When Europe was settled, after his fall, Austria acquired the right to stand between England and Russia, as their equal; and down to 1848 she was the superior of both France and Prussia.  The events of 1848-49 did not essentially lessen her prestige, and she had a commanding place during the Russian war.  Even her defeats in the Italian war did not lead to any serious loss of consideration, and against them was set the striking fact that the victorious French had halted before the Quadrilateral, and actually had begged for peace from the vanquished.

We know how deceptive were all appearances in regard to Austrian strength; but it was in the power of Austrian statesmen to convert what was simply apparent into a solid reality.  Had they been wise men, they would, during the long peace that followed 1815, have made of Austria a state as powerful in fact as the world believed her to be.  Nothing could have been easier, as her undeveloped resources ever have been vast; but they did nothing of the kind, their sole aim being to get over the present, without any regard for the future.  Hermayr says of Thugut, who was chief Austrian minister in the closing years of the last century, that “his policy knew neither virtue nor vice, only expedients”; and these words describe the policy of Metternich completely, and, with perhaps a little modification, they describe that of all his successors.  So that when the Prussian war came, Austria was in the same state that she was in 1809,—­seemingly very strong, actually very weak; and she fell in a month, with a great ruin, much to the astonishment of almost all men.  But the difference between 1809 and 1866 is this,—­that the light let into Austria through chinks made by the Prussian bayonet will prevent the game of deception from being renewed.

It is assumed by most persons, that the house of Austria has at last reached the turn of its fortunes, and that, having been beaten down by Prussia, it never will be able to rise again.  This is the reaction against the sentiment that prevailed so generally at the beginning of last summer, just before the first blood was drawn in that war which proved so disastrous to Austria.  In America, as in England, not only was it assumed that the Austrians had the better cause, but that the better chances of success were clearly with them.  Black and yellow would distance black and white, and the two-headed eagle would tear and rend the single-headed eagle, thus affording another proof that two heads are better than one.  Now, all is changed.  In England, opinion is setting almost as strongly Prussiaward as it did in 1815, though the Prussians and the Prussian government have made no apologies for those ungracious acts against Englishmen which it was the fashion to cite as evidence of the dislike borne to the islanders by the countrymen of Bismarck.  Captain Heehaw, of the Coldstreams, who thought—­really, ’pon honor—­that the Prussians would not be able to look half their