They got rid of the local assemblies or greatly
curtailed their privileges, and gradually established petty tyrannies.
After the Thirty Years' War, it became fashionable for the heirs of
German principalities to travel and especially to spend some time at
the court of France. Here they imbibed the political ideas of the Grand
Monarch, and in a short time nearly every petty court in the Germanics
was a small-sized reproduction of the court of Versailles. In a silly
and ridiculous way the princes aped their great French neighbor: they
too maintained armies, palaces, and swarms of household officials,
which, though a crushing burden upon the people, were yet so
insignificant in comparison with the real pomp of France, that they
were in many instances the laughingstock of Europe. Beneath an external
gloss of refinement, these princes were, as a class, coarse and
selfish, and devoid of any compensating virtues. Neither the common
people, whom they had impoverished, nor the Church, which they had
robbed, was now strong enough to resist the growing absolutism and
selfishness of the princes.
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