RHODOLPH III. AND MATTHIAS.
From 1609 to 1612.
Difficulties as to the Succession.--Hostility of Henry IV. to the House
of Austria.--Assassination of Henry IV.--Similarity in Sully's and
Napoleon's Plans.--Exultation of the Catholics.--The Brothers'
Compact.--How Rhodolph Kept It.--Seizure of Prague.--Rhodolph a
Prisoner.--The King's Abdication.--Conditions Attached to the
Crown.--Rage of Rhodolph.--Matthias Elected King.--The Emperor's
Residence.--Rejoicings of the Protestants.--Reply of the
Ambassadors.--The Nuremburg Diet.--The Unkindest Cut of All.--Rhodolph's
Humiliation And Death.
And now suddenly arose another question which threatened to involve all
Europe in war. The Duke of Cleves, Juliers, and Berg died without issue.
This splendid duchy, or rather combination of duchies, spread over a
territory of several thousand square miles, and was inhabited by over a
million of inhabitants. There were many claimants to the succession, and
the question was so singularly intricate and involved, that there were
many who seemed to have an equal right to the possession. The emperor,
by virtue of his imperial authority, issued an edict, putting the
territory in sequestration, till the question should be decided by the
proper tribunals, and, in the meantime, placing the territory in the
hands of one of his own family as administrator.
This act, together with the known wishes of Spain to prevent so
important a region, lying near the Netherlands, from falling into the
hands of the Protestants, immediately changed the character of the
dispute into a religious contest, and, as by magic, all Europe wheeled
into line on the one side or the other, Every other question was lost
sight of, in the all-absorbing one, Shall the duchy fall into the hands
of the Protestants or the Catholics?
Henry IV. of France zealously espoused the cause of the Protestants. He
was very hostile to the house of Austria for the assistance it had lent
to that celebrated league which for so many years had deluged France in
blood, and kept Henry IV. from the throne; and he was particularly
anxious to humble that proud power. Though Henry IV., after fighting for
many years the battles of Protestantism, had, from motives of policy,
avowed the Romish faith, he could never forget his mother's
instructions, his early predilections and his old friends and
supporters, the Protestants; and his sympathies were always with them.
Henry IV., as sagacious and energetic as he was ambitious, saw that he
could never expect a more favorable moment to strike the house of
Austria than the one then presented. The Emperor Rhodolph was weak, and
universally unpopular, not only with his own subjects, but throughout
Germany. The Protestants were all inimical to him, and he was involved
in desperate antagonism with his energetic brother Matthias. Still he
was a formidable foe, as, in a war involving religious questions, he
could rally around him all the Catholic powers of Europe.
Henry IV., preparatory to pouring his troops into the German empire,
entered into secret negotiations with England, Denmark, Switzerland,
Venice, whom he easily purchased with offers of plunder, and with the
Protestant princes of minor power on the continent. There were not a
few, indifferent upon religious matters, who were ready to engage in any
enterprise which would humble Spain and Austria. Henry collected a large
force on the frontiers of Germany, and, with ample materials of war, was
prepared, at a given signal, to burst into the territory of the empire.
The Catholics watched these movements with alarm, and began also to
organize. Rhodolph, who, from his position as emperor, should have been
their leader, was a wretched hypochondriac, trembling before imaginary
terrors, a prey to the most gloomy superstitions, and still concealed in
the secret chambers of his palace. He was a burden to his party, and was
regarded by them with contempt. Matthias was watching him, as the tiger
watches its prey. To human eyes it would appear that the destiny of the
house of Austria was sealed. Just at that critical point, one of those
unexpected events occurred, which so often rise to thwart the deepest
laid schemes of man.
On the 14th of May, 1610, Henry IV. left the Louvre in his carriage to
visit his prime minister, the illustrious Sully, who was sick. The city
was thronged with the multitudes assembled to witness the triumphant
entry of the queen, who had just been crowned. It was a beautiful spring
morning, and the king sat in his carriage with several of his nobles,
the windows of his carriage being drawn up. Just as the carriage was
turning up from the rue St. Honore into the rue Ferronnerie, the passage
was found blocked up by two carts. The moment the carriage stopped, a
man sprung from the crowd upon one of the spokes of the wheel, and
grasping a part of the coach with his right hand, with his left plunged
a dagger to the hilt into the heart of Henry IV. Instantly withdrawing
it, he repeated the blow, and with nervous strength again penetrated the
heart. The king dropped dead into the arms of his friends, the blood
gushing from the wound and from his mouth. The wretched assassin, a
fanatic monk, Francis Ravaillac, was immediately seized by the guard.
