fermen, with literary intrigues and cabals. It | resentment. Voltaire had in his keeping a was to no purpose that the imperial voice, volume of the king's poetry, and forgot to re which kept a hundred and sixty thousand sol- turn it. This was, we believe, merely one of diers in order, was raised to quiet the conten- the oversights which men setting out upon a tion of the exasperated wits. It was far easier journey often commit. That Voltaire could to stir up such a storm than to lull it. Nor have meditated plagiarism is quite incredible. was Frederic, in his capacity of wit, by any He would not, we are confident, for the half of means without his own share of vexations. Frederic's kingdom, have consented to father He had sent a large quantity of verses to Vol- Frederic's verses. The king, however, who taire, and requested that they might be returned, rated his own writings much above their value, with remarks and correction. " See," exclaim- and who was inclined to see all Voltaire's aced Voltaire, "what a quantity of his dirty linen tions in the worst light, was enraged to think the king has sent me to wash!" Talebearers that his favourite compositions were in the were not wanting to carry the sarcasm to the hands of an enemy, as thievish as a daw and royal ear; and Frederic was as much incensed as mischievous as a monkey. In the anger as a Grub Street writer who had found his excited by this thought, he lost sight of reason name in the "Dunciad." and decency, and determined on committing an outrage at once odious and ridiculous.

was confined twelve days in a wretched hovel. Sentinels with fixed bayonets kept guard over him. His niece was dragged through the mire by the soldiers. Sixteen hundred dollars were extorted from him by his insolent jailers. It is absurd to say that this outrage is not to be attributed to the king. Was anybody punished for it? Was anybody called in question for it? Was it not consistent with Frederic's character? Was it not of a piece with his conduct on other similar occasions? Is it not notorious that he repeatedly gave private direc tions to his officers to pillage and demolish the houses of persons against whom he had a grudge-charging them at the same time to take their measures in such a way that his name might not be compromised? He acted thus towards Count Buhl in the Seven Years' War. Why should we believe that he would have been more scrupulous with regard to Voltaire?

This could not last. A circumstance which, when the mutual regard of the friends was in Voltaire had reached Frankfort. His niece, its first glow, would merely have been matter Madame Denis, came thither to meet him. He. for laughter, produced a violent explosion. conceived himself secure from the power of his Maupertuis enjoyed as much of Frederic's late master, when he was arrested by order of good-will as any man of letters. He was Pre- the Prussian resident. The precious volume sident of the Academy of Berlin; and stood was delivered up. But the Prussian agents second to Voltaire, though at an immense dis-had, no doubt, been instructed not to let Voltance, in the literary society which had beentaire escape without some gross indignity. He assembled at the Prussian court. Frederic had, by playing for his own amusement on the feelings of the two jealous and vainglorious Frenchmen, succeeded in producing a bitter enmity between them. Voltaire resolved to set his mark, a mark never to be effaced, on the forehead of Maupertuis; and wrote the exquisitely ludicrous diatribe of Doctor Akakia. He showed this little piece to Frederic, who had too much taste and too much malice not to relish such delicious pleasantry. In truth, even at this time of day, it is not easy for any person who has the least perception of the ridiculous to read the jokes on the Latin city, the Patagonians, and the hole to the centre of the earth, without laughing till he cries. But though Frederic was diverted by this charming pasquinade, he was unwilling that it should get abroad. His self-love was interested. He had selected Maupertuis to fill the Chair of his Academy. If all Europe were taught to laugh at Maupertuis, would not the reputation of the Academy, would not even the dignity of its royal patron, be in some degree compromised? The king, therefore, begged Voltaire to suppress his performance. Voltaire promised to do so, and broke his word. The diatribe was published, and received with shouts of merriment and applause by all who could read the French language. The king stormed. Voltaire, with his usual disregard of truth, protested his innocence, and made up some lie about a printer or an amanuensis. The king was not to be so imposed upon. He ordered the pamphlet to be burned by the common hangman, and insisted upon having an apology from Voltaire, couched in the most abject terms. Voltaire sent back to the king his cross, his key, and the patent of his pension. After this burst of rage, the strange pair began to be ashamed of their violence, and went through the forms of reconciliation. But the breach was irreparable; and Voltaire took his leave of Frederic forever. They parted with cold civili y; but their hearts were big with

When at length the illustrious prisoner regained his liberty, the prospect before him was but dreary. He was an exile both from the country of his birth and from the country of his adoption. The French government had taken offence at his journey to Prussia, and would not permit him to return to Paris; and in the vicinity of Prussia it was not safe for him to remain.

