performances was a refutation of the Principe | prince could be about the efficacy of his army. of Machiavelli. Voltaire undertook to convey But this anxiety never degenerated into a moit to the press. It was entitled the Anti-Machi- nomania, like that which led his father to Day avel, and was an edifying homily against rapa- fancy-prices for giants. Frederic was as thrifty city, perfidy, arbitrary government, unjust war about money as any prince or any private man -in short, against almost every thing for which ought to be. But he did not conceive, like his its author is now remembered among men. father, that it was worth while to eat unwholesome cabbages for the sake of saving four or five rix-dollars in the year. Frederic was, we ric's wit enabled him often to show his malevolence in ways more decent than those to which his father resorted, and to inflict misery and degradation by a taunt instead of a blow. Frederic, it is true, by no means relinquished his hereditary privilege of kicking and cudgelling. His practice, however, as to that matter, differed in some important respects from his father's. To Frederic William, the mere circumstance that any persons whatever, men, women, or children, Prussians or foreigners, were within reach of his toes and of his cane, appeared to be a sufficient reason for proceed ing to belabour them. Frederic required pro vocation as well as vicinity; nor was he ever known to inflict this paternal species of correc tion on any but his born subjects; though on one occasion M. Thiébault had reason, during a few seconds, to anticipate the high honour of being an exception to this general rule.

The old king uttered now and then a ferocious growl at the diversions of Rheinsberg. But his health was broken, his end was ap-fear, as malevolent as his father; but Fredeproaching, and his vigour was impaired. He had only one pleasure left-that of seeing tall soldiers. He could always be propitiated by a present of a grenadier of six feet eight or six feet nine; and such presents were from time to time judiciously offered by his son.

Early in the year 1740, Frederic William met death with a firmness and dignity worthy of a better and wiser man; and Frederic, who had just completed his twenty-eighth year, became King of Prussia. His character was little understood. That he had good abilities, indeed, no person who had talked with him or corresponded with him could doubt. But the easy Epicurean life which he had led, his love of good cookery and good wine, of music, of conversation, of light literature, led many to regard him as a sensual and intellectual voluptuary. His habit of canting about moderation, peace, liberty, and the happiness which a good mind derives from the happiness of others, had The character of Frederic was still very imimposed on some who should have known perfectly understood either by his subjects or better. Those who thought best of him, ex-by his neighbours, when events occurred which pected a Telemachus after Fénélon's pattern. Others predicted the approach of a Medicean age-an age propitious to learning and art, and not unpropitious to pleasure. Nobody had the least suspicion that a tyrant of extraordinary military and political talents, of industry more extraordinary still, without fear, without faith, and without mercy, had ascended the throne.

exhibited it in a strong light. A few months after his accession died Charles VI., Emperor of Germany, the last descendant, in the male line, of the house of Austria.

Charles left no son, and had, long before his death, relinquished all hopes of male issue. During the latter part of his life, his principal object had been to secure to his descendants in the female line the many crowns of the house of Hapsburg. With this view, he had promul gated a new law of succession, widely celebrated throughout Europe under the name of the "Pragmatic Sanction." By virtue of this decree, his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of Francis of Lorraine, succeeded to the dominions of her ancestors.

The disappointment of Falstaff at his old boon companion's coronation, was not more bitter than that which awaited some of the inmates of Rheinsberg. They had long looked forward to the accession of their patron, as to the day from which their own prosperity and greatness was to date. They had at last reached the promised land, the land which they had figured to themselves as flowing with milk and No sovereign has ever taken possession of honey, and they found it a desert. "No more a throne by a clearer title. All the politics of of these fooleries," was the short, sharp admo- the Austrian cabinet had, during twenty years, nition given by Frederic to one of them. It been directed to one single end-the settlement soon became plain that, in the most important of the succession. From every person whose points, the new sovereign bore a strong family rights could be considered as injuriously aflikeness to his predecessor. There was a wide fected, renunciations in the most solemn form difference between the father and the son as had been obtained. The new law had been respected extent and vigour of intellect, specu- ratified by the Estates of all the kingdoms and lative opinions, amusements, studies, outward principalities which made up the great Ausdemeanour. But the groundwork of the cha-trian monarchy. England, France, Spain, Rusracter was the same in both. To both were common the love of order, the love of business, the military taste, the parsimony, the imperious spirit, the temper irritable even to ferocity, the pleasure in the pain and humiliation of others. But these propensities had in Frederic William partaken of the general unsoundness of his inind, and wore a very different aspect when found in company with the strong and cultivated understanding of his successor. Thus, for example, Frederic was as anxious as any

sia, Poland, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, the Germanic body, had bound themselves by treaty to maintain the "Pragmatic Sanction." Tha: instrument was placed under the protection of the public faith of the whole civilized world.

