A few years, and that House might add to its dominions Loraine and Flanders, Castile and Aragon, Naples and Milan, Mexico and Peru.

Lewis might wear the imperial crown, might place a prince of his family on the throne of Poland, might be sole master of Europe from the Scythian deserts to the Atlantic Ocean, and of America from regions north of the Tropic of Cancer to regions south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

Such was the prospect which lay before William when first he entered on public life, and which never ceased to haunt him till his latest day.

The French monarchy was to him what the Roman republic was to Hannibal, what the Ottoman power was to Scanderbeg, what the southern domination was to Wallace.

Religion gave her sanction to that intense and unquenchable animosity.