estions of succession; and no obstacle remained
to hinder their family sympathies from uniting the Bourbon Courts in a
common action. The boast of Lewis the Fourteenth was at last fulfilled.
In the mighty struggle for supremacy which France carried on from the
fall of Walpole to the Peace of Paris her strength was doubled by the
fact that there were "no Pyrenees."

[Sidenote: The Family Compact.]

The first signs of this new danger showed themselves in 1733, when the
peace of Europe was broken afresh by disputes which rose out of a
contested election to the throne of Poland. Austria and France were
alike drawn into the strife; and in England the awakening jealousy of
French designs roused a new pressure for war. The new king too was eager
to fight, and her German sympathies inclined even Caroline to join in
the fray. But Walpole stood firm for the observance of neutrality. He
worked hard to avert and to narrow the war; but he denied that British
interests were so involved in it as to call on England to take a part.
"There are fifty thousand men slain this year in Europe," he boasted as
the strife went on, "and not one Englishman." Meanwhile he laboured to
bring the quarrel to a close; and in 1736 the intervention of England
and Holland succeeded in restoring peace. But the country had watched
with a jealous dread the military energy that proclaimed the revival of
the French arms; and it noted bitterly that peace was bought by the
triumph of both branches of the House of Bourbon. A new Bourbon monarchy
was established at the cost of the House of Austria by the cession of
the Two Sicilies to a Spanish Prince in exchange for his right of
succession to the Duchies of Parma and Tuscany. On the other hand,
Lorraine, so long coveted by French ambition, passed finally into the
hands of France. The political instinct of the nation at once discerned
in these provisions a union of the Bourbon powers; and its dread of such
a union proved to be a just one. As early as the outbreak of the war a
Family Compact had been secretly concluded between France and Spain, the
main object of which was the ruin of the maritime supremacy of Britain.
Spain bound herself to deprive England gradually of its commercial
privileges in her American dominions, and to transfer them to France.
France in return engaged to support Spain at sea, and to aid her in the
recovery of Gibraltar.

[Sidenote: England and Spain.]

The caution with which Walpole he