Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/377

Rh HISTORY.] SAXONY 355 three million thalers. The wars and extravagance of the elector-king, who regained the Polish crown in 1709, are said to have cost Saxony a hundred million thalers. From this reign dates the privy council (Geheimes Kabinet), which lasted till 1830. The caste privileges of the estates (Stiinde) were increased by Augustus, a fact which tended to alienate them more from the people, and so to decrease their power. Bcittger made his famous discovery in 1710, and the manufacture of porcelain was begun at Meissen, and in this reign the Moravian Brethren made their settlement at Herrnhut (1722). Frederick Augustus II. (1733-1763), who succeeded his father in the electorate, and was afterwards elected to the throne of Poland as Augustus III., was an indolent prince, wholly under the influence of Graf von Briihl. Brlihl was an incompetent statesman and an extravagant financier, who yet contrived to amass large sums for his private purse. Under his ill- omened auspices Saxony sided with Prussia in the First Silesian War, and with Austria in the other two. It gained nothing in the first, lost much in the second, and in the third, the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), again became the scene of war and suffered renewed miseries. The country was deserted by its king and his minister, who retired to Poland. By the end of the war it had lost 90,000 men and a hundred million thalers ; its coinage was debased and its trade ruined ; and the whole country was in a state of frantic disorder. The elector died seven months after his return from Poland ; Briihl died twenty- three days later. The elector's son and successor, Frederick Christian, survived his father only two months, leaving a son, Frederick Augustus III. (1763-1827), a boy of thirteen. Prince Xaver, the elector's uncle, was appointed guardian, and he set himself to the sorely-needed work of healing the wounds of the country. The foundation of the famous school of mining at Freiberg, and the improve- ment of the Saxon breed of sheep by the importation of merino sheep from Spain, were due to his care. Frederick assumed the government in 1768, and in his long and eventful reign, which saw the electorate elevated to the dignity of a kingdom, though deprived of more than half its area, he won the surname of the Just. As he was the first king of Saxony, he is usually styled Frederick Augustus I. The first ten years of his active reign passed in peace and quiet.; agriculture, manufactures, and industries were fostered, economical reforms instituted ; and the heavy public debt of forty million thalers was steadily reduced. In 1770 torture was abolished. When the Bavarian succession fell open in 1777, Frederick Augustus joined Prussia in protesting against the absorp- tion of Bavaria by the Austrian emperor, and Saxon troops took part in the bloodless "potato-war." The elector commuted his claims in right of his mother, the Bavarian princess Maria Antonia, for six million florins, which he spent chiefly in redeeming Saxon territory that had been pawned to other German states. When Saxony joined the Fiirstenbund in 1785, it had an area of 15,185 square miles and a population of nearly 2,000,000, but its various parts had not yet been combined into a homogeneous whole, for the two Lusatias, Querfurt, Henneberg, and the ecclesiastical foundations of Naumburg and Merseburg had each a separate diet and government, independent of the diet of the electorate proper. In 1791 Frederick declined the crown of Poland, although it was now offered as hereditary even in the female line. He remembered how unfortunate for Saxony the former Polish connexion had been, and he mistrusted the attitude of Eussia towards the proffered kingdom. Next year saw the beginning of the great struggle between France and Germany. Frederick's conduct throughout was perhaps more pusillanimous than self-seeking, but it entailed its own punishment. His first policy was one of selfish abstention, and from 1793 until 1796, when he concluded a definite treaty of neutrality with France, he limited his contribution to the war to the bare contingent due_from him as a prince of the empire. When war broke out in 1806 against Napoleon, 22,000 Saxon troops shared the defeat of the Prussians at Jena, but the elector immediately afterwards snatched at Napoleon's offer of neutrality, and abandoned his former ally. At the peace of Posen (llth December 1806) Frederick entered the Confederation of the Rhine, assuming the title of king of Saxony, and promising a contingent of 20,000 men to Napoleon. No change followed in the internal affairs of the new kingdom, except that Roman Catholics were admitted to equal privileges with Protestants. Its foreign policy was dictated by the will of Napoleon, of whose irresistibility the king was too easily convinced. In 1807 his sub- mission was rewarded with the duchy of Warsaw and the district of Cottbus, though he had to surrender some of his former territory to the new kingdom of Westphalia. The king of Saxony's faith in Napoleon was momentarily shaken by the disasters of the Russian campaign, in which 21,000 Saxon troops had shared, and in 1813 he began to lean towards an alliance with Austria. Napoleon's victory at Liitzen (May 2, 1813), however, suddenly restored all his awe for that great general, and the Saxon king and the Saxon army were once more at the disposal of the French. After the battle of Bautzen, Napoleon's headquarters were successively at Dresden and Leipsic. During the decisive battle at the latter town in October 1813, the popular Saxon feeling was displayed by the desertion of the Saxon troops to the side of the allies. Frederick was taken prisoner in Leipsic, and the government of his kingdom was assumed for a year by the Russians, who promptly turned its resources against its late French ally. Saxony was now regarded as a conquered country. Nothing but Austria's vehement desire to keep a powerful neighbour at a distance from her boundaries, preserved it from being completely annexed by the Prussians, who had succeeded the Russians in the government. As it was, the congress of Vienna assigned the northern portion, consisting of 7800 square miles, with 864,404 inhabitants to Prussia, leaving 5790 square miles, with a population of 1,182,744 to Frederick, who was permitted to retain his royal title. He was forced to acquiesce in the dismemberment of his kingdom, and to console himself with the reflexion that his share, though the smaller half, was richer, more populous, and more beautiful than the other. From the partition in 1815 to the war of 1866 the history of Saxony is mainly a narrative of the slow growth of constitutionalism and popular liberty within its limits. Its influence on the general history of Europe ceased when the old German empire was dis- solved. In the new empire it is too completely overshadowed by Prussia to have any objective importance by itself. Frederick lived twelve years after the division of his kingdom. The com- mercial and industrial interests of the country continued to be fostered, but only a few of the most- unavoidable political reforms were granted. The fact that some of these had not been granted before is more significant than that they were granted now. Religious equality was extended to the Reformed Church in 1818, and the separate diet of Upper Lusatia abolished. Frederick Augustus was succeeded by his septuagenarian brother Antony (1827-1836), to the great disappointment of the people, who had expected a more liberal era under Prince Frederick Augustus, the king's nephew. Antony announced his intention of following the lines laid down by his predecessor. He accorded at first only a few trifling reforms, which were far from removing the popular discontent, while he retained the unpopular minister Einsiedel and continued the encouragement of the Roman Catholics. The old feudal arrangement of the diet, with its inconvenient divisions, was retained, and the privy council continued to be the depository of power. An active opposition began to make itself evident in the diet and in the press, and in 1830 riots in Leipsic and Dresden impressed the king with the necessity of concession. Einsiedel was cashiered, Prince Frederick Augustus assumed as co-regent, and a