He was old and almost forgotten when he died at Rome in 1788. Only the inscription on a tomb recalls the name of the last three Stuarts, and it was King George IV. who caused it to be engraved as a souvenir of extinct passions: "To James III., son of James II., King of England; to Charles Edward, and to Henry, Cardinal of York, last scion of the House of Stuart, 1819." [Image] Arrest Of Charles Edward. {223} The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had, with good reason, excited more discontent in France than in England. We alone had gained brilliant victories and made great conquests. We alone preserved no increase of territory. The great Frederick kept Silesia, and the King of Sardinia the domains already ceded by Austria. Humorous lampoons were sung in the streets of Paris, and "_Bête comme le paix_," was a customary expression. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had a graver defect than that of barrenness; it was not and could not be lasting. England had proved her power on the sea. She had battled against our ruined navy, and against enfeebled Spain. Holland, her ally after having been her rival, could no longer dispute the sovereign empire with her. She became daily more eager for the conquest of the distant colonies that we did not know how to defend. The peace had left in suspense disputed points which would soon serve as a pretext for new aggressions. In proportion as the ancient influence of Richelieu and Louis XIV. on European politics grew weaker, English influence, based on the growing power of a free country and government, was strengthening. Without any other allies than Spain, who was herself shaken in her fidelity, we stood exposed to the enterprises of England, henceforth freed from the phantom of the Stuarts. "The peace concluded between England and France in 1748 was only a truce," said Lord Macaulay; "it was not even a truce on other parts of the globe." It was there that the two nations were about to measure themselves, and that the burden of its government's shortcomings would cause France to lose that empire of the Indies and those Canadian colonies which had been founded and so long sustained by eminent men, one after another, victims to their patriotic devotion which was as hopeless as it was without results. {224}