Maria Theresa, pure and unsullied as was ever her matronly fame,-she could condescend to flatter the lowborn mistress of another Sovereign, when Silesia came in view. With her own hand she wrote a letter to Madame de Pompadour, abounding in friendly expressions, and calling her by the title of "Cousin." Similar, or perhaps still more solid, compliments were bestowed on Abbé de Bernis, afterwards Cardinal, the statesman in whom Madame de Pompadour most confided. By such means were overruled the maxims of the Ministers trained in the school of Louis the Fourteenth; by such means was concluded on the 1st of May 1756 the Treaty of Versailles, binding France to Austria, and aiming at the partition of the Prussian Monarchy. There, the Nearly the same scene passed in Russia. sovereign, the Czarina Elizabeth, was of mild and gentle character. On her accession, for instance, she had promised that not a single criminal should be put to death during her reign; and she had kept her word. But she was a slave to such little feminine terrors as ghosts and spiders, thunderstorms and omens. One whole day she refused to sign a treaty because a wasp had been hovering round her pen!* Still more open to satire were the details of her private life. About a hundred grenadiers of her guard had wrought the sudden revolution that placed her on the throne, and of these it is alleged by grave historians that the greater number had already, at different times, attracted the personal and especial notice of their future Sovereign. † Against the Czarina's frailties, as against Madame de Pompadour's, Frederick loved to point his shafts of wit; nor did he spare invectives of another kind against Count Bestucheff, the Russian Chancellor and Prime Minister. Thus at Petersburg as at Paris Kaunitz found a ready ear when he first dropped proposals of alliance, and held out as a lure the Prussian provinces beyond the Vistula. The Court of Russia resolved to join its arms with Austria and France; and early in the winter renounced its recent treaty of subsidy * Rulhière, Anecdotes sur la Russie en 1763, en suite de l'Histoire de Pologne, vol. iv. p. 298. ed. 1807. † Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. xxviii. p. 265. ed. 1842. 1756. 66 AUGUSTUS, KING OF POLAND. 77 with England. "However," says Lord Waldegrave, though the Russians did not fulfil their engagements, *they behaved with more generosity than is usual on "the like occasions, for as they would not earn our money they refused to take it.” * 66 Poland, enfeebled by her own elective Royalty and internal dissensions, could not be roused from an impotence which she disguised under the more specious name of neutrality. Her King Augustus, as Elector of Saxony, resided mainly at Dresden, yielding the cares of state to his Minister Count Brühl, and secluding himself in a china palace, with buffoons and tame bears as his favourite companions.† The Minister, profuse and grasping, was gained by Austria with the hope of Prussian territory for his master, and of further riches for himself; and entered confidentially and unreservedly, for the Saxon state, into all the designs of the new alliance. Sweden, although the consort of her King was sister to Frederick, yielded to the ascendency of France, her ancient ally, and to the prospect of acquiring a larger share of Pomerania. Denmark and Holland, Spain, and Portugal, - states none of them at that time of any great significance, were left to their "exact neutrality.". But thus had five Powers whose united population exceeded 90,000,000 leagued themselves against a single kingdom with less than 5,000,000. Thus had sprung up, what Chatham terms in one of his letters, with some exaggeration, "the most powerful and malignant confe"deracy that ever yet has threatened the independence "of mankind!"‡ The schemes of the confederates were kept carefully secret; their preparations not being as yet completed; and their projected attack was postponed till the ensuing year. But a treacherous clerk, named Menzel, who was employed at Dresden in the secret departments of state, had sold to Frederick exact and timely tidings of the whole design. Even at the first rumours, Frederick had hastened to draw closer his union with England, — the *Memoirs, p. 42. † Lord Orford's Memoirs, vol ii. p. 71. and 465. only alliance that remained open to him, while England, on her own part being already embroiled with France and deserted by Russia, was glad of such support. The personal antipathy of the two Sovereigns towards each other gave way to the political exigencies of the times. In January 1756 the Kings of England and Prussia concluded a convention, by which they reciprocally bound themselves during the troubles in America, not to suffer foreign troops of any nation whatever, to enter or pass through Germany. The progress of hostilities would soon, Frederick foresaw, lead to further support from England. Meanwhile he surveyed his own situation with a keen and steadfast eye. Fraught with peril as it was, hopeless as it might seem to others, — that great genius did not despair. There was something, he well knew, to expect from the slowness, the jealousy, the want of concert to which all coalitions are prone. His army, though far inferior in numbers to the combined armies arraying against him, was at this time the best in Europe, and strong out of all proportion to the extent of his dominions. While