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and has forfeited her throne in Germany.
Spain, a hundred years ago the first colonial empire in the world, has lost her colonies and conquests, and has sunk into a third-rate power.
France, which, little more than a hundred years ago, possessed Canada, Louisiana, the Mississippi valley, the island of Mauritius, and a stronghold in Hindoostan, has lost all these possessions and exchanged her vineyards and cornfields on the Rhine for the snows of Savoy and the sands of Algiers.
Piedmont and Prussia, on the other hand, have sprung into the foremost rank of nations.
Piedmont has become Italy, with a capital in Milan and Venice, Florence and Naples, as well as in Rome.
Still more striking and more glorious has been the growth of Prussia.
A hundred years ago Prussia was just emerging into notice as a small but well-governed and hard-fighting country, with a territory no larger than Michigan, and a population considerably less than Ohio.
In a hundred years this small but well-governed and hard-fighting Prussia has become the first military power on earth.
Russia, during these hundred years, has carried her arms into Finland, Crim Tartary, the Caucasus and the Mohammedan Khanates,
1875.
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