In 1703 the French troops, under General Vendome, entered Tyrol from the South and unsuccessfully besieged Trent on their way northward to Austria; and at the same time the Bavarians overran the country by routes which they had traversed from almost time immemorial when making their periodic raids upon the Tyrolese. For a considerable period the invaders were successful, and many villages and castles of the Unter-Innthal and contiguous districts were destroyed. The capture of the capital was the cause of the uprising of the Landsturm, or general levy of the peasants; and during 1703 a number of fierce engagements were fought between these ill-armed but brave Tyrolese and the Bavarian and French troops. One of the most noted battles was that which took place immediately after the Tyrolese had destroyed the Pontlatz Bridge which spanned the River Inn, by which the Bavarians were about to cross. In this engagement the latter, under the leadership of the Elector Maximilian Emmanuel, were utterly routed by a much inferior force of the Landsturm, and driven back from North Tyrol. Following up this success the Tyrolese concentrated their energies upon the French force under General Vendome which they compelled to retire into Italy. The Emperor Leopold I., not wishing to reside for any length of time at Innsbruck, had created the office of Statthalter or Governor of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, an office which has been filled ever since till the present day, with the exception of the period of the French and Bavarian wars with Austria in the early part of the last century. The Emperor did not live to see the ultimate triumph of his forces. He died in 1705, and was succeeded by his sons Joseph I. and Charles VI. On the death of the latter in 1740, owing to the fact that with him the Austrian male line became extinct, the Empress Maria Theresa ruled in his stead. During her long reign the Vorarlberg became an integral part of Tyrol owing to the fact that it was an Imperial fief which reverted to the Crown by natural process on the extinction of the line of feoffees. Maria Theresa and her husband the Emperor Francis I. came to Innsbruck in 1765 for the wedding of their son Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany (afterwards the Emperor Leopold II.), with Maria Ludovica, daughter of Charles III., King of Spain. The Tyrolese and the Innsbruckers gave a warm welcome to their sovereigns, and the festivities were upon a most magnificent scale. The gaiety was destined, however, to be clouded and put an end to by the sudden death of the Emperor (husband of Maria Theresa), who expired at the palace immediately after his return from the Italian Opera. It was he, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, also Grand Duke of Tuscany, who founded the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, which still rules over the Austro-Hungarian Empire. [Sidenote: REFORMS OF JOSEPH II.]