The Wars and extravagance of the elector-king, who regained
the Polish crown in 1709, are said to have cost Saxony a hundred
million thalers. From this reign dates the privy council (Geheimes
Kabinet), which lasted till 1830. The caste privileges of the
estates (Stdnde) were increased by Augustus, a fact which tended
to alienate them more from the people, and so to decrease their
power. Iohann Friedrich Bottger made his famous discovery
in 1710, and the manufacture of porcelain was begun at Meissen,
and in this reign the Moravian Brethren made their settlement
at Herrnhut. Frederick Augustus II., who succeeded his father
in the electorate in 1733, and was afterwards elected to the
throne of Poland as Augustus III., was an indolent prince, wholly
under the influence of Count Heinrich von Briihl (q.'v.). Under
his ill-omened auspices Saxony sided with Prussia in the First
Silesian War, and with Austria in the other two. It gained
nothing in the first, lost much in the second, and in the third,
the Seven Years' War (17 56-1763), suffered renewed miseries.
The country was deserted by its king and his minister, who
retired to, Poland. By the end of the war it had lost 90,000 men
and a hundred million thalers; its coinage was debased and its
trade ruined; and the whole country was in a state of frantic
disorder. The elector died seven months after his return from
Poland; Briihl died twenty-three days later. The Connexion
with Poland was now at an end. The elector's son and successor,
Frederick Christian, survived his father only two months,
dying also in 1763, leaving a son, Frederick Augustus III., a boy
of thirteen. Prince Xaver, the elector's uncle, was appointed
guardian, and he set himself to the work of healing the wounds
of the country. The foundation of the famous school of mining
at F reibcrg, and the improvement of the Saxon breed of sheep by
the importation of merino sheep from Spain, were due to his care.
Frederick assumed the government in 1768, and in his long
and eventful reign, which saw the electorate elevated to the
dignity of a kingdom, though deprived of more than half its
area, he won the surname of the ]ust. As he was the first king
of Saxony, he is usually styled Frederick Augustus I. The first
ten years of his active reign passed in peace and quiet; agriculture,
manufactures and industries were fostered, economical
reforms instituted, and the heavy public debt of forty million
thalers was steadily reduced. In 1770 torture was abolished.
When the Bavarian succession fell open in 1777, Frederick
Augustus joined Prussia in protesting against the absorption of
Bavaria by Austria, and Saxon troops took part in the bloodless
“ potato-war.” The elector commuted his claims in right of
his mother, the Bavarian princess Maria Antonia, for six million
florins, which he spent chiefly in redeeming Saxon territory
that had been pawned to other German states. When Saxony
joined the Fiirstenbund in 1785, it had an area of 15,185 sq. m.
and a population of nearly 2,000,000, but its various parts
had not yet been combined into a homogeneous whole, for
the two Lusatias, Querfurt, Henneberg and the ecclesiastical
foundations of Naumburg and Merseburg had each a separate
diet and government, independent of the diet' of the electorate
proper. In 1791 Frederick declined the crown of Poland,
although it was now offered as hereditary even in the female
line. He remembered how unfortunate for Saxony the former
been, and he mistrusted the attitude
Polish Connexion had
of Russia towards the proffered kingdom. Next year saw the beginning of the great
Frederick's first policy
struggle between France and Germany.
was one of selfish abstention, and from
179 3 until 1 796, when he concluded a definite treaty of neutrality with France, he limited his contribution to the war to the bare contingent due from him as a prince of the Empire. When war broke out in 1806 against Napoleon, 22,000 Saxon troops shared the defeat of the Prussians at ]ena, but the elector immediately afterwards snatched at Napoleon's offer of neutrality, and abandoned his former ally. At the peace of Posen (11th December 1806) Frederick assumed the title of king of Saxony, and entered the Confederation of the Rhine as an independent sovereign, promising a contingent of 20,000 men to Napoleon. N0 change followed in the internal affairs of the new kingdom, except that Roman Catholics were admitted to equal privileges with Protestants. Its foreign policy was dictated by the will of Napoleon, of whose irresistibility the king was too easily convinced. In 1807 his submission was rewarded with the duchy of Warsaw (to, which Cracow and part of Galicia were added in 1809) and the district of Cottbus, though he had to surrender some of his former territory to the new kingdom of Westphalia. The king of Saxony's faith in Napoleon was shaken by the disasters of the Russian campaign, in which 21,000 Saxon troops had shared; when, however, the allies invaded Saxony in the spring of 1813, he refused to declare against Napoleon and fled to Prague, though he withdrew his contingent from the French army. Whatever misgivings he may have had were, however, removed by Napoleon's victory at Liitzen (May 2, 1813), and the Saxon king and the Saxon army were once more at the disposal of the French. After the battle of Bautzen, N apoleon's headquarters were successively at Dresden and Leipzig. During the battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the popular Saxon feeling was displayed by the desertion of the Saxon troops to the side of the allies. Frederick was taken prisoner in Leipzig, and the government of his kingdom was assumed for a year by the Russians. Saxony was now regarded as a conquered country. Nothing but Austria's vehement desire to keep a powerful neighbour at a distance from her boundaries preserved it from being completely annexed by the Prussians, who had succeeded the Russians in the government. At the congress of Vienna the claim of Prussia to annex the whole kingdom» was supported by Russia, and opposed by Austria, France and Great Britain, the question all but leading to a complete break-up of the alliance (see VIENNA, CONGRESS or). As it was, the congress assigned the northern portion, consisting of 7800 sq. m., with 864,404 inhabitants, to Prussia, leaving 5790 sq. m., with a population of 1,182,744, to Frederick, who was permitted to retain his royal title. On the 8th of June 1815 King Frederick joined the new German Confederation. From the partition in 1815 to the war of 1866 the history of Saxony is mainly a narrative of the slow growth of constitutionalism and popular liberty within its limits. Its influence on the general history of Europe ceased when the old Empire was dissolved. In the new German Empire it is too completely overshadowed by Prussia to have any objective importance by itself. Frederick lived twelve years after the division of his kingdom. The commercial and industrial interests of the country continued to be fostered, but only a few of the most unavoidable political reforms were granted. Religious equality was extended to the Reformed Church in 1818, and the separate diet of Upper Lusatia was abolished. Frederick Augustus was succeeded in 1827 by his brother Antony, to the great disappointment of the people, who had expected a more liberal era under Prince Frederick Augustus, the king's nephew. Antony announced his intention of following the lines laid down by his predecessor. He accorded at first only a few trifling reforms, which were far from removing the popular discontent, while he retained the unpopular minister, Count Detlew von Einsiedel (1773-1861), and continued the encouragement of the Roman Catholics. The old feudal arrangement of the diet, with its inconvenient divisions, was retained, and the privy council continued to be the depository of power. An active opposition began to make itself evident in the diet and in the press, and in 1830, under the influence of the July revolution in Paris, riots broke out in Leipzig and Dresden. Eihsiedel was now dismissed, Prince Frederick Augustus, son of Maximilian, who resigned the succession, became co-regent, and a constitution was promised. After consultation with the diet the king promulgated, on the 4th of September 1831, a new constitution which is the basis of the present government. An offer from Metternich of Austrian arms to repress the discontent by force had been refused. The feudal estates were replaced by two chambers, largely elective, and the privy council by a responsible ministry of six departments. Bernhard von Lindenau was the head of the first responsible cabinet, and the first constitutional assembly sat from the 27th of January 1833 till the 30th of October 1834. ' V