He took refuge on the beautiful shores of Lake Leman. There, loosed from every tie which had hitherto restrained him, and having little to hope or to fear from courts and churches, he began his long war against all that, whether for good or evil, had authority over man; for what Burke said of the Consti tuent Assembly, was eminently true of this its great forerunner. He could not build-he could only pull down-he was the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a single doctrine to be called by his name-not a single addition to the stock of our positive knowledge. But no human teacher ever left be hind him so vast and terrible a wreck of trutag

and falsehoods-of things noble and things offered to give up to destruction her darling base-of things useful and things pernicious. Sparta and Mycenæ, if only she might once see From the time when his sojourn beneath the the smoke going up from the palace of Priam. Alps commenced, the dramatist, the wit, the With even such a spirit did the proud Austrian historian, was merged in a more important Juno strive to array against her foe a coalition character. He was now the patriarch, the such as Europe had never seen. Nothing founder of a sect, the chief of a conspiracy, the would content her but that the whole civilized prince of a wide intellectual commonwealth. world, from the White Sea to the Adriatic, from He often enjoyed a pleasure dear to the better the Bay of Biscay to the pastures of the wild part of his nature, the pleasure of vindicating horses of Tanais, should be combined in arms innocence which had no other helper-of re- against one petty state. pairing cruel wrongs-of punishing tyranny in high places. He had also the satisfaction, not less acceptable to his ravenous vanity, of hearing terrified Capuchins call him the Antichrist. But whether employed in works of benevolence, or in works of mischief, he never forgot Potsdam and Frankfort; and he listened anxiously to every murmur which indicated that a tempest was gathering in Europe, and that his vengeance was at hand.

She early succeeded by various arts in obtaining the adhesion of Russia. An ample share of spoil was promised to the King of Poland; and that prince, governed by his favourite, Count Buhl, readily promised the assistance of the Saxon forces. The great difficulty was with France. That the houses of Bourbon and of Hapsburg should ever cordially co-operate in any great scheme of Eurepean policy, had long been thought, to use the He soon had his wish. Maria Theresa had strong expression of Frederic, just as impos never for a moment forgotten the great wrong sible as that fire and water should amalgamate. which she had received at the hand of Frede- The whole history of the Continent, during two ric. Young and delicate, just left an orphan, centuries and a half, had been the history of just about to be a mother, she had been com- the mutual jealousies and enmities of France pelled to fly from the ancient capital of her and Austria. Since the administration of Richerace; she had seen her fair inheritance dis-lieu, above all, it had been considered as the membered by robbers, and of those robbers he had been the foremost. Without a pretext, without a provocation, in defiance of the most sacred engagements, he had attacked the helpless ally whom he was bound to defend. The Empress-Queen had the faults as well as the virtues which are connected with quick sensibility and a high spirit. There was no peril which she was not ready to brave, no calamity which she was not ready to bring on her subjects, or on the whole human race, if only she might once taste the sweetness of a complete revenge. Revenge, too, presented itself to her narrow and superstitious mind in the guise of duty. Silesia had been wrested not only from the house of Austria, but from the Church of Rome.