Even if no positive stipulations on this subject had existed, the arrangement was one which no good man would have been willing to disturb. It was a peaceable arrangement. It was an arrangement acceptable to the great population whose happiness was chiefly con

es. Is

cerned. It was an arrangement which made | rantied the integrity of the Austrian no change in the distribution of power among it not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims the states of Christendom. It was an arrange- are to be set up against recent treaties and ment which could be set aside only by means long possession, the world can never be at of a general war; and, if it were set aside, the peace for a day? The laws of all nations effect would be, that the equilibrium of Europe have wisely established a time of limitation, would be deranged, that the loyal and patriotic | after which titles, however illegitimate in their feelings of millions would be cruelly outraged, origin, cannot be questioned. It is felt by and that great provinces, which had been everybody that to eject a person from his united for centuries, would be torn from each estate on the ground of some injustice comother by main force. mitted in the time of the Tudors, would produce all the evils which result from arbitrary confiscation, and would make all property in

The sovereigns of Europe were, therefore, bound by every obligation which those who are intrusted with power over their fellow-secure. creatures ought to hold most sacred, to respect and defend the rights of the Archduchess. Her situation and her personal qualities were such as might be expected to move the mind of any generous man to pity, admiration, and chivalrous tenderness. She was in her twenty-fourth year. Her form was majestic, her features beautiful, her countenance sweet and animated, her voice musical, her deportment gracious and dignified. In all domestic relations she was without reproach. She was married to a husband whom she loved, and was on the point of giving birth to a child when death deprived her of her father. The loss of a parent and the new cares of the empire were too much for her in the delicate state of her health. Her spirits were depressed, and her cheek lost its bloom.

Yet it seemed that she had little cause for anxiety. It seemed that justice, humanity, and the faith of treaties would have their due weight, and that the settlement so solemnly guarantied would be quietly carried into effect. England, Russia, Poland, and Holland declared in form their intention to adhere to their engagements. The French ministers made a verbal declaration to the same effect. But from no quarter did the young Queen of Hungary receive stronger assurances of friendship and support than from the King of Prussia.

Yet the King of Prussia, the "Anti-Machiavel," had already fully determined to commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and desolating war, and all this for no end whatever except that he might extend his dominions and see his name in the gazettes. He determined to assemble a great army with speed and secrecy to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should be apprized of his design, and to add that rich province to his kingdom.

We will not condescend to refute at length the pleas which the compiler of the Memoirs before us has copied from Doctor Preuss. They amount to this-that the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to Silesia, and had in the previous century been compelled, by hard usage on the part of the court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain that, whoever might originally have been in the right, Prussia had submitted. Prince after prince of the house of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the court of Berlin had recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had gua

It concerns the commonwealth-so runs the legal maxim-that there be an end of litigation. And surely this maxim is at least equally applicable to the great commonwealth of states, for in that commonwealth litigation means the devastation of provinces, the suspension of trade and industry, sieges like those of Badajoz and St. Sebastian, pitched fields like those of Eylau and Borodino. We hold that the transfer of Norway from Denmark to Sweden was an unjustifiable proceeding; but would the king of Denmark be therefore justi fied in landing, without any new provocation, in Norway, and commencing military operations there? The King of Holland thinks, no doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the Belgian provinces. Grant that it were so. Would he, therefore, be justified in marching with an army on Brussels? The case against Frederic was still stronger, inasmuch as the injustice of which he complained had been committed more than a century before. Nor must it be forgotten that he owed the highest personal obligations to the house of Austria. It may be doubted whether his life had not been preserved by the intercession of the prince whose daughter he was about to plunder.

To do the king justice, he pretended to no more virtue than he had. In manifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some idle stories about his antiquated claim on Silesia; but in his conversations and Memoirs he took a very different tone. To quote his own words,-"Am bition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me, carried the day and I decided for war."

Having resolved on his course, he acted with ability and vigour. It was impossible wholly to conceal his preparations, for throughout the Prussian territories regiments, guns, and bag gage were in motion, The Austrian envoy at Berlin apprized his court of these facts, aud expressed a suspicion of Frederic's designs; but the ministers of Maria Theresa refused to give credit to so Wack an imputation on a young prince who was known chiefly by his high professions of integrity and philanthropy. "We will not,"-they wrote-"we cannot be lieve it."

In the mean time the Prussian forces had been assembled. Without any declaration of war, without any demand for reparation, in the very act of pouring forth compliments and assurances of good-will, Frederic commenced hostilities. Many thousands of his troops were actually in Silesia before the Queen of Hungary knew that he had set up any claim to any part of her territories. At length he sent

The evils produced by this wickedness

her a message which could be regarded only | den. as an insult. If she would but let him have were felt in lands where the name of Prussia Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her against was unknown; and, in order that he might rob any power which should try to deprive her of a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, her other dominions: as if he was not already black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise and red men scalped each other by the great could be of more value than the old one! lakes of North America.

