The Wars of Religion 651 (1643-17 1 5), showed that a new period had begun in which the military and political supremacy of Spain was to give way to that of France .(see Chapter XXVIII). The participants in the war were now so numerous and their Close of the objects so various and conflicting that it is not strange that it var/i64?'^^ required some years to arrange the conditions of peace, even after every one was ready for it. It was agreed (1644) that France and the Empire should negotiate at Miinster, and the Emperor and the Swedes at Osnabriick — both of which towns lie in Westphalia. For four years the representatives of the several powers worked upon the difficult problem of satisfying every one, but at last the treaties of Westphalia were signed late in 1648. The religious troubles in Germany were settled by extending Provisions the toleration of the Peace of Augsburg so as to include the treaties of Calvinists as well as the Lutherans. The Protestant princes ^^estphaha were to retain the lands which they had in their possession in the year 1624, regardless of the Edict of Restitution, and each ruler was still to have the right to determine the religion of his state. The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was practi- cally acknowledged by permitting the individual states to make treaties among themselves and with foreign powers ; this was equivalent to recognizing the practical independence which they had, as a matter of fact, already long enjoyed. While portions of northern Germany were ceded to Sweden, this territory did not cease to form a part of the Empire, for Sweden was thereafter to have three votes in the German diet. The Emperor also ceded to France three important towns — Metz, Verdun, and Toul — and all his rights in Alsace, although the city of Strassburg was to remain with the Empire. Lastly, the independence both of the United Netherlands and of Switzer- land was acknowledged. The accounts of the misery and depopulation of Germany Disastrous caused by the Thirty Years' War are well-nigh incredible, the war in Thousands of villages were wiped out altogether ; in some ^e"""^^"/
