=275. Mistaken policy of Louis XIV.=—The “Great Monarch,” Louis XIV, did not lack good advisers. The philosopher Leibnitz proposed, at this critical period in French history when the country could choose to be either a land or a sea power, that it should select the latter alternative, and base its greatness on control of the sea and of commerce. He said that France needed peace at home to permit an expansion of its power abroad, where the richest prizes of power were to be had; and he urged the occupation of Egypt, to give France the control of trade to the Levant and the far East. But Louis thought that the French frontier was too near to Paris and saw tempting morsels of territory on the other side of it; he found the arrogance of the Dutch galling to his pride; he wanted to raze the Pyrenees by putting a French prince on the Spanish throne. He engaged, therefore, in a series of continental wars continuing nearly fifty years, which returned little or no gain in Europe, and destroyed the power of France in the other continents. Louis’ policy prompted his biographer to a comment of sad significance, “The inhabitants of the several nations of Europe have scarce ever any interest in the wars of their sovereigns.” This sovereign found France vigorous and offering brilliant promises of development; he left her weighted with taxes and debt. A distinguished Frenchman said toward the close of this reign that a tenth of the people were reduced to beggary, and of the remainder over one half were in no condition to give alms, they were so near to beggary themselves. =276. Decline of the French colonial empire in the eighteenth century.=—The colonial possessions which France surrendered to England at the close of the wars (the Hudson’s Bay Territory, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland) seem comparatively unimportant, but their loss was significant. The two countries had chosen different paths. England continued to build up a colonial empire; France continued to spend her resources in continental wars, at the cost of her commerce and her colonies. The Seven Years’ War, ending in 1763, marks practically the end of the conflict. France surrendered all her possessions on the North American continent, and some of those in the West Indies and Africa; and abandoned forever the hope, at one time most promising, of building up an empire in India. So little were the colonies appreciated in France that some good Frenchmen rejoiced at their loss, and only wished that more of “those wretched possessions” might have been transferred, to ruin the enemy!