With difficulty they protected him from being torn in pieces by the
populace. He was reserved for a more terrible fate, and was subsequently
put to death by the most frightful tortures human ingenuity could
devise.
The poniard of the assassin changed the fate of Europe. Henry IV. had
formed one of the grandest plans which ever entered the human mind.
Though it is not at all probable that he could have executed it, the
attempt, with the immense means he had at his disposal, and with his
energy as a warrior and diplomatist, would doubtless have entirely
altered the aspect of human affairs. There was very much in his plan to
secure the approval of all those enlightened men who were mourning over
the incessant and cruel wars with which Europe was ever desolated. His
intention was to reconstruct Europe into fifteen States, as nearly
uniform in size and power as possible. These States were, according to
their own choice, to be monarchical or republican, and were to be
associated on a plan somewhat resembling that of the United States of
North America. In each State the majority were to decide which religion,
whether Protestant or Catholic, should be established. The Catholics
were all to leave the Protestant States, and assemble in their own. In
like manner the Protestants were to abandon the Catholic kingdoms. This
was the very highest point to which the spirit of toleration had then
attained. All Pagans and Mohammedans were to be driven out of Europe
into Asia. A civil tribunal was to be organized to settle all national
difficulties, so that there should be no more war. There was to be a
standing army belonging to the confederacy, to preserve the peace, and
enforce its decrees, consisting of two hundred and seventy thousand
infantry, fifty thousand cavalry, two hundred cannon, and one hundred
and twenty ships of war.
This plan was by no means so chimerical as at first glance it might seem
to be. The sagacious Sully examined it in all its details, and gave it
his cordial support. The coöperation of two or three of the leading
powers would have invested the plan with sufficient moral and physical
support to render its success even probable. But the single poniard of
the monk Ravaillac arrested it all.
The Emperor Napoleon I. had formed essentially the same plan, with the
same humane desire to put an end to interminable wars; but he had
adopted far nobler principles of toleration. "One of my great plans,"
said he at St. Helena, "was the rejoining, the concentration of those
same geographical nations which have been disunited and parcelled out by
revolution and policy. There are dispersed in Europe upwards of thirty
millions of French, fifteen millions of Spaniards, fifteen millions of
Italians, and thirty millions of Germans. It was my intention to
incorporate these several people each into one nation. It would have
been a noble thing to have advanced into posterity with such a train,
and attended by the blessings of future ages. I felt myself worthy of
this glory.
"After this summary simplification, it would have been possible to
indulge the chimera of the _beau ideal_ of civilization. In this state
of things there would have been some chance of establishing in every
country a unity of codes, of principles, of opinions, of sentiments,
views and interests. Then perhaps, by the help of the universal
diffusion of knowledge, one might have thought of attempting in the
great human family the application of the American Congress, or the
Amphictyons of Greece. What a perspective of power, grandeur, happiness
and prosperity would thus have appeared.
"The concentration of thirty or forty millions of Frenchmen was
completed and perfected. That of fifteen millions of Spaniards was
nearly accomplished. Because I did not subdue the Spaniards, it will
henceforth be argued that they were invincible, for nothing is more
common than to convert accident into principle. But the fact is that
they were actually conquered, and, at the very moment when they escaped
me, the Cortes of Cadiz were secretly in treaty with me. They were not
delivered either by their own resistance or by the efforts of the
English, but by the reverses which I sustained at different points, and,
above all, by the error I committed in transferring my whole forces to
the distance of three thousand miles from them. Had it not been for
this, the Spanish government would have been shortly consolidated, the
public mind would have been tranquilized, and hostile parties would have
been rallied together. Three or four years would have restored the
Spaniards to profound peace and brilliant prosperity. They would have
become a compact nation, and I should have well deserved their
gratitude, for I should have saved them from the tyranny by which they
are now oppressed, and the terrible agitations which await them.
