Among the other changes introduced during Maximilian's reign were the establishment of a police system, and the invention of a postal system by Franz of Taxis. The latter obtained a monopoly of the post routes throughout Germany, and his family, which afterwards became that of Thurn and Taxis, received an enormous revenue from this source, from that time down to the present day. Maximilian himself devoted a great deal of time and study to the improvement of artillery, and many new forms of cannon, which were designed by him, are still preserved in Vienna. Although the people of Germany did not share to any great extent in the passion for travel and adventure which followed the discovery of America in 1492 and the circumnavigation of Africa in 1498, they were directly affected by the changes which took place in the commerce of the world. The supremacy of Venice in the South and of the Hanseatic League in the North of Europe, began slowly to decline, while the powers which undertook to colonize the new lands--England, Spain and Portugal--rose in commercial importance. [Sidenote: 1518.] The last years of Maximilian promised new splendors to the house of Hapsburg. In 1515 his younger grandson, Ferdinand, married the daughter of Ladislas, king of Bohemia and Hungary, whose only son died shortly afterwards, leaving Ferdinand heir to the double crown. In 1516, the Emperor's elder grandson, Karl, became king of Spain, Sicily and Naples, in addition to Burgundy and Flanders, which he held as the great-grandson of Charles the Bold. At a Diet held at Augsburg, in 1518, Maximilian made great exertions to have Karl elected his successor, but failed on account of the opposition of Pope Leo X. and Francis I. of France, whose agents were present with heavy bribes in their pockets. Disappointed and depressed, the Emperor left Augsburg, and went to Innsbruck, but the latter city refused to entertain him until some money which he had borrowed of it should be refunded. His strength had been failing for years before, and he always travelled with a coffin among his baggage. He now felt his end approaching, took up his abode in the little town of Wels, and devoted his remaining days to religious exercises. There he died, on the 11th of January, 1519, in the sixtieth year of his age. CHAPTER XXV. THE REFORMATION. (1517--1546.)