ten instructed in the
vicissitudes of war to feel that even in this hour of triumph he was
perfectly safe. He knew that other days might come; that other foes
might rise; and that Hungary could never forget the rights of which she
had been defrauded. He therefore exhausted all the arts of threats and
bribes to induce the diet to pass a decree that the crown was no longer
elective but hereditary. It is marvelous that in such an hour there
could have been any energy left to resist his will. But with all his
terrors he could only extort from the diet their consent that the
succession to the crown should be confirmed in the males, but that upon
the extinction of the _male_ line the crown, instead of being hereditary
in the female line, should revert to the nation, who should again confer
it by the right of election.

Leopold reluctantly yielded to this, as the most he could then hope to
accomplish. The emperor, elated by success, assumed such imperious airs
as to repel from him all his former allies. For several years Hungary
was but a battle field where Austrians and Turks met in incessant and
bloody conflicts. But Leopold, in possession of all the fortresses,
succeeded in repelling each successive invasion.

Both parties became weary of war. In November, 1697, negotiations were
opened at Carlovitz, and a truce was concluded for twenty-five years.
The Turks abandoned both Hungary and Transylvania, and these two
important provinces became more firmly than ever before, integral
portions of the Austrian empire. By the peace of Carlovitz the sultan
lost one half of his possessions in Europe. Austria, in the grandeur of
her territory, was never more powerful than at this hour: extending
across the whole breadth of Europe, from the valley of the Rhine to the
Euxine sea, and from the Carpathian mountains to the plains of Italy. A
more heterogeneous conglomeration of States never existed, consisting of
kingdoms, archduchies, duchies, principalities, counties, margraves,
landgraves and imperial cities, nearly all with their hereditary rulers
subordinate to the emperor, and with their local customs and laws.

Leopold, though a weak and bad man, in addition to all this power,
swayed also the imperial scepter over all the States of Germany. Though
his empire over all was frail, and his vast dominions were liable at any
moment to crumble to pieces, he still was not content with consolidating
the realms he held, but was anxiously gras