excesses.

But the exorbitant claims and disputes were silly not because they arose over matters of no importance, but because they distorted the realities which were present behind all these questions of diplomatic etiquette. Each state was entitled-as had not been true in another age— to due consideration, and to consideration in proportion not to mythical imperial authority or legendary feudal titles but to real power and consequence in the new Europe. This remained true even when the eager ruler tried to reverse the process and secure added political power and consequence by obtaining some formal diplomatic advantage over his rival. The new states were with difficulty finding themselves in a new political world.

The more serious problems of diplomatic procedure were being worked out at the same time by the efforts of private scholars to arrive at a just definition of the rights and duties of diplomatic representatives in the territory of the state to which they were accredited.1

A beginning in the elaboration of the law of legation was made by an Austrian scholar, Brunus, who had once been a diplomatic agent of Charles V, by going back to the rules of Roman law on this subject. The ancient regulations regarding credentials, instructions, and the reception of diplomatic representatives were revised with a view to use in the sixteenth century." There followed the work of the Oxford professor Gentilis, who dwelt upon the historical evolution of the institution of embassies as a preface to a thorough examination of the public character of diplomatic representation. He made a strong case against the continuing efforts of subject feudal princes to deny in practice the monopoly of the national sovereign over the control of foreign relations. Gentilis then proceeded to classify missions with reference to the character of the state represented, and to define the legitimate diplomatic im

Walker, §§ 131, 135, 143; also Nys, 33-55. 'Walker, § 131.

munities for each class, and closed his brilliant study with a critical examination of the right to send and receive ministers and ambassadors, which led him gradually back to his principal theme.1

Finally, Grotius dealt with the subject in his great work on the general law of nations. He likewise insisted upon the principle that only independent states possessed the right to send and receive diplomatic representatives, and upheld the right of rulers to refuse to receive as the representatives of foreign states individuals not personally acceptable to them.2 Grotius, however, went even further, and was led by his caution in the rapidly moving events of his time to ascribe the same right to the national rulers in regard to all the distasteful "permanent legations: which were "now in use." For the greater part of the time these agents had no negotiations to carry on. Why, then, should they be entertained in the state? The great jurist also defined the basis and extent of diplomatic immunities by reference to the quality of the sovereign represented, thus following the opinion of his age. Not until two centuries later was the true standard found in the purpose and function of embassy as such.

The close of the Thirty Years War thus found both a diplomatic ceremonial and a law of legation ready at hand to serve the needs of the new independent states emerging in the Peace of Westphalia.3 Brunus and Gentilis and Grotius were followed by other scholars, such as Wicquefort, Callières, and Bynkershoek, to mention only the greater ones among the host of writers on diplomacy prior to the French Revolution. The territorial state, authoritatively recognized by the great mid-century settlement, adopted the Italian diplomatic institution as its own,

'Walker, § 135.

'Same, p. 302.

Same, § 81.

Heatley, 151-160, and Appendix I (extracts); Satow, I, I, and II,

363-379.

worked out its implications, called into life historic practices and legal rules to amplify the same, and set out on a career of competitive international relations which is only now being slowly closed and converted into something else.

Since 1650 there have been few vital changes in the system of diplomacy as then recognized. The consular system has changed far more. However, certain developments must be reviewed briefly at this point.1

During the period of Louis XIV the French ascendancy set a stamp upon the still plastic diplomacy of Europe which has never completely disappeared." The Grand Monarque inherited an already well developed system of diplomatic representation from Richelieu and Mazarin, and he proceeded to expand and to employ this service to the utmost. In personal interviews he gave the French agents abroad detailed instructions before they set out on their missions. These priests of the Most Christian King-true missionaries of Gallic culture-were fired with a zeal to carry French prestige to the ends of Europe. Under constant and careful supervision, they made detailed reports on political and social events and conditions in all quarters of the diplomatic field, and, as a result, Louis was in touch with every faction in every high intrigue in all the capitals of Europe. These French agents were indeed indefatigable. They travelled night and day, and they amassed enormous stores of documentary material. From a pecuniary point of view they were poorly paid, but they were devoted apostles of the Sun King, and they found in the royal approval and the reflected glory of France ample recompense for their labors. Through their efforts mainly, Paris became the political center of Europe and diplomacy a French institution.

There is no history of modern diplomacy as such. Fragmentary materials for such a history are to be found in Hill, Satow, and the other works cited in this and the succeeding chapter.

'Hill, III, 52-55.

The following century was a time of colonial rivalry, alliances, and wars.1 Diplomacy was consequently employed for all sorts of devious purposes and in all sorts of ugly situations. The culmination came in the partitions of Poland in the later part of the century-actions which were brought on by causes deeply embedded in the European state-system itself, but carried through in characteristic fashion by the diplomats of the day. It would be grossly inaccurate to attribute the evil transactions of this period to the institutions and methods of diplomacy in use at the time. The system, as it had grown up since the Renaissance, was greatly enlarged in point of numbers and extent, and this tended to make it weak in principle and ideal. But, after all, the determining factors are to be sought in the vicious policies of the rival sovereigns who employed personal diplomacy in the pursuit of their personal satisfaction and aggrandizement.2 At the same time, it would be futile to deny that the accomplishment of their sinister purposes was facilitated by the existence and employment of a method of international negotiations which lent itself readily to these purposes.

The great expansion of diplomacy in the eighteenth century was followed by the tremendous international disturbances of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. As a result, the rulers participating in the Congress of Vienna found it necessary to attempt to reorganize, in part, the diplomatic system of Europe and to standardize the ranks of diplomatic representatives. An official reclassification of diplomatic agents was adopted which, as amplified in 1818, is still in use today. Despite the latent growth of forces which may soon supplant the historic institutions of diplomatic representation with newer forms of national representation in international bodies of one Hill, III, Chaps. V-VIII, especially 673-676.

'Satow, II, 360-362; see also Bernard, Lecture III, entire.

'Satow, §§ 263, 271; see, below, Appendix A, Document No. 2. Hershey, § 261.

sort or another, there have been during the past century almost no changes in the diplomatic system as it stood in 1815, except a further cutting down of the use of form and etiquette, a weakening of the force of procedure and custom. Diplomacy has now become very much more businesslike and unceremonial, and perhaps we are to see still farther steps in that direction. Notwithstanding all the changes in manners, however, the fundamentals of diplomatic intercourse are essentially what they were during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; what we have to deal with is a long established, and, in a measure, a fixed, international institution.