country, Bavaria, and was dependent for his very subsistence on the bounty of France. England was upon her side, lavish with subsidies, and now at length with an army in the field. But Maria Theresa would not make peace; she wanted to humiliate France and to annul the election of the Emperor.

France becomes a principal.

Frederick.

The results of her obstinacy were twofold. France, which had hitherto professed to hold a secondary position in the war, to be only the Emperor's auxiliary, declared war both against England and Austria, and entered upon it with great vigour, choosing as battle ground that unfortunate country, which has been called the 'cockpit of Europe,' the Austrian Netherlands. Secondly, Maria Theresa brought Frederick again into the field against her. He professed to be only concerned for the Emperor; but he probably felt that, if her career of victory continued without a check, the first use which Maria Theresa would make of her consolidated and increased power would be to make one more effort to regain the province of Silesia, the loss of which she so bitterly regretted. Frederick's principle always was to strike first if a blow from any quarter was impending. As champion of the Emperor, Frederick organised a union of German princes called the 'Union of Frankfort,' but either they had no care for German unity or they mistrusted Frederick. Besides himself and the Emperor, only two princes joined it.

Exactly two years after the peace of Breslau the Second Silesian War began; it lasted eighteen months, during which the death of the Emperor seemed to remove all reason for the war. Frederick invaded Bohemia and seized

Second Silesian War.

Prague, then was driven back into Silesia, was followed,

won a great battle, entered Bohemia again, and there won another battle. By this time Saxony had joined Austria, with designs which extended as far as the partition of Prussia. Again to be beforehand, Frederick invaded Saxony, won two great battles, had Saxony entirely at his mercy, and then showed himself exceedingly moderate in his terms. Peace was signed on Christmas Day

at Dresden.

King Lewis
XV.

The King himself, urged by one of his favourites to shake off his torpor and show himself a real king, went to command the army in the Netherlands, and there saw Marshal Saxe take several towns. News came that the Austrians were invading Alsace, and the King went against them with Noailles and an army of 50,000 men. On the way he was taken ill at Metz, and it was thought that he would die. From his sick bed he sent a message to Marshal Noailles: Remember that Condé won a battle whilst Lewis XIII. was being carried to his tomb.' There was great excitement throughout France about the King's illness, and when a rumour reached Paris that it had ended fatally, the mourning was widespread and genuine. A violent remedy not prescribed by the physicians cured the malady, and there was great rejoicing. It was then that he received the title 'Well-beloved,' which he, a dissolute and profligate man, deserved less than any king. What possibilities of beneficent reform were open to a king, if such loyalty still attached to his office! This was not quite fifty years before the beheading of his grandson in the French Revolution. The 'Well-beloved' certainly helped to bring it on.

Early in 1744 the British fleet won a victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets, not far from the harbour of Toulon. The victory was not so complete

Sea fight

near Toulon.

as it might have been, because of the want of harmony between the officers in command of the fleet, and the bulk of the French and Spanish ships were able to escape. About the naval supremacy of Great Britain there was no doubt. In January 1745 the Emperor Charles VII. died in his own capital at Munich. It is usual to say that his

death was as much the result of his troubles

Death of the Bold Bavarian.'

as of disease; but if he had half the illnesses that Voltaire assigns to him, he had quite enough to kill him without any disasters,' He had the gout and the stone; they found his lungs, his liver, and his stomach gangrened, stones in his bladder, and a polypus in his heart.' Even three years before, at his own coronation at Frankfort, Frederick the Great's sister had said of him: 'The poor Kaiser could not enjoy it much; he was dying of gout and gravel, and could scarcely stand on his feet.' It is sometimes the fashion to speak of Charles VII. as a sort of pretender, a Perkin Warbeck, not a genuine emperor at all. Nothing can be more incorrect. He was elected as the other emperors were, and it was Maria Theresa alone who protested during his lifetime. Even if there had been an informality in the election there was a large majority of voices for Charles. An unhappy emperor is still an emperor. No doubt his death at this conjuncture helped the cause of Maria Theresa very materially.

Election of
Francis.

The new Elector of Bavaria at once made overtures of peace to Austria, renouncing all his claims to Austrian dominions, and offering his own vote for the Grand Duke Francis. On these terms he secured his own hereditary dominions of Bavaria. Here was another point at which a general peace might have been made, but Maria Theresa's ambition

and resentment again stood in the way. In September of this year (1745) Francis was elected Emperor, and shortly afterwards duly crowned at Frankfort.

Marshal
Saxe.

CHAPTER VIII.

CAMPAIGN OF FONTENOY.

AFTER the battle of Dettingen the French had some fear that the allied army would invade France. Their chief reliance for defence was placed not in either of the generals defeated at Dettingen, but in an abler man, who then received the nickname 'Buckler of Alsace.' This was Maurice, Count of Saxony, afterwards known as Marshal Saxe, a soldier of fortune, but no Frenchman, and with no special tie to France, except that France had hired his sword. By birth he was a German, for he was the natural son of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. By religion he was nominally a Lutheran, but his life was a credit to no religion. In a careless and dissolute age there were few so dissolute as he. His morality was the morality of a camp. A characteristic but unsupported story ran that when he was a boy of eleven or twelve he escaped from his tutors and governors, and appeared in Eugene's camp before Lille, eager to see what war was like; but, indeed, he was a soldier born and bred, and the first general of his generation, not excepting Frederick the Great, who had to learn from the bitter experience of defeat what Saxe knew without that teaching. There are, however, those who say that Saxe's greatness is to be attributed to the littleness of his opponents. Maurice was tall and powerful-looking-his physical strength was so great that he