Alpha Book

[Sidenote: Continued Prestige of the Habsburgs]
Despite these drawbacks, the Habsburg family was still powerful. The
natural resources and native wealth of many of the regions, the large,
if rather cosmopolitan, armies which might be raised, the intricate
marriage relationships with most of the sovereign families of Europe,
the championship of the Catholic Church, the absolutist principles and
practices of the reigning prince, all contributed to cloak the
weaknesses, under a proud name and pretentious fame, of the imperial
Austrian line.
[Sidenote: Question of the Habsburg Inheritance]
[Sidenote: The "Pragmatic Sanction" of Charles VI]
In the eighteenth century a particularly unkind fate seemed to attend
the Habsburgs. We have already noticed how the extinction of the male
line in the Spanish branch precipitated a great international war of
succession, with the result that the Spanish inheritance was divided
and the greater part passed to the rival Bourbon family. Now Charles VI
was obliged to face a similar danger in the Austrian inheritance.


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