plain policy of the Most Christian king to thwart on all occasions the court of Vienna; and to protect every member of the Germanic body who stood up against the dictation of the Cæsars. Common sentiments of religion had been unable to mitigate this strong antipathy The rulers of France, even while clothed in the Roman purple, even while persecuting the heretics of Rochelle and Auvergne, had still looked with favour on the Lutheran and Calvinistic princes who were struggling against the chief of the empire. If the French ministers paid any respect to the traditional rules handed down to them through many generations, they would have acted towards Frederic as the greatest of their predecessors acted towards Gustavus Adolphus. That there was deadly The conqueror had indeed permitted his new enmity between Prussia and Austria, was of subjects to worship God after their own fashion; itself a sufficient reason for close friendship but this was not enough. To bigotry it seemed between Prussia and France. With France, an intolerable hardship that the Catholic Church, Frederic could never have any serious controhaving long enjoyed ascendency, should be versy. His territories were so situated, that compelled to content itself with equality. Nor his ambition, greedy and unscrupulous as it was this the only circumstance which led was, could never impel him to attack her of Maria Theresa to regard her enemy as the his own accord. He was more than half a enemy of God. The profaneness of Frederic's Frenchman. He wrote, spoke, read nothing writings and conversation, and the frightful but French; he delighted in French society. rumours which were circulated respecting the The admiration of the French he proposed to immoralities of his private life, naturally shock-himself as the best reward of all his exploits. el a woman who believed with the firmest faith all that her confessor told her; and who, though surrounded by temptations, though young and beautiful, though ardent in all her passions, though possessed of absolute power, had preserved her fame unsullied even by the breath of slander.

To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty of Hohenzollern to the dust, was the great object of her life. She toiled during many years for this end, with zeal as indefatigable as that which the poet ascribes to the stately goddess who tired out her immortal horses in the work of raising the nations against Troy, and whe

It seemed incredible that any French govern ment, however notorious for levity or stupidity, could spurn away such an ally.

The court of Vienna, however, did not despair. The Austrian diplomatists propcunded a new scheme of politics, which, it must be owned, was not altogether without plausibility. The great powers, according to this theory, had long been under a delusion. They had looked on each other as natural enemies, while in truth they were natural allies. A succession of cruel wars had devastated Europe, had thinned the population, had exhausted the public resources, had loaded governments with

the first time, both be gainers. There could be no room for jealousy between them. The power of both would be increased at once; the equilibrium between them would be preserved; and the only sufferer would be a mischievous and unprincipled bucanier, who deserved no tenderness from either.

These doctrines, attractive from their novelty and ingenuity, soon became fashionable at the supper-parties and in the coffee-houses of Paris, and were espoused by every gay mar quis and every facetious abbé who was admitted to see Madame de Pompadour's hair curled and powdered. It was not, however, to any political theory that the strange coalition between France and Austria owed its origin. The real motive which induced the great continental powers to forget their old animosities and their old state maxims, was personal aver sion to the King of Prussia. This feeling was strongest in Maria Theresa; but it was by no means confined to her. Frederic, in some re spects a good master, was emphatically a bad neighbour. That he was hard in all his dealings, and quick to take all advantages, was not his most odious fault. His bitter and scoffing speech had inflicted keener wounds than his ambition. In his character of wit he was under less restraint than even in his character of ruler.

