nfluence in Italy. After his abdication the two great monarchies of
Austria and Spain were separated; but though ruled by different
persons, they were still in the same family, and tended toward that
unity of aim and sympathy which marked dynastic connections in that
and the following century. To this bond of union was added that of a
common religion. During the century before the Peace of Westphalia,
the extension of family power, and the extension of the religion
professed, were the two strongest motives of political action. This
was the period of the great religious wars which arrayed nation
against nation, principality against principality, and often, in the
same nation, faction against faction. Religious persecution caused the
revolt of the Protestant Dutch Provinces against Spain, which issued,
after eighty years of more or less constant war, in the recognition of
their independence. Religious discord, amounting to civil war at
times, distracted France during the greater part of the same period,
profoundly affecting not only her internal but her external policy.
These were the days of St. Bartholomew, of the religious murder of
Henry IV., of the siege of La Rochelle, of constant intriguing between
Roman Catholic Spain and Roman Catholic Frenchmen. As the religious
motive, acting in a sphere to which it did not naturally belong, and
in which it had no rightful place, died away, the political
necessities and interests of States began to have juster weight; not
that they had been wholly lost sight of in the mean time, but the
religious animosities had either blinded the eyes, or fettered the
action, of statesmen. It was natural that in France, one of the
greatest sufferers from religious passions, owing to the number and
character of the Protestant minority, this reaction should first and
most markedly be seen. Placed between Spain and the German States,
among which Austria stood foremost without a rival, internal union and
checks upon the power of the House of Austria were necessities of
political existence. Happily, Providence raised up to her in close
succession two great rulers, Henry IV. and Richelieu,--men in whom
religion fell short of bigotry, and who, when forced to recognize it
in the sphere of politics, did so as masters and not as slaves. Under
them French statesmanship received a guidance, which Richelieu
formulated as a tradition, and which moved on the following general
lines,--(1) Internal union of the