attention. There was one matter in particular about which the
French ministers anxiously expected him to say something, but
about which he observed strict silence. How to interpret that
silence they scarcely knew. They were certain only that it could
not be the effect of unconcern. They were well assured that the
subject which he so carefully avoided was never, during two
waking hours together, out of his thoughts or out of the thoughts
of his master. Nay, there was not in all Christendom a single
politician, from the greatest ministers of state down to the
silliest newsmongers of coffeehouses, who really felt that
indifference which the prudent Ambassador of England affected. A
momentous event, which had during many years been constantly
becoming more and more probable, was now certain and near.
Charles the Second of Spain, the last descendant in the male line
of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, would soon die without
posterity. Who would then be the heir to his many kingdoms,
dukedoms, counties, lordships, acquired in different ways, held
by different titles and subject to different laws? That was a
question about which jurists differed, and which it was not
likely that jurists would, even if they were unanimous, be
suffered to decide. Among the claimants were the mightiest
sovereigns of the continent; there was little chance that they
would submit to any arbitration but that of the sword; and it
could not be hoped that, if they appealed to the sword, other
potentates who had no pretension to any part of the disputed
inheritance would long remain neutral. For there was in Western
Europe no government which did not feel that its own prosperity,
dignity and security might depend on the event of the contest.

It is true that the empire, which had, in the preceding century,