in June 1679
between Sweden and Brandenburg. Owing, however, to the insistence of
Louis XIV. and the indifference, or weakness, of the emperor Leopold I.,
the elector was forced to restore western Pomerania to Sweden, in return
for the payment of 300,000 crowns by France. This feebleness on the part
of his ally induced Frederick William to listen more readily to the
overtures of Louis, and in 1679, and again in 1681, he bound himself to
support the interests of France. He had, moreover, a further grievance
against the emperor as Leopold refused to recognize his right to the
Silesian duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau, which had been left
without a ruler in 1675. About 1684, however, the foreign policy of
Brandenburg underwent another change. Disliking the harshness shown by
Louis to the Protestants, the elector concluded an alliance with
William, prince of Orange, in August 1685; and entered into more
friendly relations with the emperor. Further incensed against France by
the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, he made an alliance with
Leopold in January 1686, agreeing in return for a subsidy to send troops
against the Turks. Soon afterwards he received Schwiebus to compensate
him for abandoning his claim on the Silesian duchies, and in a secret
treaty made promises of support to Leopold. The great elector died in
May 1688, leaving his territories to his eldest son, Frederick.

The remarkable services of Frederick William to his country can best be
judged by comparing its condition in 1640 with that in 1688. At his
accession the greater part of his territory was occupied by strangers
and devastated by war, and in European politics Brandenburg was merely
an appendage of the empire. Its army was useless; its soil was poor; its
revenue was insignificant. At his death the state of Brandenburg-Prussia
was a power to be reckoned with in all European combinations. Inferior
to Austria alone among the states of the Empire, it was regarded as the
head of the German Protestantism; while the fact that one-third of its
territory lay outside the Empire added to its importance. Its area had
been increased to over 40,000 sq. m.; its revenue had multiplied
sevenfold; and its small army was unsurpassed for efficiency. The
elector had overthrown Sweden and inherited her position on the Baltic,
and had offered a steady and not ineffectual resistance to the ambition
of France.

While thus winning for himself a position in the cou