CHAP. XLVII.] TREATY BETWEEN FRANCE AND AUSTRIA. 155 several days, gave the Dauphin his last instructions, and like a man at the point of death, caused himself, in the agonies of his conscience, to be absolved five or six times over by a priest. Louis, however, speedily recovered, and Damiens-such was the name of the assassin-who appears to have been an imbecile, was condemned to expiate his crime with torments which were a disgrace to the eighteenth century, and to a civilized nation. Like Ravaillac, his flesh was torn with red-hot pincers, the wounds were filled with molten lead, and he was finally torn asunder by four powerful horses. It is, however, only justice to Louis to say that he disapproved of this cruelty, and that he signified his disgust at the conduct of some great ladies who paid large sums to obtain a view of the execution. Expressions of condolence at Louis's misfortune poured in from all the Courts of Europe: Frederick alone, as we have said, expressed no sympathy and horror.' But to return to the negotiations between France and Austria.

By the second treaty between these countries France very much augmented her succours both of troops and money. She was to maintain on foot a force of 105,000 men, besides 10,000 Bavarians and Würtembergers, till Maria Theresa, who was to employ at least 80,000 of her own troops, should have recovered Silesia and Glatz; and was also to pay an annual subsidy of twelve million florins, or about one million sterling, so long as the war should last. Austria was further to obtain the principality of Crossen, with a convenient extent of country; the present possessors of which were to be indemnified out of the Prussian dominions. Negotiations were to be opened with Sweden, the Elector Palatine, the Electors of Bavaria and Saxony, and with the Dutch StatesGeneral, who were all to have a share of Prussia proportioned to their exertions in the war. To the negotiations with Sweden we have already alluded. Saxony was to have the Duchy of Magdeburg and the Circle of the Saal, together with the Principality of Halberstadt, in exchange for part of Lusatia. The Elector Palatine and the Elector of Bavaria joined the league in the hope of sharing in the spoils; the Dutch, in spite of the bait of Prussian Cleves, preserved their neutrality. Maria Theresa was to assign the Austrian Netherlands, except what she ceded to France, to the infant Don Philip, who in return was to abandon to her the Duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. Maria Theresa reserved, however, the vote and seat in the Imperial Diets annexed to the Circle of Burgundy, the collation of the Order of the Golden

1 Stenzel, Gesch. des Preuss. Staats, B. v. S. 23.

156

ADVANCE OF THE FRENCH.

[CHAP. XLVII. Fleece, and the arms and titles of the House of Burgundy. To France were to be ceded the sovereignty of Chimai and Beaumont, the ports and towns of Ostend, Nieuport, Ypres, Furnes, and Mons, the fortress of Knoque, and a league of territory around each of these places.' The French were at once to occupy Ostend and Nieuport provisionally. But by assigning the Austrian Netherlands to a small Prince like the Duke of Parma, Maria Theresa virtually abandoned the whole of them to France.

France had also endeavoured to persuade the Court of Madrid to join the alliance against England and Prussia; and as a lure to Spain, Louis XV., after the conquest of Minorca, offered to make over that island to Ferdinand VI., as well as to assist him in the recovery of Gibraltar. But Ferdinand was not inclined to enter

into a war with England, and these offers were rejected.2

The forces to be brought into the field by the Powers leagued against Frederick II. amounted to upwards of 400,000 men, to which Prussia and Hanover could not oppose the half of that number. In April, 1757, before the second convention with Austria had been executed, the French took the field with three armies; one of which, under Marshal the Duke de Richelieu, was placed on the Upper Rhine; another, under the Prince de Soubise, on the Main; while the third and principal one, under the Marshal d'Estrées, occupied the Duchies of Gelderland and Cleves, and the greater part of the Prussian territories in Westphalia-Frederick having abandoned these districts in order to concentrate his forces on the Oder. In July the French took possession of Hesse-Cassel, the capital of an ally of Great Britain; the Duke of Cumberland, who commanded the Hanoverian army of observation of about 67,000 men, continually retreating before them. The plan of the French was to reduce the Electorate of Hanover to neutrality, and then to push on into Prussia. The Duke of Cumberland attempted to make a stand at Hastenbeck, but was defeated by D'Estrées. The Duke gave up the battle prematurely, the loss of the French having been twice as great as that of the Hanoverians. In spite of his victory, however, D'Estrées, who was accused of being too slow in his movements, was by a court intrigue superseded in favour of the more brilliant Marshal Richelieu, who had acquired a military reputation by the conquest of Minorca. Richelieu overran the greater part of Brunswick and Hanover, the Duke of Cumberland retiring to Kloster-Seven, between Bremen and

