ger present, dont
on est menace on a a craindre une revolution entiere, et une destruction
totale de l'Allemagne." Luckily for Austria, Marlborough was a man of as
much moral as physical courage, and he took the responsibility of
leading his army into Germany,--a decision that, perhaps, no other
commander of that time would have been equal to,--and by the junction of
his forces with those of Eugene was enabled to fight and win the battle
of Blenheim (Blindheim), which put an end to the ascendency of France.
Emperor Leopold was positively grateful for the services Marlborough
rendered him, and treated him differently from the manner in which he
had treated Sobieski for doing him quite as great a favor. He wrote him
a letter in his own hand, gave him a lordship in fee, and made him, by
the title of Mindelheim, a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

[31] As it is generally assumed that Richelieu got the better of the
Empire in that contest which he waged with it, perhaps some readers may
think we have gone too far in saying he was one of those antagonists of
whom the Austrian family got the better; but all depends upon the point
of view. Richelieu died when the war was at its height, and did not live
to see the success of his immediate policy; but what he did was only an
incident in a long contest. The old rivalry of the house of Valois and
the house of Austria was continued after the former was succeeded by the
house of Bourbon. Richelieu did but carry out the policy on which Henry
IV. had determined: and when the two branches of the Austrian family had
united their powers, and it seemed that the effect of their reunion
would be to place Europe at their command, the great Cardinal-Duke had
no choice but to follow the ancient course of France. But the contest on
which he entered, though in one sense fatal to his enemy, was not
decided in his time, nor till he had been in his grave more than sixty
years. He died just before the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV., and
that monarch took up and continued the contest which Richelieu may be
said to have renewed. For an unusually long period the Bourbons were
successful, though without fully accomplishing their purpose. From the
battle of Rocroy, in 1643, to the battle of Blenheim, in 1704, France
was the first nation of Europe, and the Bourbons could boost of having
humiliated the Hapsburgs. They obtained the crowns of Spain and the
Indies; and the Spanish crowns are yet worn by a