forewarned against it. Professor Seely puts it beyond doubt that the family compact was talked of and written of by English diplomatists at the time, was believed in by some, treated sceptically by others. The Duke of Newcastle actually called it by the very name which history formally gives to the arrangement made many years after and denounced by Burke. He speaks of "the offensive and defensive alliance between France and Spain, called the pacte de famille." Is it likely, is it credible, that Walpole had never heard of the existence of a compact which was known to the Duke of Newcastle? Archdeacon Coxe, in his "Life of Walpole," contends that Newcastle was not by any means the merely absurd sort of person whom most historians and biographers delight to paint him. "He had a quick comprehension and was a ready debater," Coxe says, although without grace or style. "He wrote with uncommon facility and great variety of expression, and in his most confidential letters, written so quickly as to be almost illegible, there is scarcely a single alteration or erasure." But certainly Newcastle was not a man likely to keep to himself the knowledge of such a fact as the family compact, or even the knowledge that some people believed in the existence of such an arrangement. For ourselves, we are quite prepared to assume that Walpole had heard of the family compact, but that it did not disturb his calculations or disarrange his policy. From some of his own letters written at the time it is evident that he did not put any faith in the abiding nature of family compacts between sovereigns. More than once he takes occasion to point out that where political interests interfered family arrangements went to the wall. As to the general rule Walpole was quite right. We have seen the fact illustrated over and over again even in our {34} own days. But Walpole appears to have overlooked the important peculiarity of this family compact; it was an engagement in which the political interests and the domestic interests of the families were at last inextricably intertwined; it was a reciprocal agreement for the protection of common interests and the attainment of common objects. Such a compact might be trusted to hold good even among Bourbon princes. On the whole, we are inclined to come to the conclusion that if Walpole knew anything about the compact—and we think he did know something about it—he was quite right in not allowing it to disturb his policy of non-intervention, but that he was not quite sound in his judgment if he held his peaceful course only because he did not believe that such a family bond between members of such a family would hold good. "Tenez, prince," the Duc d'Aumale wrote to Prince Napoleon-Jérôme in a pamphlet which was once famous, "there is one promise of a Bonaparte which we can always believe—the promise that he will kill somebody." One pledge of a Bourbon with another Bourbon the world could always rely upon—the pledge to maintain a common interest and gratify a common ambition.

[Sidenote: 1735—Death of Berwick]

The war cost one illustrious life, that of the brave and noble Duke of Berwick, whom Montesquieu likened to the best of the heroes of Plutarch, or rather in whom Montesquieu declared that he saw the best of Plutarch's heroes in the life. When Bolingbroke was denouncing the set of men who surrounded James Stuart at St. Germains he specially exempted Berwick from reproach. He spoke of Berwick as one "who has a hundred times more capacity and credit than all the rest put together," but added significantly that he "is not to be reckoned of the Court, though he has lodgings in the house." Berwick was the natural son of James the Second and Arabella Churchill, sister to the Duke of Marlborough. When the day of James's destiny as King of England was over, Berwick gave his bright sword to the service of France. He became a naturalized Frenchman and rose to the command {35} of the French army. He won the splendid victory of Almanza over the combined forces of England and her various allies. "A Roman by a Roman valiantly o'ercome," defeated Englishmen might have exclaimed. He was killed by a cannon-ball on ground not far from that whereon the great Turenne had fallen—killed by the cannon-ball which, according to Madame de Sevigne, was charged from all eternity for the hero's death. Berwick was well deserving of a death in some nobler struggle than the trumpery quarrel got up by ignoble ambitions and selfish, grasping policies. He ought to have died in some really great cause; it was an age of gallant soldiers—an age, however, that brought out none more gallant than Berwick. Of him it might fairly be said that "his mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes." This unmeaning little war—unmeaning in the higher sense—was also the last campaign of the illustrious Prince Eugene. Eugene did all that a general could do to hold up against overwhelming odds, and but for him the victory of the French would have been complete. The short remainder of his life was passed in peace.