all be doomed to failure. At last, however, terms of arrangement were
concluded. Augustus was acknowledged King of Poland. Stanislaus was
allowed to retain the royal title, and was put in immediate possession
of the Duchy of Lorraine, which after his death was to become a
province of France. The Spanish prince obtained the throne of the Two
Sicilies. France was thought to have done a great thing for herself by
the annexation of Lorraine; in later times it seemed to have been an
ill-omened acquisition. {31} The terms of peace were, on the whole,
about as satisfactory as any one could have expected. Walpole
certainly had got all he wanted. He wanted to keep England out of the
war, and he wanted at the same time to maintain and to reassert her
influence over the politics of the Continent. He accomplished both
these objects. Bolingbroke said it was only Walpole's luck. History
more truly says it was Walpole's patience and genius.

Did Walpole know all this time that there was a distinct and deliberate
family compact, a secret treaty of alliance, a formal, circumstantial,
binding agreement, consigned to written words, between France and
Spain, for the promotion of their common desires and for the crippling
of England's power? Mr. J. R. Green appears to be convinced that
"neither England nor Walpole" knew of it. The English people certainly
did not know of it; and it is commonly taken for granted by historians
that while Walpole was pursuing his policy of peace he was not aware of
the existence of this family compact. It has even been pleaded, in
defence of him and his policy, that he did not know that the war, in
which he believed England to have little or no interest, was only one
outcome of a secret plot, having for its object, among other objects,
the humiliation and the detriment of England. There are writers who
seem to assume it as a matter of certainty that if Walpole had known of
this family compact he would have adopted a very different course. But
does it by any means follow that, even if he had been all the time in
possession of a correct copy of the secret agreement, he would have
acted otherwise than as he did act? Does it follow that if Walpole did
know all about it, he was wrong in adhering to his policy of
non-intervention? A very interesting and instructive essay by
Professor Seely on the House of Bourbon, published in the first number
of the _English Historical Review_, makes clear as lig