The necessary results of such a deplorable state of things are yet more apparent in the next reign,--the unhappy reign of Charles the Second,--which began with the troubles incident to a long minority, and ended with a failure in the regular line of succession, and a contest for the throne. It was a dreary period, with marks of dilapidation and ruin on all sides. Beginning at the southern borders of France, and following the coast by Barcelona and Gibraltar round to Cadiz, not one of the great fortresses, which were the keys of the kingdom, was in a state to defend itself against the most moderate force by which it might be assailed. On the Atlantic, the old arsenals, from which the Armada had gone forth, were empty; and the art of ship-building had been so long neglected, that it was almost, or quite lost.[264] And, in the capital and at court, the revenues of the country, which had long been exhausted and anticipated, were at last unable to provide for the common wants of the government, and sometimes even failed to furnish forth the royal table with its accustomed propriety; so that the envoy of Austria expressed his regret at having accepted the place of ambassador at a court where he was compelled to witness a misery so discreditable.[265] [264] Comentario de la Guerra de España, por el Marques de San Phelipe, Genova, s. a., 4to, Tom. I. Lib. II., año 1701. [265] Tapia, Hist. de la Civilizacion Española, Madrid, 1840, 12mo, Tom. III. p. 167. It was a new lesson to the world in the vicissitudes of empire. No country in Christendom had, from such a height of power as that which Spain occupied in the time of Charles the Fifth, fallen into such an abyss of degradation as that in which every proud Spaniard felt Spain to be sunk, when the last of the great House of Austria approached the grave, believing himself to be under the influence of sorcery, and seeking relief by exorcisms which would have disgraced the credulity of the Middle Ages;--all, too, at the time when France was jubilant with the victories of Condé, and England preparing for the age of Marlborough.[266] [266] The details--disgusting enough--are given by L. F. Moratin, in the notes to his edition of the “Auto da Fé de Logroño, del Año 1610,” a work originally published for general edification, by one of the persons concerned in the _auto_ itself, and certified to be true by others; but reprinted (Cadiz, 1812, 12mo) by Moratin, the comic poet, to show the ignorance and brutality of all who had a hand in it. There is a play on the subject by Gil y Zarate, 1837; but it does not respect the truth of history.