It was he too who, by the secularization on the one hand and by the dismemberment of Wurttemberg on the other, gave the grand-duke 50o,000 new subjects.
As Sweden was known to be exhausted by the long wars of Gustavus Adolphus and his successors, and weakened by internal dissensions, the dismemberment seemed an easy matter, and Peter embarked on the scheme with a light heart; but his illusions were quickly dispelled by the eccentric young Swedish king, Charles XII., who arrived suddenly in Esthonia and completely routed the Russian army before Narva.
The rapid formation of this land empire, and the obvious intention to expand, called the attention not only of Italy but of Europe to this power which seemed destined to become supreme in north Italy, and eventually led to the league of Cambrai for the dismemberment of Venice.
To all these advantages he added a political purpose - the dismemberment of the British empire - which was entirely congenial to every citizen of France.
They called attention to the fact that the Germans in earlier days were deaf to such requests; they saw in them a " dismemberment of the country," and asserted that in the central public departments of Vienna, too, the Czechs did not occupy a number of official positions in proportion to their population.