The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866

20

Little shells, used as coins by the poorest people to make the smallest change.

21

Text.

22

Dined.

23

Pig, sot, and jungle-animal.

24

"God grant the lady a substantial liver!"—"the happiness and honors which should follow upon the birth of a male child being figuratively comprehended in that liberality of the liver whence comes the good digestion for which alone life is worth the living."—Child-Life by the Ganges.

25

The following is the epigram of Matthias Corvinus:—

"Bella gerant alii; tu felix nube!
Nam quæ Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus."

Which Mr. Sterling thus renders:—

"Fight those who will; let well-starred Austria wed,
And conquer kingdoms in the marriage-bed."

Some other hand has given the following translation, or rather amplification, of the epigram:—

"Glad Austria wins by Hymen's silken chain
What other states in doubtful battles gain,
And while fierce Mars enriches meaner lands,
Receives possessions from fair Venus' hands."

There would seem to be an end of these fortunate marriages, no member of the Austrian imperial family being now in condition to wed to much profit. The Emperor Francis Joseph, who is yet a young man, took to wife a Bavarian lady, said to be of extraordinary beauty, in 1854; and he has a daughter, who was born in 1856, the same year with the French Prince Imperial, whom she might marry, but that the two are children. Besides, marriages between French princes and Austrian princesses have turned out so badly on two memorable occasions, within less than a century, that even the statesmen of Vienna and Paris might well be excused if they were to think a third alliance quite impossible. The heir apparent to the Austrian throne is but eight years old. The Emperor's next brother, Ferdinand Maximilian,—well known in this country as Emperor of the Mexicans,—made a good marriage, his wife being a daughter of the late Leopold I., King of the Belgians. She has labored with zeal to found an imperial dynasty in Mexico, but the task is beyond human strength. The imperial system fell in Mexico on the same day that Richmond fell into the hands of General Grant. The fortunes of the Austrian prince and those of Mr. Davis were bound up together, and together they fell.

26

We give the imperial anagram:—

A: Austria Alles
E: Est Erdreich
I: Imperare Ist
O: Orbi Oesterreich
U: Universo Unterthan.

27

Mr. Bryce credits Maximilian I. with the founding of the Austrian monarchy. "Of that monarchy," he observes, "and of the power of the house of Hapsburg, Maximilian was, even more than Rudolph his ancestor, the founder. Uniting in his person those wide domains through Germany which, had been dispersed among the collateral branches of his house, and claiming by his marriage with Mary of Burgundy most of the territories of Charles the Bold, he was a prince greater than any who had sat on the Teutonic throne since the death of Frederick II. But it was as Archduke of Austria, Count of Tyrol, Duke of Styria and Carinthia, feudal superior of lands in Swabia, Alsace, and Switzerland, that he was great, not as Roman Emperor. For just as from him the Austrian monarchy begins, so with him the Holy Empire in its old meaning ends." (The Holy Roman Empire, pp. 343, 344.) Mr. Bryce's work is one of the most valuable contributions to historical literature that have appeared in this century, and great expectations are entertained from the future labors of one so liberally endowed with the historic faculty.

28

The division of the house of Austria into two branches, which alone prevented it from becoming supreme in Europe, and over much of the rest of the world, took place in 1521. After the death of their grandfather, Charles and Ferdinand possessed the Austrian territories in common, but in 1521 they made a division thereof. Ferdinand obtained Austria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria, and, in 1522, the Tyrol, and other provinces. In 1531 he was chosen King of the Romans, which made him the successor of Charles as Emperor. How Charles came, not merely to consent to his election, but to urge it, and to effect it in spite of opposition, when he had a son in his fourth year, is very strange. The reasons commonly given for his course are by no means sufficient to account or it. Many years later he tried to undo his work, in order to obtain the imperial dignity for his son; but Ferdinand held on to what he possessed, with true Austrian tenacity. Had Charles kept the imperial crown for his son, as he might have done, Philip's imperial position must have sufficed to give him control of the civilized world. He would have made himself master of both France and England, and must have rendered the Reaction completely triumphant over the Reformation. Fortunately, he failed to become Emperor, and during a portion of his time the imperial throne was occupied by the best of all the Hapsburg sovereigns,—the wise, the tolerant, the humane, and the upright Maximillian II., who was the last man in Europe likely to give him any aid in the prosecution of his vast tyrannical schemes. Besides, there was a sort of coolness between the two branches of the great family, that was not without its effect on the world's politics. Seldom has it happened that a more important event has occurred than the election of Ferdinand as King of the Romans. We are not to measure what might have been done by Philip II. as Emperor, by what was done by Charles V.; for Charles was a statesman, a politician, and, down to his latter years, when his health was utterly gone, he was no fanatic; but Phillip was a fanatic only, and a fierce one too, with a power of concentration such as his father never possessed. Then the contest between the Catholics and the Protestants was a far more serious one in Philip's time than it had been in that of Charles, which alone would have sufficed to make his occupation of the imperial throne, had he occupied it, a matter of the last importance.

