dissensions arising out of questions fundamentally insoluble, and in spite of the constant threat of external complications that may lead to war, the Habsburg monarchy as the result of the changes in the 19th and 20th centuries is seemingly stronger than ever. The shadow of universal claims to empire and sonorous but empty titles have vanished, but so have the manifold rivalries and entanglements which accompanied the Habsburg rule in Italy and the Netherlands and Habsburg preponderance in Germany. The monarchy is stronger because its sphere is more defined; because as preserving the pax Romana among the jostling races of eastern Europe, it is more than ever recognized as an essential element in the maintenance of European peace, and is recognized as necessary and beneficial even by the ambitious and restless nationalities that chafe under its rule.
A few words must be said about the cadet branches of the Habsburg family. When, in 1765, Francis I. died and Joseph II. became emperor, the grand-duchy of Tuscany passed by special arrangement not to Joseph, but to his younger brother Leopold. Then in 1791, after Leopold had succeeded Joseph as emperor, he handed over the grand-duchy to his second son, Ferdinand (1769–1824). In 1801 this prince was deposed by Napoleon and Tuscany was seized by France. Restored to the Habsburgs in the person of Ferdinand in 1814, it remained under his rule, and then under that of his son Leopold (1797–1870), until the rising of 1859, when the Austrians were driven out and the grand-duchy was added to the kingdom of Sardinia. A similar fate attended the duchy of Modena, which had passed to the Habsburgs through the marriage of its heiress Mary Beatrice of Este (d. 1829) with the archduke Ferdinand (1754–1806), brother of the emperor Leopold II. From 1814 to 1846 this duchy was governed by Ferdinand’s son, Duke Francis IV., and from 1846 to 1859 by his grandson, Francis V. This family became extinct on the death of Francis V. in 1875.
In addition to his successor Francis II., and to Ferdinand, grand-duke of Tuscany, the emperor Leopold II. had eight sons, five of whom, including the archduke John (1782–1859), who saw a good deal of service during the Napoleonic Wars and was chosen regent (Reichsverweser) of Germany in 1848, have now no living male descendants. Thus the existing branches of the family are descended from Leopold’s five other sons. The descendants of Leopold, the dispossessed grand-duke of Tuscany, were in 1909 represented by his son, Ferdinand (b. 1835), who still claimed the title of grand-duke of Tuscany, and his son and grandsons; by the numerous descendants of the archduke Charles Salvator (1830–1892); and by the archduke Louis Salvator (b. 1847), a great traveller and a voluminous writer. The grand-duke’s fourth son was the archduke John Nepomuck Salvator, who, after serving in the Austrian army, resigned all his rights and titles and under the name of Johann Orth took command of a sailing vessel. He is supposed to have been drowned off the coast of South America in 1891, but reports of his continued existence were circulated from time to time after that date. Of the emperor Leopold’s other sons the archduke Charles, perhaps the most distinguished soldier of the family, left four sons, including Albert, duke of Teschen (1817–1895), who inherited some of his father’s military ability. Charles’s family was in 1909 represented by his grandsons, the sons of the archduke Charles Ferdinand (1818–1874). The archduke Joseph (1776–1847), palatine of Hungary, was represented by a grandson, Joseph Augustus (b. 1872), and the archduke Rainer (1783–1853), viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia, by a son Rainer (b. 1827), and by several grandsons.
The eldest and reigning branch of the family was in 1909 represented by the emperor Francis Joseph, whose father was the archduke Francis Charles (1802–1878), and whose grandfather was the emperor Francis II. Francis Joseph’s only son Rudolph died in 1889; consequently the heir to the Habsburg monarchy was the emperor’s nephew Francis Ferdinand (b. 1863), the eldest of the three sons of his brother Charles Louis (1833–1896). In 1875 Francis Ferdinand inherited the wealth of the Este family and took the title of archduke of Austria-Este; in 1900 he contracted a morganatic marriage with Sophia, countess of Chotek, renouncing for his sons the succession to the monarchy. Thus after Francis Ferdinand this would pass to the sons of his brother, the archduke Otto (1865–1906). One of the emperor’s three brothers was Maximilian, emperor of Mexico from 1863 to 1867.
