in Piedmont, and of the whole defence of Flanders, to say nothing of the immense cost of the naval war.  If our allies can do nothing for themselves, the sooner the alliance goes to pieces the better."293 But, after every short fit of despondency and ill humour, he called up all the force of his mind, and put a strong curb on his temper.  Weak, mean, false, selfish, as too many of the confederates were, it was only by their help that he could accomplish what he had from his youth up considered as his mission.  If they abandoned him, France would be dominant without a rival in Europe.  Well as they deserved to be punished, he would not, to punish them, acquiesce in the subjugation of the whole civilised world.  He set himself therefore to surmount some difficulties and to evade others.  The Scandinavian powers he conciliated by waiving, reluctantly indeed, and not without a hard internal struggle, some of his maritime rights.294 At Rome his influence, though indirectly exercised, balanced that of the Pope himself.  Lewis and James found that they had not a friend at the Vatican except Innocent; and Innocent, whose nature was gentle and irresolute, shrank from taking a course directly opposed to the sentiments of all who surrounded him.  In private conversations with Jacobite agents he declared himself devoted to the interests of the House of Stuart; but in his public acts he observed a strict neutrality.  He sent twenty thousand crowns to Saint Germains; but he excused himself to the enemies of France by protesting that this was not a subsidy for any political purpose, but merely an alms to be distributed among poor British Catholics.  He permitted prayers for the good cause to be read in the English College at Rome; but he insisted that those prayers should be drawn up in general terms, and that no name should be mentioned.  It was in vain that the ministers of the Houses of Stuart and Bourbon adjured him to take a more decided course.  “God knows,” he exclaimed on one occasion, “that I would gladly shed my blood to restore the King of England.  But what can I do?  If I stir, I am told that I am favouring the French, and helping them to set up an universal monarchy.  I am not like the old Popes.  Kings will not listen to me as they listened to my predecessors.  There is no religion now, nothing but wicked, worldly policy.  The Prince of Orange is master.  He governs us all.  He has got such a hold on the Emperor and on the King of Spain that neither of them dares to displease him.  God help us!  He alone can help us.”  And, as the old man spoke, he beat the table with his hand in an agony of impotent grief and indignation.295