the desolated country was wearisome, and
many great proprietors had no old family interest in their property.
Besides the Imperial nobles, sons of German princes and many of the old
nobility of the Empire thronged to the Imperial city, to seek
diversion, acquaintances, and fortune at court or in the army.

But in proportion as the devotion of the noble servant to his mistress
was great, the hope of a happy conjugal union was insecure. And the
prospect was not more favourable in the families of the great princes
of the Empire.

The rulers of Germany attained to a comfortable condition, after the
peace, sooner than others. Whatever could be done by the people, seemed
to be for their advantage. To the old taste for drinking, hunting, and
not always very seemly intercourse with women, was now added the
pleasure of having a body guard who were drawn up in uniform before
their castles, and rode by their carriages along the roads. After the
war every great prince maintained a standing army; the old feudal lords
of the country had become Generals. It was in this century that the
great princely families of Germany, the Wettiners, the Hohenzollerns,
the Brunswickers, and the Wittelsbachers, gained their influential
position in European politics. Three of them obtained royal thrones,
those of Poland, Prussia, and England, and the head of the
Wittelsbachers for many years wore the diadem of the Roman Empire. Each
of these houses represents a great European dynasty. But however
different their fortunes may have been, they have also met with a
retributive fate. At the time of the Reformation, the Imperial throne
with supreme dominion over Germany was offered to the house of
Wettiner; the family, divided into two lines, did not listen to the
high call. At the battle of Linien, in 1547, it lost the leadership. A
hundred years later, the possibility of founding a powerful house was
offered to the Wittelsbacher, by the union of the Palatinate with the
old Bavarian province and Bohemia, which even the Hapsburgers have
never attained to. But one son of the house killed the other at the
Weissen Berge. Only the Hapsburgers and the Hohenzollerns have
understood how to keep together.

The general misfortune of the German Princes was, that they found
little in their oppressed subjects to excite awe or regard. For the
soul of man is most easily fortified against encroaching passions when
his worldly position makes a strong resistance possible