It was the depth of winter. The cold was severe, and the roads deep in mire. But the Prussians passed on. Resistance was impossible. The Austrian army was then neither numerous nor efficient. The small portion of that army which lay in Silesia was unprepared for hostilities. Glogau was blockaded; Breslau opened its gates; Ohlau was evacuated. A few scattered garrisons still held out; but the whole open country was subjugated: no enemy ventured to encounter the king in the field; and, before the end of January, 1741, he returned to receive the congratulations of his subjects at Berlin.

Silesia had been occupied without a battle; but the Austrian troops were advancing to the relief of the fortresses which still held out. In the spring Frederic rejoined his army. He had seen little of war, and had never commanded any great body of men in the field. It is not, therefore, strange that his first military operations showed little of that skill which, at a later period, was the admiration of Europe. What connoisseurs say of some pictures painted by Raphael in his youth, may be said of this campaign. It was in Frederic's early bad manner. Fortunately for him, the generals to whom he was opposed were men of small capacity. The discipline of his own troops, particularly of the infantry, was unequalled in that age; and some able and experienced offi cers were at hand to assist him with their ad vice. Of these, the most distinguished was Field-Marshal Schwerin-a brave adventurer of Pomeranian extraction, who had served half the governments in Europe, had borne the commissions of the States-General of Holland and of the Duke of Mecklenburg, and fought under Marlborough at Blenheim, and had been with Charles the Twelfth at Bender.

Had the Silesian question been merely a question between Frederic and Maria Theresa it would be impossible to acquit the Prussian king of gross perfidy. But when we consider the effects which his policy produced, and could not fail to produce, on the whole community of civilized nations, we are compelled to pronounce a condemnation still more severe. Till he began the war it seemed possible, even probable, that the peace of the world would be preserved. The plunder of the great Austrian heritage was indeed a strong temptation: and in more than one cabinet ambitious Frederic's first battle was fought at Molwitz, schemes were already meditated. But the trea- and never did the career of a great commander ties by which the " Pragmatic Sauction" had open in a more inauspicious manner. His been guarantied were express and recent. To army was victorious. Not only, however, did throw all Europe into confusion for a purpose he not establish his title to the character of an clearly unjust was no light matter. England able general, but he was so unfortunate as te was true to her engagements. The voice of make it doubtful whether he possessed the Fleury had always been for peace. He had a vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry conscience. He was now in extreme old age, which he commanded in person, was put i and was unwilling, after a life which, when his flight. Unaccustomed to the tumult and car situation was considered, must be pronounced nage of a field of battle, he lost his self-posses singularly pure, to carry the fresh stain of a sion, and listened too readily to those who great crime before the tribunal of his God. urged him to save himself. His English gray Even the vain and unprincipled Belle-Isle, carried him many miles from the field, while whose whole life was one wild daydream of Schwerin, though wounded in two places, man conquest and spoliation, felt that France, bound fully upheld the day. The skill of the old Fieldas she was by solemn stipulations, could not Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian ba without disgrace make a direct attack on the talions prevailed; and the Austrian army was Austrian dominions. Charles, Elector of Ba-driven from the field with the loss of eight varia, pretended that he had a right to a large thousand men. part of the inheritance which the "Pragmatic Sanction" gave to the Queen of Hungary, but he was not sufficiently powerful to move with out support. It might, therefore, not unreasonably be expected that, after a short period of restlessness, all the potentates of Christendom would acquiesce in the arrangements made by the late emperor. But the selfish rapacity of the King of Prussia gave the signal to his The battle of Molwitz was the signa. for a neighbours. His example quieted their sense general explosion throughout Europe. Bavaria of shame. His success led them to underrate took up arms. France, not yet declaring her the difficulty of dismembering the Austrian mo- self a principal in the war, took part in it as narchy. The whole world sprang to arms. On an ally of Bavaria. The two great statesmen the head of Frederic is all the blood which was to whom mankind had owed many years of sned in a war which raged during many years tranquillity, disappeared about this time from and in every quarter of the globe-the blood of the scene; but not till they had both been guilty the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the brave of the weakness of sacrificing their sense of mountaineers who were slaughtered at Cullo-justice and their love of peace in the vain hope

The news was carried late at night to a mili in which the king had taken shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He was successful; but he owed his success to dispositions which others had made, and to the valour of men who had fought while he was flying. So unpromising was the first appearance of the greatest warrior of that age!

of preserving their power. Fleury, sinking under age and infirmity, was borne down by the impetuosity of Belle-Isle. Walpole retired ( from the service of his ungrateful country to his woods and paintings at Houghton; and his power devolved on the daring and eccentric Carteret. As were the ministers, so were the nations. Thirty years during which Europe had, with few interruptions, enjoyed repose, had prepared the public mind for great military efforts. A new generation had grown up, which could not remember the siege of Turin or the slaughter of Malplaquet; which knew war by nothing but its trophies; and which, while it looked with pride on the tapestries at Blenheim, or the statue in the "Place of Victories," little thought by what privations, by what waste of private fortunes, by how many bitter tears, conquests must be purchased.

