only to astonish the world by a superb display of recuperative powers!  It was France that first among the kingdoms of Europe rose from feudal chaos to orderly nationalism; it was France that first among continental countries after the Middle Ages established the reign of law throughout a powerful realm.  Though wars and turmoils almost without end were a heavy drain upon Gallic vitality for many generations, France achieved steady progress to primacy in the arts of peace.  None but a marvellous people could have made such efforts without exhaustion, yet even now in the twentieth century the astounding vigor of this race has not ceased to compel the admiration of mankind.

In the seventeenth century, moreover, France owed much of her national power to a highly-centralized and closely-knit scheme of government.  Under Richelieu the strength of the monarchy had been enhanced and the power of the nobility broken.  When he began his personal rule, Louis XIV continued his work of consolidation and in the years of his long reign managed to centralize in the throne every vestige of political power.  The famous saying attributed to him, “The State!  I am the State!” embodied no idle boast.  Nowhere was there a trace of representative government, nowhere a constitutional check on the royal power.  There were councils of different sorts and with varied jurisdictions, but men sat in them at the King’s behest and were removable at his will.  There were parlements, too, but to mention them without explanation would be only to let the term mislead, for they were not representative bodies or parliaments in the ordinary sense:  their powers were chiefly judicial and they were no barrier in the way of the steady march to absolutism.  The political structure of the Bourbon realm in the age of Louis XIV and afterwards was simple:  all the lines of control ran upwards and to a common center.  And all this made for unity and autocratic efficiency in finance, in war, and in foreign affairs.

Another feature which fitted the nation for an imperial destiny was the possession of a united and militant church.  With heresy the Gallican branch of the Catholic Church had fought a fierce struggle, but, before the seventeenth century was far advanced, the battle had been won.  There were heretics in France even after Richelieu’s time, but they were no longer a source of serious discord.  The Church, now victorious over its foes, became militant, ready to carry its missionary efforts to other lands—­ready, in fact, for a new crusade.

These four factors, rare geographical advantages, racial qualities of a high order, a strongly centralized scheme of government, and a militant church, contributed largely to the prestige which France possessed among European nations in the seventeenth, century.  With all these advantages she should have been the first and not the last to get a firm footing in the new continents.  Historians have recorded their