Austria was now the preponderating power in degenerate Italy.  Even those States which were not in subjection to the emperor, were overawed by his imperious spirit.  Genoa was nominally independent.  The Genoese arrested one of the imperial officers for some violation of the laws of the republic.  The emperor sent an army to the gates of the city, threatening it with bombardment and utter destruction.  They were thus compelled immediately to liberate the officer, to pay a fine 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.