The real truth about his subjects was, though Louis did not know it, that their state was as utterly miserable as that of human beings well could be. They were ground down not only by their local lords and nobles, but also by the heavy taxes that they had to contribute in order that the king should be able to keep up this magnificence in his court, to pay so large an army and to wage costly wars. It was no part of the French constitution, as of the English, that the money supplied for the purposes of government should be voted by the Parliament. It is true that English kings often tried, sometimes successfully, to extract such money without a vote of Parliament; but at least the law was there, for the people to appeal to, as a great fact in the English constitution. Its existence made a very great difference.
Thus, while all went so gloriously with France upon the surface and in the upper ranks, below, in those foundations on which, after all, this splendid edifice was based, there was misery and increasing poverty—poverty which could have only one end, that there would be no money to pay for the wars and for the magnificence, and misery so intolerable that men would rise and revolt against their conditions of life, no matter how many should perish in the revolution. We, now, knowing what actually did come to pass, can see how the forces were slowly accumulating which would bring it all about. But from the eyes of men of that time, living in the midst of it, the end was hidden; and most of all, as we may suppose, hidden from that resplendent monarch himself.
We may observe as curious that in the varying struggle that we have seen going on between France, Spain, England, and Holland during this half-century, we hear so little of Germany taking a hand. Certain of the German States did, as a matter of fact, play some small part, directly, in that struggle, either as Protestants in alliance with the Protestant Dutch, or later in their own defence against the claims of the French king; but the reason why Germany, as a whole, took no continuous or large share, by direct action at the centre, was in the first place that her power was much broken up—she was split into a number of separate States, with no strong central authority to combine their action; secondly, that indirectly she really was playing a part that was important—serving as a guard to keep back the Turk on the south-eastern corner of Europe.
Always we have to remember, in considering the action of our story at this period, that there was this menace from the Turk pressing in on the side of Austria and Hungary. The power of Russia was rising, but she was continuously engaged in wars farther north—with Sweden and with Poland. The fortunes of these wars went variously, and to no decisive result. At one time we do indeed see Poland and Russia in alliance against the Turk; but no decision was reached in that war either. Peter the Great, well named for the greatness to which he brought his country, came to the Russian throne in 1682. But great Russia was as yet only in process of establishing herself and was beset by enemies. She was soon to be a very prominent actor in the world's story, but her time had not then come.
Turkey was fighting on all her land borders, and carrying on an indecisive naval war with the Venetians the while. The Venetians gained part of Greece from the Turks; the Austrians took Belgrade from them; several of the Balkan States maintained their independence. Evidently the fighting force of the Turks was not as powerful as it had been. By the end of the century they were more concerned with keeping the large empire that they had won than in adding to it by further conquests; and they made peace, for the time being, with Russia, Poland, Austria, and Venice.
As yet there was no Italian nation to play a part in the contest which had now ended in the transference to France of the overmastering power in the world which had been Spain's.
The Spanish Succession
We have noticed how a secret pact had been made between England, France, and Holland for partitioning the domains of Spain. But the King of Spain, dying in 1700, gave, by will, the whole of his possessions to Philip of Aragon, grandson of Louis XIV. The inheritor was an infant. The Grand Monarque did not hesitate, in spite of the secret pact, to accept the inheritance on his grandson's behalf. It was an arrangement which would have given his family more power than even the house of Habsburg had possessed. It menaced the liberty of England, of Holland, and of all Europe. The War of the Spanish Succession, which occupied the first years of the eighteenth century, was waged to oppose it. England's portion in that war in the Netherlands is commonly known to Englishmen as the Wars of Marlborough, from the great leader, the Duke of Marlborough, who commanded in them.
England and Holland, then, had been drawn into natural alliance, after years of fighting, by the establishment on the throne of England of William of Orange who married Mary, the heiress to the Crown; but James II., the rightful king, still lived. He was king by right of inheritance, but had used his kingship so wrongfully, in such direct opposition to the wishes of his people, that he had been driven from the throne and from the country. He fled to France where he could be sure of a friendly welcome from a Catholic king. The favour that he had shown, contrary to the law of England, to English Catholics had been a great part of his wrongdoing in the eyes of his people. Moreover, Louis was well disposed to aid any enemy of the ruler of Holland.