684 



MARIA TIIKRESA. 



favourites she took care to secure the favour of the 

 king previously to avowing' her own inclinations, 

 ami thus had the merit of appearing to yield to the 

 I of her husband. Even while princess of 

 Austria, an intrigue with the elder Godoy was only 

 terminated by his banishment from Madrid. His 

 place was supplied by his younger brother, don 

 Manuel Godoy (q. v.), who became equally the 

 favourite of Charles. (See Charles If.) Their 

 intrigues led to the affair of the Escurial, in which 

 Maria acted a most unnatural part against her son. 

 (See Ferdinand VII.} In 1808, the revolution of 

 Aranjuez took place, Charles abdicaled, and Maria 

 threw herself into the arms of the French. Charles 

 was obliged to retract his abdication, and that cele- 

 brated correspondence with Mnrat followed, in which 

 Maria Louisa, in a letter written with her own hand, 

 accuses her son of hardheartedness, cruelty, and want 

 of affection for his parents. After the well-known 

 proceedings at Bayonne, Maria Louisa remained in 

 France a short time with Godoy and the ex-king, and 

 finally went to Rome, where she died in 1819. See 

 Spain. 



MARIA THERESA, queen of Hungary and 

 Bohemia, arch-duchess of Austria, and empress of 

 Germany, daughter of the emperor Charles VI., was 

 born at Vienna, 1717, and, in 1736, married duke 

 Francis Stephen of Lorraine (who, in 1737, became 

 grand-duke of Tuscany, by virtue of the treaty of 

 Vienna, October 3, 1735); the day after the death of 

 Charles (October 21, 1740), ascended the throne of 

 Hungary, Bohemia, and Austria; and, November 

 21, declared her husband joint ruler. She found the 

 kingdom exhausted, the people dissatisfied, the trea- 

 sury empty, and the army (with the exception of the 

 troops in Italy) only 30,000 strong. The elector, 

 Charles Albert of Bavaria, supported by France, laid 

 claim to the Austrian hereditary territories, and the 

 electors of Cologne and the Palatinate would likewise 

 not acknowledge the succession of Maria Theresa. 

 Charles Albert of Bavaria was descended from Anna, 

 elder daughter of Ferdinand I., who, by will, had 

 appointed that, upon the extinction of the Austrian 

 male line, the succession to the throne of Bohemia 

 and Austria should devolve upon his daughters and 

 their heirs. Meanwhile Prussia, Poland and Saxony, 

 Russia, the States-General and England, declared for 

 the queen. France only delayed to make an express 

 acknowledgment. Just in this situation of the Aus- 

 trian court, Frederic II. renewed his claim to four 

 Silesian principalities, and offered, if he received 

 them, to defend the young queen against her 

 enemies. At the same time (December 23, 1740), 

 he marched with an army into Silesia. Maria 

 Theresa was as much surprised as enraged at this 

 step of the king, and Frederic's offers were refused 

 altogether. Meanwhile, the king made rapid pro- 

 gress in Silesia, where the Protestants, who were 

 much oppressed by the government of Austria, 

 received him with joy. The queen of Hungary, 

 although she could nowhere find an ally, with great 

 resolution refused any kind of submission, and col- 

 lected an army in Moravia, under general Niepperg. 

 But the want of magazines, and the bad roads, 

 prevented Niepperg from acting effectively. The 

 Austrians were beaten at Molwitz, April 10, 1741. 

 Marshal Belle-Isle, in the name of France, now nego- 

 tiated with the king of Prussia, at Molwitz, upon the 

 dissolution of the Austrian monarchy. Philip V., 

 king of Spain, as a descendant in the male line of 

 the house of Hapsburg, by virtue of the family con- 

 tracts of 1617, laid claim to the throne of Austria; 

 Charles Emanuel, king of Sardinia, a descendant of 

 Catharine, second daughter of Philip II., demanded 

 Milan : Augustus 111., notwithstanding the treaty 



just concluded by him with Maria Theresa, made 

 similar demands on account of his wife, eldest. 

 daughter of Joseph I. France had already con- 

 trived a plan of division; however, Frederic 

 would not accede to it, lest France should be- 

 come too powerful in Germany, but turned to 

 George II. of England, hoping, by his means, to 

 induce the queen of Hungary to compliance. But 

 she remained determined to defend the whole king- 

 dom of her fathers, and England promised her a 

 subsidy of 500,000. She had even already formed 

 the design of dividing the slates of the king of 

 Prussia, and invited the king of England first to 

 invade them. But Great Britain sought merely to 

 negotiate a peace. Bavaria, in July, 1741, having 

 begun the war against Austria, and two strong 

 French armies having crossed the Rhine and the 

 Maese; Frederic, likewise, having conquered almost 

 all Silesia; the attempt at mediation, on the part of 

 England, proved fruitless. Maria Theresa con- 

 sidered herself not warranted in giving up the small- 

 est part of her kingdom. She became still more 

 fixed in this determination, by the birth of the arch- 

 duke Joseph. Her husband had little influence, 

 and interfered little in the business of government. 

 Hardly had the negotiations with Frederic been 

 broken off, when Belle-Isle with a French army, and 

 the elector of Bavaria, marched into Austria. LiuU 

 was taken, and the elector acknowledged archduke. 

 The Bavarians and French marched to St Polten, 

 and Vienna was summoned to surrender. The king 

 of England, who wished to send assistance to Maria 

 Theresa, was compelled, by a second French army, 

 to conclude a treaty of neutrality, in respect to Han- 

 over, and to promise not to oppose the elevation of 

 the elector of Bavaria to the imperial throne. The 

 electors of Saxony, of Cologne, and of the Palatinate, 

 acceded to the union against Maria Theresa. Spain, 

 on the point of entering Italy, had secured the neu- 

 trality of the pope and the remaining Italian princes, 

 and the king of Sardinia was prepared to join his 

 troops to those of the house of Bourbon. In Silesia, 

 Frederic was master of the capital, and on the point 

 of uniting himself with the French and Bavarians. 

 Maria Theresa's cause was desperate; forsaken by 

 her allies, without troops, or money, or good minis- 

 ters, she was preserved only by her courage, by the 

 attachment of the brave Hungarians, and by the help 

 of England. In this necessity, she summoned a diet 

 at Presburg, and appeared before the assembly in 

 mourning, clothed in the Hungarian fashion, the 

 crown of St Stephen on her head, and girt with the 

 kingly sword. She addressed a speech, in Latin, to 

 the states, in which she described her situation, and 

 committed herself and her children entirely to the 

 protection of her Hungarians. The youth, the 

 beauty, and the misfortunes of the queen, made a 

 deep impression. The magnates drew their sabres 

 and exclaimed, " Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria. 

 Theresa." Till then she had preserved a calm, 

 majestic demeanor ; now she melted into tears, and 

 the interest was still more increased. The troops 

 furnished by Hungary, by their manner of fighting, 

 and by their ferocity, spread terror through the 

 Gei-man and French armies. In the mean time, the 

 allies quarrelled among themselves, to which the 

 pride of Belle-Isle much contributed, who wished to 

 treat the German princes as vassals of France. Ba- 

 varia and Saxony contended for the supremacy. The 

 king of Prussia therefore concluded, under British 

 mediation (October 9, 1741), a secret treaty with the 

 English ambassador (who was invested with autho- 

 rity, for this purpose, by the queen of Hungary), 

 according to which Lower Silesia was to be sur- 

 rendered to Prussia. Soon after (October 26), Prague 





