1741.

FREDERICK THE SECOND OF PRUSSIA.

77

Elector of Bavaria, who maintained that the will of the Emperor Ferdinand the First devised the Austrian states to his daughter, from whom the Elector descended, on failure of male lineage. It appeared that the original will in the archives at Vienna referred to the failure, not of the male but of the legitimate issue of his sons; but this document, though ostentatiously displayed to all the Ministers of state and foreign ambassadors, was very far from inducing the Elector to desist from his pretensions.* As to the Great Powers-the Court of France, the old ally of the Bavarian family, and mindful of its injuries from the House of Austria, was eager to exalt the first by the depression of the latter. The Bourbons in Spain followed the direction of the Bourbons in France. The King of Poland and the Empress of Russia were more friendly in their expressions than in their designs. An opposite spirit pervaded England and Holland, where motives of honour and of policy combined to support the rights of Maria Theresa. In Germany itself the Elector of Cologne, the Bavarian's brother, warmly espoused his cause; and the remaining Electors," says Chesterfield, "like electors with us, thought it a proper opportunity "of making the most of their votes, and all at the expense of the helpless and abandoned House of "Austria!"†

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The first blow, however, came from Prussia, where the King Frederick William had died a few months before, and been succeeded by his son Frederick the Second; a Prince surnamed the Great by poets, and who would have deserved that title better had he not been one of them himself. It is difficult to understand how the same spirit could sometimes soar to the most lofty achievements -sometimes creep in the most wretched rhymes; and when we painfully toil through page after page, and volume after volume, of intolerable dullness, here and there enlivened by blasphemy, we can scarcely believe that they really proceeded from the first warrior and statesman of his age. Voltaire, who knew him well,

* Mr. Robinson to Lord Harrington, October 26. and November 7.

† Case of the Hanover Forces.

gave him the nickname of CESAR-COTIN.*

Nor was there

a less striking contrast between the qualities of his heart and of his head. Vain, selfish, and ungrateful, destitute of truth and honour, he valued his companions, not from former kindness, but only for future use. But turn we to his talents, and we find the most consummate skill in war, formed by his own genius and acquired from no master; we find a prompt, sagacious, and unbending administration of affairs; an activity and application seldom yielding to sickness and never relaxed by pleasure, and seeking no repose except by variety of occupation; a high and overruling ambition, capable of the greatest exploits or of the most abject baseness, as either tended to its object, but never losing sight of that object; pursuing it with dauntless courage and an eagle eye, sometimes in the heavens and sometimes through the mire, and never tolerating either in himself or in others one moment of languor or one touch of pity.

This aspiring Prince had found on his accession an immense treasure and an excellent army; he panted for an opportunity of employing both, and availed himself of the Emperor's death to revive some obsolete claims to certain duchies and lordships in Silesia. While others negotiated, he acted. He quietly collected his troops, all the while continuing his professions of amity to the Court of Vienna; and, when his preparations were complete, secretly quitting Berlin at the close of a masked ball, on the 23d of December he entered Silesia, at the head of thirty thousand men. He had not strengthened himself by any engagements with the Court of Versailles,

* Abbé Cotin, the constant butt of Boileau's satire, was also the original of Molière's Trissotin in Les Femmes Savantes. The name was at first Tri-cotin, but afterwards altered, the allusion being thought too plain.

This appeared from the very outset of his reign. See in the Appendix a letter from Lord Deskford to Marquis Visconti, December 26. 1740. A similar statement is made by Voltaire. He tells us that when at Berlin some persons remonstrated with the King for favouring him so highly. "Laissez faire,' dit le Roi,' on presse l'orange, "et on la jette quand on a avalé le jus.' La Metrie ne manqua pas

"

(Mé

"de me rendre ce bel apophthègme digne de Dénis de Syracuse. Je "résolus dès lors de mettre en sûreté les pelures de l'orange.' moires de Voltaire, p. 224. ed. 1822.)

1741.

THE PRUSSIANS INVADE SILESIA.

79

but he relied on its ancient animosity against the House of Austria, and perceived that he might sign an alliance whenever he gained a victory. As he set off, he said to the French Ambassador, the Marquis de Beauvau: “I am going, I believe, to play your game; and if I should "throw doublets, we will share the stakes."

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At the same time, however, Frederick made an overture in the opposite quarter. He despatched Count Gotter as his agent to Vienna, to announce his intended invasion, and to propose that the Queen of Hungary should cede to him the province of Lower Silesia, on which condition he would undertake to change sides, and employ his troops and treasure in defending Her Majesty against all her enemies and obtaining for the Duke her husband the Imperial Crown. But the high spirit of Maria Theresa could ill brook such submission. She declared that so long as the King of Prussia had a man in Silesia she would sooner perish than enter into any terms with him, and Gotter returned in disappointment to his master.†

Meanwhile the invasion of Silesia was easy and almost unopposed. The Queen's troops, only 3000 in number, were compelled to retreat into Moravia; and the Protestants, who had suffered severely under the Austrian yoke, hailed Frederick as a champion of their faith. Before the end of January he had reduced the whole province except the fortified towns of Glogau, Brieg, and Neiss. Yet still he affected to call himself a friend of the House of Austria, and wrote to the Duke of Lorraine : 66 - My "heart has no share in the mischief which my hand is doing to your Court." Such hypocritical assurances tended only to inflame the resentment of Maria Theresa She collected an army of about 24,000 men in Moravia, and drew Marshal Neipperg from a prison to place him at its head. § According to her orders, Neipperg, crossing the mountains, entered Silesia, and pushed forward to

* Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XV. ch. vi.

