[34] “As the bishops of Liege had been in possession of the contested districts for more than a century, and as Frederick William had not, any more than his predecessors, adopted any vigorous measures to gain possession of them, it is not probable that the claim of Frederick was very well founded. At all events, his conduct was violent and unjust. The inhabitants of these districts had been guilty of no crime but that of avowing their allegiance to the prince whom they had been accustomed to obey, and whom they appear to have considered as their lawful sovereign. When Frederick, therefore, sent his troops to live upon the inhabitants of those districts at discretion, he committed an act of tyranny and of cruelty which nothing in the circumstances of the case could justify.”—Memoirs of Voltaire, p. 44.
[35] Memoirs, p. 47, 48.
[36] “His majesty,” says M. Bielfeld, “did not appear to be greatly moved. But what followed convinces me that he possesses the art of composing his countenance, and that the emotion passed within; for he rose soon after, sent for M. Von Eichel, secretary of the cabinet, and commanded him to write to Marshal Schwerin and M. Von Podewils, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and order them to come immediately to Reinsberg. These gentlemen arrived forthwith. They daily held long and very secret conferences with his majesty. They say that sovereigns have sometimes authority even over their infirmities. The fever has shown itself docile to the will of the monarch, for after two slight attacks it has entirely left him.”—Letters, vol. iv., p. 18.
[37] Macaulay, speaking of the claims of Frederick to Silesia, says: “They amount to this, that the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to Silesia, and had, in the previous century, been compelled, by hard usage on the part of the court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain that, whoever might have been originally in the right, Prussia had submitted. Prince after prince of the house of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the court of Berlin had recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian states. Is it not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long possession, the world can never be at peace for a day?”—Life of Frederick the Great, by Macaulay, p. 62.
[38] “The King of Prussia, the Anti-Machiavel, had already fully determined to commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and desolating war, and all this for no other end whatever except that he might extend his dominions and see his name in the gazettes. He determined to assemble a great army with speed and secrecy to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should be apprised of his design, and to add that rich province to his kingdom.”—Life of Frederick the Great, by Macaulay, p. 61.
No, notwithstanding your virtues, notwithstanding your attractions,
My soul is not satisfied.
No, you are but a coquette;
You subjugate the hearts of others, and do not give your own.
[40] In this wicked world power seldom respects weakness. No sooner was the emperor dead than four claimants sprang up to wrest from Maria Theresa a part or the whole of the kingdoms she had inherited from her father; and this, notwithstanding nearly all the powers of Europe had guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction. The Elector of Bavaria claimed Bohemia, from an article in the will of the Emperor Ferdinand I., made two centuries before. The King of Poland demanded the whole Austrian succession, in virtue of the right of his wife, who was the eldest daughter of the Emperor Joseph, elder brother of Charles VI. The King of Spain claimed all the Austrian possessions, in consequence of his descent from the wife of Philip II., who was daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. The King of Sardinia hunted up an obsolete claim to the duchy of Milan. But for the embarrassment into which these claims plunged Maria Theresa, Frederick would hardly have ventured to invade the province of Silesia. The woes which, in consequence, desolated the nations of Europe, no mind but that of the omniscient God can gauge.
[41] The husband of Maria Theresa.
[42] Voltaire’s Age of Louis XV., vol. i., p. 54.