Prompted by feelings such as these we dwell upon the decisive hours, when the long assured superiority asserts itself, for good and all. We can hail Marathon, Salamis, Tours, or Vienna as the occasion, if not the cause, of the triumph of civilization over barbarism, of Europe over Asia. We must remember, too, that, if the day for a permanent advance of Turkish power was over, yet that a temporary Turkish victory, and a protracted war in Germany, could not have been confined in their influence to the seat of war alone. So cool and experienced a diplomatist as Sir William Temple did indeed believe, at the time, that the fall of Vienna would have been followed by a great and permanent increase of Turkish power.[4] Putting this aside however, there were other results likely to spring from Turkish success. The Turks constantly made a powerful diversion in favour of France and her ambitious designs. Turkish victories upon the one side of Germany meant successful French aggressions upon the other, and Turkish schemes were promoted with that object by the French. The author of the memoirs of Prince Eugene writes bitterly, but truly enough, of this crisis: "_Le roi très-chrétien avant d'être dévot, secourait les chrétiens contre les infidèles_ (at St. Gotthard and at Candia), _devenu pourtant un grand homme de bien, il les agaçait contre l'empereur, et soutenait les rebelles de Hongrie. Sans lui ils ne seraient jamais venus, les uns et les autres, aux portes de Vienne._" "If France would but stand neutral, the controversy between Turks and Christians might soon be decided," says the Duke of Lorraine. But France would not stand neutral. FOOTNOTES: [1] "Renegade," Act. iv. sc. 3. [2] Ahmed Kiuprili, the second Vizier of his race, was one of the greatest ministers of his day. He was described by the Turkish historians as "the light and splendour of the nation, the preserver and administrator of good laws, the vicar of the shadow of God, the thrice learned and all accomplished Grand Vizier." He seems to have really deserved some of the praise. [3] De la Guillatière, "Account of a Late Voyage, etc., and State of the Turkish Empire." Trans. 1676. [4] "If the Turks had possessed this bulwark of Christendom (Vienna), I do not conceive what could have hindered them from being masters immediately of Austria, and all its depending provinces; nor, in another year, of all Italy, or of the southern provinces of Germany, as they should have chosen to carry on their invasion, or of both in two or three years' time; and how fatal this might have been to the rest of Christendom, or how it might have enlarged the Turkish dominions, is easy to conjecture."--Sir W. Temple, Works, iii. 393, edit. 1814. CHAPTER II. The Emperor was exposed on either side to these two implacable enemies. At Versailles, as at the Porte, had the destruction of the house of Austria been sworn.