The summing up—The probable future of Austria—The probable future of the House of Habsburg—Questions both personal and political which will be raised when Francis Joseph dies—The extent to which he has been “in the movement”—The faithful companion of his old age. Francis Joseph, at the moment of writing, has passed not only his eighty-third birthday, but the sixty-fifth anniversary of his accession. Since the death of the late Regent of Bavaria, he has been the _doyen_ of European rulers; and his reign has been longer than that of any modern monarch except Louis XIV., who came to the throne as a small child. His health is naturally the subject of constant preoccupation and infinite precaution on the part of his _entourage_; and last year he was kept indoors at Schönnbrunn from the middle of October until the middle of April. To what extent he is now able to govern, as well as to reign, only his Ministers know; but it is understood that, while they mobilise the army, he prays that there may be peace in his time. Most likely he will get his way. There prevails throughout Europe, as well as throughout Austria, a sentimental feeling that he has suffered enough, and that it would be cruel to disturb his last days with war or civil commotion. That sentiment may be expected to count for more than the impatience of those Ruthenian deputies who have taken to silencing their German rivals in the Reichsrath by banging gongs and sounding motor-horns. It might not be so if the problems to the discussion of which the sounding of those motor-horns is an emotional contribution were quite ripe for settlement; but the day of reckoning must still be deferred a little. It is not before the blowing of motor-horns that the walls of Jericho will fall down flat; and it is improbable that Francis Joseph will live to see the solution of the problem which their tumult heralds. Still, there the problem is; and we must take a final glance at it before we quit the subject. It is an old problem in a new form: a fresh presentation of the problem propounded by that Resettlement of Europe in 1815, which served as our historical starting-point—the problem arising out of the claims of ignored but inextinguishable nationalities. The shifting of the orientation of the Austrian outlook from the Italian to the Balkan peninsula, so often acclaimed as an act of wise statesmanship, has only restated that problem in a fresh shape. For the Italia Irredenta which was a thorn in the side of Austria in the past, it has substituted a Servia Irredenta which will prove a thorn in the side of Austria in the future.