an immense burden of debt; and when, after two hundred years of murderous hostility or of hollow truce the illustrious houses whose enmity had distracted the world sat down to count their gains, to what did the real advantage on either side amount? Simply to this, that they had kept each other from thriving. It was not the King of France, it was not the Emperor, who had reaped the fruits of the Thirty Years' War, of the War of the Grand Alliance, of the War of the Pragmatic Sanction. Those fruits had been pilfered by states of the second and third rank, which, secured against jealousy by their insignificance, had dexterously aggrandized themselves while pretending to serve the animosity of the great chiefs of Christendom. While the lion and tiger were tearing each other, the jackal had run off into the jungle with the prey. The real gainer by the Thirty Years' War had been neither France nor Austria, but Sweden. The real gainer by the War of the Grand Alliance had been neither France nor Austria, but Savoy. The real gainer by the War of the Pragmatic Sanction had been reither France nor Austria, but the upstart of Brandenburg. Of all these instances, the last was the most striking: France had made great efforts, had added largely to her military glory, and largely to her public burdens; and for what end? Merely that Frederic Satirical verses against all the might rule Silesia. For this and this alone | princes and ministers of Europe were ascribed one French army, wasted by sword and famine, to his pen. In his letters and conversation he had perished in Bohemia; and another had alluded to the greatest potentates of the age in purchased, with floods of the noblest blood, the terms which would have better suited Collé, in barren glory of Fontenoy. And this prince, a war of repartee with young Crébillon at for whom France had suffered so much, was Pelletier's table, than a great sovereign speakhe a grateful, was he even an honest ally? ing of great sovereigns. About women he was Had he not been as false to the court of Ver- in the habit of expressing himself in a mansailles as to the court of Vienna? Had he not ner which it was impossible for the meekest played cu a large scale, the same part which, of women to forgive; and, unfortunately for in private life, is played by the vile agent of him, almost the whole Continent was then gochicane who sets his neighbours quarrelling, in- verned by women who were by no means convolves them in costly and interminable litiga-spicuous for meekness. Maria Theresa hertion, and betrays them to each other all round, certain that, whoever may be ruined, he shall be enriched? Surely the true wisdom of the great powers was to attack, not each other, but this common barrator, who, by inflaming the passions of both, by pretending to serve both, and by deserting both, had raised himself above the station to which he was born. The great object of Austria was to regain Silesia; the great object of France was to obtain an accession of territory on the side of Flanders. If they took opposite sides, the result would probably be that, after a war of many years, after the slaughter of many thousands of brave men, after the waste of many millions of crowns, they would lay down their arms without having achieved either object; but, if they came to an understanding, there would be no risk and no difficulty. Austria would willingly make in Belgium such cessions as France could not expect to obtain by ten pitched battles. Silesia would easily be annexed to the monarchy of which it had long been a part. The union of two such powerful governments would at once overawe the King of Prussia. If he resisted, one short compaign would settle his fate. France and Austria, long accustomed to rise from the game of war both losers, would, for

self had not escaped his scurrilous jests; the Empress Elizabeth of Russia knew that her gallantries afforded him a favourite theme for ribaldry and invective; Madame de Pompa dour, who was really the head of the French government, had been even more keenly galled. She had attempted, by the most delicate flattery, to propitiate the King of Prussia, but her messages had drawn from him only dry and sarcastic replies. The Empress-Queen took a very different course. Though the haughtiest of princesses, though the most austere of matrons, she forgot in her thirst for revenge both the dignity of her race and the purity of her character, and condescended to flatter the lowborn and low-minded concubine, who, having acquired influence by prostituting herself, retained it by prostituting others. Maria The resa actually wrote with ner own hand a note, full of expressions of esteem and friendship, to her dear cousin, the daughter of the butcher Poisson, the wife of the publican D'Etioles, the kidnapper of young girls for the Parc-auxcerfs-a strange cousin for the descendant of so many Emperors of the West! The mistress was completely gained over, and easily carried her point with Louis, who had, indeed, wrongs of his own to resent. His feelings were no,

a politician or a soldier in Europe who doubted that the conflict would be terminated in a very few days by the prostration of the house of Brandenburg.

quick; but contempt, says the eastern proverb, | of Cambray from the arsenal amidst the la pierces even through the shell of the tortoise; goons. More than one great and well-appoint and neither prudence nor decorum had ever ed army, which regarded the shepherds of Swit restrained Frederic from expressing his mea- zerland as an easy prey, has perished in the sureless contempt for the sloth, the imbecility, passes of the Alps. Frederic had no such adand the baseness of Louis. France was thus vantage. The form of his states, their situa induced to join the coalition; and the example tion, the nature of the ground, all were against of France determined the conduct of Sweden, him. His long, scattered, straggling territory, then completely subject to French influence. seemed to have been shaped with an express The enemies of Frederic were surely view to the convenience of invaders, and was strong enough to attack him openly; but they protected by no sea, by no chain of hills, were desirous to add to all their other advan- Scarcely any corner of it was a week's march tages the advantage of a surprise. He was from the territory of the enemy. The capital not, however, a man to be taken off his guard. itself, in the event of war, would be constantly He had tools in every court; and he now re-exposed to insult. In truth, there was hardly ceived from Vienna, from Dresden, and from Paris, accounts so circumstantial and so consistent, that he could not doubt of his danger. He learnt that he was to be assailed at once by France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, Nor was Frederic's own opinion very differ and the Germanic body; that the greater part ent. He anticipated nothing short of his own of his dominions was to be portioned out ruin, and of the ruin of his family. Yet there amongst his enemies; that France, which was still a chance, a slender chance, of escape, from her geographical position could not di- His states had at least the advantage of a ceu rectly share in his spoils, was to receive antral position; his enemies were widely sepa equivalent in the Netherlands; that Austria was to have Silesia, and the czarina East Prussia; that Augustus of Saxony expected Magdeburg; and that Sweden would be rewarded with part of Pomerania. If these designs succeeded, the house of Bradenburgrations of one portion of the league, would be would at once sink in the European system to a place lower than that of the Duke of Wurtemburg or the Margrave of Baden.