This treaty in extenso is in Garden, t. iv.; Notes et Documens, No. iii.

2 Coxe, Spanish Bourbons, vol. iv. p.

172.

CHAP. XLVII.] CONVENTION OF KLOSTER-SEVEN.

157 Hamburg. Thither Richelieu hesitated to pursue him, knowing that Denmark, by the treaty of 1715, already mentioned, had guaranteed the Duchies of Bremen and Verden to the House of Brunswick Lüneburg, and had promised, in case of an attack upon them, to come to its aid with 8,000 men; while the French commander was ignorant that, by a recent Convention executed at Copenhagen, July 11th, 1757, France had promised to respect the neutrality of those two Duchies, reserving, however, the right of pursuing a Hanoverian army which might take refuge in them.1

Matters were in this position when Count Lynar offered, on the part of Denmark, to mediate between the combatants. Lynar belonged to the school of Spener and the Pietists, and according to a letter of his which fell into the hands of the Prussians, he attributed this idea to an inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which enabled him to arrest the progress of the French arms, as Joshua had formerly arrested the course of the sun. However this may be, the Duke of Cumberland, pressed thereto by the petty interests and passions of the Hanoverian Ministry and nobles, who were anxious to save their own possessions from annoyance, consented to accept the mediation of Denmark; nor was Richelieu averse to it, as the neutralizing of Hanover would enable him to march against Prussia. Under these circumstances Lynar was employed to draw up the CONVENTION OF KLOSTER-SEVEN, signed September 8th, 1757. By this Convention an armistice was agreed upon, Cumberland's auxiliary troops, namely, those of Hesse, BrunswickWolfenbüttel, Saxe-Gotha, and Lippe-Bückeburg—for there were no British among them-were to be dismissed to their respective countries; the Duke himself, with the Hanoverians, was to retire within twenty-four hours beyond the Elbe, leaving only a garrison of not more than 6,000 men at Stade; and the French were to retain possession of what they had conquered till a peace. But the composition of this document neither reflected much credit on Count Lynar's statesmanship, nor on the penetration and foresight of Richelieu. The duration of the suspension of arms was left undetermined, nor was it stipulated that the Hanoverians and their auxiliaries should be disarmed.

3

The Prussians had entered Bohemia from Saxony about the same time that the French invaded Westphalia, and a division

1 Garden, Hist. des Traités, t. iv. p. 27. Frederick, Hist. de la guerre de sept ans, ch. 5.

3 Hinterlassene Staats-schriften des Grafen zu Lynar (Hamburg, 1797).

158

BATTLE OF KOLIN.

[CHAP. XLVII. under the Prince of Brunswick-Bevern, had repulsed Count Königseck at Reichenberg, April 24th, 1757. Frederick in person, with the main army, marched against Prince Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Brown, who were strongly posted behind Prague, on the Moldau. As the Austrian Marshal Daun was known to be approaching with reinforcements, the King attacked Prince Charles, May 6th, and, after an obstinately contested and bloody battle, which lasted from nine in the morning till eight in the evening, completely defeated him. The Austrian camp, military chest, and sixty guns fell into the hands of the Prussians. The battle of Prague was signalized by the death of two of the most distinguished generals on either side-Marshal Brown, and the Prussian Marshal Schwerin.

