*A more detailed account can be found in Chapter 21.

“Europe forms a political system in which the [states] inhabiting this part of the world are bound together by their relations and various interests in a single body… [making] of modern Europe a sort of ‘republique' whose members—each independent, but all bound together by a common interest—united for the maintenance of order and the preservation of liberty. This is what has given rise to the well-known principle of the balance of power…” Vattel, Le Droit des Gens, Book III, Chapter 3, sections 47 – 48.