And what hope was there that these designs would fail? No such union of the continental powers had been seen for ages. A less formidable confederacy had in a week conquered all the provinces of Venice, when Venice was at the height of power, wealth, and glory. A less formidable confederacy had compelled Louis the Fourteenth to bow down his haughty head to the very earth. A less formidable confederacy has, wi'nin our own memory, subjugated a still mightier empire, and abased a still prouder name. Such odds had never been heard of in war. The people whom Frederic ruled were not five millions. The population of the countries which were leagued against him amounted to a hundred millions. The disproportion in wealth was at least equally great. Small communities, actuated by strong sentiments of patriotism or loyalty, have sometinies made head against great monarchies weakened by factions and discontents. But small as was Frederic's kingdom, probably contained a greater number of disaffected subjects than were to be found in all the states of his enemies. Silesia formed a fourth part of his dominions; and from the Silesians, born under the Austrian princes, the utmost that he could expect was apathy. From the Silesian Catholics he could hardly expect any thing but

resistance.

Some states have been enabled, by their geographical position, to defend themselves with advantage against immense force. The sea aas repeatedly protected England against the fury of the whole Continent. The Venetian government, driven from its possessions on the and, could still bid defiance to the confederates

rated from each other, and could not conve niently unite their overwhelming forces on one point. They inhabited different climates, and it was probable that the season of the year which would be best suited to the military ope

unfavourable to those of another portion. The Prussian monarchy, too, was free from some infirmities which were found in empires far more extensive and magnificent. Its effective strength for a desperate struggle was not to be measured merely by the number of square miles or the number of people. In that spare but well-knit and well-exercised body, there was nothing a sinew, and muscle, and bone. No public creditors looked for dividends. No distant colonies required defence. No court, filled with flatterers and mistresses, devoured the pay of fifty battalions. The Prussian army, though far inferior in number to the troops which were about to be opposed to it, was yet strong out of all proportion to the extent of the Prussian dominions. It was also admi rably trained and admirably officered, accus. tomed to obey and accustomed to conquer. The revenue was not only unencumbered by debt, but exceeded the ordinary outlay in time of peace. Alone of all the European princes Frederic had a treasure laid up for a day of difficulty. Above all, he was one, and his enemies were many. In their camps would certainly be found the jealousy, the dissension, the slackness inseparable from coalitions; on his side was the energy, the unity, the secrecy of a strong dictatorship. To a certain extent the deficiency of military means might be sup plied by the resources of military art. Small as the king's army was, when compared with

the six hundred thousand men whom the con federates could bring into the field, celerity of movement might in some degree compensate for deficiency of bulk. It was thus just possi ble that genius, judgment, resolution, and good luck united, might protract the struggle during a campaign or two; and to gain even a month was of importance. It could not be long be

fore the vices which are found in all extensive confederacies would begin to show themselves. Every member of the league would think his own share of the war too large, and his own share of the spoils too small. Complaints and recrimination would abound. The Turk might stir on the Danube; the statesmen of France might discover the error which they had committed in abandoning the fundamental principles of their national policy. Above all, death might rid Prussia of its most formidable enemies. The war was the effect of the personal aversion with which three or four sovereigns regarded Frederic; and the decease of any of those sovereigns might produce a complete revolution in the state of Europe.

and economical prince, in a country where prices were low, would be sufficient to equip and maintain a formidable army.

