.358 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

Dragon's teeth. " The military exploits of the French gene-
rals, especially Turenne and Cond6, during the opening years
of Louis XIV (1643-1715), showed that a new period had
begun in which the military and political supremacy of Spain
•was to give way to that of France."1

Louis XIV was, indeed, the proto-type of Grand Mo-
narchy. He supplied the model which was copied by all later
rulers, each according to his genius and capacity. Cardinal
Mazarin served his early years (to 1661) even as Richelieu
did under his predecessor. Every circumstance, whether in-
ternal or external, was made to serve the interests of the
Grand Monarchy. At home the power of the nobility was
broken down, and France came out of the Thirty Years' War
in Europe with enlarged territories and increased importance.
When Louis XIV came of age he carried forward the work
so well begun by his great minister. * By his incessant wars
'he kept Europe in turmoil for over half a century. The dis-
tinguished generals who led his newly organised troops, and
the wily diplomats who arranged his alliances and negotiated
"his treaties, made France feared and respected by even the
most powerful of the other European states/ He successfully
"followed the doctrine of kingship'which his Stuart contem-
poraries pompously set forth at their peril. La etat c'est
moi (I am the State), though attributed to Louis XIV with-
•out sufficient historical basis, truly represents his actual faith.
His prevailing occupation, in the words of Mr. H. G. Wells,
was splendour. He built a new palace-city for himself at
Versailles where developed all the luxurious arts.

" Amidst the mirrors and fine furniture went a strange race of
" gentlemen' in vast powdered wigs, silks and laces, poised upon
'high red heels, supported by amazing canes; and still more

1. Robinson, op. cit., p. 344.