the first
enterprise of my reign? No! I will sooner be crushed with my whole army,
than renounce my rights in Silesia. Let those who want peace grant me my
demands. If they prefer to fight again, they can do so, and again be
beaten."

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, fami