The Emperor Charles VI. left no son. He therefore promulgated a new law of succession in a decree known throughout213 Europe as the Pragmatic Sanction. By the custom of the realm the sceptre could descend only to male heirs. But by this decree the king declared that the crown of the house of Hapsburg should be transmitted to his daughter, Maria Theresa. This law had been ratified by the estates of all the kingdoms and principalities which composed the Austrian monarchy. All the leading powers of EuropeEngland, France, Spain, Prussia, Russia, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and the Germanic bodyhad bound themselves by treaty to maintain the Pragmatic Sanction. It was a peaceable and wise arrangement, acceptable to the people of Austria and to the dynasties of Europe as a means of averting a war of succession, which might involve all the nations of the Continent in the conflict.
ONE: Rgla diffremment la chose.Still it is evident that the serpent was in this Eden. Carlyle writes: An ardent, aerial, gracefully predominant, and, in the end, somewhat termagant female, this divine Emilie. Her temper, radiant rather than bland, was none of the patientest on occasion. Nor was M. De Voltaire the least of a Job if you came athwart him in a wrong way. I have heard that their domestic symphony was liable to furious flaws; that plates, in presence of the lackeys, actual crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to end of the dinner-table; nay, they mention knives, though only in the way of oratorical action; and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, Dont fix those haggard, sidelong eyes on me in that way!mere shrillness of pale rage presiding over the scene.
TWO:
THREE: Deceptive Measures of Frederick.Plans for the Invasion of Silesia.Avowed Reasons for the Invasion.The Ball in Berlin.The March of the Army.Hardships and Successes.Letter to Voltaire.Capture of Glogau.Capture of Brieg.Bombardment of Neisse.Very vigorous measures were immediately adopted to establish an Academy of Sciences. The celebrated French philosopher Maupertuis, who had just obtained great renown from measuring a degree of the meridian at the polar circle, was invited to organize this very important institute. The letter to the philosopher, written by the king but a few days after his accession, was as follows:
FORE:The day in which the treaty was signed Frederick wrote to the Marquis DArgens as follows: The best thing I have now to tell you of, my dear marquis, is the peace. And it is right that the good citizens and the public should rejoice at it. For me, poor old man that I am, I return to a town where I know nothing but the walls, where I find no longer any of my friends, where great and laborious duties await me, and where I shall soon lay my old bones in an asylum which can neither be troubled by war, by calamities, nor by the wickedness of men. I was glad to receive you in my house. I esteemed your genius, your talents, and your acquirements. I had reason to think that a man of your age, weary of fencing against authors, and exposing himself to the storm, came hither to take refuge, as in a safe harbor.
Waters all out, bridges down, writes Carlyle; the country one wide lake of eddying mud; up to the knee for many miles together; up to the middle for long spaces; sometimes even to the chin or deeper, where your bridge was washed away. The Prussians marched through it as if they had been slate or iron. Rank and filenobody quitted his rank, nobody looked sour in the facethey took the pouring of the skies and the red seas of terrestrial liquid as matters that must be; cheered one another with jocosities, with choral snatches, and swashed unweariedly forward. Ten hours some of them were out, their march being twenty or twenty-five miles.464Have I not, on all occasions, meant honorably by you? Last time I got wind of your debts, did I not, as a father, admonish you to tell me all? I would pay all; you were only to tell me the truth; whereupon you said there were still two thousand thalers beyond the sum named. I paid these also at once, and fancied I had made peace with you. And then it was found, by-and-by, you owed many thousands more. And as you knew you could not pay, it was as good as if the money had been stolennot to reckon how the French vermin, Montholieu and partner, cheated you with their new loans.You will now recall to mind what passed a year and a day agohow scandalously you behaved, and what a godless enterprise you undertook. As I have had you about me from the beginning, and must know you well, I did all in the world that was in my power, by kindness and by harshness, to make an honorable man of you. As I rather suspected your evil purposes, I treated you in the harshest and sharpest way in the Saxon camp, in hopes you would consider yourself, and take another line of conduct; would confess your faults to me, and beg forgiveness. But all in vain. You grew ever more stiff-necked. You thought to carry it through with your headstrong humor. But hark ye, my lad! if thou wert sixty or seventy instead of eighteen, thou couldst not cross my resolutions. And as up to this date I have managed to sustain myself against any comer, there will be methods found to bring thee to reason too.
$120
$340
$250
$378
$428