"With regard to the fifteen millions of Italians, their concentration
was already far advanced; it only wanted maturity. The people were daily
becoming more firmly established in the unity of principles and
legislation, and also in the unity of thought and feeling--that certain
and infallible cement of human thought and concentration. The union of
Piedmont to France, and the junction of Parma, Tuscany and Rome, were,
in my mind, only temporary measures, intended merely to guarantee and
promote the national education of the Italians. The portions of Italy
that were united to France, though that union might have been regarded
as the result of invasion on our part, were, in spite of their Italian
patriotism, the very places that continued most attached to us.
"All the south of Europe, therefore, would soon have been rendered
compact in point of locality, views, opinions, sentiments and interests.
In this state of things, what would have been the weight of all the
nations of the North? What human efforts could have broken through so
strong a barrier? The concentration of the Germans must have been
effected more gradually, and therefore I had done no more than simplify
their monstrous complication. Not that they were unprepared for
concentralization; on the contrary, they were too well prepared for it,
and they might have blindly risen in reaction against us before they had
comprehended our designs. How happens it that no German prince has yet
formed a just notion of the spirit of his nation, and turned it to good
account? Certainly if Heaven had made me a prince of Germany, amid the
critical events of our times I should infallibly have governed the
thirty millions of Germans combined; and, from what I know of them, I
think I may venture to affirm that if they had once elected and
proclaimed me they would not have forsaken me, and I should never have
been at St. Helena.
"At all events," the emperor continued, after a moment's pause, "this
concentration will be brought about sooner or later by the very force of
events. The impulse is given, and I think that since my fall and the
destruction of my system, no grand equilibrium can possibly be
established in Europe except by the concentration and confederation of
the principal nations. The sovereign who in the first great conflict
shall sincerely embrace the cause of the people, will find himself at
the head of Europe, and may attempt whatever he pleases."
Thus similar were the plans of these two most illustrious men. But from
this digression let us return to the affairs of Austria. With the death
of Henry IV., fell the stupendous plan which his genius conceived, and
which his genius alone could execute. The Protestants, all over Europe,
regarded his death as a terrible blow. Still they did not despair of
securing the contested duchy for a Protestant prince. The fall of Henry
IV. raised from the Catholics a shout of exultation, and they redoubled
their zeal.
The various princes of the house of Austria, brothers, uncles, cousins,
holding important posts all over the empire, were much alarmed in view
of the peril to which the family ascending was exposed by the feebleness
of Rhodolph. They held a private family conference, and decided that the
interests of all required that there should be reconciliation between
Matthias and Rhodolph; or that, in their divided state, they would fall
victims to their numerous foes. The brothers agreed to an outward
reconciliation; but there was not the slightest mitigation of the rancor
which filled their hearts. Matthias, however, consented to acknowledge
the superiority of his brother, the emperor, to honor him as the head of
the family, and to hold his possessions as fiefs of Rhodolph intrusted
to him by favor. Rhodolph, while hating Matthias, and watching for an
opportunity to crush him, promised to regard him hereafter as a brother
and a friend.
And now Rhodolph developed unexpected energy, mingled with treachery and
disgraceful duplicity. He secretly and treacherously invited the
Archduke Leopold, who was also Bishop of Passau and Strasbourg, and one
of the most bigoted of the warrior ecclesiastics of the papal church, to
invade, with an army of sixteen thousand men, Rhodolph's own kingdom of
Bohemia, under the plea that the wages of the soldiers had not been
paid. It was his object, by thus introducing an army of Roman Catholics
into his kingdom, and betraying into their hands several strong
fortresses, then to place himself at their head, rally the Catholics of
Bohemia around him, annul all the edicts of toleration, crush the
Protestants, and then to march to the punishment of Matthias.
The troops, in accordance with their treacherous plan, burst into Upper
Austria, where the emperor had provided that there should be no force to
oppose them. They spread themselves over the country, robbing the
Protestants and destroying their property with the most wanton cruelty.
Crossing the Danube they continued their march and entered Bohemia.
Still Rhodolph kept quiet in his palace, sending no force to oppose, but
on the contrary contriving that towns and fortresses, left defenseless,
should fall easily into their hands. Bohemia was in a terrible state of
agitation. Wherever the invading army appeared, it wreaked dire
vengeance upon the Protestants. The leaders of the Protestants hurriedly
ran together, and, suspicious of treachery, sent an earnest appeal to
the king.
