CHAP. XLV.]

ACCESSION OF MARIA THERESA.

85

House of Habsburg, which had filled the Imperial throne during three centuries without interruption. His eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, had been appointed heir to the Austrian dominions by the Pragmatic Sanction, which instrument, as we have seen, had been guaranteed by most of the European Powers, and she assumed the government with the title of Queen of Hungary and Bohemia. Maria Theresa was now in her twenty-fourth year, a handsome lady, of winning manners. She had married, in 1736, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francis of Lorraine, the man of her choice, by whom she already had a son and heir, the Archduke Joseph. Charles VI., in the forlorn hope that he might still have male issue, had neglected to procure the Roman Crown for his son-in-law, and the Imperial dignity consequently remained in abeyance till a new Emperor should be elected. After Charles's death, therefore, the Austrian dominions figured only as one among the numerous German States, and even with less consideration than might be due to their extent, from the circumstance that Maria Theresa's pretensions to inherit them might soon be called in question. Eugene had counselled Charles to have in readiness 200,000 men, as a better security for his daughter's succession than any parchment sanctions; but the Emperor had left the army in a bad state, while the finances were exhausted by the late wars, and by his love for magnificence and art. The abuse of the Imperial revenue had been enormous. One of the Queen's first cares was to put a stop to this extravagance. Many superfluous servants, male and female singers, painters, sculptors, architects, and other artists, who were in receipt of high salaries, were either dismissed or their emoluments were reduced, and a shameful system of peculation was abolished.1

The announcement of Maria Theresa's accession was answered by England, Russia, Prussia, and the Dutch States with assurances of friendship and good will. France returned an evasive answer; the Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria refused to acknowledge the Queen of Hungary before his pretensions to the Austrian Succession were examined and decided. These he founded not on his having married a daughter of Joseph I.—a claim which would have been barred not only by the renunciation

The following articles may serve by way of specimen of these abuses. In the butler's reckoning, six quarts of wine were set down daily for each Court lady; for the widowed Empress Amelia, wife of Joseph I., twelve quarts of Hungarian wine every evening, as a Schlaftrunk, or

sleeping potion; for the Emperor's parrots, every year, two pipes of Tokay, to soak their bread, and fifteen kilderkins of Austrian wine for their bath. In the kitchen 4,000 florins were set down yearly for parsley! Gesch. und Thaten Maria Theresias, ap. Menzel, B. v. S. 289 Anm.

86

MARIA THERESA'S RIGHT DISPUTED. [CHAP. XLV.

of that Archduchess, but also by the superior title of her elder sister, the Queen of Poland. He appealed to two ancient instruments the marriage contract between Albert V. Duke of Bavaria and Anne, daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand I., and to the testament of the same Monarch; and he contended that by these two deeds the Austrian succession was assured to Anne and her descendants in default of male heirs, the issue of the Archdukes, her brothers. Maria Theresa, however, having called together the foreign ministers at her Court, caused the testament to be laid before them; when it appeared that it spoke not of the extinction of the male issue of Ferdinand's sons, but of their legitimate issue. In fact, it was intended only to secure the Archduchess Anne against the pretensions of the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg, and, after the extinction of that branch, had no longer any meaning; for, if the female issue of the Habsburg family was to have claims to the Austrian Monarchy, the daughter of the last male was the natural heiress. The Bavarian ambassador, however, was not satisfied. He narrowly scrutinized the document, in hope of finding an erasure; and having failed in that search, he boldly contended that, according to the context, the expression "legitimate heirs" could mean only male heirs. But the indignation against him at Vienna having grown to a high pitch, he found it prudent quietly to leave the city. The dispute, however, between the two Courts was continued in voluminous, unreadable documents, now almost forgotten.2

The first blow struck against the Queen of Hungary came not,. however, from any of the claimants of her inheritance, but from a monarch who had recognized her right. This was Frederick II., the young King of Prussia, who, in the middle of December, 1740, entered the Austrian province of Silesia with 30,000 men.

