A few years ago, an English gentleman dined with Prince Metternich, the illustrious prime minister of Austria, in his beautiful castle upon the Rhine.  As they stood after dinner at one of the windows of the palace, looking out upon the peasants laboring in the vineyards, Metternich, in the following words, developed his theory of social order: 

“Our policy is to extend all possible material happiness to the whole population; to administer the laws patriarchaly; to prevent their tranquility from being disturbed.  Is it not delightful to see those people looking so contented, so much in the possession of what makes them comfortable, so well fed, so well clad, so quiet, and so religiously observant of order?  If they are injured in persons or property, they have immediate and unexpensive redress before our tribunals, and in that respect, neither I, nor any nobleman in the land, has the smallest advantage over a peasant.”

But volcanic fires are heaving beneath the foundations of the Austrian empire, and dreadful will be the day when the eruption shall burst forth.

INDEX.

ADOLPHUS (of Nassau) election of over the Germanic empire, 36.
  summoned to answer charges against him, 37.
  deposed by the diet, 37.
  death of, 37.

ADRIAN assumes the tiara, 114.

AENEAS SYLVIUS, remarks of, 72.

AGNES (daughter of Cunegunda) to marry Rhodolph’s son, 31.
  engaged in the massacre, 40.
  enters a convent, 41.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, coronation of Albert I. at, 88.
  coronation of Charles V. at, 107.
  taken possession of by Rhodolph, 193.
  peace of, 461.

ALBERT (fourth Count of Hapsburg), 17.
  departure of for the holy war, 17.
  address of to his sons, 18.
  death of, 18.
  the favorite captain of Frederic II., 19.

ALBERT I. succeeds his father, 35.
  his character, 35.
  elected Emperor of Germany, 37.
  victor at Gelheim, 37.
  assassination of, 40.

ALBERT III. rules with Otho, 46.
  acquisitions of, 47.

ALBERT IV., succession of, 51.
  improvements projected by, 58.

ALBERT V. declared of age, 59.
  accepted King of Hungary, 62.
  death of, 65.

ALBERT (of Bavaria) declines the throne of Hungary, 66.

ALBERT (Archduke) the candidate of the Catholics, 229.

ALLIANCE of barons to crush Rhodolph of Hapsburg, 21.
  same dissolved, 22.

ALPHONSO (of Castile) candidate for crown of Germany, 23.

ALPHONSO (King of Naples), abdication of, 84.

AMURATH, conquests of, 64.

ANABAPTISTS, rise of the sect of, 115.

ANHALT (Prince of), dispatched with a list of grievances to the emperor,
    211.
  address to the emperor, 212.
  ban of the empire declared against, 265.

ANN (Princess of Hungary and Bohemia), marriage of to Ferdinand I., 145.