P R E F A C E.

tains nothing instructive, we have not judged it necessary to add it here. Here is the discourse in question.

"If sieges and the capture of enemy places make us masters of their country, fortification ensures our possession of it, and can protect our frontiers from the unfortunate consequences of the loss of a battle, which, without these precautions, could give the enemy the opportunity to extend the advantages of his victory very far. We have great examples of this in France, in the Low Countries, in Germany, and even in Spain, all countries whose frontiers are secured by a quantity of good places, mainly the Low Countries, where there are few cities that are not fortified. Everyone knows well enough how long war has been waged there without ever having been able to conquer them totally; and whoever would pay attention to what has happened there over the last two hundred years would find that more than sixty battles have been fought and more than two hundred sieges of places have been conducted there without being able to reduce them entirely. The reason is that fortified places stop the pursuits of the victorious army, serve as an asylum for the one that has been beaten, and provide the means to drag out the war. During this interval, strange conjectures always occur, and changes in the interests of neighboring states