Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/830

816  by those of the Catholic communion; and founded seventeen monasteries.

the death of Charles VI. Maria-Theresa, his eldest daughter, married to Francis of Lorrain, Grand duke of Tuscany, claimed, by right of blood, and in virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, guaranteed by all the powers of Europe, the whole of the Austrian succession: this comprized the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, the provinces of Silesia, Suabia, Upper and Lower Austria, Stiria, Carinthia, Carniola, the forest towns, Burgaw, Brisgaw, the Low Countries, Friuli, Tirol, the duchy of Milan, and the duchies of Parma and Placentia. The wishes of the people immediately declared themselves, in the most unequivocal manner, in favour of their new sovereign, who from this unanimity derived her chief support. She received, at Vienna, the homage of the Austrian states; the Italian provinces, and kingdom of Bohemia, sent deputies to tender their oaths of allegiance; and she ingratiated herself with the Hungarians, by voluntarily taking the ancient oath of their sovereign, by which their subjects are allowed, if their privileges are invaded, to take up arms in their own defence, without being treated as rebels. Her first act of administration was to associate her husband in the government of her dominions, under the denomination of co-regent, in virtue of a diploma, first registered in all the Austrian tribunals, and afterwards in those of her other territories. But, resolved to fulfil the intentions of her father, she gave up no part of her sovereignty, nor violated, in the smallest degree, the provisions of the Pragmatic