Though he appears not to have known the work of Cruce he did not claim originality. He sheltered his proposal under an august name, entitling it Project of Henry the Great to render Peace Perpetual, explained by the Abbe de Saint-Pierre. The reference is to the "great design" ascribed to Henry IV. by Sully, and aimed at the abasement of the power of Austria: a federation of the Christian States of Europe arranged in groups and under a sovran Diet, which would regulate international affairs and arbitrate in all quarrels. [Footnote: It is described in Sully's Memoires, Book XXX.] Saint-Pierre, ignoring the fact that Sully's object was to eliminate a rival power, made it the text for his own scheme of a perpetual alliance of all the sovrans of Europe to guarantee to one another the preservation of their states and to renounce war as a means of settling their differences. He drew up the terms of such an alliance, and taking the European powers one by one demonstrated that it was the plain interest of each to sign the articles. Once the articles were signed the golden age would begin. [Footnote: For Sully's grand Design compare the interesting article of Sir Geoffrey Butler in the Edinburgh Review, October 1919.] It is not to our present purpose to comment on this plan which the author with his characteristic simplicity seriously pressed upon the attention of statesmen. It is easy to criticise it in the light of subsequent history, and to see that, if the impossible had happened and the experiment had been tried and succeeded, it might have caused more suffering than all the wars from that day to this. For it was based on a perpetuation of the political status quo in Europe. It assumed that the existing political distribution of power was perfectly satisfactory and conformable to the best interests of all the peoples concerned. It would have hindered the Partition of Poland, but it would have maintained the Austrian oppression of Italians. The project also secured to the sovrans the heritage of their authority and guarded against civil wars. This assumed that the various existing constitutions were fundamentally just. The realisation of the scheme would have perpetuated all the evils of autocratic governments. Its author did not perceive that the radical evil in France was irresponsible power. It needed the reign of Louis XV. and the failure of attempts at reform under his successor to bring this home. The Abbe even thought that an increase of the despotic authority of the government was desirable, provided this were accompanied by an increase in the enlightenment and virtue of its ministers.