=266. Progress checked by the Hundred Years’ War with England, and by religious conflicts.=—In the fourteenth century it seemed as though France were going to lead Europe in the development of a new period. Agriculture and manufactures were flourishing; internal trade was active; and French ship-owners, growing accustomed to longer voyages, ventured far down the west coast of Africa and established trading stations even on the coast of Guinea. The country was plunged again into a condition of medieval chaos by the Hundred Years’ War (1336-1453), a war that hurt France vastly more than England because it was fought entirely on French soil. French and English armies, and “free companies” of organized bandits ravaged the country; the weight of taxes grew; trade dwindled, cities declined, and artisans emigrated. The country had hardly recovered from this war (which ended in 1453), when it was again disturbed, this time by a series of civil wars between Protestants and Catholics, attended by the same unfortunate economic effects. The religious conflict was finally closed by a settlement which was even more disastrous; the French Protestants, to the number of nearly half a million and making up the most valuable industrial element in the population, were expelled from France as the Jews and Moriscoes had been expelled from Spain. The loss to France can be measured by the gain of other countries; the establishment and development of important manufactures can be traced in each of three countries, England, Prussia, and the Netherlands, to the influx of the Huguenot refugees. =267. Effect of the absolute monarchy on French development.=—France secured finally freedom from foreign invasion and from internal dissension, but at a terrible cost. The whole power of the state was vested in the hands of the king. The stockholders lost all power to direct the concerns of the company. Rarely this power was exercised by a king both wise and strong, like Henry IV. During the long reign of Louis XIV it was wielded by a king who was strong but who was not wise; who wasted the rich resources of his country in fruitless wars, while he neglected the opportunities for reforms at home and for commercial expansion abroad. Too often the rule was held only in name by the king, but in fact by the royal favorites, worthless adventurers who by pleasing the taste of the sovereign gained the power to direct as they chose the policy of this great country. This evil is especially marked in the eighteenth century, when England was prepared to take advantage of every mistake of France, in building up her world power.