The infamous emperor, not yet ready to lay aside the vail, called Heaven
to witness that the irruption was made without his knowledge, and
advised vigorous measures to repel the foe, while he carefully thwarted
the execution of any such measures. At the same time he issued a
proclamation to Leopold, commanding him to retire. Leopold understood
all this beforehand, and smiling, pressed on. Aided by the treason of
the king, they reached Prague, seized one of the gates, massacred the
guard, and took possession of the capital. The emperor now came forward
and disclosed his plans. The foreign troops, holding Prague and many
other of the most important towns and fortresses in the kingdom, took
the oath of allegiance to Rhodolph as their sovereign, and he placed in
their hands five pieces of heavy artillery, which were planted in
battery on an eminence which commanded the town. A part of Bohemia
rallied around the king in support of these atrocious measures.
But all the Protestants, and all who had any sympathy with the
Protestants, were exasperated to the highest pitch. They immediately
dispatched messengers to Matthias and to their friends in Moravia,
imploring aid. Matthias immediately started eight thousand Hungarians on
the march. As they entered Bohemia with rapid steps and pushed their way
toward Prague they were joined every hour by Protestant levies pouring
in from all quarters. So rapidly did their ranks increase that Leopold's
troops, not daring to await their arrival, in a panic, fled by night.
They were pursued on their retreat, attacked, and put to flight with the
loss of two thousand men. The ecclesiastical duke, in shame and
confusion, slunk away to his episcopal castle of Passau.
The contemptible Rhodolph now first proposed terms of reconciliation,
and then implored the clemency of his indignant conquerors. They turned
from the overtures of the perjured monarch with disdain, burst into the
city of Prague, surrounded every avenue to the palace, and took Rhodolph
a prisoner. Soon Matthias arrived, mounted in regal splendor, at the
head of a gorgeous retinue. The army received him with thunders of
acclaim. Rhodolph, a captive in his palace, heard the explosion of
artillery, the ringing of bells and the shouts of the populace,
welcoming his dreaded and detested rival to the capital. It was the 20th
of March, 1611. The nobles commanded Rhodolph to summon a diet. The
humiliated, degraded, helpless emperor knew full well what this
signified, but dared not disobey. He summoned a diet. It was immediately
convened. Rhodolph sent in a message, saying,
"Since, on account of my advanced age, I am no longer capable of
supporting the weight of government, I hereby abdicate the throne, and
earnestly desire that my brother Matthias may be crowned without delay."
The diet were disposed very promptly to gratify the king in his
expressed wishes. But there arose some very formidable difficulties. The
German princes, who were attached to the cause which Rhodolph had so
cordially espoused, and who foresaw that his fall threatened the
ascendency of Protestantism throughout the empire, sent their
ambassadors to the Bohemian nobles with the menace of the vengeance of
the empire, if they proceeded to the deposition of Rhodolph and to the
inauguration of Matthias, whom they stigmatized as an usurper. This
unexpected interposition reanimated the hopes of Rhodolph, and he
instantly found such renovation of youth and strength as to feel quite
able to bear the burden of the crown a little longer; and consequently,
notwithstanding his abdication, through his friends, all the most
accomplished mechanism of diplomacy, with its menaces, its bribes, and
its artifice were employed to thwart the movements of Matthias and his
friends.
There was still another very great difficulty. Matthias was very
ambitious, and wished to be a sovereign, with sovereign power. He was
very reluctant to surrender the least portion of those prerogatives
which his regal ancestors had grasped. But the nobles deemed this a
favorable opportunity to regain their lost power. They were disposed to
make a hard bargain with Matthias. They demanded--1st, that the throne
should no longer be hereditary, but elective; 2d, that the nobles should
be permitted to meet in a diet, or congress, to deliberate upon public
affairs whenever and wherever they pleased; 3d, that all financial and
military affairs should be left in their hands; 4th, that although the
king might appoint all the great officers of state, they might remove
any of them at pleasure; 5th, that it should be the privilege of the
nobles to form all foreign alliances; 6th, that they were to be
empowered to form an armed force by their own authority.
Matthias hesitated in giving his assent to such demands, which seemed to
reduce him to a cipher, conferring upon him only the shadow of a crown.
