tedious squabbles on matters the most frivolous. Many sittings were consumed in the discussion of a question regarding the time of keeping Easter, more ridiculous than that which had distracted the Western churches in the seventh century, the Protestants refusing to reckon by the reformed calendar because it was the work of a Pope. Collective action through the old organs was confessed impossible, when the common object of defence against France was sought by forming a league under the Emperor's presidency, and when at European congresses the Empire was not represented at all[381]. No change could come from the Emperor, whom the capitulation of A.D. 1658 deposed _ipso facto_ if he violated its provisions. As Dohm[382] said, to keep him from doing harm, he was kept from doing anything. [Sidenote: Leopold I, 1658-1705.] [Sidenote: Joseph I, 1705-1711.] [Sidenote: Charles VI, 1711-1742.] [Sidenote: The Hapsburg Emperors and their policy.] [Sidenote: Causes of the long retention of the throne by Austria.] [Sidenote: Charles VII, 1742-1745.] [Sidenote: Francis I, 1745-1765.] [Sidenote: Seven Years' War.] [Sidenote: Joseph II, 1765-1790.] [Sidenote: Leopold II, 1790-1792. Last phase of the Empire.] [Sidenote: The Diet.] Yet little was lost by his inactivity, for what could have been hoped from his action? From the election of Albert the Second, A.D. 1437, to the death of Charles the Sixth, A.D. 1742, the sceptre had remained in the hands of one family. So far from being fit subjects for undistinguishing invective, the Hapsburg Emperors may be contrasted favourably with the contemporary dynasties of France, Spain, or England. Their policy, viewed as a whole from the days of Rudolf downwards, had been neither conspicuously tyrannical, nor faltering, nor dishonest. But it had been always selfish. Entrusted with an office which might, if there be any power in those memories of the past to which the champions of hereditary monarchy so constantly appeal, have stirred their sluggish souls with some enthusiasm for the heroes on whose throne they sat, some wish to advance the glory and the happiness of Germany, they had cared for nothing, sought nothing, used the Empire as an instrument for nothing but the attainment of their own personal or dynastic ends. Placed on the eastern verge of Germany, the Hapsburgs had added to their ancient lands in Austria proper and Tyrol, non-German territories far more extensive, and had thus become the chiefs of a separate and independent state. They endeavoured to reconcile its interests with the interests of the Empire, so long as it seemed possible to recover part of the old imperial prerogative. But when such hopes were dashed by the defeats of the Thirty Years' War, they hesitated no longer between an elective crown and the rule of their hereditary states, and comported themselves thenceforth in European politics not as the representatives of Germany, but as heads of the great Austrian monarchy. There would