained by peculiar powers the management of men; but there is not one whose words time has undertaken to confirm. Where is Richelieu’s management; Colbert’s finance; where are Fleury’s devices; or Louis le Grand’s victories? They have vanished with the fortunes they created, and have left us such instruction only as we may derive from the cell of a culprit, or the fragments of a column.
Those who have prognosticated one among a thousand events, have been held wise in their generation. Alberoni has traced out before the event the salient features of the European system, as if he were describing it now. He foresaw the failure of all the endeavours of the Bourbon courts to restore the Pretender. He warned them that their fleets would fail against England, told them that[61] “cruisers” were the only effectual arm with which to assail her commercial greatness, laughed at their projects of a hundred thousand men in arms in the Highlands, or in Ireland, and recommended as a surer recipe for ruining England, the securing “Ten members of the House of Commons, with a few Peers of note.” He pointed to the sagacity of William III., who had established his throne by the then bold but well-considered measure of plunging the country in war, and loading it with debt.
He furnishes a parallel to Talleyrand, both driven from office by a combination of foreign powers;[62] but all Europe feared the Cardinal of Parma, Russia alone feared the ex-bishop of Autun.
Spain, in the selection of public servants, to a certain degree imitated Rome, and resembled Russia. She did not think, that, to insure fidelity and authority, it was necessary that they should be her own nobles and chief men, as in the case of all modern European governments. Spain owed perhaps to the caprice of her monarchs, a facility which Rome possessed by the comprehensive nature of her institutions. Rome, however, so dignified the nations only that she had already incorporated; Russia, the subjects of the state she purposes to acquire.