ical organization was wholly incapable
of realizing a national policy or of meeting the national needs. Great
Britain during all this period was occupied with her domestic problems
and interfered comparatively little in continental affairs; and the
result of this discreet and sensible effort to adapt her national
organization to her peculiar domestic needs was in the eighteenth
century an extraordinary increase of national efficiency. France also
emerged from the religious wars headed by a dynasty which really
represented national aspirations, and which was alive in some respects
to its responsibilities toward the French people. The Bourbon monarchy
consolidated the French national organization, encouraged French
intellectual and religious life, and at times sought in an intelligent
manner to improve the economic conditions of the country. For the first
time in the history of continental Europe something resembling a
genuinely national state was developed. Differences of religious opinion
had been subordinated to the political and social interests of the
French people. The crown, with the aid of a succession of able
ministers, suppressed a factious nobility at home, and gradually made
France the dominant European Power. A condition of the attainment of
both of these objects was the loyal support of the French people, and
the alliance with the monarchy, as the embodiment of French national
life, of Frenchmen of ability and purpose.

The French monarchy, however, after it had become the dominant power in
Europe, followed the bad example of previous states, and aroused the
fear of its neighbors by a policy of excessive aggression. In this
instance French domineering did not stimulate the national development
of any one neighbor, because it was not concentrated upon any one or two
peoples. But it did threaten the common interests of a number of
European states; and it awakened an unprecedented faculty of inter-state
association for the protection of these interests. The doctrine of the
Balance of Power waxed as the result of this experience into a living
principle in European politics; and it imposed an effective check upon
the aggression of any single state. France was unable to retain the
preponderant position which she had earned during the early years of the
reign of Louis XIV; and this mistake of the Bourbon monarchy was the
cause of its eventual downfall. The finances of the country were wrecked
by its military effort