of three hundred
thousand dollars, and to send a senator to Vienna with humble
expressions of contrition, and to implore pardon.

The kingdom of Sardinia was at this time the most powerful State in
Italy, if we except those united Italian States which now composed an
integral part of the Austrian empire. Victor Asmedeus, the energetic
king, had a small but vigorous army, and held himself ready, with this
army, for a suitable remuneration, to engage in the service of any
sovereign, without asking any troublesome questions as to the
righteousness of the expedition in which he was to serve. The Sardinian
king was growing rich, and consequently ambitious. He wished to rise
from the rank of a secondary to that of a primary power in Europe. There
was but one direction in which he could hope to extend his territories,
and that was by pressing into Lombardy. He had made the remark, which
was repeated to the emperor, "I must acquire Lombardy piece by piece, as
I eat an artichoke." Charles, consequently, watched Victor with a
suspicious eye.

The four great powers of middle and southern Europe were Austria,
England, France, and Spain. All the other minor States, innumerable in
name as well as number, were compelled to take refuge, openly or
secretly, beneath one or another of these great monarchies.

In France, the Duke of Orleans, the regent during the minority of Louis
XV., whose court, in the enormous expenditures of vice, exhausted the
yearly earnings of a population of twenty millions, was anxious to unite
the Bourbon' branches of France and Spain in more intimate alliance. He
accordingly affianced the young sovereign of France to Mary Anne,
daughter of Philip V. of Spain. At the same time he married his own
daughter to the king's oldest son, the Prince of Asturias, who was heir
to the throne. Mary Anne, to whom the young king was affianced, was only
four years of age.

The personal history of the monarchs of Europe is, almost without
exception, a melancholy history. By their ambition and their wars they
whelmed the cottages in misery, and by a righteous retribution misery
also inundated the palace. Philip V. became the victim of the most
insupportable melancholy. Earth had no joy which could lift the cloud of
gloom from his soul. For months he was never known to smile. Imprisoning
himself in his palace he refused to see any company, and left all the
cares of government in the hands of his wife, Elizabeth Farnese.

Ge