1756. DANGER OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA. 113 73 circumstances, -a necessity stronger than affection, brought at this juncture the two monarchs into a close, nay cordial alliance. A formidable confederacy of other powers was indeed now forming against the King of Prussia, -a confederacy provoked in part by his unprincipled ambition, but still more perhaps by his wanton wit. - The Empress Queen had never forgotten or forgiven the conquest of Silesia, nor the perfidy and treachery by which its conquest was achieved. Her high spirit panted to recover that lost jewel of her Crown. Her piety impelled her to wrest that Catholic province from heretic hands. For succour towards these cherished hopes she had looked in the first instance to her ancient ally the Court of England, but found that Power ill-disposed to plunge into another war for merely Austrian objects. She therefore next turned her views towards her ancient enemy, France, yielding in this respect to the persuasion of Count afterwards Prince Kaunitz, her trusted and ruling Minister during the whole remainder of her reign.* He had been recently Ambassador at Paris, was a warm partisan of the idea of French alliance, and knew how to render it most attractive to his sovereign, by holding it forth as a religious combination of the great Catholic against the great Protestant Powers. It seemed no easy task to detach the French Court from the system of policy against the House of Austria, which it had steadily pursued ever since the days of Henri Quatre, alike under Richelieu or Mazarin, under Louvois or Torcy. Yet there were not wanting strong arguments, both general and special, in behalf of a change. These long-contested and well-poised conflicts between the rival chief states had served only to exhaust and enfeeble themselves. One or other of the smaller powers alone had gathered the fruits of their exertions. The war of 1701 had profited most to the *Kaunitz is described by Baron Hormayer, as "un seigneur qui "joignait à la légèreté d'un Français l'astuce d'un Italien et la pro"fondeur Autrichienne." (Taschenbuch für die vaterländische Geschichte, 1831.) For some curious instances of the légèreté, see Wraxall's Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, &c. vol. ii. p. 458-468. ed. 1799. House of Savoy, the war of 1741 to the House of Brandenburg. And how had the head of this House of Brandenburg requited France for the efforts and the sacrifices that led to his possession of Silesia? - By the grossest treacheries and breaches of faith, second only to those which he had practised on Maria Theresa. But let once the old monarchies combine, and how easily might they divide the spoils of this ungrateful upstart! How readily, if Austria were allowed to seize the Prussian provinces in Germany, would she concede to France an extension of frontier from her own province of Belgium! 66 66 Such arguments, however specious, such offers, however tempting, would not probably have sufficed to turn the current of feeling which for nearly two centuries had flowed in the opposite channel. But besides the perfidy of the King of Prussia to France as a state, there were also personal, and far less pardonable, offences of Frederick against Louis the Fifteenth and his favourite mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Of Louis, Frederick always spoke and wrote with utter contempt as of a new Sardanapalus, and Louis was stirred to as much resentment as he was capable of feeling. Madame de Pompadour had at first professed high admiration for the Prussian hero, but found all her flattering messages receive only sar"When I," says castic replies. Voltaire, was going to Berlin, and took my leave of Madame de Pompadour, "she bid me present her respects to the King of Prussia. "It was impossible to give a commission more agreeable, or in a more graceful manner; she did it with the "greatest modesty imaginable, saying, 'If I might "venture,' and 'If the King of Prussia will forgive my taking such a liberty.' I suppose that I must have "delivered this message amiss. For I, as a man filled "with respect for the Court of France, felt assured that "such compliments would be well received; but the "King answered me drily, 'I do not know her. This "❝is not the land for swains and shepherdesses.'-Never"theless I shall write to Madame de Pompadour, that "Mars has welcomed as he ought the compliments of "Venus." 99* Other such answers found more accurate 66 66 6 * Letter of Voltaire to his niece, Madame Denis, Aug. 11. 1750. 1756. MADAME DE POMPADOUR. 75 reporters. Frederick could not refrain from scoffing in the most public manner at a lady so frail, and a throne so degraded. A favourite lap-dog, his constant companion both by day and night*, received from him the nickname of "Pompadour," and he boasted that she did not cost him quite so much money as the other Pompadour did his brother at Versailles. He used to speak of Madame de Pompadour (not unjustly) as the true sovereign of France, and, in allusion to her predecessor, Madame de Chateauroux, called her's "the reign of Petti"coat the Second." Nay, more, while all the other ambassadors at Paris were vying for the notice of this haughty fair one, the Prussian alone, the Baron de Knyphausen, by his master's positive directions, refused to visit her. - As Frederick affected no peculiar austerity of principles, as he sneered at the Christian faith, as his own morals were, to say the least, not beyond suspicion, we cannot vindicate these sallies on the plea of offended virtue. We can only wonder that a prince