Rhodolph, however, who was eager to make any concessions, had his agents
busy through the diet, with assurances that the emperor would grant all
these concessions. But Rhodolph had fallen too low to rise again. The
diet spurned all his offers, and chose Matthias, though he postponed his
decision upon these articles until he could convene a future and more
general diet. Rhodolph had eagerly caught at the hope of regaining his
crown. As his messengers returned to him in the palace with the tidings
of their defeat, he was overwhelmed with indignation, shame and despair.
In a paroxysm of agony he threw up his window, and looking out upon the
city, exclaimed,
"O Prague, unthankful Prague, who hast been so highly elevated by me;
now thou spurnest at thy benefactor. May the curse and vengeance of God
fall upon thee and all Bohemia."
The 23d of May was appointed for the coronation. The nobles drew up a
paper, which they required Rhodolph to sign, absolving his subjects from
their oath of allegiance to him. The degraded king writhed in helpless
indignation, for he was a captive. With the foolish petulance of a
spoiled child, as he affixed his signature in almost an illegible
scrawl, he dashed blots of ink upon the paper, and then, tearing the pen
to pieces, threw it upon the floor, and trampled it beneath his feet.
It was still apprehended that the adherents of Rhodolph might make some
armed demonstration in his favor. As a precaution against this, the city
was filled with troops, the gates closed, and carefully guarded. The
nobles met in the great hall of the palace. It was called a meeting of
the States, for it included the higher nobles, the higher clergy, and a
few citizens, as representatives of certain privileged cities. The
forced abdication of Rhodolph was first read. It was as follows:--
"In conformity with the humble request of the States of our kingdom, we
graciously declare the three estates, as well as all the inhabitants of
all ranks and conditions, free from all subjection, duty and obligation;
and we release them from their oath of allegiance, which they have taken
to us as their king, with a view to prevent all future dissensions and
confusion. We do this for the greater security and advantage of the
whole kingdom of Bohemia, over which we have ruled six-and-thirty years,
where we have almost always resided, and which, during our
administration, has been maintained in peace, and increased in riches
and splendor. We accordingly, in virtue of this present voluntary
resignation, and after due reflection, do, from this day, release our
subjects from all duty and obligation."
Matthias was then chosen king, in accordance with all the ancient
customs of the hereditary monarchy of Bohemia. The States immediately
proceeded to his coronation. Every effort was made to dazzle the
multitude with the splendors of the coronation, and to throw a halo of
glory around the event, not merely as the accession of a new monarch to
the throne, but as the introduction of a great reform in reinstating the
nation in its pristine rights.
While the capital was resounding with these rejoicings, Rhodolph had
retired to a villa at some distance from the city, in a secluded glen
among the mountains, that he might close his ears against the hateful
sounds. The next day Matthias, fraternally or maliciously, for it is not
easy to judge which motive actuated him, sent a stinging message of
assumed gratitude to his brother, thanking him for relinquishing in his
brother's favor his throne and his palaces, and expressing the hope that
they might still live together in fraternal confidence and affection.
Matthias and the States consulted their own honor rather than Rhodolph's
merits, in treating him with great magnanimity. Though Rhodolph had
lost, one by one, all his own hereditary or acquired territories,
Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, he still retained the imperial crown of
Germany. This gave him rank and certain official honors, with but little
real power. The emperor, who was also a powerful sovereign in his own
right, could marshal his own forces to establish his decrees. But the
emperor, who had no treasury or army of his own, was powerless indeed.
The emperor was permitted to occupy one of the palaces at Prague. He
received an annual pension of nearly a million of dollars; and the
territories and revenues of four lordships were conferred upon him.
Matthias having consolidated his government, and appointed the great
officers of his kingdom, left Prague without having any interview with
his brother, and returned to his central capital at Vienna, where he
married Anne, daughter of his uncle Ferdinand of Tyrol.
The Protestants all over the German empire hailed these events with
public rejoicing. Rhodolph had been their implacable foe. He was now
disarmed and incapable of doing them any serious injury. Matthias was
professedly their friend, had been placed in power mainly as their
sovereign, and was now invested with such power, as sovereign of the
collected realms of Austria, that he could effectually protect them from
persecution. This success emboldened them to unite in a strong,
wide-spread confederacy for the protection of their rights. The
Protestant nobles and princes, with the most distinguished of their
clergy from all parts of the German empire, held a congress at
Rothenburg. This great assembly, in the number, splendor and dignity of
its attendants, vied with regal diets. Many of the most illustrious
princes of the empire were there in person, with imposing retinues. The
emperor and Matthias both deemed it expedient to send ambassadors to the
meeting. The congress at Rothenburg was one of the most memorable
movements of the Protestant party. They drew up minute regulations for
the government of their confederacy, established a system of taxation
among themselves, made efficient arrangements for the levying of troops,
established arsenals and magazines, and strongly garrisoned a fortress,
to be the nucleus of their gathering should they at any time be
compelled to appeal to arms.
