But this display of power was exhausting; it ate away the life of the nation, because it drew wholly upon itself and not upon the outside world, with which it could have been kept in contact by the sea.

In the war that next followed, the same energy is seen, but not the same vitality; and France was everywhere beaten back and brought to the verge of ruin.
The lesson of both is the same; nations, like men, however strong, decay when cut off from the external activities and resources which at once draw out and support their internal powers.

A nation, as we have already shown, cannot live indefinitely off itself, and the easiest way by which it can communicate with other peoples and renew its own strength is the sea.
FOOTNOTES: [66] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.
[67] Martin: History of France.
[68] See Map of English Channel, etc., p.

107.
[69] That is, nearly motionless.
[70] Hoste: Naval Tactics.
[71] Ledyard says the order to remove the buoys was not carried out (Naval History, vol.ii.p.

636).
[72] Seignelay, the French minister of marine of the day, called him "poltron de tete, mais pas de coeur." [73] The author has followed in the text the traditional and generally accepted account of Tourville's orders and the motives of his action.
A French writer, M.de Crisenoy, in a very interesting paper upon the secret history preceding and accompanying the event, traverses many of these traditional statements.