For a time fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of Hungary. Frederic invaded Moravia. The French and Bavarians penetrated into Bohemia, and were there joined by the Saxons. Prague was taken. The Elector of Bavaria was raised by the suffrages of his colleagues to the Imperial throne-a throne which the practice of centuries had almost entitled the house of Austria to regard as a hereditary possession.

France to supreme power on the continent, at the expense of the house of Hapsburg. His first object was, to rob the Queen of Hungary. His second was, that, if possible, nobody should rob her but himself. He had entered into engagements with the powers leagued against Austria; but these engagements were in his estimation of no more force than the guarantee formerly given to the "Pragmatic Sanction.” His game was now to secure his share of the plunder by betraying his accomplices. Maria Theresa was little inclined to listen to any such compromise; but the English government represented to her so strongly the necessity of buying off so formidable an enemy as Frederic, that she agreed to negotiate. The negotiation would not, however, have ended in a treaty, had not the arms of Frederic been crowned with a second victory. Prince Charles of Lorraine, brother-in-law to Maria Theresa, a bold and active, though unfortunate general, gave battle to the Prussians at Chotusitz, and was defeated. The king was still only a learner of the military art. He acknowledged, at a later period, that his success on this occasion was to be attributed, not at all to his own generalship, but solely to the valour and steadiness of his troops. He completely effaced, however, by his courage and energy, the stain which Molwitz had left on his reputation.

A peace, concluded under the English media tion, was the fruit of this battle. Maria Theresa ceded Silesia; Frederic abandoned his allies: Saxony followed his example; and the queen was left at liberty to turn her whole force against France and Bavaria. She was every where triumphant. The French were com pelled to evacuate Bohemia, and with difficulty effected their escape. The whole line of their retreat might be tracked by the corpses of thousands who died of cold, fatigue and hunger. Many of those who reached their country car ried with them seeds of death. Bavaria was overrun by bands of ferocious warriors from that bloody "debatable land," which lies on the frontier between Christendom and Islam. The terrible names of the Pandoor, the Croat, and the Hussar, then first became familiar to west.

Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the Cæsars unbroken. Hungary was still hers by an unquestionable title; and although her ancestors had found Hungary the most mutinous of all their kingdoms, she resolved to trust herself to the fidelity of a people, rude indeed, turbulent, and impatient of oppression, but brave, generous, and simple-hearted. In the midst of distress and peril she had given birth to a son, afterwards the Emperor Joseph the Second. Scarcely had she risen from her couch, when she hastened to Presburg. There, in the sight of an innumerable multitude, she was crowned with the crown and robed with the robe of St. Stephen. No spectator could refrain his tears when the beautiful young mother, still weak from child-bearing, rode, after the fashion of her fathers, up the Mount of Defiance, unsheathed the ancient sword of state, shook it towards north and south, eastern Europe. The unfortunate Charles of Baand west, and, with a glow on her pale face, challenged the four corners of the world to dispute her rights and those of her boy. At the first sitting of the Diet she appeared clad in deep mourning for her father, and in pathetic and dignified words implored her people to support her just cause. Magnates and deputies sprang up, half drew their sabres, and with eager voices vowed to stand by her with their lives and fortunes. Till then, her firmness had never once forsaken her before the public eye, but at that shout she sank down upon her throne, and wept aloud. Still more touching was the sight when, a few days later, she came before the Estates of her realm, and held up before them the little Archduke in her arms. Then it was that the enthusiasm of Hungary broke forth into that war-cry which soon resounded throughout Europe, "Let us die for our King, Maria Theresa!"

In the mean time, Frederic was meditating a change of policy. He had no wish to raise

varia, vanquished by Austria, betrayed by Prussia, driven from his hereditary states, and neglected by his allies, was hurried by shame and remorse to an untimely end. An English army appeared in the heart of Germany, and defeated the French at Dettingen. The Aus trian captains already began to talk of com pleting the work of Marlborough and Eugene, and of compelling France to relinquish Alsace and the Three Bishoprics.

The Court of Versailles, in this peril, looked to Frederic for help. He had been guilty of two great treasons, perhaps he might be induced to commit a third. The Dutchess of Chateauroux then held the chief influence over the feeble Louis. She determined to send an agent to Berlin, and Voltaire was selected for the mission. He eagerly undertook the task, for, while his literary fame filled all Europe, he was troubled with a childish craving for politi cal distinction. He was vain, and not withou reason, of his address, and of his insinuating

eloquence; and he flattered himself that he pos- | and in Flanders; and even England, after man,

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