In that, however, they were grossly unjust. They were visiting upon him their dislike of the increased war taxation of which he was the mouthpiece not the author. [Sidenote: =The choice of policy before Louis, 1671.=] In the year 1671 France stood at the parting of the ways. On each side stretched far into the future a long vista of glory and prosperity, but she had to choose between them. Through the victories of Richelieu and of Mazarin, through the administration of Colbert, through the government of Louis, France stood at the head of the countries of Europe in absolute security, without a rival who wished to attack her, without an enemy whose attack she might justly fear. [Sidenote: =Commercial supremacy open to France.=] Entrenched within the borders of a frontier easily defensible by the genius of a Vauban, she might sit free from all possible danger until the floodgates of European warfare should reopen. Planting her colonies in America, in Africa, in Madagascar, and among the islands of the West, pushing out the operations of her trading companies to India and the Spice Islands of the East, enjoying a pre-eminence through treaty over all other European powers at the court of the Sultan and in the trade of the Levant, on the point of gaining an influence, hitherto unparallelled and undreamed of, over the vast expanse of the empire of China through her Jesuit missionaries, she had but to stretch forth her hand to seize the crown of colonial empire and of commercial supremacy, which was already threatening to fall from the head of the Dutch. In the middle of the seventeenth century she had no rivals to fear. The day of Spain and Portugal was over. Holland, though vigorous, capable and persevering, could not stand out for long against the pressure of her greater neighbours. She had gained her unique and glorious position through their weakness, she could not maintain herself against them in their strength. Already she was stricken to the knees by the English Navigation Act and the war of 1651, and had had to recognise in England an equal in naval power and a rival in commerce. But the day of England had not yet come. In the lucid intervals of a mad and despicable policy, Charles II. did something to encourage the American plantations, and to promote the operations of the East India Company, but it was quite certain that the power of the state would never be thrown into commercial or colonial competition with France, as long as Louis retained in his own hands the means of rendering the king independent of parliamentary control. It is moreover a significant fact that the most important and permanent part of the English colonial empire, which was built up in the eighteenth century, was not the result of colonial enterprise but of war. Canada, the West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, India itself were the direct fruits of the long wars with France, which in their origin and essence sprang from the military and political ambition of Louis XIV.