moral as physical courage, and he took the responsibility of leading his army into Germany,—­a decision that, perhaps, no other commander of that time would have been equal to,—­and by the junction of his forces with those of Eugene was enabled to fight and win the battle of Blenheim (Blindheim), which put an end to the ascendency of France.  Emperor Leopold was positively grateful for the services Marlborough rendered him, and treated him differently from the manner in which he had treated Sobieski for doing him quite as great a favor.  He wrote him a letter in his own hand, gave him a lordship in fee, and made him, by the title of Mindelheim, a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

[31] As it is generally assumed that Richelieu got the better of the Empire in that contest which he waged with it, perhaps some readers may think we have gone too far in saying he was one of those antagonists of whom the Austrian family got the better; but all depends upon the point of view.  Richelieu died when the war was at its height, and did not live to see the success of his immediate policy; but what he did was only an incident in a long contest.  The old rivalry of the house of Valois and the house of Austria was continued after the former was succeeded by the house of Bourbon.  Richelieu did but carry out the policy on which Henry IV. had determined:  and when the two branches of the Austrian family had united their powers, and it seemed that the effect of their reunion would be to place Europe at their command, the great Cardinal-Duke had no choice but to follow the ancient course of France.  But the contest on which he entered, though in one sense fatal to his enemy, was not decided in his time, nor till he had been in his grave more than sixty years.  He died just before the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV., and that monarch took up and continued the contest which Richelieu may be said to have renewed.  For an unusually long period the Bourbons were successful, though without fully accomplishing their purpose.  From the battle of Rocroy, in 1643, to the battle of Blenheim, in 1704, France was the first nation of Europe, and the Bourbons could boost of having humiliated the Hapsburgs.  They obtained the crowns of Spain and the Indies; and the Spanish crowns are yet worn by a descendant of Louis le Grand, while another family reigns in France.  But Spain and her dependencies apart, all was changed by the result at Blenheim.  The Austrian house was there saved, and re-established; and it was there that the policy of Richelieu had its final decision.  The France of the old monarchy never recovered from the disasters its armies met with in the War of the Spanish Succession; and when Louis XV. consented to the marriage of his grandson to an Austrian princess, he virtually admitted that the old rival of his family had triumphed in the long strife.  The quarrel was again renewed in the days of the Republic, maintained under the first French Empire, and had its last trial of arms under