The first prince who threatened to restore in fact if not in form the world-rule which had broken down in the Middle Ages was Charles V., the scion and pattern of the House of Hapsburg, whose career is the narrative of European politics from 1519 to 1556. France, which he threatened most, took the lead against him, began the long duel between Bourbon and Hapsburg, and thus guarded the liberties of Europe till the close of the Thirty Years’ War (1648). Then Louis XIV. threatened to make France in her turn mistress of the world. The equilibrium which he, as absolute ruler of the foremost State of Europe, seemed to have overthrown, was painfully re-established at Utrecht (1713). A new and greater Thirty Years’ War was thus brought to an end. It left the States weary and timid, dreading France as a century earlier they had dreaded Spain, clinging to peace lest the whole fabric of Europe should collapse and with it the gains which they had made or hoped to make should vanish. France, conscious of weakness in spite of the glories of Louis XIV., turned to diplomacy and won Lorraine. England, ridden on a loose rein by Walpole, followed her natural bent towards the sea. For Austria and the Hapsburg Charles VI., the great problem was to keep what had already been heaped together. Only Spain was not afraid to break the peace, and in the long run she gained parts of Italy by her boldness. Most of the territorial profits made by European Powers during the years 1713–1740 were made at the expense of Charles VI., either as head of the Hapsburgs or as Emperor. As it became certain that he would have no son, he grew more and more reckless in sacrificing the welfare of the Empire to that of his House. The future of his heir was indeed precarious. For there was not and never had been an Austria in the same sense in which there was an England, a France, or a Spain; that is, a well-knit nation, preferring ruin to dismemberment. “Austria” meant the dominions of the elder branch of the House of Hapsburg just as “Prussia” under Frederick I. meant the dominions of the elder branch of the House of Hohenzollern. In the case of the Hapsburg agglomeration, however, the subjects were too many, too miscellaneous, and too rich for the work of a Frederick William to be possible. Germans, Hungarians, and Italians were only the chief among a motley crowd of races which had come under the sceptre of Charles VI.’s ancestors and which he strained every nerve to hand down to his daughter undispersed.