He might easily have concluded an honourable peace with the Porte, and have turned his arms westward.

But he had conceived the hope that he might extend his hereditary dominions at the expense of the Infidels.

Visions of a triumphant entry into Constantinople and of a Te Deum in Saint Sophia's had risen in his brain.

He not only employed in the East a force more than sufficient to have defended Piedmont and reconquered Loraine; but he seemed to think that England and Holland were bound to reward him largely for neglecting their interests and pursuing his own.

[290] Spain already was what she continued to be down to our own time.