Mr. Robinson ventured to offer a few soothing words to calm the ferocious brute, and then proposed to give to him Glogau, a small but rich duchy of about six hundred square miles, near the frontiers of Prussia.
Frederic rose in a rage, and with loud voice and threatening gestures, exclaimed,
"If the queen does not, within six weeks, yield to my demands, I will double them. Return with this answer to Vienna. They who want peace with me, will not oppose my wishes. I am sick of ultimatums; I will hear no more of them. I demand Silesia. This is my final answer. I will give no other."
Then turning upon his heel, with an air of towering indignation, he retired behind the inner curtain of his tent. Such was the man to whom Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, had assigned a throne, and a highly disciplined army of seventy-five thousand men. To northern Europe he proved an awful scourge, inflicting woes, which no tongue can adequately tell.
And now the storm of war seemed to commence in earnest. The Duke of Bavaria issued a manifesto, declaring his right to the whole Austrian inheritance, and pronouncing Maria Theresa a usurper. He immediately marched an army into one of the provinces of Austria. At the same time, two French armies were preparing to cross the Rhine to cooperate with the Bavarian troops. The King of Prussia was also on the march, extending his conquests. Still Maria Theresa remained inflexible, refusing to purchase peace with Prussia by the surrender of Silesia.
"The resolution of the queen is taken," she said. "If the House of Austria must perish, it is indifferent whether it perishes by an Elector of Bavaria, or by an Elector of Brandenburg."
While these all important matters were under discussion, the queen, on the 13th of March, gave birth to a son, the Archduke Joseph. This event strengthened the queen's resolution, to preserve, not only for herself, but for her son and heir, the Austrian empire in its integrity. From her infancy she had imbibed the most exalted ideas of the dignity and grandeur of the house of Hapsburg. She had also been taught that her inheritance was a solemn trust which she was religiously bound to preserve. Thus religious principle, family pride and maternal love all now combined to increase the inflexibility of a will which by nature was indomitable.