he
vacant fief; and, in the choice of the candidate, it was his duty to
consult either the general or the provincial diet.

After the death of Frederic the Second, Germany was left a monster with
a hundred heads. A crowd of princes and prelates disputed the ruins of
the empire: the lords of innumerable castles were less prone to obey,
than to imitate, their superiors; and, according to the measure of their
strength, their incessant hostilities received the names of conquest
or robbery. Such anarchy was the inevitable consequence of the laws and
manners of Europe; and the kingdoms of France and Italy were shivered
into fragments by the violence of the same tempest. But the Italian
cities and the French vassals were divided and destroyed, while the
union of the Germans has produced, under the name of an empire, a
great system of a federative republic. In the frequent and at last the
perpetual institution of diets, a national spirit was kept alive, and
the powers of a common legislature are still exercised by the three
branches or colleges of the electors, the princes, and the free and
Imperial cities of Germany. I. Seven of the most powerful feudatories
were permitted to assume, with a distinguished name and rank, the
exclusive privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; and these electors
were the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of
Brandenburgh, the count palatine of the Rhine, and the three archbishops
of Mentz, of Treves, and of Cologne. II. The college of princes and
prelates purged themselves of a promiscuous multitude: they reduced to
four representative votes the long series of independent counts, and
excluded the nobles or equestrian order, sixty thousand of whom, as in
the Polish diets, had appeared on horseback in the field of election.
III. The pride of birth and dominion, of the sword and the mitre, wisely
adopted the commons as the third branch of the legislature, and, in the
progress of society, they were introduced about the same aera into the
national assemblies of France England, and Germany.

The Hanseatic League commanded the trade and navigation of the north:
the confederates of the Rhine secured the peace and intercourse of the
inland country; the influence of the cities has been adequate to their
wealth and policy, and their negative still invalidates the acts of the
two superior colleges of electors and princes. [149]

[Footnote 149: In the immense labyrinth of the jus publicum of G