Lorraine had been sadly afflicted indeed with long years of warfare. But in 1713 things were beginning to mend. Leopold, restored by the Treaty of Ryswick to his duchy--in which, as duke, his father had never set foot--had been on the throne getting on for sixteen years. And what with the excellent counsels of that best of Chancellors, Irish Earl Carlingford, and his own intuitive judgment and enlightened and paternal despotism, Lorraine was becoming populous and prosperous, happy and contented, once more. Leopold earned himself a name for a shrewd and prudent ruler. His brother-in-law, Philip of Orleans (the Regent), said of him, that of all rulers of Europe he did not know one who was his superior "_en expérience, en sagesse, et en politique_." And Voltaire has immortalised his virtues by saying: "_Il est à souhaiter que la dernière postérité apprenne qu'un des plus petits souverains de l'Europe a été celui qui fit le plus de bien à son peuple_." In fact, he was the very ruler whom Lorraine at that juncture wanted. Autocratic he was, and vain, and self-important, notwithstanding the homely _bourgeoisie_ of his manner. But he knew exactly where the shoe pinched, and how to devise a remedy. He it was who first conceived the idea, which has helped to make France prosperous, of a wide network of canals. He it was, who, in 1724, set Europe an example, which at the time made him famous, of covering his country with a network of model roads. And though he again and again proposed, for the benefit of his own family, to "swap" poor little Lorraine--for the Milanais, for a bit of the Low Countries, or for other valuable possessions--while he was duke, he managed to make himself popular, and he was resolved to do his duty. "_Je quitterais demain ma souveraineté si je ne pouvais faire du bien_," so he said. Under his father, that brilliant general, Charles V., he had given proof of his pluck and prowess at Temeswar, of his military ability before Ebersburg. But in Lorraine, he knew, the one thing needful was peace. And with a dogged determination which was bound to overcome all difficulties, though the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting against him, that peace he managed to maintain, in the midst of a raging sea of war all round, which had drawn all neighbouring countries into its whirl. He did it--it is worth recording, because it materially affected James's position at his Court--by as adroit balancing between the two great belligerent Powers of the Continent as ever diplomatist managed to achieve. Born and bred in Austria, allied to the Imperial family by the closest ties of blood--his mother was an archduchess--trained in Austrian etiquette, an officer in the Austrian army, beholden to Austria for many past favours--and keenly alive to the fact that for any favours which might yet be to come he must look exclusively to the Court of Vienna--in his leanings and prepossessions he was entirely Austrian. But under his father and