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The Age of Political Experiments 309 upon high red heels, supported by amazing canes ; and still more wonderful " ladies," under towers of powdered hair and wearing vast expansions of silk and satin sustained on wire. Through it all postured the great Louis, the sun of his world, unaware of the meagre and sulky and bitter faees that watched him from those lower dark- nesses to which his sunshine did not penetrate. The German people remained politically divided throughout this period of the monarchies and experimental governments, and a con- siderable number of ducal and princely courts aped the splendours of Versailles on varying scales. The Thirty Years War (1618-48), a devastating scramble among the Germans, Swedes and Bohemians for fluctuating political ad'antages, sapped the eiiergies of Germany for a THE SACK OF A VILLAGE DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (From Callat's " D/ist'ns Jc la dunr") century. A map must show the crazy patchwork in which tins struggle ended, a map of Europe according to the Peace of West- phalia (1648). One sees a tangle of principalities, dukedoms, free states and the like, some partly in and partly out of the Empire. Sweden's arm, the reader will note, reached far into Germany ; and except for a few islands of territory within the imperial boundaries France was still far from the Rhine. Amidst this patchwork the Kingdom of Prussia — it became a Kingdom in 1701 — rose steadily to prominence and sustained a series of successful wars. Frederick the Great of Prussia (1740-86) had his Versailles at Potsdam, where his court spoke French, read French literature and rivalled the culture of the French King. In 1714 the Elector of Hanover became King of England, adding