150 FREDERICK II. INVADES SAXONY. [CHAP. XLVII. better," he wrote to George II., "to anticipate than to be anticipated." Frederick's conduct on this occasion has been much canvassed. It has been observed that the projects of his enemies were only eventual, depending on the condition whether the King of Prussia should give occasion to a war, and, consequently, on his own conduct; that it was very possible their schemes would never have been executed, and problematical whether to await them would have been more dangerous than to anticipate them. Such speculations it is impossible to answer, but it may be observed that the course pursued by Frederick proved ultimately successful; and that, by attacking his enemies before they were prepared, he not only deprived Saxony of the power to injure him, but even pressed the resources of that State into his own service. It must also be remembered that the scanty means of Prussia, in comparison with those of her enemies, did not permit Frederick to keep a largeforce in the field for a long period of time, and it was, therefore, a point of the most vital importance for him to bring the war to the speediest possible conclusion. The morality of his proceeding may, in this instance, be justified by the necessity of self-defence; for there can be no doubt that a most formidable league had been organized against him. The Prussians entered Saxony in three columns, towards the end of August, 1756. Prince Ferdinand, of Brunswick, marched with one by way of Halle, Leipsic, and Freiberg, towards Bohemia; the King himself, with Marshal Keith, led another by Torgau and Dresden; the third, under the Prince of BrunswickBevern, marched through Lusatia.3 1 Lord Dover, Life of Frederick II. vol. ii. ch. 1. 2 These reasons were given in a paper read before the Berlin Academy of Sciences by M. von Hertzberg, a few months after Frederick's death. The bad taste of this paper has been remarked upon by Menzel, Neuere Gesch. der Deutschen, B. v. S. 425 Anm. ; as M. Hertzberg was the very person employed by Frederick thirty years before to draw up the Mémoire raisonné, in justification of the step he had taken. See further on this subject, Raumer, Fried. rich II. und seine Zeit. Abschnitt 28 ff. It may be observed that Frederick's proceeding with regard to Saxony bears a strong analogy to the seizure of the Danish fleet by England in 1807. 3 It is impossible, in a work like the When Frederick entered present, to enter into the details of the Seven Years' War. The principal authorities on the subject are the Hist. de la guerre de sept ans, in Frederick's Œuvres Posthumes; the History of the Seven Years' War, by General Lloyd, with plans (3 vols. 4to.). This work has been translated into German by Tempelhoff, with additions which make it quite a new work (6 vols. 4to.). Archenholz, Gesch. des siebenjährigen Kriegs (2 vols. 8vo.); Stuhr, Forschungen und Erläuterungen über Hauptpunkte der Gesch. des siebenjährigen Kriegs, Hamburg, 1842. Jomini's Traité des grandes opérations militaires contains a critical account of the King of Prussia's campaigns. Napoleon has also criticized all Frederick's military operations in his. Mémoires. CHAP. XLVII.] THE SAXON ARMY SURRENDERS. 151 Dresden, September 7th, he seized the Saxon archives, and caused the despatches, which proved the design of the Powers allied against him to invade and divide Prussia, to be published with the celebrated Mémoire of M. von Hertzberg. The Prussians at first pretended to enter Saxony in a friendly manner. They declared that they were only on their way to Bohemia, and should speedily evacuate the country; but they soon began to levy contributions. The King even established a so-called Directory at Torgau, which was to collect the revenues of the electorate; and he caused that town to be fortified. Augustus III. ordered the Saxon army of about 17,000 men, under Rutowski, to take up a strong position near Pirna; but it was without provisions, ammunition, or artillery. Count Brühl had neglected everything, except his own interests and pleasures, and Augustus and he shut themselves up in the impregnable fortress of Königstein. Frederick was unwilling to attack the Saxons. He wished to spare them, and to incorporate them with his own army: and he, therefore, resolved to reduce them by blockade. The delay thus occasioned afforded Maria Theresa time to assemble her forces in Bohemia, under Piccolomini and Brown. As the latter general was hastening to the relief of the Saxons, Frederick marched to oppose him. The hostile armies met on the plain of Lobositz, a little town