“We may say here, what we have said on a personal alliance:  however just the cause of that king may be who is driven from the throne either by his subjects or by a foreign usurper, his aides are not obliged to support an eternal war in his favor.  After having made ineffectual efforts to restore him, they must at length give peace to their people, and come to an accommodation with the usurper, and for that purpose treat with him as with a lawful sovereign.  Louis the Fourteenth, exhausted by a bloody and unsuccessful war, offered at Gertruydenberg to abandon his grandson, whom he had placed on the throne of Spain; and when affairs had changed their appearance, Charles of Austria, the rival of Philip, saw himself, in his turn, abandoned by his allies.  They grew weary of exhausting their states in order to give him the possession of a crown which they believed to be his due, but which, to all appearance, they should never be able to procure for him.”—­Book II. ch. xii.  Sec.Sec. 196, 197.

DANGEROUS POWER.

[Sidenote:  All nations may join.]

“It is still easier to prove, that, should this formidable power betray any unjust and ambitious dispositions by doing the least injustice to another, every nation may avail themselves of the occasion, and join their forces to those of the party injured, in order to reduce that ambitious power, and disable it from so easily oppressing its neighbors, or keeping them in continual awe and fear.  For an injury gives a nation a right to provide for its future safety by taking away from the violator the means of oppression.  It is lawful, and even praiseworthy, to assist those who are oppressed, or unjustly attacked.”—­Book III. ch. iii.  Sec. 45.

SYSTEM OF EUROPE.

[Sidenote:  Europe a republic to preserve order and liberty.]

“Europe forms a political system, a body where the whole is connected by the relations and different interests of nations inhabiting this part of the world.  It is not, as anciently, a confused heap of detached pieces, each of which thought itself very little concerned in the fate of others, and seldom regarded things which did not immediately relate to it.  The continual attention of sovereigns to what is on the carpet, the constant residence of ministers, and the perpetual negotiations, make Europe a kind of a republic, the members of which, though independent, unite, through the ties of common interest, for the maintenance of order and liberty.  Hence arose that famous scheme of the political equilibrium, or balance of power, by which is understood such a disposition of things as no power is able absolutely to predominate or to prescribe laws to others.”—­Book III. ch. iii.  Sec. 47.

“Confederacies would be a sure way of preserving the equilibrium, and supporting the liberty of nations, did all princes thoroughly understand their true interests, and regulate all their steps for the good of the state.”—­Ibid.  Sec. 49.