Such was the situation in which Frederic found himself. He saw the whole extent of his peril. He saw that there was still a faint possibility of escape; and, with prudent temerity, he determined to strike the first blow. It was in the month of August, 1756, that the great war of the Seven Years commenced. The king demanded of the Empress-Queen a distinct explanation of her intentions, and plainly told her that he should consider a refusal as a declaration of war. "I want," he said, "no answer in the style of an oracle." He received an answer at once haughty and In the midst of an horizon generally dark evasive. In an instant, the rich electorate of and stormy, Frederic could discern one bright Saxony was overflowed by sixty thousand spot. The peace which had been concluded Prussian troops. Augustus with his army between England and France in 1748, had occupied a strong position at Pirna. The been in Europe no more than an armistice; Queen of Poland was at Dresden. In a few and had not even been an armistice in the days Pirna was blockaded and Dresden was other quarters of the globe. In India the sove- taken. The object of Frederic was to obtain reignty of the Carnatic was disputed between possession of the Saxon State Papers; for two great Mussulman houses; Fort Saint those papers, he well knew, contained ample George had taken the one side, Pondicherry the proofs that, though apparently an aggressor, he other; and in a series of battles and sieges was really acting in self-defence. The Queen the troops of Lawrence and Clive had been of Poland, as well acquainted as Frederic opposed to those of Dupleix. A struggle less with the importance of those documents, had important in its consequence, but not less packed then up, had concealed them in her likely to produce immediate irritation, was bed-chamber, and was about to send them off carried on between those French and English to Warsaw, when a Prussian officer made his adventurers, who kidnapped negroes and col-appearance. In the hope that no soldier would lected gold dust on the coast of Guinea. But it was in North America that the emulation and mutual aversion of the two nations were most conspicuous. The French attempted to hem in the English colonists by a chain of military posts, extending from the Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi. The English took arms. The wild aboriginal tribes appeared on each side mingled with the "Pale Faces." Battles were fought; forts were stormed; and hideous stories about stakes, scalpings, and death-songs reached Europe, and inflamed that national animosity which the rivalry of ages had produced. The disputes between France and England came to a The Saxon camp at Pirna was in the mean crisis at the very time when the tempest which time closely invested; but the besieged were had been gathering was about to burst on not without hopes of succour. A great AusPrussia. The tastes and interests of Frederic trian army under Marshal Brown was about would have led him, if he had been allowed to pour through the passes which separate an option, to side with the house of Bourbon. Bohemia from Saxony. Frederic left at Pirna But the folly of the court of Versailles left a force sufficient to deal with the Saxons, hashim no choice. France became the tool oftened into Bohemia, encountered Brown at Austria, and Frederic was forced to become the ally of England. He could not, indeed, expect that a power which covered the sea with its fleets, and which had to make war at once on the Ohio and the Ganges, would be able to spare a large number of troops for operations in Germany. But England, though poor compared with the England of our time, was far richer than any country on the Continent. The amount of her revenue, and the resources which she found in her credit, though they may be thought small by a generation which has seen her raise a hundred and thirty millions in a single year, appeared miraculous to the politicians of that age. A very moderate portion of her wealth, expended by an able VOL. IV.-66

venture to outrage a lady, a queen, a daughter of an emperor, the mother-in-law of a dauphin, she placed herself before the trunk, and at length sat down on it. But all resistance was vain. The papers were carried to Frederic, who found in them, as he expected, abundant evidence of the designs of the coalition. The most important documents were instantly pub lished, and the effect of the publication was great. It was clear that, of whatever sins the King of Prussia might formerly have been guilty, he was now the injured party, and had merely anticipated a blow intended to destroy him.

Lowositz, and defeated him. This battle decided the fate of Saxony. Augustus and his favourite, Buhl, fled to Poland. The whole army of the electorate capitulated. From that time till the end of the war, Frederic treated Saxony as a part of his dominions, or, rather, he acted towards the Saxons in a manner which may serve to illustrate the whole meaning of that tremendous sentence-subjectos tanquam suos, viles tanquam alienos. Saxony was as much in his power as Brandenburg; and he had no such interest in the welfare of Sax. ony as he had in the welfare of Brandenburg. He accordingly levied troops and exacted con tributions throughout the enslaved province, with far more rigour than in any part of his

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