Frederick's father, Frederick William I. of Prussia, had died on May 31st, 1740, about five months before the Emperor Charles VI. This second King of the House of Hohenzollern disposed of the lives and property of his subjects as arbitrarily as any Oriental despot; yet, as the simplicity of his life offered a favourable contrast to the profligacy and luxury of many of the

The documents are in Rousset, Actes

et Mém. t. xiv. xv.

ร Mailath, Gesch des östr. Kaiserstaats, B. v. S. 2; cf. Menzel, Neuere Gesch, der Deutschen, B. v. S. 290. The story, however, is not quite clear. Anne's marriage contract in 1546 is said to have varied from the will. See Ohlenschlager, Gesch. des Interregnums, B. i. S. 45-224; Stumpf,

Baierns polit. Gesch., ap. Stenzel, B. iv. S. 70 f. It is hardly possible, however, that Ferdinand should have contemplated a wilful fraud. He left three legitimate sons, and it must have been a matter of indifference to him whether, at a remote period, the Austrian dominions should be enjoyed by their female posterity or by that of his daughter Anne.

CHAP. XLV.]

son.

FREDERICK WILLIAM I. OF PRUSSIA.

87

German Princes of that age, as he had a strong and determined will, and was, on the whole, so far as his ignorance, prejudices, and irascible temper would permit, a well-meaning man, he is still admired by a few Germans, and perhaps by one or two Englishmen. His very faults, however, served to prepare his son's greatness. His avarice and meanness had enabled him to leave a full treasury; his military tastes, yet unwarlike character, had prompted him to get together a large and well-appointed army, which, from his avoidance of war, descended undiminished to his It may even be suspected that his bigotry and narrowmindedness were among the chief causes which, by virtue of their repulsiveness, produced the opposite qualities in Frederick. The natural temper, as well as defective education of FrederickWilliam, whose chief pleasure lay in muddling himself with tobacco-smoke and small German beer in his evening club, or "Tobacco College," led him to hate and despise all learning and accomplishments which aimed at something beyond the barely useful and necessary; and hence, in the plan which he chalked out for his son's education, he had expressly excluded the study of the Latin language, of Greek and Roman history, and many other subjects necessary to form, or recreate, a liberal mind. But the only effect of this prohibition on the active and inquiring mind of Frederick was to make him pursue the forbidden studies with tenfold ardour, and to give to the acquisition of them all the relish of a stolen enjoyment.' The conduct of Peter the Great and Frederick William I. towards their sons forms a striking parallel, though in an inverse sense. The harshness and brutality of both these Sovereigns caused their heirs apparent to fly; Alexis ultimately met his death from his father's hands, and Frederick only narrowly escaped the same fate. But Peter's hatred of his son sprang from the latter's desire to return to the old Russian barbarism; while that of the Prussian King was excited by Frederick's love of modern civilization and art. Frederick William's bigoted Calvinistic tenets, the long prayers which he inflicted on his household, the tedious catechizings which his son had to endure from Nolten and other divines, instead of inspiring Frederick with a love of religion, drove him to the opposite extreme; a natural turn for scepticism was heightened by disgust, and made him a disciple of Bayle and

The family history of the Prussian Court, which cannot be entered into here, will be found amusingly narrated in Mr. Carlyle's Frederick the Great. See also

the Mémoires of Frederick's sister, Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth; Förster's Friedrich Wilhelm, B. i., &c.

88

THE PRUSSIAN ARMY.

[CHAP. XLV. Voltaire. Even the arbitrary and absolute principles of his father in matters of government and police found no sympathy, so far at least as speculation is concerned, in the breast of Frederick II. If Louis XIV. had his maxim, L'état c'est moi, Frederick William asserted with equal force, if not elegance, "Ich stabilire die Souveraineté wie einen rocher von Bronze."1 His son, on the contrary, at all events in theory, considered a king to be only the servant of his people; and one of his first announcements, on ascending the throne, was that he had no interests distinct from those of his subjects. He immediately abolished all distinctions and civil disabilities founded on religion, and mitigated the rigour of the criminal law, which, under his father's reign, had been administered with great cruelty, not to say injustice. He also abolished many of the barbarities practised under the name of military discipline, and in the recruiting service.

