Part 26 (1/2)
Care and sorrow were now hurrying the emperor to the grave. Wan and haggard he moved about his palace, mourning his doom, and complaining that it was his destiny to be disappointed in every cherished plan of his life. All his affairs were in inextricable confusion, and his empire seemed crumbling to decay. A cotemporary writer thus describes the situation of the court and the nation:
”Every thing in this court is running into the last confusion and ruin; where there are as visible signs of folly and madness, as ever were inflicted upon a people whom Heaven is determined to destroy, no less by domestic divisions, than by the more public calamities of repeated defeats, defenselessness, poverty and plagues.”
Early in October, 1740, the emperor, restless, and feverish in body and mind, repaired to one of his country palaces a few miles distant from Vienna. The season was prematurely cold and gloomy, with frost and storms of sleet. In consequence of a chill the enfeebled monarch was seized with an attack of the gout, which was followed by a very severe fit of the colic. The night of the 10th of October he writhed in pain upon his bed, while repeated vomitings weakened his already exhausted frame. The next day he was conveyed to Vienna, but in such extreme debility that he fainted several times in his carriage by the way.
Almost in a state of insensibility he was carried to the retired palace of La Favourite in the vicinity of Vienna, and placed in his bed. It was soon evident that his stormy life was now drawing near to its close.
Patiently he bore his severe sufferings, and as his physicians were unable to agree respecting the nature of his disease, he said to them, calmly,
”Cease your disputes. I shall soon be dead. You can then open my body and ascertain the cause of my death.”
Priests were admitted to his chamber who performed the last offices of the Church for the dying. With perfect composure, he made all the arrangements relative to the succession to the throne. One after another the members of his family were introduced, and he affectionately bade them adieu, giving to each appropriate words of counsel. To his daughter, Maria Theresa, who was not present, and who was to succeed him, he sent his earnest blessing. With the Duke of Lorraine, her husband, he had a private interview of two hours. On the 20th of October, 1740, at two o'clock in the morning, he died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the thirtieth of his reign. Weary of the world, he willingly retired to the antic.i.p.ated repose of the grave.
”To die,--to sleep;-- To sleep! perchance to dream;--ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.”
By the death of Charles VI. the male line of the house of Hapsburg became extinct, after having continued in uninterrupted succession for over four hundred years. His eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, who now succeeded to the crown of Austria, was twenty-four years of age. Her figure was tall, graceful and commanding. Her features were beautiful, and her smile sweet and winning. She was born to command, combining in her character woman's power of fascination with man's energy. Though so far advanced in pregnancy that she was not permitted to see her dying father, the very day after his death she so rallied her energies as to give an audience to the minister of state, and to a.s.sume the government with that marvelous vigor which characterized her whole reign.
Seldom has a kingdom been in a more deplorable condition than was Austria on the morning when the scepter pa.s.sed into the hands of Maria Theresa. There were not forty thousand dollars in the treasury; the state was enormously in debt; the whole army did not amount to more than thirty thousand men, widely dispersed, clamoring for want of pay, and almost entirely dest.i.tute of the materials for war. The vintage had been cut off by the frost, producing great distress in the country. There was a famine in Vienna, and many were starving for want of food. The peasants, in the neighborhood of the metropolis, were rising in insurrection, ravaging the fields in search of game; while rumors were industriously circulated that the government was dissolved, that the succession was disputed, and that the Duke of Bavaria was on the march, with an army, to claim the crown. The distant provinces were anxious to shake off the Austrian yoke. Bohemia was agitated; and the restless barons of Hungary were upon the point of grasping their arms, and, under the protection of Turkey, of claiming their ancestral hereditary rights.
Notwithstanding the untiring endeavors of the emperor to obtain the a.s.sent of Europe to the Pragmatic Sanction, many influential courts refused to recognize the right of Maria Theresa to the crown. The ministers were desponding, irresolute and incapable. Maria Theresa was young, quite inexperienced and in delicate health, being upon the eve of her confinement. The English amba.s.sador, describing the state of affairs in Vienna as they appeared to him at this time, wrote:
”To the ministers, the Turks seem to be already in Hungary; the Hungarians in insurrection; the Bohemians in open revolt; the Duke of Bavaria, with his army, at the gates of Vienna; and France the soul of all these movements. The ministers were not only in despair, but that despair even was not capable of rousing them to any desperate exertions.”
