The empire continued to live for more than five centuries with varying fortunes, in nominal
connection with Rome and at the head of the secular powers in Christendom, but without controlling
influence over the fortunes of the papacy and the course of Europe. Occasionally it sent forth a
gleam of its universal aim, as under Henry VII., who was crowned in Rome and hailed by Dante
as the saviour of Italy, but died of fever (if not of poison administered by a Dominican monk in the
sacramental cup) in Tuscany (1313); under Sigismund, the convener and protector of the oecumenical
Council at Constance which deposed popes and burned Hus (1414), a much better man than either
the emperor or the contemporary popes; under Charles V. (1519–1558), who wore the crown of
Spain and Austria as well as of Germany, and on whose dominions the sun never set; and under
Joseph II. (1765–1790), who renounced the intolerant policy of his ancestors, unmindful of the
pope’s protest, and narrowly escaped greatness.^260 But the emperors after Rudolf, with a few
exceptions, were no more crowned in Rome, and withdrew from Italy.^261 They were chosen at
Frankfort by the Seven Electors, three spiritual, and four temporal: the archbishops of Mentz,
Treves, and Cologne, the king of Bohemia, and the Electors of the Palatinate, Saxony, and
Brandenburg (afterwards enlarged to nine). The competition, however, was confined to a few
powerful houses, until in the 15th century the Hapsburgs grasped the crown and held it tenaciously,
with one exception, till the dissolution. The Hapsburg emperors always cared more for their
hereditary dominions, which they steadily increased by fortunate marriages, than for Germany and
the papacy.
The Decline and Fall of the Empire.
Many causes contributed to the gradual downfall of the German empire: the successful
revolt of the Swiss mountaineers, the growth of the independent kingdoms of Spain, France, and
England, the jealousies of the electors and the minor German princes, the discovery of a new
Continent in the West, the invasion of the Turks from the East, the Reformation which divided the
German people into two hostile religions, the fearful devastations of the thirty years’ war, the rise
of the house of Hohenzollern and the kingdom of Prussia on German soil with the brilliant genius
of Frederick II., and the wars growing out of the French Revolution. In its last stages it became a
mere shadow, and justified the satirical description (traced to Voltaire), that the Holy Roman Empire
was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. The last of the emperors, Francis II., in August 6th,
1806, abdicated the elective crown of Germany and substituted for it the hereditary crown of Austria
as Francis I. (d. 1835).
Thus the holy Roman empire died in peace at the venerable age of one thousand and six
years.
The Empire of Napoleon.
Napoleon, hurled into sudden power by the whirlwind of revolution on the wings of his
military genius, aimed at the double glory of a second Caesar and a second Charlemagne, and
(^260) The pope Pius VI. even made a journey to Vienna, but when he extended his hand to the minister Kaunitz to kiss, the
minister took it and shook it. Joseph in turn visited Rome, and was received by the people with the shout: "Evviva il nostro
imperatore!"
(^261) Dante (Purgat. VII. 94) represents Rudolf of Hapsburg as seated gloomily apart in purgatory, and mourning his sin
of neglecting
"To heal the wounds that Italy have slain."
Weary of the endless strife of domestic tyrants and factions in every city, Dante longed for some controlling power
that should restore unity and peace to his beloved but unfortunate Italy. He expounded his political ideas in his work De
Monarchia.