his enemies were, for the most part, involved in debts, he had been laying up in the vaults of Magdeburg a treasure for the evil day. Above all, the Prussian resources, however slender, would be wielded against inferior and jarring leaders by one master-mind. There was this further advantage on the side of Frederick, his enemies were still unprepared, and he was ready. Finding that the storm was wholly inevitable, and must burst on him next year, he, with bold sagacity, determined to forestall it. First, then, in August, 1756, his ambassador at Vienna had orders to demand of the Empress Queen a statement of her intentions, to announce war as the alternative, and to declare that he would accept no answer "in the style of an oracle." The answer, as he expected, was evasive. Without further delay an army of sixty thousand Prussians, headed by Frederick in person, poured into Saxony. The Queen of Poland was taken in Dresden: the King of Poland and his troops were blockaded in Pirna. Thus did Frederick commence that mighty struggle which is known to Germans by the name of the Seven Years' War.. The first object of the Prussian monarch at Dresden was to obtain possession of the original documents of the coalition against him, whose existence he knew by means of the traitor Menzel. The Queen of Poland, no less aware than Frederick of the importance of these papers, had carried them to her own bed-chamber. She sat down on the trunk which contained the most material ones, and declared to the Prussian officer sent to seize them that nothing but force should move her from the spot. This officer was of Scottish blood, General Keith, the Earl Marischal's brother. "All Europe," said the Queen, "would exclaim against this outrage; and then, sir, you will be the victim; depend upon it, your King “is a man to sacrifice you to his own honour!" Keith, who knew Frederick's character, was startled, and sent for further orders; but on receiving a reiteration of the first he did his duty. The papers were then made public, appended to a manifesto in vindication of Frederick's conduct; and they convinced the world that, although the apparent aggressor in his invasion of Saxony, he had only acted on the principles of self-defence. 66 Meanwhile, the Prussian army closely blockaded the Saxon in Pirna, but the Austrian, under Marshal Brown, an officer of British extraction, was advancing to its relief through the mountain passes of Bohemia. Frederick left a sufficient force to maintain the blockade, marched against Brown with the remainder, and gave him battle at Lowositz on the 1st of October. It proved a hardfought day; the King no longer found, as he says in one of his letters, the old Austrians he remembered *; and his loss in killed and wounded was greater than theirs +; but victory declared on his side. Then retracing his steps towards Pirna he compelled, by the pressure of famine, the whole Saxon army, 17,000 strong, to an unconditional surrender. The officers were sent home on parole, but the soldiers were induced, partly by force and partly by persuasion, to enlist in the Prussian ranks, and swear * To Marshal Schwerin, October 2. 1756. Orig. in German. †The Prussians lost at Lowositz 3,308 men and 1,274 horses; the Austrians only 2,984 men and 475 horses. (Geschichte des siebenjährigen Krieges vom Generalstab, s. 108. citirt von Preuss.) fidelity to Frederick. Their former sovereign, King Augustus, remained securely perched on his castle-rock of Königstein, but becoming weary of confinement, solicited, and was most readily granted, passports to Warsaw. During the whole winter Frederick fixed his head-quarters at Dresden, treating Saxony in all respects as a conquered province, or as one of his own. Troops and taxes were levied throughout that rich and populous land with unsparing rigour, and were directed against the very cause which the sovereign of that land had embraced. During this campaign, as during every other of Frederick, it is remarkable to what slight details that great genius could descend. Even at the outset, while negotiations were still pending, while the question of peace or war yet hung in the balance,-down came a peremptory order from Potsdam, guarding against any officer carrying with him into the field any plate, even a single silver spoon. The same vigilant care runs through every other contingency. Vinegar, for example, never received so much attention from any other general,-not at least since the days of Hannibal! There are most minute directions how each Captain is to take under his charge one barrel of vinegar,—not for his own use,-not for any purpose of luxury,-but that the infusion of a few drops of it may correct the brackish water which soldiers are sometimes reduced to drink in their encampments. Many minds can aspire to high designs. Many others can deal admirably well with any point of detail, though they are not large enough, as it were, to take in the whole of a subject. But it is this rare power of combining extensive schemes, with attention to the least trifle that may conduce to them, which, as it appears to me, forms the chief element of mental greatness and of human success. The proceedings in America during this campaign seem trifling when compared to those in Germany. A detachment of the enemy was defeated by Colonel Bradstreet on the river Onondaga; on the other hand, * Sce Peuss, Lebens-Geschichte, vol. ii. p. 7. |