78 THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 
to propagate the race; and accordingly the Spaniard 
of the nineteenth century is, as compared with his 
contemporaries, a less intelligent and less enterprising 
person than the Spaniard of the sixteenth century. 
In the march of progress this people has fallen be- 
hind all the other peoples of Europe, and it is very 
doubtful whether the damage thus done can ever be 
repaired. For the competition among nations is so 
constant and so keen, that when a people has once 
clearly and unmistakably lost its hold upon the fore- 
most position, it is not very likely to regain it. It is 
so in the struggle for existence that goes on per- 
petually between species of plants and brute animals. 
It is equally so in the case of races of men, and his- 
tory abounds with examples of it. 
In similar wise, by his stupid persecution of the 
Huguenots, Louis XIV. simply robbed France of a 
rich and important element in its national life, and 
what France thus irreparably lost was gained by the 
Protestant countries of Europe and by the English 
colonies in America. To Massachusetts, to New 
York, and to South Carolina, the Huguenot settlers, 
being picked men, added a strength out of all propor- 
tion to their mere numbers, and to England and 
Germany they did likewise. During the reign of 
Louis XIV. more than a million Huguenots would 
seem to have left France, including the three hundred 
thousand who emigrated immediately after the revoca- 
tion of the Edict of Nantes. The whole population 
of France was then about fourteen millions, so that 
here was a direct loss of seven per cent of the people 
of the country. But mere figures can give no idea of 
the extent of the damage, for the people who left the 
