g, got rid of Philip's pretensions by promising to
resign to him the Austrian possessions in Swabia. This led to the fall
of Lerma, and to the reunion of the two branches of the Austrian house,
but for which it is probable Ferdinand II. might have been beaten in the
early days of the Thirty Years' War. It was to Spanish aid that
Ferdinand owed his early triumphs in that contest; and many years later,
in 1634, the great victory of Nordlingen was gained for the Imperialists
by the presence of ten thousand Spanish infantry in their army,--that
infantry which was still the first military body in Europe, not then
having met with the disaster of Rocroy, which, however, was near at
hand. This was a kind of Indian-summer revival of Spanish power, and at
the beginning of the new alliance between Madrid and Vienna, "there
appeared," says Ranke, "a prospect of founding a compact Spanish
hereditary dominion, which should directly link together Milan with the
Netherlands, and so give the Spanish policy a necessary preponderance in
the affairs of Europe." Richelieu spoilt this fine prospect just as it
seemed about to become a reality, and the Spanish Hapsburgs gradually
sank into insignificance, and their line disappeared in 1700, on the
death of Charles II., the most contemptible creature that ever wore a
crown, and scarcely man enough to be a respectable idiot. Such was the
termination of the great Austro-Burgundian dynasty that was founded by
Charles V.,--at one time as majestic as "the broad and winding Rhine,"
but again, like the Rhine, running fast to insignificance.

[30] If the house of Austria was not in the greatest danger it ever
experienced in 1704, its members and officers could affect to feel all
but absolutely desperate. The following letter, written in queer
German-French, by the Imperial Minister near the English court, Count
John Wenceslaus Wratislaw, to Queen Anne, conveys an almost ludicrous
idea of the fright under which the Austrian chiefs suffered:--"Madame,
Le soussigne envoye extraordinaire de sa Majeste Imperiale ayant
represente de vive voix en diverses occasions aux ministres de votre
Majeste la dure extremite dans laquelle se trouve l'Empire, par
l'introduction d'une armee nombreuse de Francois dans la Baviere,
laquelle jointe a la revolte de la Hongrie met les pais hereditaires de
sa Majeste Imperiale dans une confusion incroyable, de sorte que si l'on
n'apporte pas un remede prompt et proportionne au dan