Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/836

822 and Emperor of Germany, 1745, by the title of Francis I.

The French sought to deprive Theresa of some of her Italian territories; but having placed her consort on the Imperial throne, and concluded a treaty with her most formidable opponent, she would not quietly submit to their dismemberment. Marshal Saxe, and Prince Charles of Lorrain, brother to the Emperor, headed the different armies, which were alternately successful. Germany, England, Sardinia, Holland, and part of Italy, against France, Spain, and Genoa; until at length the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored peace to the distracted continent.

But the empress queen, mortified at her inability to make peace with the King of Prussia, without sacrificing Silesia, harbouring the liveliest resentment against that monarch, determined, whenever a favourable opportunity should occur, to have recourse to arms, for the recovery of the territory she had been obliged to cede. Influenced by these motives, she ceased to consider France as her rival; and a flexible policy even induced her to court the alliance. At first the Queen made some vague remarks, in a conversation with the French chargé d'affaires, on the difference between the present situation of the houses of Bourbon and Austria, and that which two centuries before had armed them against each other; and added, that the equilibrium was now so perfectly established, that it was the interest of neither to overturn it, and that their union would ensure the tranquillity of Europe, or that, if any inferior powers should attempt to overturn it, the two courts would have both right and ability to reduce them to submission. But finding the court of France at first averse to her design, she supendedsuspended [sic] her projects, but did not