onged to that highest plane of
political achievement wherein schemes of social beneficence and the
dictates of a boundless ambition could maintain an eager and unending
rivalry. While a strictly European policy could effect little more
than a raking over of long-cultivated parterres, the foundation of a
new colonial empire would be the turning up of the virgin soil of the
limitless prairie.

If we inquire by the light of history why these grand designs failed,
the answer must be that they were too vast fitly to consort with an
ambitious European policy. His ablest adviser noted this fundamental
defect as rapidly developing after the Peace of Amiens, when "he began
to sow the seeds of new wars which, after overwhelming Europe and
France, were to lead him to his ruin." This criticism of Talleyrand on
a man far greater than himself, but who lacked that saving grace of
moderation in which the diplomatist excelled, is consonant with all
the teachings of history. The fortunes of the colonial empires of
Athens and Carthage in the ancient world, of the Italian maritime
republics, of Portugal and Spain, 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