Maria Theresa immediately dispatched couriers to inform the northern powers of her accession to the crown, and troops were forwarded to the frontiers to prevent any hostile invasion from Bavaria. The Duke of Bavaria claimed the Austrian crown in virtue of the will of Ferdinand I., which, he affirmed, devised the crown to his daughters and their descendants in case of the failure of the male line. As the male line was now extinct, by this decree the scepter would pa.s.s to the Duke of Bavaria. Charles VI. had foreseen this claim, and endeavored to set it aside by the declaration that the clause referred to in the will of Ferdinand I. had reference to _legitimate heirs_, not _male_ merely, and that, consequently, it did not set aside female descendants. In proof of this, Maria Theresa had the will exhibited to all the leading officers of state, and to the foreign amba.s.sadors. It appeared that _legitimate heirs_ was the phrase. And now the question hinged upon the point, whether females were _legitimate heirs_. In some kingdoms of Europe they were; in others they were not. In Austria the custom had been variable.
Here was a nicely-balanced question, sufficiently momentous to divide Europe, and which might put all the armies of the continent in motion.
There were also other claimants for the crown, but none who could present so plausible a plea as that of the Duke of Bavaria.
Maria Theresa now waited with great anxiety for the reply she should receive from the foreign powers whom she had notified of her accession.
The Duke of Bavaria was equally active and solicitous, and it was quite uncertain whose claim would be supported by the surrounding courts. The first response came from Prussia. The king sent his congratulations, and acknowledged the t.i.tle of Maria Theresa. This was followed by a letter from Augustus of Poland, containing the same friendly recognition.
Russia then sent in a.s.surances of cordial support. The King of England returned a friendly answer, promising cooperation. All this was cheering. But France was then the great power on the continent, and could carry with her one half of Europe in almost any cause. The response was looked for from France with great anxiety. Day after day, week after week pa.s.sed, and no response came. At length the French Secretary of State gave a cautious and merely verbal declaration of the friendly disposition of the French court. Cardinal Fleury, the ill.u.s.trious French Secretary of State, was cold, formal and excessively polite. Maria Theresa at once inferred that France withheld her acknowledgment, merely waiting for a favorable opportunity to recognize the claims of the Duke of Bavaria.
While matters were in this state, to the surprise of all, Frederic, King of Prussia, drew his sword, and demanded large and indefinite portions of Austria to be annexed to his territories. Disdaining all appeal to any doc.u.mentary evidence, and scorning to reply to any questionings as to his right, he demanded vast provinces, as a highwayman demands one's purse, with the pistol at his breast. This fiery young prince, inheriting the most magnificent army in Europe, considering its discipline and equipments, was determined to display his gallantry as a fighter, with Europe for the arena. As he was looking about to find some suitable foe against which he could hurl his seventy-five thousand men, the defenseless yet large and opulent duchy of Silesia presented itself as a glittering prize worth the claiming by a royal highwayman.
The Austrian province of Silesia bordered a portion of Prussia. ”While treacherously professing friends.h.i.+p with the court of Vienna, with great secrecy and sagacity Frederic a.s.sembled a large force of his best troops in the vicinity of Berlin, and in mid-winter, when the snow lay deep upon the plains, made a sudden rush into Silesia, and, crus.h.i.+ng at a blow all opposition, took possession of the whole duchy. Having accomplished this feat, he still pretended great friends.h.i.+p for Maria Theresa, and sent an amba.s.sador to inform her that he was afraid that some of the foreign powers, now conspiring against her, might seize the duchy, and thus wrest it from her; that he had accordingly taken it to hold it in safety; and that since it was so very important, for the tranquillity of his kingdom, that Silesia should not fall into the hands of an enemy, he hoped that Maria Theresa would allow him to retain the duchy as an indemnity for the expense he had been at in taking it.”
This most extraordinary and impertinent message was accompanied by a threat. The amba.s.sador of the Prussian king, a man haughty and semi-barbaric in his demeanor, gave his message in a private interview with the queen's husband, Francis, the Duke of Lorraine. In conclusion, the amba.s.sador added, ”No one is more firm in his resolutions than the King of Prussia. He must and will take Silesia. If not secured by the immediate cession of that province, his troops and money will be offered to the Duke of Bavaria.”
