ain, and, above all, the failure of the
projects of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. serve to prove that only as the
motherland enjoys a sufficiency of peace at home and on her borders
can she send forth in ceaseless flow those supplies of men and
treasure which are the very life-blood of a new organism. That
beneficent stream might have poured into Napoleon's Colonial Empire,
had not other claims diverted it into the barren channels of European
warfare. The same result followed as at the time of the Seven Years'
War, when the double effort to wage great campaigns in Germany and
across the oceans sapped the strength of France, and the additions won
by Dupleix and Montcalm fell away from her flaccid frame.

Did Napoleon foresee a similar result? His conduct in regard to
Louisiana and in reference to Decaen's expedition proves that he did,
but only when it was too late. As soon as he saw that his policy was
about to provoke another war with Britain long before he was ready for
it, he decided to forego his oceanic schemes and to concentrate his
forces on his European frontiers. The decision was dictated by a true
sense of imperial strategy. But what shall we say of his sense of
imperial diplomacy? The foregoing narrative and the events to be
described in the next chapters prove that his mistake lay in that
overweening belief in his own powers and in the pliability of his
enemies which was the cause of his grandest triumphs and of his
unexampled overthrow.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVI

NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS

War, said St. Augustine, is but the transition from a lower to a
higher state of peace. The saying is certainly true for those wars
that are waged in defence of some great principle or righteous cause.
It may perhaps be applied with justice to the early struggles of the
French revolutionists to secure their democratic Government against
the threatened intervention of monarchical States. But the danger of
vindicating the cause of freedom by armed force has never been more
glaringly shown than in the struggles of that volcanic age. When
democracy had gained a sure foothold in the European system, the war
was still pushed on by the triumphant republicans at the expense of
neighbouring States, so that, even before the advent of Bonaparte,
their polity was being strangely warped by the influence of military
methods of rule. The brilliance of the triumphs won by that young
warrior speedily