With the exception of Charles V. the Habsburgs have produced no statesmen of great ability, while several members of the family have displayed marked traces of insanity. Nevertheless they secured, and for over 350 years they kept, the first place among the potentates of Europe; a dignity in origin and theory elective becoming in practice hereditary in their house. This position they owe to some extent to the tenacity with which they have clung to the various lands and dignities which have passed into their possession, but they owe it much more to a series of fortunate marriages and opportune deaths. The union of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, of Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Spain, of Ferdinand and Anna of Hungary and Bohemia; the death of Ottakar of Bohemia, of John, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, of Louis of Hungary and Bohemia—these are the corner-stones upon which the Habsburg monarchy has been built.
For the origin and early history of the Habsburgs see G. de Roo, Annales rerum ab Austriacis Habsburgicae gentis principibus a Rudolpho I. usque ad Carolum V. gestarum (Innsbruck, 1592, fol.); M. Herrgott, Genealogia diplomatica augustae gentis Habsburgicae (Vienna, 1737–1738); E. M. Fürst von Lichnowsky, Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1836–1844); A. Schulte, Geschichte der Habsburger in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Innsbruck, 1887); T. von Liebenau, Die Anfänge des Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1883); W. Merz, Die Habsburg (Aarau, 1896); W. Gisi, Der Ursprung der Häuser Zähringen und Habsburg (1888); and F. Weihrich, Stammtafel zur Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1893). For the history of the Habsburg monarchy see Langl, Die Habsburg und die denkwürdigen Stätten ihrer Umgebung (Vienna, 1895); and E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe (1881). Two English books on the subject are J. Gilbart-Smith, The Cradle of the Hapsburgs (1907); and A. R. and E. Colquhoun, The Whirlpool of Europe, Austria-Hungary and the Hapsburgs (1906). (A. W. H.*)
HACHETTE, JEAN NICOLAS PIERRE (1769–1834), French
mathematician, was born at Mézières, where his father was a
bookseller, on the 6th of May 1769. For his early education
he proceeded first to the college of Charleville, and afterwards
to that of Reims. In 1788 he returned to Mézières, where he
was attached to the school of engineering as draughtsman to
the professors of physics and chemistry. In 1793 he became
professor of hydrography at Collioure and Port-Vendre. While
there he sent several papers, in which some questions of navigation
were treated geometrically, to Gaspard Monge, at that time
minister of marine, through whose influence he obtained an
appointment in Paris. Towards the close of 1794, when the
École Polytechnique was established, he was appointed along
with Monge over the department of descriptive geometry.
There he instructed some of the ablest Frenchmen of the day,
among them S. D. Poisson, F. Arago and A. Fresnel. Accompanying
Guyton de Morveau in his expedition, earlier in the
year, he was present at the battle of Fleurus, and entered
Brussels with the French army. In 1816, on the accession of
Louis XVIII., he was expelled from his chair by government.
He retained, however, till his death the office of professor in the
faculty of sciences in the École Normale, to which he had been
appointed in 1810. The necessary royal assent was in 1823
refused to the election of Hachette to the Académie des Sciences,
and it was not till 1831, after the Revolution, that he obtained
that honour. He died at Paris on the 16th of January 1834.
Hachette was held in high esteem for his private worth, as well
as for his scientific attainments and great public services. His
labours were chiefly in the field of descriptive geometry, with its
application to the arts and mechanical engineering. It was left
to him to develop the geometry of Monge, and to him also is due
in great measure the rapid advancement which France made soon
after the establishment of the École Polytechnique in the
construction of machinery.
Hachette’s principal works are his Deux Supplements à la Géométrie descriptive de Monge (1811 and 1818); Éléments de géométrie à trois dimensions (1817); Collection des épures de géométrie, &c.