The care, however, which Frederick William had bestowed on the army proved of the greatest benefit to his successor and to the Prussian nation. The great Northern War, which had threatened to sweep Frederick William into its vortex at the commencement of his reign, the augmentation of the power of his neighbours by the accession of the Elector of Hanover to the throne of Great Britain, and of the Elector of Saxony to that of Poland, as well as the growth of Russia into a large military Power, had compelled him to keep up a considerable army. Under the care of Prince Leopold of Dessau, who had distinguished himself in the war of the Spanish Succession, the Prussian infantry were trained to the height of discipline. The system, indeed, was somewhat overloaded with martinetism, pipe-clay, and a too free use of the cane; but its result was to make the Prussian army act with the precision of a machine. Vauban had already united the pike and the musket into one arm by affixing the bayonet, and about the same time the old inconvenient match-lock, or musket fired with a match, had been exchanged for a fusil, or musket with flint and steel. The weapon of the infantry soldier had thus been rendered what it

"I establish the sovereignty like a rock of bronze." Förster's Friedrich Wilhelm I. B. i. Urkundenbuch, S. 50.

2 Frederick William was accustomed to confiscate the estates of his subjects, and even their lives, by scrawling his judg ments on the margin of the reports, and decrees of his ministers. On one occasion he condemned a tax-collector, who had been sentenced to four years' imprison

ment for a deficiency of 4,000 dollars in his accounts, to be hanged. After the poor man had been executed, it was discovered that some false sums had been posted to his debit. Some bags of money were also found, and it appeared evident that he had had no intention to commit a wilful fraud. Büsching's Beiträge zur Lebensgesch. denkwürdiger Personen, ap. Menzel, B. v. S. 282.

CHAP. XLV.]

VIEWS OF FREDERICK II.

89

continued to be down to a recent date. The Prince of AnhaltDessau improved the infantry drill, or tactics, by reducing the depth of the line from six men to three, thus increasing the extent and vivacity of the fire; and especially by introducing the cadenced step, the secret of the firmness and swiftness of the Roman legions. From morning to night the Prussian soldiers were engaged in this exercise, and in the uniform and simultaneous use of their weapons.1 All this was combined with smaller matters of bright coat-buttons and spotless gaiters, which were enforced as rigidly as the more important; and those deficient in them were subjected to the most unmerciful floggings. But the young king knew how to select what was useful in the system, and to reject what was superfluous; and the result, as shown in his first battle, was very surprising.

2

One of Frederick II.'s first measures was to increase the effective force of his army by several regiments; but at the same time he disbanded the three battalions of gigantic grenadiers, the collecting and exercising of which had been his father's chief pastime and delight. Thus, having a well-filled treasury and a large and well-disciplined army, all the means of acquiring what is commonly called glory were at the young King's disposal; and he candidly tells us that he resolved to use them for that purpose, which he considered essential to the prosperity of his reign. It was, he thought, an enterprise reserved for him to put an end to the mongrel constitution of his State, and to determine whether it should be an electorate or a kingdom." Frederick William, towards the end of his reign, had thought himself slighted and neglected by the Emperor; a coldness had sprung up between the two Courts; but the late King does not seem to have conceived any project of revenge. He appears to have felt his own incapacity for entering into a war; but, pointing to the Crown Prince, he exclaimed with a prophetic bitterness to General Grumkow:-“ :-"There stands one who will avenge me!" He little imagined, perhaps, how soon his prophecy would be realized.

Varnhagen von Ense, Preussische Biographische Denkmale, B. ii. S. 274 f.

2 See his letter to Jordan, March 3rd, 1741: "Mon âge, le feu des passions, le désir de la gloire, la curiosité méme, pour ne se rien cacher, enfin un instinct secret m'ont arraché à la douceur du repos que je goutois; et la satisfaction de voir mon nom dans les gazettes, et ensuite dans l'histoire, m'a séduit." Frederick seems to have made the same candid confession

of his motives in the first draft of his Hist. de mon Temps, but the passage was struck out by Voltaire in his revision of the text. See that writer's Mémoires on his connection with Frederick, quoted by Menzel, B. v. S. 292.

3 Hist. de mon Temps, ch. i.

4 Seckendorf, Journal Secret, p. 139, ap. Stenzel, Gesch. des Preussischen Staats, B. ii. S. 671.