at Breslau, a treaty between Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa was signed at Berlin, which ceded to Prussia the county of Glatz and the whole of Silesia, with the exception of the duchies of Teschen, Jägerndorf and Troppau. A third of the lands of the Bohemian crown thus became subject to the house of Hohenzollern.
Frederick the Great, who knew perhaps better than his Austrian antagonists that even after the constitutional revolution of 1627 the Estates of Bohemia still possessed a certain legislative power, demanded that the treaty of Berlin should declare that all lands belonging to Prussia, which had been held as fiefs of the Bohemian crown, should be freed from that dependence, and that the Estates of Bohemia should give their consent to the cession to Prussia of the lands that had formerly belonged to the Bohemian crown. On July 16, 1743, the Bohemian Diet gave its sanction to these cessions, and it could hardly have acted differently.[1] The fact is none the less important for the constitutional history of Bohemia.
As will be mentioned presently, peace between Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa was again of short duration. Principally in consequence of the aid she had obtained from Hungary, Maria Theresa was everywhere victorious. The Saxons, giving up all their former claims, had concluded an alliance with the Queen of Hungary. Prague, however, was still occupied by a large French garrison which held the town for Charles of Bavaria. The troops of Maria Theresa besieged the city, and Marshal Belleisle, who commanded the French garrison, cut off from all communications with his own country, was in a desperate position. He, however,
- ↑ The two paragraphs of the treaty of Berlin which were read to the Estates of Bohemia, and were sanctioned by them, ran thus—
Article XI. S.M. la Reine de Hongrie et de Bohême renonce tant pour elle et pour ses heritiers et successeurs à perpétuité et fera renoncer après la pacification les états du Royaume de Bohême à tout droit de relief, que la couronne de Bohême a exercé jusqu à présent sur plusieurs états villes et districts appartenant anciennement à la maison electorale de Brandenbourg, de quelque nom, condition ou nature qu'ils puissant être, de sorte qu'ils reseront jamais plus regardés à I'avenir comme fiefs de la couronne de Bohême, mais censés et declarés libres de cette mouvance. Article XII. Sa Majesté la Reine de Hongrie et de Bohême s'engage et promet d'obliger les états de Bohême après la pacification de donner un acte de renonciation à tous les états dépendans autrefois de la couronne de Bohême cédés par la présente paix à Sa Majesté le roy de Prusse avec toute la souveraineté et I'indépendance de la susdite couronne.(Kalousek, České Státní Právo (the Bohemian Constitution), p. 631.)
