descendant of Louis le
Grand, while another family reigns in France. But Spain and her
dependencies apart, all was changed by the result at Blenheim. The
Austrian house was there saved, and re-established; and it was there
that the policy of Richelieu had its final decision. The France of the
old monarchy never recovered from the disasters its armies met with in
the War of the Spanish Succession; and when Louis XV. consented to the
marriage of his grandson to an Austrian princess, he virtually admitted
that the old rival of his family had triumphed in the long strife. The
quarrel was again renewed in the days of the Republic, maintained under
the first French Empire, and had its last trial of arms under the second
Empire, in 1859; but the old French monarchy gave up the contest more
than a century ago. Besides, we are to distinguish between the German
Empire and the house of Hapsburg that ruled from Vienna. The Peace of
Westphalia (1648) left the Germanic Emperors in a contemptible state,
but the effect of it was highly favorable to these Emperors considered
as chiefs of the Hapsburg family. "Placed on the eastern verge of
Germany," says Mr. Bryce, "the Hapsburgs had added to their ancient
lands in Austria proper and the Tyrol new German territories far more
extensive, and had thus become the chiefs of a separate and independent
state. They endeavored to reconcile its interests and those of the
Empire, so long as it seemed possible to recover part of the old
imperial prerogative. But when such hopes were dashed by the defeats of
the Thirty Years' War, they hesitated no longer between an elective
crown and the rule of their hereditary states, and comforted themselves
thenceforth in European politics, not as the representatives of Germany,
but as heads of the great Austrian monarchy." (The Holy Roman Empire,
new edition, p. 355.) Thus, by diverting the Hapsburgs from their
impracticable schemes, and throwing them upon their hereditary
possessions, Richelieu really helped them; and in so far his policy was
a failure, as he sought to lessen the power of the house of Austria,
which in his time ruled over Spain, as well as in Germany, Bohemia,
Hungary, and other countries. It is intimated by some European writers,
that the Austrian family will once more turn its attention to the East,
and, giving up all thought of regaining its place in Germany, seek
compensation where it was found in the seventeenth century, after the
Peace