29

The main line of the German Hapsburgs ended in 1619, with the death of the Emperor Matthias. He was succeeded by Ferdinand II., grandson of Ferdinand I., and son of that Archduke Charles who was sometimes spoken of in connection with the possible marriage of Elizabeth of England. Out of Ferdinand II.'s elevation grew a new union of the entire family of Hapsburg. During the long ascendency of the Cardinal-Duke of Lerma in the Spanish councils, temp. Philip III., the breach between the two branches, which had been more apparent than real, and yet not unimportant, was made complete by the minister's action, the policy he pursued being such as was highly displeasing to the German Hapsburgs, who had relapsed into bigotry. Philip III. set up pretensions to Hungary and Bohemia, as grandson of Maximilian II. Ferdinand, who was not yet either emperor or king, got rid of Philip's pretensions by promising to resign to him the Austrian possessions in Swabia. This led to the fall of Lerma, and to the reunion of the two branches of the Austrian house, but for which it is probable Ferdinand II. might have been beaten in the early days of the Thirty Years' War. It was to Spanish aid that Ferdinand owed his early triumphs in that contest; and many years later, in 1634, the great victory of Nordlingen was gained for the Imperialists by the presence of ten thousand Spanish infantry in their army,—that infantry which was still the first military body in Europe, not then having met with the disaster of Rocroy, which, however, was near at hand. This was a kind of Indian-summer revival of Spanish power, and at the beginning of the new alliance between Madrid and Vienna, "there appeared," says Rankè, "a prospect of founding a compact Spanish hereditary dominion, which should directly link together Milan with the Netherlands, and so give the Spanish policy a necessary preponderance in the affairs of Europe." Richelieu spoilt this fine prospect just as it seemed about to become a reality, and the Spanish Hapsburgs gradually sank into insignificance, and their line disappeared in 1700, on the death of Charles II., the most contemptible creature that ever wore a crown, and scarcely man enough to be a respectable idiot. Such was the termination of the great Austro-Burgundian dynasty that was founded by Charles V.,—at one time as majestic as "the broad and winding Rhine," but again, like the Rhine, running fast to insignificance.

30

If the house of Austria was not in the greatest danger it ever experienced in 1704, its members and officers could affect to feel all but absolutely desperate. The following letter, written in queer German-French, by the Imperial Minister near the English court, Count John Wenceslaus Wratislaw, to Queen Anne, conveys an almost ludicrous idea of the fright under which the Austrian chiefs suffered:—"Madame, Le soussigné envoyé extraordinaire de sa Majesté Impériale ayant représenté de vive voix en diverses occasions aux ministres de votre Majesté la dure extremité dans laquelle se trouve l'Empire, par l'introduction d'une armée nombreuse de François dans la Bavière, laquelle jointe à la revolte de la Hongrie met les païs héréditaires de sa Majesté Impériale dans une confusion incroyable, de sorte que si l'on n'apporte pas un remède prompt et proportionné au danger présent, dont on est menacé on a à craindre une revolution entière, 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 Eugène 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 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 of Westphalia. But what was possible two hundred years ago might be found impossible to-day. Russia had no existence as a European power in those days, whereas now she has one of the highest places in Europe, and a very peculiar interest in not allowing Austria, or any other nation, to obtain possession of countries like the Roumanian Principalities, the addition of which to his empire might afford compensation to Francis Joseph for all he has lost in the south and the west. It is one of the infelicities of Austria's position that she cannot make a movement in any direction without treading on the toes of some giant, or on those of a dwarf protected by some giant who who intends himself ultimately to devour him.

32

Prussia, the most thoroughly anti-Gallican of all the parties to the Treaty of Vienna, completed the work of overthrowing the "detested" arrangements made by the framers of that treaty. The federal act creating the Germanic Confederation was incorporated in the work of the Congress of Vienna, and was guaranteed by eight European powers,—France, England, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, Spain, and Portugal. Prussia destroyed the Confederation without troubling herself about the wishes and opinions of the other seven parties to the arrangement of 1815. That all those parties to that arrangement were not always indifferent to their guaranty appears from the opposition made by Russia, France, and England to Prince Schwarzenburg's proposition, that Austria should be allowed to introduce all her non-Germanic territories into the Confederation, that is to say, that the Austrian Empire, which then included the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, should become a part of Germany, which it would soon have ruled, as well as overruled, while it would have extended its dominion over Italy. Had Schwarzenburg's project succeeded, the course of European events during the last sixteen years must have been entirely changed, or Austria would have been made too strong to be harmed by the French in Italy, or by the Prussians in Germany and Bohemia. Russia was specially adverse to that project; and the Treaty of Vienna was forcibly appealed to by her government in opposing it. The time had not then come for making waste-paper of the arrangements of 1815.