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MAR loyalty she was speedily compelled to have recourse. The Austrian treasury exhausted, the imperial army disorganized, and the possibility of a disputed succession, seemed to present the dominions of the young queen an easy prey to all her neighbours, few of whom but had some claim on the coveted inheritance. The king of France was descended from an Austrian princess; the elector of Bavaria was of the blood of the Emperor Ferdinand I., and had married a daughter of Joseph I.; while the elector of Saxony, as the husband of the eldest daughter of Joseph I., had a still stronger claim to the possessions of the house of Hapsburg. The first aggression upon the integrity of the queen's territories, however, came from one who had no claim of this kind. Frederick II. had become king of Prussia a few months before Maria Theresa ascended the throne. With a rich treasury, an admirably disciplined army, and a great desire for distinction, this monarch revived an ancient claim to certain provinces of Silesia, and in the month of December, 1740, marched into that country at the head of thirty thousand men. He had little difficulty in driving the small Austrian army of occupation into Moravia, and he then wrote in friendly language to the duke of Lorraine, requesting the cession of Lower Silesia. The reply of the indignant queen was an army of twenty-four thousand men, under the command of Marshal Neipperg, who, crossing the mountains, entered Silesia. On the 10th of April Frederick, by forced marches and under cover of a snow-storm, surprised Neipperg at Molovitz, where a desperate battle ensued, which, after the king had quitted the field with a crowd of fugitives, ended in the defeat of the Austrians. This disaster increased the number of the queen's enemies on the continent, but excited great sympathy for her in England, where a subsidy of £300,000 and an auxiliary force of twelve thousand men were voted to her by parliament. A private subscription, to which the duchess of Marlborough contributed £40,000, was offered to Maria Theresa, but declined. Holland, too, was friendly to Austria; but the other courts of Europe inclined towards the conqueror of Silesia. The Austrian queen indignantly refused to cede an inch of ground, or even to negotiate while there was a Prussian soldier in Silesia. In June, 1741, Frederick concluded a secret treaty with France, and a French army under Maillebois, marching towards Hanover, terrified King George into an agreement of neutrality for one year. Another French army, joining the Bavarian forces, reduced the city of Linz, where the elector of Bavaria was inaugurated duke of Austria; and declared war against Maria Theresa by the name of grand-duchess of Tuscany. The enemy was within three leagues of Vienna, and the Danube was covered with flying citizens. The queen herself, far advanced in pregnancy, left the capital in charge of her husband and his brother. Prince Charles, and repaired to Presburg, where the magnates and other orders of the kingdom of Hungary were then assembled in diet. On the 11th of September the royal fugitive summoned them to the castle Her appeal to the Hungarians on this occasion, enforced as it was by a display of mingled dignity and sadness, roused on her behalf a chivalrous enthusiasm which penetrated to the banks of the Save, the Theiss, and the Drave, and drew to the battlefields of western Europe fierce warriors, whose names of Pandour, Croat, and Tolpache, soon became terrible to the enemies of Austria. Meanwhile the elector of Bavaria, abandoning his designs on Vienna, took Prague by a surprise, was crowned king of Bohemia, and then proceeded to Frankfort, where he was elected and crowned emperor of Germany by the title of Charles VII. In 1742 another English subsidy was voted to the queen of Hungary, and a force sent into Flanders under Earl Stair to aid her; but the sluggishness of the Dutch paralyzed what little life there was in the British expedition. On the other hand good fortune rewarded the loyal ardour of the Hungarians. The French and Bavarians were defeated in Bohemia, and followed into Bavaria, where Khevenhüller, the Austrian general, entered Munich on the very day that the Bavarian sovereign was elected emperor at Frankfort. Maria Theresa sent a letter of thanks to her general, with the pictures of herself and son, which being exhibited to the soldiers raised their enthusiasm to the highest pitch. These advantages to the Austrian arms had been facilitated by a secret armistice concluded in the winter with Frederick of Prussia, who resented the tone of superiority assumed by the French court. Not obtaining the concessions he required, however, Frederick resumed the offensive, entered Moravia, reduced Olmutz, then passing into Bohemia, defeated Prince Charles