Political Evolution. 61 



respect a development which it reached nowhere else ; 

 namely, in the number of its spiritual rulers who held 

 direct civil sway, the various prince-bishops and arch- 

 bishops, such as those of Cologne, Mayence, Salzburg, 

 etc., etc. Besides this, the kaisers had a certain sanctity 

 of authority recognised by the ecclesiastical power beyond 

 that of any other temporal ruler. According to the 

 generally received opinion of the Middle Ages there was 

 but one supreme temporal lord of Christendom the 

 emperor, as there was but one supreme spiritual lord 

 the pope ; and it was in this widely diffused belief 

 that the emperors in their struggles with the pontiffs 

 found, perhaps, their main support. 



With the weakening of the Christian theocracy waned 

 also the power of the Holy Roman emperor, the inde- 

 pendence of subordinate princes in Germany increasing, 

 while elsewhere the central powers were strengthening 

 themselves at the expense of the various subordinate 

 local authorities. 



The movement of the Reformation, the subsequent 

 religious struggles, and the rise of Prussia, completed, as 

 every one knows, the real destruction of the old system. 

 Thus, when the Corsican despot finally put an end to 

 that venerable imperial dignity, he really caused to dis- 

 appear but the shadow of a shade. He little thought, 

 however, of the Nemesis he was conjuring up, and how 

 the chronic disease of Germany would be cured and its 