in the Circle of Leitmeritz, where an indecisive battle was fought, October 1st. The result, however, was in favour of Frederick. He remained master of the field, and the advance of the Austrians was checked. Frederick now hastened back to Saxony, where the troops of Augustus, being reduced to a state of the greatest distress by the exhaustion of their provisions, were compelled to surrender (October 15th), in spite of an attempt of the Austrians to release them. The officers were dismissed on parole, and the greater part of the privates incorporated in Prussian regiments. Augustus III. being permitted to retire into Poland, endeavoured, but without effect, to induce the Poles to embrace his cause. Frederick, who remained master of Saxony, concluded in the winter (January 11th, 1757), a new treaty with Great Britain, the professed object of which was, to balance the "unnatural alliance" between France and Austria. Great Britain was to pay Prussia a subsidy of a million sterling during the war, 1 Mémoire raisonné sur les desseins dangereux des cours de Vienne et de Dresde. See note 2, p. 150. The papers seized, however, do not appear to have afforded any proof against Saxony. See Schlosser, Gesch. des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, B. ii. S. 306. 152 SWEDEN JOINS THE LEAGUE. [CHAP. XLVII. to send a fleet into the Baltic, and to harass France on her coasts, or in the Netherlands; while Frederick was to add 20,000 men to the Hanoverian army of 50,000.1 Frederick's attack upon Saxony set in motion, in the following year, the powerful league which had been organized against him. The Empress-Queen, the States of the German Empire, France, Russia, and Sweden prepared at once to fall upon him. On the complaint of Augustus, as Elector of Saxony, the German Diet, at the instance of the Emperor Francis, assembled at Ratisbon with more than ordinary promptitude; declared the King of Prussia guilty of a breach of the Landfriede, or public peace of the Empire; and decreed, on the 17th of January, 1757, an armatura ad triplum, or threefold contingent of troops, and the tax or contribution called Roman-months, which would have brought in three million florins, or about 250,000l. sterling, could it have been duly levied, for the purpose of restoring Augustus to his dominions. But it was one thing to make these decrees, and another to carry them out. The Prussian envoy at the Diet treated the notary who handed him the decree with the rudest contempt. The North of Germany protested against the decision of the majority of the Diet, and the Sovereigns of Lippe, Waldeck, Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, Hanover, and Gotha found it more advantageous to let out their troops to England than to pay Roman-months and furnish their contingents to the Imperial army. France, governed by the small passions of a boudoir rather than by the dictates of sound policy, instead of devoting all her energies and resources to the maritime war with Great Britain, resolved to take a principal share in the continental war, and to assist in the abasement of the only German Power capable of making head against Austria. She determined to send three armies into Germany, and exerted her diplomacy to induce Sweden to join the league against Prussia. The revolution which had just taken place in Sweden was favourable to the designs of France. Frederick I., King of Sweden and Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, had died in 1751, and had been succeeded by Adolphus Frederick, of the House of Holstein-Gottorp, elected under Russian influence. Ulrica, sister of the King of Prussia, and consort of Adolphus Frederick, had, in 1756, organized a conspiracy to overthrow the aristocratic faction and restore the royal power; but it ended only in the execution of some of the principal leaders, and the still The treaty will be found textually in Garden, t. iv. p. 29. CHAP. XLVII.] PERSECUTION OF THE JANSENISTS. 