empress. A proposal was made to Maria Theresa for a treaty of guarantee
between France, Austria, and Prussia; the existing war between England
and France was excepted from the defensive pact; France reserved to
herself the right of invading Hanover. The same conditions had been
offered to the King of Prussia; he was not contented with them. Whilst
Maria Theresa was insisting at Paris upon obtaining an offensive as well
as defensive alliance, Frederick II. was signing with England an
engagement not to permit the entrance into Germany of any foreign troops.
"I only wish to preserve Germany from war," wrote the King of Prussia to
Louis XV. On the 1st of May, 1756, at Versailles, Louis XV. replied to
the Anglo-Prussian treaty by his alliance with the Empress Maria Theresa.
The house of Bourbon was holding out the hand to the house of Austria;
the work of Henry IV. and of Richelieu, already weakened by an
inconsistent and capricious policy, was completely crumbling to pieces,
involving in its ruin the military fortunes of France.

The prudent moderation of Abbe de Bernis, then in great favor with Madame
de Pompadour, and managing the negotiations with Austria, had removed
from the treaty of Versailles the most alarming clauses. The empress and
the King of France mutually guaranteed to one another their possessions
in Europe, "each of the contracting parties promising the other, in case
of need, the assistance of twenty-four thousand men." Russia and Saxony
were soon enlisted in the same alliance; the King of Prussia's
pleasantries, at one time coarse and at another biting, had offended the
Czarina Elizabeth and the Elector of Saxony as well as Louis XV. and
Madame de Pompadour. The weakest of the allies was the first to
experience the miseries of that war so frivolously and gratuitously
entered upon, from covetousness, rancor, or weakness, those fertile
sources of the bitterest sorrows to humanity.

"It is said that the King of Prussia's troops are on the march," wrote
the Duke of Luynes in his journal (September 3, 1756); "it is not said
whither." Frederick II. was indeed on the march with his usual
promptitude; a few days later, Saxony was invaded, Dresden occupied, and
the Elector-king of Poland invested in the camp of Pirna. General Braun,
hurrying up with the Austrians to the Saxons' aid, was attacked by
Frederick on the 1st of October, near Lowositz; without being decisive,
the battle was, nevertheless, suffic