at Czaslau on 17th May, 1742. The pride of the brave queen was overcome by this victory, and she pacified her most dangerous antagonist with the treaty of Breslau, by which all Silesia was given up to Prussia. The French were next disposed of, Belleisle being forced to quit Prague with the majority of his troops, leaving a remnant which capitulated. In Italy Maria Theresa recovered her position by an alliance with the king of Sardinia. In the following year, 1743, the king of England gained the battle of Dettingen over the French simply as the ally of Austria; for between France and England there was no declared war. The French soon afterwards retired from Germany, leaving the emperor, Charles VII., to his fate. Bavaria, the hereditary dominions of the latter, were held in hostage by the queen of Hungary, who wished to compel the emperor's abdication. In 1744 Frederick, notwithstanding the treaty of Breslau, again attacked the queen's dominions, and reduced Prague, while Marshal Seckendorff drove the Austrians out of Bavaria and reinstated Charles VII. in Munich. Prince Charles of Lorraine hastened by forced marches to Bohemia. Maria Theresa again repaired to Presburg and appealed to the Hungarians, and before winter Frederick was obliged to evacuate Bohemia. At length in 1745 Charles VII. died, the duke of Lorraine was elected emperor as Francis I., and peace was concluded between Austria and Prussia at Dresden. When in 1748 the terms of a general peace were negotiated at Aix-la-Chapelle, the empress-queen protested against the preliminaries, which included a stipulation that the duchy of Silesia and county of Glatz should be guaranteed to the king of Prussia. She broke out into passionate exclamations to Robinson the English ambassador, who communicated the terms of the peace; and many months were consumed in persuading her to agree to them. The treaty was at length signed by all the belligerent powers in October, 1748. The seven years of peace which followed close the best period of Maria Theresa's life. She then laboured at the good government of her subjects, and distinguished herself by many acts of beneficence and enlightened wisdom. But she could not forgive King Frederick; her heart was set upon the recovery of Silesia; and in her chancellor, Kaunitz, she had a man capable of working out great ends with quiet, unflinching steadiness of purpose. The Seven Years' war, thus silently prepared, threw Frederick and his kingdom into a more desperate condition even than that into which Maria Theresa had fallen after the first aggression upon Silesia. In this striking chapter of history Frederick is the prominent figure, and all that relates to the empress-queen's personal share in the transactions of that terrible war may be told in few words. Maria Theresa finding the English unwilling to take part against Prussia, not only declined to act with England against France, but reversed the traditional policy of her family by making overtures to Louis XV. She cultivated the favour of Madame de Pompadour, wrote flattering letters to her, and styled her "cousin." To such condescension did hatred of Frederick bring the lofty empress-queen. The king of Prussia, by his sarcasms, had excited an equally violent dislike in the mind not only of Madame Pompadour, but in that of a still more redoubtable female potentate, Elizabeth empress of Russia. In this state of things England concluded a defensive alliance with Prussia on 16th January, 1756. The news of this treaty struck Maria Theresa, to use her own language, "like a fit of apoplexy," and on the 1st May, 1756, she concluded a treaty with France. An alliance with Russia, with Sweden, and with Saxony and Poland, completed the formidable confederacy against Frederick. He had no unworthy antagonists in Maria Theresa's generals. Brown, Daun, and Laudohn. When utter ruin had gathered around and was about to crush him, he was saved by the death of Elizabeth and the accession of Peter III. to the throne of Russia. In 1763 the allies of the empress-queen had fallen away from her. France made peace with England. Russia and Sweden had withdrawn from the contest. Left to wage the war with Frederick single-handed, she intimated her readiness for peace, which was accordingly concluded at the hunting palace of Hubertsburg early in 1763; both parties retaining the territory they had held before the war. Frederick agreed to vote for the election of Joseph, the empress's son, as king of the Romans. The following year Joseph was elected emperor on the death of his father, Francis I. Maria Theresa mourned for her husband with deep and sincere sorrow, and visited every month the burial vault in which his remains were deposited. She was sick of war, and wished, she said, to live in peace to the end of her days. She opposed, however, Russian aggrandizement at the