153 further increase of the power of the Hats. This party was sold to France; and the Senate, without even consulting the Estates of the realm, compelled the King to take part against his brotherin-law. The lure held out by France was the recovery, by Sweden, of all her former possessions in Pomerania. In the course of 1757, two conventions were executed between France and Sweden, in which Austria was also included (March 21st and September 22nd). By these treaties, Sweden, as one of the guarantors of the Peace of Westphalia, engaged to maintain in Germany an army of at least 20,000 men, exclusive of the garrison of Stralsund, and of her contingent to the Imperial army for the possessions she still held in Pomerania. Subsidies were to be paid for these succours, and for any increased force. An attempt was also made to induce Denmark to join the league; but the Danish minister, Count Bernstorff, with a high moral feeling which distinguishes him among the politicians of the day, refused to lay the application before his Sovereign, Frederick V., on the ground that nothing more wicked and dreadful can be committed than to enter into an unjust and needless war for the sake of acquiring a piece of territory. A secret treaty was also concluded between the Empress-Queen and Elizabeth of Russia, January 22nd, 1757. Its contents are unknown, and even its existence would have remained a secret but for its being cited in the Convention of St. Petersburg, March 21st, 1760." France also drew closer her alliance with Austria by a fresh treaty, executed on the anniversary of the former one (May 1st, 1757). Between these periods. the Court of Versailles had become still more embittered against the King of Prussia. The Dauphin had married a daughter of Augustus III., and her tears and lamentations upon the invasion of Saxony had had a great effect upon Louis XV. Another circumstance had also contributed to his hatred of Frederick. He alone, among all the Princes of Europe, had neglected to condole with the French King, when wounded with the knife of an assassin. This attempt upon Louis's life had been produced by a fresh persecution of the Jansenists. Christophe de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, a violent champion of orthodoxy, had, in 1750, commanded his clergy to refuse the last sacraments to such dying persons as were not provided with a certificate of confession, and refused to acknowledge the bull Unigenitus. The withholding of the last sacraments, it should be remembered, implied the refusal 1 Menzel, B v. S. 449. Garden, t. iv. p. 24. 154 LOUIS XV. WOUNDED BY DAMIENS. [CHAP. XLVII. of Christian sepulture, and affixed a stigma on the deceased and his family. The French Parliament took up the cause of the people against the clergy. Violent scenes ensued. Some of the more prominent presidents and counsellors were banished; the Parliament of Paris was suspended from its functions; but a passive resistance continued, and, in 1754, the King found it expedient to settle the matter by a transaction. The Bishops consented to dispense with the obnoxious certificates, provided the clergy were released from the tax of a twentieth, which the Government, in a new scheme of finance, had extended to the incomes of that order; and the Parliament of Paris was restored, amid the acclamations of the people, on agreeing to register a Royal Declaration enjoining silence with regard to religious disputes. The clergy, however, did not adhere to their bargain, but continued to require the certificates; whereupon the Court changed sides, and banished the Archbishop and several other prelates to their country-houses. The Parliaments, encouraged by this symptom of royal favour, became still more contumacious, and refused to register some royal edicts for the imposition of new taxes required for the contemplated war. To put an end to these contentions, Louis XV., in a Lit de Justice, held December 13th, 1756, issued two Declarations. The first of these, concerning the ecclesiastical question, adopted a middle course, and ordained that the bull Unigenitus was to be respected, though it was not to be regarded as a rule of faith. With respect to the edicts of taxation, the Parliament of Paris was to send in its remonstrances within a fortnight, and to register the edicts the day after the King's reply to them. These Declarations were accompanied with a royal edict suppressing the chambers of the Enquêtes and more than sixty offices of counsellors. This arbitrary proceeding was followed by the immediate resignation of all the members of the Courts of Enquêtes and Requêtes; an example that was followed by half the Grand' Chambre. Out of 200 magistrates, only twenty retained office. This spontaneous dissolution of the Parliament produced an extraordinary effect on the public, and impelled a crazy fanatic to make an attempt on the King's life. As Louis was entering his carriage at Versailles, on the evening of January 5th, 1757, a man stepped out from among the spectators and wounded him in the side. The wound, which appears to have been inflicted with a small penknife, was not at all dangerous; but the King, under the apprehension that the instrument had been poisoned, kept his bed |