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By Root 1814 0

country by concentrating all power in himself. From 1667 almost to the end of his reign, Louis involved France in wars of territorial expansion that embroiled most of the countries of Europe and finally exhausted his state. He was a munificent patron of science, commerce, the arts, and literature, but displayed a zealous intolerance toward religious nonconformers. His revocation, in 1685, of the Edict of Nantes (a declaration of religious toleration) resulted in the mass emigration of Huguenots (French Protestants). Despite numerous military losses and failures of internal administration, Louis XIV, "the Sun King," is generally acknowledged to have been the greatest monarch in French history.

p. 39. He demanded that they should send theirDoge…: Doge was the title of the chief officer of the republics of Genoa and Venice. The office originated in Venice around 690, and in Genoa in 1339, and endured in both cities until Napoleon conquered the entire region in 1797.

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p. 41. we are rivals in navigation and thecarrying trade…: Carrying trade is commerce consisting of the transportation of goods from one country to another.

p. 41. and Britain excludes us from theSaint Lawrenceon the other…: The St. Lawrence river in southeastern Canada forms part of the boundary between the state of New York and the province of Ontario. It runs northeast from Lake Ontario for 760 miles before emptying into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The river was a vital commercial and military supply line to the western hinterlands throughout the revolutionary period and the early years of the American Republic.

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p. 44. Queen Anne, in her letter of the 1stJuly…: Anne (1664–1714) was the queen of England and last sovereign of the Stuart line. Although she was the daughter of James II, she consented to his removal and replacement by William of Orange in 1688. On William’s death in 1702, Anne succeeded to the throne. She died suddenly in 1714 before completing arrangements to secure the succession of her half-brother, James, known as the Old Pretender. The next English sovereign was George I of the house of Hanover.

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p. 49. The celebratedPericles…: Pericles (c. 495–429 BC) was an Athenian statesman and orator. He began his public career about 470 BC as the leader of the democratic party and gained popularity by sponsoring measures providing theatrical productions at public expense and depriving the aristocratic Areopagus of its judicial power (461). After 444 BC, Pericles was the undisputed leader of democratic Athens. He expanded Athenian influence by conquering (440 BC) Samos and founding colonies throughout the Greek world. He conducted an enormous program of public building that included the construction of the Parthenon. He sought to increase Athenian naval and strategic resources and to make Athens impervious to land power. This policy antagonized Sparta, which organized a league against Athens and her allies and tributaries. Pericles died of the plague that swept Athens during the third year of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).

p. 49. in compliance with the resentment of aprostitute…: Publius refers to Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles from about 445 BC. She is reputed to have taught rhetoric and to have conversed with Socrates. Her influence over Pericles became the subject of comic aspersion and is discussed by the Greek biographer Plutarch (AD 46–120), in his Parallel Lives (See Plutarch’s Life of Pericles, XXIV.)

p. 49. and destroyed the city of theSamnians: The Samnians were inhabitants of the Greek island of Samos near Asia Minor. Samos first emerges in history with the maritime tyranny of Polycrates (c. 535 BC), from whose regime the philosopher Pythagoras fled to Italy. After a period of Persian domination, Samos became a prominent member of Athens’s Delian League, but revolted in 440 BC. Under Pericles’s leadership, Athens suppressed the revolt, installed Athenian settlers, and made Samos a simple tributary.

p. 49. stimulated by private pique against theMegarensians…: The Megarensians