Europe, since the treaty of Westphalia, had become a republic of perfectly balanced powers, where the general equilibrium of power resulting from each formed a counterpoise to the other.

One glance sufficed to show the solidity and unity of this European _building_, every beam of which, opposing an equal resistance to the others, afforded an equal support by the pressure of all the states.
Germany was a confederation presided over by Austria, the emperors were the chiefs only of this ancient feudalism of kings, dukes, and electors.
The house of Austria was more powerful through itself and its vast possessions than through the imperial dignity.

The two crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, the Tyrol, Italy, and the Low Countries, gave it an ascendency, which the genius of Richelieu had been able to fetter, but not to destroy.

Powerful to resist, but not to impel, Austria was more fitted to _sustain_ than to _act_; her force lies in her situation and immobility, for she is like a block in the middle of Germany,--her power is in her _weight_; she is the pivot of the balance of European power.
But the federative diet weakened and enervated its designs by those secret influences all federations naturally possess.

Two new states, unperceived until the time of Louis XIV., had recently risen, out of reach of the power, and the long rivalry of the houses of Bourbon and Austria: the one in the north of Germany, Prussia; the other in the east, Russia.