The first necessity was to restore to their cause the moral basis which had been struck from beneath it by the death of the Emperor. Henceforth the pretext—for it proved to be little more—was to vindicate the liberty of election, and to support a candidate acceptable to the Electors. For the candidature of the Empire, the choice fell upon Augustus III., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, who at this very time (January, 1745) was negotiating a secret treaty with Maria Theresa.
At this juncture, whatever may be said of it afterwards, the Government acted with promptitude and determination. Before ten days had elapsed, the position which seemed to Frederick "une crise terrible" had been faced, the débris of a great policy had been swept to one side, and before a courier could go and come between Paris and Berlin, the new measures contemplated by the French Government were announced to Frederick.
In a letter of the 31st of January—if not before it—d'Argenson declared that "at the present moment the very idea of peace must be forgotten," and the most strenuous steps must be taken to secure the alliance of the King of Poland.[297] This policy was reiterated in letters of the 1st and 4th of February;[298] and from now until the eve of the election at Frankfort, a desperate effort was maintained to induce Augustus to abandon Austria, and to declare himself a candidate for the Empire.
The conduct of the negotiations fell into the hands of d'Argenson. His own share in the policy is difficult to determine. He knew there was really no choice; but he could not help seeing that on every side it was beset with difficulties. It was true that the King of Poland could scarcely resist the magnificent prize held out to him; and it was not to be supposed that mere personal animosities could obliterate every consideration of interest and honour. In that view the Minister concurred with the Council; and he was supported by Valori,[299] the French envoy at Berlin, who was deputed to approach the Court of Dresden. To French statesmen the opinion was just and natural enough.
Yet d'Argenson at least, though he viewed them undaunted, was by no means blind to the difficulties in the way. The jealousy of Russia in regard to Poland, the formidable rage of the Queen of Hungary, and above all, his hatred and jealousy of the King of Prussia, would all combine to deter Augustus from committing himself in the interest of France. Indeed so small was d'Argenson's confidence of success, that he was unwilling to follow the Council in their resolution to subsidise the King of Poland, and to guarantee to him by treaty an accession of territory to be obtained at the cost of Maria Theresa.[300] However unpromising, the negotiation had to be begun; there was no alternative; and if it came to nothing more, it would at least give time for the development of a campaign, and for the armies of France and Prussia to achieve a position which would serve as the basis of an honourable peace.[301]
If at Paris the plan seemed practicable enough, at Berlin it was regarded from a very different standpoint. French statesmen could consider nothing but the strength of their four armies, the excellence of their intentions, and the splendour of the position to which Augustus would be raised by the arms of France and Prussia. To Frederick the matter presented itself in a less encouraging light. He knew his neighbour of Saxony; he knew that Augustus had no resources of his own; that his ministers were in sympathy with Austria and in the pay of England; and that what might leave Paris as the offer of an empire would reach Dresden as nothing more than an invitation to Augustus to throw over a sound alliance, to place himself at the mercy and become the tool of a covert enemy and a doubtful friend, and in a word, to resume the position from which Charles VII. had been happily liberated by death. Frederick saw at once that the French policy was foredoomed, and he did his best to impress upon the cabinet the fruitlessness of its task.[302] Finding his representations received as merely the suggestions of prejudice and jealousy, he had no alternative but to give way; and on the 13th of February[303] he announces that he has "buried his resentment," and sanctioned the departure of Valori for Dresden. Frederick was perfectly confident that Valori could only fail;[304] and he felt that any apparent success which he might gain, would be by no means useless in another direction in which his own efforts were actively engaged.[305]
If the hopes of France were illusory and her policy unsound, they were certainly not more so than the course which Frederick had himself adopted. On the 26th of January, before any definite communication had reached him from the French Government, he had instructed his representatives to sound the ministers at London and the Hague;[306] for a consideration received he offered to withdraw from the war, and to co-operate in the election of the Grand Duke. His agents were instructed to press these proposals.
That Frederick could have had any real confidence in these measures, it is difficult to believe. It is true that in England the Hanoverian party was no longer in power; but George II. was bent upon the war, and Carteret's influence was still supreme; moreover, popular feeling, while demanding a change in the direction of the war, was by no means in favour of its abandonment. Whatever the dispositions of the English ministry, from Maria Theresa there was nothing to hope. Indeed the whole plan was a counsel of despair. Frederick had everything to gain and absolutely nothing to offer; he had incensed the whole of the Austrian party; and if there were no motives of interest to aid him, he could scarcely trust to motives of charity. Indeed the whole situation is summed up in some words of Chesterfield to the Prussian minister at the Hague: "I understand," he said, "the truth is you ask everything and you offer nothing, for Silesia is no longer yours, since you have yourselves torn up the treaty which gave it you."[307]
It is easy to see the very natural motives which actuated Frederick in the adoption of his policy.[308] On the 31st of January, before the measures contemplated by the French Government had yet been communicated to him, he wrote to Louis XV. describing the position of their cause in Germany in terms of very real concern. He spoke of the utter dejection into which their allies had been plunged by the death of the Emperor, and of the favourable positions secured by the Austrian party; and he declared that only by the immediate reinforcement of the French army in Bavaria could the young Elector be prevented from "throwing himself into the arms of the Queen of Hungary."
It was probably with some surprise and not a little relief that he received the news of the French determination to continue the war.[309] He was already, as we have seen, in communication with London and the Hague; but he could not help feeling how slender was his hope in the intervention of the maritime powers; and he was wise enough to know that peace, when it came, would be the less precarious for being secured by a successful campaign.