always so wary and politic in his conduct should have been thus reckless and unguarded in his conversation. Endowed by nature with splendid genius for war, and with brilliant powers of satire, these gifts appeared to counteract each other; it needed during seven most perilous years the utmost exertion of the first to repair and retrieve the ill effect of the second. -- After such insults as Madame de Pompadour had received from Frederick, can the reader doubt, or need I describe, how fierce a thirst for vengeance arose in the heart of the slighted woman? On the other side the most delicate attentions were lavished upon her by the Empress Queen. Proud of her lofty lineage as seemed * Frederick had always a favourite greyhound, which sate on a chair at his side by day, and slept in his bed by night. There were also three or four other dogs kept, but chiefly, as we are told, "zur gesellschaft des liebling's," for society to the favourite one. They had a footman appointed to their especial care, and were driven from Potsdam to Berlin in a coach and six, the dogs on the hind seat, and the footman on the front. As they died, they were buried on the terrace of Sans Souci, and Frederick desires in his will to be interred by their side. (Preuss, Lebens-Geschichte, vol. i. p. 414416.) Maria Theresa, pure and unsullied as was ever her matronly fame, she could condescend to flatter the lowborn mistress of another Sovereign, when Silesia came in view. With her own hand she wrote a letter to Madame de Pompadour, abounding in friendly expressions, and calling her by the title of "Cousin." Similar, or perhaps still more solid, compliments were bestowed on Abbé de Bernis, afterwards Cardinal, the statesman in whom Madame de Pompadour most confided. By such means were overruled the maxims of the Ministers trained in the school of Louis the Fourteenth; by such means was concluded on the 1st of May 1756 the Treaty of Versailles, binding France to Austria, and aiming at the partition of the Prussian Monarchy. Nearly the same scene passed in Russia. There, the sovereign, the Czarina Elizabeth, was of mild and gentle character. On her accession, for instance, she had promised that not a single criminal should be put to death during her reign; and she had kept her word. But she was a slave to such little feminine terrors as ghosts and spiders, thunderstorms and omens. One whole day she refused to sign a treaty because a wasp had been hovering round her pen!* Still more open to satire were the details of her private life. About a hundred grenadiers of her guard had wrought the sudden revolution that placed her on the throne, and of these it is alleged by grave historians that the greater number had already, at different times, attracted the personal and especial notice of their future Sovereign. † Against the Czarina's frailties, as against Madame de Pompadour's, Frederick loved to point his shafts of wit; nor did he spare invectives of another kind against Count Bestucheff, the Russian Chancellor and Prime Minister. Thus at Petersburg as at Paris Kaunitz found a ready ear when he first dropped proposals of alliance, and held out as a lure the Prussian provinces beyond the Vistula. The Court of Russia resolved to join its arms with Austria and France; and early in the winter renounced its recent treaty of subsidy *Rulhière, Anecdotes sur la Russie en 1763, en suite de l'Histoire de Pologne, vol. iv. p. 298. ed. 1807. † Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. xxviii. p. 265. ed. 1842. 1756. AUGUSTUS, KING OF POLAND. with England. 66 77 However," says Lord Waldegrave, though the Russians did not fulfil their engagements, they behaved with more generosity than is usual on "the like occasions, for as they would not earn our money they refused to take it." * 66 Poland, enfeebled by her own elective Royalty and internal dissensions, could not be roused from an impotence which she disguised under the more specious name of neutrality. Her King Augustus, as Elector of Saxony, resided mainly at Dresden, yielding the cares of state to his Minister Count Brühl, and secluding himself in a china palace, with buffoons and tame bears as his favourite companions.† The Minister, profuse and grasping, was gained by Austria with the hope of Prussian territory for his master, and of further riches for himself; and entered confidentially and unreservedly, for the Saxon state, into all the designs of the new alliance. Sweden, although the consort of her King was sister to Frederick, yielded to the ascendency of France, her ancient ally, and to the prospect of acquiring a larger share of Pomerania. · Denmark and Holland, Spain, and Portugal, states none of them at that time of any great significance, were left to their "exact neutrality.". But thus had five Powers whose united population exceeded 90,000,000 leagued themselves against a single kingdom with less than 5,000,000. Thus had sprung up, what Chatham terms in one of his letters, with some exaggeration, "the most powerful and malignant confe"deracy that ever yet has threatened the independence "of mankind!" -- The schemes of the confederates were kept carefully secret; their preparations not being as yet completed; and their projected attack was postponed till the ensuing year. But a treacherous clerk, named Menzel, who was employed at Dresden in the secret departments of state, had sold to Frederick exact and timely tidings of the whole design. Even at the first rumours, Frederick had hastened to draw closer his union with England, - the *Memoirs, p. 42. † Lord Orford's Memoirs, vol ii. p. 71. and 465. |