America was openly delighted, not only by the consideration which the Pope shewed in addressing Her next to England but, by the pungent vivid validity of His remarks. She said that He had a dead cinch on things, that He was on to His job, that as a skypilot He suited Her to a gnat's bristle; and She began to regard Him with close attention. The death of Francis Joseph, Austrian Emperor and King of Hungary, in September, had its not unexpected consequences. The confusion of Europe was worse confounded by conflict between Hungarian national sentiment and the Pan-germanic League. Francis Joseph's successor did not inspire his multilingual subjects with the same respectful devotion as that which had been paid to the old Emperor on account of the triple prestige of his dignity, his long reign, his many sorrows. Hungary cried for a Magyar king. Bohemia cried for a Czech king. Russian Poland also cried aloud for a Polish king; and German Poland would have cried with her, had she dared. As it was, she opened longing eyes and waited. The Germans of Austria appealed to the German Emperor to come to their aid and take them into his mailed fist. The Habsburgh dynasty was tottering. Servia was a small hell. Turkey and Roumania viewed the prospect of Germany's expansion with favour: Turkey, because she found it easy to outwit the Teuton: Roumania, because the power by whose favour she existed was possessed by devils. Albania, Montenegro, and Greece, strongly disapproved: they prized their individual national existence, and the idea of being reduced to dependency upon the Gothic Michael did not suit them. The distracted state of Austria, and her inability to keep her obligations to Germany and Italy, caused the lapse of the Triple Alliance. Yet Italy made no sign and Germany made no sign. There was an interval of intense and silent vigilance.