Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/622

586 FRANCE [HISTORY. 1740-44. Hungary. England was warmly for Austria ; Franco, late her ally, now hoped finally to effect the partition of the territories of the house of Hapsburg, and joined Prussia ; Spain followed on the same side, being already at war with England ; the elector of Bavaria and other German princes, Poland also and Sardinia, were on the same side. At first Maria Theresa seemed to have no friends save England and Ilussia. The first Silesian war had already begun by the swift seizure of Silesia itself by Frederick. The French plan was to repeat the German campaigns of the Spanish Succes sion War, with Bavaria as an ally to cross into the Danube valley, and having taken the outworks of Austria, to threaten Vienna, and drive the queen to submission. The French army was led by Belle-Isle, who was made marshal for the occasion. It crossed the Rhine, pushed down the Danube, took Linz and Passau, and seemed to carry out its plan in full. Maria Theresa took refuge in Hungary ; the elector of Bavaria had himself proclaimed archduke of Aus tria, and then, supported by French help, marched into Bo hemia, and took Prague, the capital. He was now crowned king of Bohemia, and soon afterwards elected emperor (1742). Belle-Isle s schemes seemed all to succeed. Time, however, had told on the struggle ; Russia began to inter vene ; England and Holland sent help to Maria Theresa ; Prussia, securing the main part of Silesia, made peace with the queen of Hungary ; and the French by the autumn of 1742 were left alone in Bohemia, face to face with the re vived strength and spirit of the tenacious house of Austria. In midwinter Belle-Isle was compelled to retreat fromPrague, and after terrible sufferings and losses, brought his army back to the Rhine. In this campaign the one great general of the age, Maurice of Saxony, whom the French henceforth called Marshal Saxe, distinguished himself greatly. Early in 1743 the aged Fleury, whose last days had been embit tered by the war and by its failure, died in his ninetieth year. Henceforward, Louis XV. had no one at his side to save him from the disasters of mistress-government, of which the malign influences grew yearly stronger. The war in 1743 again followed the ideas of Marlborough. The Eng lish and Germans hoped to command middle Germany, to capture or eject Charles VII. at Frankfort, and then to catch the French in Bavaria. With this view George II. and the allies pushed forward hastily to the Main, and, but for the equal rashness of the duke of Grammont, would have been intercepted and ruined by the French army. As it was, George II. won the battle of Dettingen, which in England was celebrated by Handel s famous Te Deum, and in France aroused vast merriment ; for defeat in the 18th century meant the discrediting of the noble officers. The Parisians called the battle the " Journee dos batons rom- pus," the day on which the marshals batons were not won by D Harcourt and Grammont. The French armies of Bavaria and the Rhine fell back into Alsace, and Charles VII., seeing how little help they could give, made peace with Maria Theresa. Her fortunes and hopes had risen vastly ; she thought she saw her way to the recovery of The Silesia from Prussia, the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine second from France. In 1744 war, which had slackened, renewed ila11 its force. A new league of Frankfort brought Frederick of Prussia again into the field. France undertook to reduce the Netherlands, and to check England by landing Charles Edward, the " Young Pretender," in Scotland. This part of the scheme failed completely. In the Netherlands the genius of Marshal Saxe accomplished all France desired ; the barrier-towns had been neglected, and fell one after another. The ill-success of their army in Germany, and the vigorous attack of Prince Charles of Lorraine on Alsace, compelled the French to suspend operations in the Nether lands, in order to strengthen Coigny, who commanded on the Rhine, Their want of power spoiled Frederick s cam paign in Bohemia ; Charles of Lorraine returning thither 1745- forced him to withdraw into Saxony. In 1745, in spite of Frederick s washes, the war 011 the French side returned to the Netherlands, and there, on the 10th May, the French army won its one decisive victory of the period, defeating the Anglo-German and Dutch forces under the duke of Cumberland at Fontenoy. Louis XV. was present in this action, and showed no lack of fire and bravery. This vic tory was decisive for the campaign ; the Netherland towns fell fast. In Italy also the battle of Bassignano laid Lom- bardy at the feet of the French. On the other side Fre derick the Great, though he still won great victories, fslt that Maria Theresa was growing stronger, Her husband s ambition was gratified with the imperial crown ; and at the very end of the year she consented to make peace, ceding Silesia to her vigorous rival, and securing the universal re cognition of her spouse as emperor. The peace of Dresden The (Christmas 1745) closed the second Silesian war. France P eac was now almost isolated ; her successes in the late year ] seemed of little avail to her ; the attempt of Charles Edward on Scotland was crushed (April 174G) by the duke of Cumberland at the battle of Culloden ; and the English sea-power began to show its vigour. Off the French and Spanish coasts England gave her foes no rest ; in India she recovered Madras, which had fallen into Dupleix s hands, and spoiled the French plans for ascendency in. the East. In this year, too, the French armies were very unfortunate in Italy, and lost all their command of the peninsula. The Netherlands campaign, guided by Marshal Saxe, alone sus tained the honour of the French arms ; Belgium fell com pletely into their hands. In 1747 Marshal Saxe, though he took Bergen-op-Zoom, failed before Maestricht ; and France seemed as far as ever from being able to coerce Holland. In the following year the siege of Maestricht was resumed, but negotiations for peace intervened, and tli3 great fortress was not reduced. The peace of Aix-la-Chap- The elle, of which the preliminaries had been signed in April, P e . a( f was finally concluded in October 1748. It greatly dis-~ I credited France ; the successes of her arms in Belgium, Savoy, and Nice, were of no avail against the strength her antagonists had developed. England and France mutually restored their conquests, France receiving back Cape Breton and England Madras ; the frontier fortresses, chief prizes of the late war, were handed back to Holland. France agreed to remove Charles Edward from within her borders, and guaranteed the succession of the house of Hanover. Silesia was secured to Frederick ; the Pragmatic Sanction, in all other points, was once more accepted by Europe ; the house of Austria also ceded Parma and Piacenza to the Spanish Don Philip. With this peace closes the long rivalry between France and Austria; when war breaks out again they will be allies. " To the government of an old priest succeeded that of Mat if a young mistress," says Michelet ; for this was the time in clc " which Madame de Pompadour rose to power. Her autho- rity lasted twenty years, the twenty years in which France sank rapidly in Europe into weakness and discredit, while her great writers were awaking all the dormant echoes of the world, and summoning together the forces which brought on the Revolution. The mistress made and un made ministers at will, and changed the whole face of tho foreign policy of France ; the scandals of the court under her rule set men listening to the new ideas which spread swiftly through France ; the more the noblesse descended in worth and strength, the more its younger members talked the language of modern humanity. Almost all, like the state, were more or less bankrupt, and unable by char acter, training, circumstances, to take advantage of tho movement of society around them. When France awoke she scattered them to the winds.