”Go tell your master,” the Duke of Lorraine replied with dignity, ”that while he has a single soldier in Silesia, we will rather perish than enter into any discussion. If he will evacuate the duchy, we will treat with him at Berlin. For my part, not for the imperial crown, nor even for the whole world, will I sacrifice one inch of the queen's lawful possessions.”
While these negotiations were pending, the king himself made an ostentatious entry into Silesia. The majority of the Silesians were Protestants. The King of Prussia, who had discarded religion of all kinds, had of course discarded that of Rome, and was thus nominally a Protestant. The Protestants, who had suffered so much from the persecutions of the Catholic church, had less to fear from the infidelity of Berlin than from the fanaticism of Rome. Frederic was consequently generally received with rejoicings. The duchy of Silesia was indeed a desirable prize. Spreading over a region of more than fifteen thousand square miles, and containing a population of more than a million and a half, it presented to its feudal lord an ample revenue and the means of raising a large army. Breslau, the capital of the duchy, upon the Oder, contained a population of over eighty thousand.
Built upon several islands of that beautiful stream, its situation was attractive, while in its palaces and its ornamental squares, it vied with the finest capitals of Europe.
Frederic entered the city in triumph in January, 1741. The small Austrian garrison, consisting of but three thousand men, retired before him into Moravia. The Prussian monarch took possession of the revenues of the duchy, organized the government under his own officers, garrisoned the fortresses and returned to Berlin. Maria Theresa appealed to friendly courts for aid. Most of them were lavish in promises, but she waited in vain for any fulfillment. Neither money, arms nor men were sent to her. Maria Theresa, thus abandoned and thrown upon her own unaided energies, collected a small army in Moravia, on the confines of Silesia, and intrusted the command to Count Neuperg, whom she liberated from the prison to which her father had so unjustly consigned him. But it was mid-winter. The roads were almost impa.s.sable. The treasury of the Austrian court was so empty that but meager supplies could be provided for the troops. A ridge of mountains, whose defiles were blocked up with snow, spread between Silesia and Moravia.
It was not until the close of March that Marshal Neuperg was able to force his way through these defiles and enter Silesia. The Prussians, not aware of their danger, were reposing in their cantonments. Neuperg hoped to take them by surprise and cut them off in detail. Indeed Frederic, who, by chance, was at Jagerndorf inspecting a fortress, was nearly surrounded by a party of Austrian hussars, and very narrowly escaped capture. The ground was still covered with snow as the Austrian troops toiled painfully through the mountains to penetrate the Silesian plains. Frederic rapidly concentrated his scattered troops to meet the foe. The warlike character of the Prussian king was as yet undeveloped, and Neuperg, unconscious of the tremendous energies he was to encounter, and supposing that the Prussian garrisons would fly in dismay before him, was giving his troops, after their exhausting march, a few days of repose in the Vicinity of Molnitz.
On the 8th of April there was a thick fall of snow, filling the air and covering the fields. Frederic availed himself of the storm, which curtained him from all observation, to urge forward his troops, that he might overwhelm the Austrians by a fierce surprise. While Neuperg was thus resting, all unconscious of danger, twenty-seven battalions, consisting of sixteen thousand men, and twenty-nine squadrons of horse, amounting to six thousand, were, in the smothering snow, taking their positions for battle. On the morning of the 10th the snow ceased to fall, the clouds broke, and the sun came out clear and bright, when Neuperg saw that another and a far more fearful storm had gathered, and that its thunderbolts were about to be hurled into the midst of his camp.
The Prussian batteries opened their fire, spreading death through the ranks of the Austrians, even while they were hastily forming in line of battle. Still the Austrian veterans, accustomed to all the vicissitudes of war, undismayed, rapidly threw themselves into columns and rushed upon the foe. Fiercely the battle raged hour after hour until the middle of the afternoon, when the field was covered with the dead and crimsoned with blood. The Austrians, having lost three thousand in slain and two thousand in prisoners, retired in confusion, surrendering the field, with several guns and banners, to the victors. This memorable battle gave Silesia to Prussia, and opened the war of the Austrian succession.