It not unnaturally induced in superstitious or highly excited minds the belief that the end of the world was approaching, or that an entire new era had opened upon human affairs, to which nothing which had preceded it could furnish any thing like a parallel. According to the temper of their minds, men and women either believed that the dark prophecies of the Revelation were about to be accomplished, and that the great battle of Armageddon was to precede the advent of the Millennium, or that the era of commercial organisation and socialist felicity was approaching, and that all the miseries of mankind were to expire amidst the universal dominion of the people. In the midst of these general hopes and fears, more experienced or practical observers fixed their eyes on the spoliation of Austria by liberalised Piedmont; of Denmark, by revolutionised Prussia; and of Lithuania, by regenerated Poland; and drew the conclusion that human selfishness was the same in all times and ages; that pirates could sail under the red as well as the black flag, and that the fervour of Louis Blanc and Lamartine would terminate in a conflict as fierce, and disasters as wide-spread, as those which followed the visions of Siêyes, and the philanthropy of Robespierre. What is in a peculiar manner worthy of consideration in the overthrow, in so short a time, of so many of the established governments of Europe, is the facility with which they appear to have been overturned by sudden urban tumult, and the immediate submission of the whole provinces and remainder of the empire, the moment the ruling power in the capital was changed. It was not thus, in former days, either in France or any of the other European monarchies. Paris was often lost and won during the English wars, the contests of the League and the Fronde, but the provinces were not dismayed by the loss of the capital; and, in their fidelity, Charles VII. and Henry V. found the means of changing the scales of fortune, and again wresting it from the arms of rebels or strangers. Charles I. set up his standard at Northampton; and London, from the very outset of the conflict, was in the hands of the Long Parliament; but he found, in the fidelity of the northern and western counties, the means of maintaining for years a gallant conflict, in which victory more than once was on the verge of rendering triumphant the royalist cause. Berlin, during the Seven Years' War, was twice taken by the Russians; but Frederick the Great emerged victorious out of that terrible strife. Vienna, in the time of Maria Theresa, was wrested from her arms by the French and Bavarians; but she threw herself on the fidelity of the Hungarians, and, ere long, the standards of France were driven with disgrace behind the Rhine. The double capture of the same city by Napoleon did not determine the conflict between France and Austria; but a desperate struggle was subsequently maintained, with almost balanced success, at Austerlitz, Aspern, and Wagram.