part of the thirteenth century, founded
the house of Austria. While holding the imperial throne, he obtained for
his own family Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola; but it was not
till several generations after his death, and in the fifteenth century,
that the imperial dignity became virtually, though not in terms,
hereditary in the Hapsburg line. For several centuries, down to the
extinction of the office, there was no Emperor of Germany who was not of
that family. Every effort to divert the office from that house ended in
failure. The consequence was, that the house of Austria became the first
of reigning families; and at one time it seemed about to grasp the
sceptre of the world. When the Empire ceased to exist, the Austrian
empire, though of later creation than the French empire of Napoleon I.,
had that appearance of antique grandeur which has so great an effect on
men's minds. It was looked upon as ancient because the imperial family
really was ancient, and could trace itself back through almost twelve
hundred years, to the sixth century, though in places the tracing was of
the most shadowy character. It profited from the greatness of the
Hapsburgs in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,--a
greatness which is among the most extraordinary things recorded in
history.

Should the history of royal marriages ever be written in a manner
proportioned to its importance, a large part of the work would have to
be given to the marriages made by various princes of the house of
Austria; for those marriages had prodigious effect on the condition of
the best portions of the human race, and in the sixteenth century it
seemed that they were about to bring, not only most of Europe, but
nearly all America, a large part of Asia, and not a little of Africa
under the rule of one family, and that family by no means superior to
that of Valois or the Plantagenets. The extraordinary luck of the house
of Austria in turning marriage into a source of profit was early
remarked; and in the latter part of the fifteenth century, long before
the best of the Austrian matrimonial alliances were made, Matthias
Corvinus, the greatest of Hungarian kings, wrote a Latin epigram on the
subject, which was even more remarkable as a prediction than as a
statement of fact; for it was as applicable to the marriage of Napoleon
I. and Maria Louisa, and to that of Philip the Fair and Juana the
Foolish, as it was to that of Maximilian and Mar