Another paragraph is necessary to complete the Austrification and the Spanification of Italy. The Medici of Tuscany died out. After the first Grand Duke, Cosimo, six successors had followed, dwindling away in incapacity, luxury, and bigotry. The last died in 1737. Then, by virtue of that general reapportionment after the war of the Polish Succession, the Grand Duchy was handed over to the Duke of Lorraine, husband of Maria Theresa, of the House of Hapsburg, Empress of Austria, and became an appanage of the Austrian Empire, under the rule of the younger sons of the Imperial house. It is a relief to turn from these Austrian and Spanish provinces to the two living powers, Savoy and the Papacy. _Savoy_ It would be impossible to chronicle here the history of the Savoyard dukes, who were advanced to the title of Kings of Sardinia after the acquisition of that island. Savoy lay in the way of the three fighting nations, France, Spain, and Austria. The plain of Piedmont was an admirable fighting-ground, and the combatants chose it on all possible occasions, but it would not be fair to charge the whole blame upon those three nations. The Dukes of Savoy were ambitious men, full of all sorts of schemes for increasing their dominions and their personal glory. Whenever any one of them thought he perceived an opportunity to seize some neighbouring territory, he caught at it, reckless of collision with his powerful neighbours. The general upshot was that Savoy lost its old Swiss provinces and its old French provinces, and that Piedmont became the head and front of the new Kingdom of Sardinia. Equally important to Italy was the fact that, while the people of the other Italian provinces became more and more incapable of bearing arms or of making any real martial effort, the people of Piedmont gradually became a nation of soldiers. In devastation, war, and apparent ruin, Piedmontese valour and Piedmontese character were trained and developed, and Piedmont little by little came to feel, and likewise to impress upon the other Italian States, that she, and she alone, was the refuge and hope of whatever Italian patriotism might still exist. _The Papacy_