ping for more. Spain was the
prize now to be won. Louis XIV., with the concentrated energies of the
French kingdom, was claiming it by virtue of his marriage with the
eldest daughter of the deceased monarch, notwithstanding his solemn
renunciation of all right at his marriage in favor of the second
daughter. Leopold, as the husband of the second daughter, claimed the
crown, in the event, then impending, of the death of the imbecile and
childless king. This quarrel agitated Europe to its center, and deluged
her fields with blood. If the _elective_ franchise is at times the
source of agitation, the law of _hereditary_ succession most certainly
does not always confer tranquillity and peace.

CHAPTER XXI.

LEOPOLD I. AND THE SPANISH SUCCESSION.

From 1697 to 1710.

The Spanish Succession.--The Impotence of Charles II.--Appeal to the
Pope.--His Decision.--Death of Charles II.--Accession of Philip
V.--Indignation of Austria.--The outbreak of War.--Charles III.
crowned.--Insurrection in Hungary.--Defection of Bavaria.--The Battle of
Blenheim.--Death of Leopold I.--Eleonora.--Accession of Joseph
I.--Charles XII. of Sweden.--Charles III. in Spain.--Battle of
Malplaquet.--Charles at Barcelona.--Charles at Madrid.

Charles II., King of Spain, was one of the most impotent of men, in both
body and mind. The law of hereditary descent had placed this semi-idiot
upon the throne of Spain to control the destinies of twenty millions of
people. The same law, in the event of his death without heirs, would
carry the crown across the Pyrenees to a little boy in the palace of
Versailles, or two thousand miles, to the banks of the Danube, to
another little boy in the gardens of Vienna. Louis XIV. claimed the
Spanish scepter in behalf of his wife, the Spanish princess Maria
Theresa, and her son. Leopold claimed it in behalf of his deceased wife,
Margaret, and her child. For many years before the death of Philip II.
the envoys of France and Austria crowded the court of Spain, employing
all the arts of intrigue and bribery to forward the interests of their
several sovereigns. The different courts of Europe espoused the claims
of the one party or the other, accordingly as their interests would be
promoted by the aggrandizement of the house of Bourbon or the house of
Hapsburg.

Louis XIV. prepared to strike a sudden blow by gathering an army of one
hundred thousand men in his fortresses near the Spanish frontier, in
establishing imme