Rhodolph, through his ambassadors, appeared before this resplendent
assembly the mean and miserable sycophant he ever was in days of
disaster. He was so silly as to try to win them again to his cause. He
coaxed and made the most liberal promises, but all in vain. Their reply
was indignant and decisive, yet dignified.
"We have too long," they replied, "been duped by specious and deceitful
promises. We now demand actions, not words. Let the emperor show us by
the acts of his administration that his spirit is changed, and then, and
then only, can we confide in him."
Matthias was still apprehensive that the emperor might rally the
Catholic forces of Germany, and in union with the pope and the
formidable power of the Spanish court, make an attempt to recover his
Bohemian throne. It was manifest that with any energy of character,
Rhodolph might combine Catholic Europe, and inundate the plains of
Germany with blood. While it was very important, therefore, that
Matthias should do every thing he could to avoid exasperating the
Catholics, it was essential to his cause that he should rally around him
the sympathies of the Protestants.
The ambassadors of Matthias respectfully announced to the congress the
events which had transpired in Bohemia in the transference of the crown,
and solicited the support of the congress. The Protestant princes
received this communication with satisfaction, promised their support in
case it should be needed, and, conscious of the danger of provoking
Rhodolph to any desperate efforts to rouse the Catholics, recommended
that he should be treated with brotherly kindness, and, at the same
time, watched with a vigilant eye.
Rhodolph, disappointed here, summoned an electoral meeting of the
empire, to be held at Nuremburg on the 14th of December, 1711. He hoped
that a majority of the electors would be his friends. Before this body
he presented a very pathetic account of his grievances, delineating in
most melancholy colors the sorrows which attend fallen grandeur. He
detailed his privations and necessities, the straits to which he was
reduced by poverty, his utter inability to maintain a state befitting
the imperial dignity, and implored them, with the eloquence of a
Neapolitan mendicant, to grant him a suitable establishment, and not to
abandon him, in his old age, to penury and dishonor.
The reply of the electors to the dispirited, degraded, downtrodden old
monarch was the unkindest cut of all. Much as Rhodolph is to be
execrated and despised, one can hardly refrain from an emotion of
sympathy in view of this new blow which fell upon him. A deputation sent
from the electoral college met him in his palace at Prague. Mercilessly
they recapitulated most of the complaints which the Protestants had
brought against him, declined rendering him any pecuniary relief, and
requested him to nominate some one to be chosen as his successor on the
imperial throne.
"The emperor," said the delegation in conclusion, "is himself the
principal author of his own distresses and misfortunes. The contempt
into which he has fallen and the disgrace which, through him, is
reflected upon the empire, is derived from his own indolence and his
obstinacy in following perverse counsels. He might have escaped all
these calamities if, instead of resigning himself to corrupt and
interested ministers, he had followed the salutary counsels of the
electors."
They closed this overwhelming announcement by demanding the immediate
assembling of a diet to elect an emperor to succeed him on the throne of
Germany. Rhodolph, not yet quite sufficiently humiliated to officiate as
his own executioner, though he promised to summon a diet, evaded the
fulfillment of his promise. The electors, not disposed to dally with him
at all, called the assembly by their own authority to meet on the 31st
of May.
This seemed to be the finishing blow. Rhodolph, now sixty years of age,
enfeebled and emaciated by disease and melancholy, threw himself upon
his bed to die. Death, so often invoked in vain by the miserable, came
to his aid. He welcomed its approach. To those around his bed he
remarked,
"When a youth, I experienced the most exquisite pleasure in returning
from Spain to my native country. How much more joyful ought I to be when
I am about to be delivered from the calamities of human nature, and
transferred to a heavenly country where there is no change of time, and
where no sorrow can enter!"
In the tomb let him be forgotten.