Gradually, however, an economic change took place, that first seized Western Europe and then reached into Germany also. The discovery of America, the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, the opening of the sea route of the East Indies, the further discoveries that hinged on these, and finally, the circumnavigation of the earth, revolutionized the life and views of the most advanced nations of Europe. The unthought-of rapid expansion of the world's commerce, called to life through the opening of ever newer markets for European industry and products, revolutionized the old system of handicraft. Manufacture arose, and thence flowed large production. Germany--so long held back in her material development by her religious wars and her political disintegration, which religious differences promoted,--was finally dragged into the stream of the general progress. In several quarters, large production developed under the form of manufacture: flax and wool-spinning and weaving, the manufacture of cloth, mining, the manufacture of iron, glass and porcelain, transportation, etc. Fresh labor power, female included, came into demand. But this newly rising form of industry met with the most violent opposition on the part of the craftsmen, ossified in the guild and medieval corporation system, who furiously fought every change in the method of production, and saw therein a mortal enemy. The French Revolution supervened. While casting aside the older order in France, the Revolution also carried into Germany a fresh current of air, which the old order could not for long resist. The French invasion hastened the downfall,--this side of the Rhine also--of the old, worn-out system. Whatever attempt was made, during the period of re-action after 1815, to turn back the wheels of time, the New had grown too strong, it finally remained victorious.