It profited from the greatness of the
Hapsburgs in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,--a
greatness which is among the most extraordinary things recorded in
history.
Should the history of royal marriages ever be written in a manner
proportioned to its importance, a large part of the work would have to
be given to the marriages made by various princes of the house of
Austria; for those marriages had prodigious effect on the condition of
the best portions of the human race, and in the sixteenth century it
seemed that they were about to bring, not only most of Europe, but
nearly all America, a large part of Asia, and not a little of Africa
under the rule of one family, and that family by no means superior to
that of Valois or the Plantagenets. The extraordinary luck of the house
of Austria in turning marriage into a source of profit was early
remarked; and in the latter part of the fifteenth century, long before
the best of the Austrian matrimonial alliances were made, Matthias
Corvinus, the greatest of Hungarian kings, wrote a Latin epigram on the
subject, which was even more remarkable as a prediction than as a
statement of fact; for it was as applicable to the marriage of Napoleon
I. and Maria Louisa, and to that of Philip the Fair and Juana the
Foolish, as it was to that of Maximilian and Mary.
Pages:
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284