and had it hung upon his bedroom wall, where it served him as an
excellent excuse for doing nothing at all. His government was
notoriously in the hands of his mistresses, Pompadour and the others,
and their misrule was to the full as costly to France as the wars of the
preceding age. They drained the country quite as deeply of its resources
and renown; they angered and insulted it far more.

Meanwhile the misery of all Europe, caused by the continued warfare,
cried out for reform, demanded it imperatively if the human race were
not to disappear. The population of France had diminished by over ten
per cent. during the times of the "Grand Monarch"; the cost of the
Thirty Years' War to Germany we have already seen. Hence we find
ourselves in a rather thoughtful and anxious age. Even kings begin to
make some question of the future. Governments become, or like to call
themselves, "benevolent despotisms," and instead of starving their
subjects look carefully, if somewhat dictatorially, to their material
prosperity.

England, to be sure, but England alone, stands out as an exception to
the prevalence of despotic rule. There the commons had already won their
battle. King George I, the German prince whom they had declared their
sovereign after the death of Anne (1714), did not even know his
subjects' language, communicated with his ministers in barbaric Latin,
and left the governing wholly in their hands. The "cabinet" system thus
sprang up; the ministers were held responsible to Parliament and obeyed
its will. The exiled Stuart kings made one or two feeble attempts to win
back their throne, but the tide of progress was against them and their
last hope vanished in the slaughter of Culloden.[1]

By that defeat Great Britain was finally and firmly established as a
parliamentary government; and the most marked of all the physical
changes of the century was the rapid expansion of her power under this
new form of rule. She grew to be really "mistress of the seas," extended
her sceptre over distant lands, ceased to be an island, and became a
world-wide empire. Her trade increased enormously; her manufactures
developed. By his invention of the "spinning-jenny," Arkwright placed
England's cotton manufacture among the most giant industries of the
world.[2] The land grew vastly rich. It was her reward for political
progress, for having been able so to "get the start of the majestic
world."

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

At the opening of