After this defeat, Prince Charles threw himself into Prague with the remains of his army of about 40,000 men, where he was blockaded by Frederick; and, such was the prestige of the Prussian arms, that although Frederick's forces were not much more numerous than those which he surrounded, yet the Austrians ventured not upon any attempt to escape. Nay, as Marshal Daun was approaching to relieve them, Frederick was even bold enough to march with a great part of his army to oppose him. But in this hazardous step he was not attended with his usual good fortune, which had hitherto proved so constant to him as to render him somewhat presumptuous. Daun, though rather slow, was an able and cautious general, and his army numbered 20,000 men more than that of the King-54,000 Austrians against some 34,000 Prussians. It is not surprising, therefore, that Frederick was, for the first time, though after a severe contest, entirely defeated in the BATTLE OF KOLIN, June 18th. In consequence of this defeat he was compelled to raise the blockade of Prague, and to retire with all his forces into Silesia. It was on the occasion of this battle that the Empress Queen founded the Order of Maria Theresa.

During the next three or four months Frederick's prospects were gloomy enough. To add to the misfortune of his defeat, Westphalia, as we have seen, was lost; the Hanoverian army beaten and neutralized; the road to Magdeburg open to Richelieu; while the army of the Empire, called the Army of Execution, together with a French division under Soubise, had assembled in Thuringia. Marshal Apraxin, with 100,000 Russians, who had occupied Riga early in February, entered Prussia in June, and defeated the Prussians under Lehwald at Gross-Jägerndorf, August 30th; while Memel had been captured by a Russian

CHAP. XLVII.]

LUKEWARMNESS OF THE RUSSIANS.

159

maritime force. England had made no preparations to assist Prussia in this quarter; the Russian Court having notified that it should consider the appearance of an English fleet in the Baltic as a declaration of war-a step which the British Cabinet, having its hands full with the French war, as well as for commercial reasons, was anxious not to provoke. The Swedes, under Ungern Sternberg, invaded Pomerania and the Uckermark in September, and took several places. Silesia, and even Brandenburg, seemed to be open to the Austrians; and the Austrian General Haddick actually pushed on to Berlin in October, and levied contributions on that city during the few hours that he held it. In these critical circumstances, Frederick was almost driven to despair. He tells us himself that he meditated suicide; an idea which gave occasion to Voltaire to write him a dissuasive letter, in which he urged all the topics which could occur to a man of genius and wit on such a subject. It was a more sensible step on the part of Frederick to endeavour to open negotiations with the French. Marshal Richelieu, a great nephew of the Cardinal's, had inherited the antiAustrian policy of that minister, and regarded with disapproval the project of crushing Prussia. He was not, it is said, insensible to flattery or even to bribes; and Frederick made proposals to him in a letter calculated to tickle his vanity, accompanied, it is supposed, with a considerable present. The French Court did not listen to these advances, but they probably contributed to the inactive line of conduct pursued by Richelieu. Frederick was saved by the want of concert and vigour among his enemies. Apraxin, instead of following up his victory at Jägerndorf, retired towards Poland and Courland, and went into winter quarters. This step is ascribed to the fondness and admiration with which the Grand Duke Peter of Holstein-Gottorp, the heir of the Russian Throne, regarded the King of Prussia, an esteem which he believed to be reciprocated;' and may partly also be attributed to the Russian Chancellor, Bestuscheff, who had sold himself to England and Prussia. Bestuscheff was soon afterwards disgraced at the instance of the Courts of Vienna and Versailles, and Apraxin was recalled; but, fortunately for the King of Prussia, all the commanders who succeeded him-partly from some defect in the Russian military system, partly also from the knowledge that "the young Court," as it was called, or the Grand Duke Peter and his wife, were well disposed towards Frederick-carried on

Lynar's Hinterlassene Staats-schriften, B. i. S. 469.

2 Hermann, Gesch. Russlands, B. v. S. 133, 141.