1741.

Coxe's House of Austria, vol. iii. p. 232-234.

Despatch of Mr. Robinson to Lord Harrington, February 22.

§ Neipperg had been disgraced and sent to the castle of Hallitz in 1739, for signing the preliminaries of a disadvantageous peace with the Turks. (Coxe's House of Austria, vol. iii. p. 198.)

Neiss and Brieg, while Frederick, who had returned for a short time to Berlin, hastened back to meet his new antagonist. On the 10th of April the Prussians, approaching by rapid marches and favoured by a fall of snow, surprised Neipperg at Molwitz, a village near Brieg. The battle, however, which ensued, seemed at first to declare against them; their cavalry, much inferior to the Austrian, was entirely routed; the King's baggage was taken; and the King himself was borne along by the crowd of fugitives to Oppellen, many miles from the field of action.* But the bravery and steadiness of the Prussian infantry, under Marshal Schwerin, retrieved the day they not only arrested the progress of Neipperg's already half victorious troops, but put them to flight with the loss of 3000 men and several pieces of cannon. An express was then despatched to the King in the rear, informing him that the battle which he had long since despaired of was completely won. A strange outset of a hero's career, but nobly repaired in after years.

The disaster of Molwitz revealing the weakness of the Austrian monarchy encouraged new claimants to its spoils. The Kings of Spain, of Sardinia, and of Poland as Elector of Saxony, each on different grounds, pretended to some share in its dominions. On the other hand a generous spirit was rising throughout England to support the injured Queen, and the Opposition already began to clamour against the tameness of the Minister. Thus goaded, Walpole brought forward an Address in the House of Commons, pledging Parliament to maintain the Pragmatic Sanction: he also proposed a Subsidy of 300,000l. to the Queen of Hungary, and acknowledged the national obligation by treaty of assisting her with a force of 12,000 men. These motions were supported by

*Frederick's behaviour in this flight was characteristically selfish. On arriving at Oppellen, the place was found to be occupied by an Austrian out-post, and some hussars sallied out against the King's party; upon which Frederick exclaimed to Maupertuis, the French mathematician, and some other attendants, "Farewell, my friends, I am better mounted than you all!" and gaily rode off, leaving Maupertuis and some others to be taken prisoners. This was related by Maupertuis himself at Vienna to Mr. Robinson. (Despatch to Lord Harrington, April 22. 1741.)

66

1741.

FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS.

81

Pulteney and other chiefs of the "patriots," but did not pass without some severe remarks from Shippen, who declared that the measures were intended only to secure the King's Electoral dominions. A similar Address, proposed by Ministers in the House of Lords, displayed a still wider schism in the Opposition ranks; Carteret speaking in favour of the motion, but Chesterfield and Argyle opposing it as too Hanoverian. According to Chesterfield," the Prince of Wales behaved sillily upon. "this occasion, making Lords North and Darnley vote against us; such was the power of the NATALE SOLUM. "This has hurt him much with the public." " * Carteret on his part, with the view of thwarting Walpole's negotiations, took care to assure Count Ostein, the Austrian Ambassador, that the Subsidy did not proceed from the good disposition of the Minister, but had been extorted by the general voice of the Parliament and people.†

The great object of Walpole's negotiations at this time was to break the confederacy against Maria Theresa, by detaching the King of Prussia from it, nay, even converting him into an ally. It was found, however, far from easy to mediate between a victorious invader and a haughty and offended Queen. When Lord Hyndford the English Ambassador urged Frederick to moderate his pretensions, and represented how beautiful a thing is magnanimity, he was impatiently interrupted: "Do not talk to me, my Lord, of magnanimity! a Prince ought first to con"sult his own interests. I am not averse to a peace, but "I expect to have four Duchies, and I will have them."‡ Mr. Robinson at Vienna had full as many obstacles to combat. Scarce any concession could be wrung from Maria Theresa; she resolutely refused every part of Silesia, but at length proposed the Duchy of Limburg and other lands in the Low Countries. Even to these inadequate terms she was brought with extreme reluctance, and while empowering Mr. Robinson to make the offer to Frederick, passionately exclaimed, "I hope he may reject

* Lord Chesterfield to Lord Marchmont, April 24. 1741. Marchmont Papers, vol. ii.

See the Life of Lord Walpole, of Wolterton, p. 224.

Despatch of Lord Hyndford to Lord Harrington, Breslau, June 12. 1741.