This prominent situation was maintained, in spite of the fall of the Burgundian dynasty, when, through the marriage of Mary of Burgundy with Maximilian, Belgium passed under the sway of the Hapsburg dynasty. Under Charles V, Antwerp inherited the prosperity of Bruges, and became the principal centre of European commerce. It was visited every year by 2,500 ships, and the amount of commercial transactions made through its exchange was valued at forty million ducats per year. Even after the disastrous wars of religion which separated the Northern Netherlands, or United Provinces, from the southern provinces, and ruined for two centuries the port of Antwerp, there was a short respite, under the wise rule of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella (1598-1633), during which the art of Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens threw a last glamour on Belgium's falling greatness. This rapid sketch of the happy periods of Belgian history would not be complete if we did not allude to the wonderful recovery made by the country as soon as the Powers granted her the right to live as an independent State after the unhappy experiment of the joint Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830). Her population increased twofold. The Scheldt was reopened and Antwerp regained most of its previous trade. At the time of the German invasion modern Belgium occupied the first rank in Europe with regard to the density of her population, the yield of her fields per acre, the development of her railway system and the importance of her special trade per head of inhabitants. In spite of her small area, she occupied the fifth rank among the great trading nations of the world, and the names of Maeterlinck, Verhaeren, Cesar Franck and Meunier show that she had reconquered a great part of her former intellectual prestige. There is one striking resemblance between all periods of Belgian development. Whether in the ninth, the thirteenth, the fifteenth or the nineteenth century, they express the civilization of the time, and succeed in producing a typical example of essentially European culture, imperial under Charlemagne, communal in the Middle Ages, centralized under national princes during the Renaissance, highly industrialized and colonial in modern times. This trait must be considered when Belgium is represented as the "kernel of Europe," as combining the spirit of the North, East and South. It is not enough to say that the country seems predestined to this task by her geographical position and her duality of race and language bringing together the so-called "Germanic" and "Latin" tendencies; it must be added that, whenever historical circumstances allowed it, the people made full use of such advantages. Whether under local princes, or under foreign princes who understood Belgian interests, given peace conditions at home and abroad, the country never failed to rise to the occasion.