Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/243

Rh to be joined with an air of contempt; who are capable of supporting wounds, perils, and fatigues, but not the loss of their pleasures ; who love nothing so much as gaiety, and console themselves for the loss of a battle by singing a ballad on the general; those subjects, I say, would never have been able to compass an enterprize, so as to render it impossible to be defeated in one country, without miscarrying in all the others, nor to miscarry for a moment without miscarrying for ever.

T was a saying of the lord of Coucy to king Charles V. that the English are never weaker, nor easier overcome than in their own country. The same was observed of the Romans; the same of the Carthaginians; and the same always will happen to every power that sends armies to distant countries, in order to reunite by dint of discipline and military power, those who are divided among themselves by political or civil interests. The state finds itself weakened by the disorder that still continues, and more so by the remedy.

The lord of Coucy's maxim is an exception to the general rule, which disapproves of wars against distant countries. And this exception confirms likewise the rule, because it takes place only in respect to those by whom such wars are undertaken. Rh