If Charles II. had no child, and his two sisters had renounced their claims, it was clear that there was no descendant of Philip IV. who could make out a valid title by descent and law. Recourse must be had to the descendants of Philip III. [Sidenote: =Claim of the Emperor.=] Here again the question lay between two sisters, for Philip IV. was the only son. The elder daughter of Philip III. was Anne of Austria, the wife of Louis XIII. and the mother of Louis XIV. of France, but she, like her niece Maria Theresa, had expressly renounced her claims to the crown of Spain upon her marriage. The younger daughter, Maria, had married the Emperor Ferdinand III., and was therefore the mother of the Emperor Leopold I., who was the living representative of her rights. She had made no renunciation whatever, and the Emperor Leopold accordingly maintained that by the combined effect of descent and law he and he alone was the rightful inheritor of the Spanish monarchy. But Leopold was much too sensible to dream for a moment that Europe would permit the resuscitation of the empire of Charles V., just as Louis XIV. was too sensible to dream of uniting the crowns of France and Spain upon the same head, and he passed on his rights to his second son the archduke Charles, just as Louis and the Dauphin passed on theirs to the second son of the Dauphin, Philip duke of Anjou. [Sidenote: =Legal difficulties of the question.=] A more difficult problem has rarely presented itself to statesmen. The simplest solution no doubt was to be found in the purely legal view of the matter taken by the Emperor Leopold. The renunciations had been legally made, and they must be considered legally valid, otherwise there was no sure basis of procedure at all. But whatever force might be attributed to an argument of this sort with reference to the renunciations of Anne of Austria and Maria Theresa, it was very difficult to admit its validity in the case of Maria Antonia, and permit a father to profit by a renunciation, which he himself had imposed upon his own daughter in her extreme youth and in contemplation of marriage. Yet how could any one maintain the invalidity of the renunciation of Maria Antonia on account of parental influence, and the validity of that of Maria Theresa, when it was an admitted fact that the consideration for the latter, _i.e._ the dowry, had never been paid? But then, if the renunciations were to be considered invalid, there was no question as to the right of the Dauphin to the whole succession, and Europe would find itself face to face with a danger far greater than the resuscitation of the empire of Charles V. [Sidenote: =Political difficulties.=]