tely voted, with strong
resolutions in favor of the queen. The Austrian ambassador, in
transmitting this money and these resolutions to the queen, urged that
no sacrifice should be made to purchase peace with Prussia; affirming
that the king, the Parliament, and the people of England were all roused
to enthusiasm in behalf of Austria; and that England would spend its
last penny, and shed its last drop of blood, in defense of the cause of
Maria Theresa. This encouraged the queen exceedingly, for she was
sanguine that Holland, the natural ally of England, would follow the
example of that nation. She also cherished strong hopes that Russia
might come to her aid.

It was the plan of France to rob Maria Theresa of all her possessions
excepting Hungary, to which distant kingdom she was to be driven, and
where she was to be left undisturbed to defend herself as she best could
against the Turks. Thus the confederates would have, to divide among
themselves, the States of the Netherlands, the kingdom of Bohemia, the
Tyrol, the duchies of Austria, Silesia, Moravia, Carinthia, Servia and
various other duchies opulent and populous, over which the vast empire
of Austria had extended its sway.

The French armies crossed the Rhine and united with the Bavarian troops.
The combined battalions marched, sweeping all opposition before them, to
Lintz, the capital of upper Austria. This city, containing about thirty
thousand inhabitants, is within a hundred miles of Vienna, and is one of
the most beautiful in Germany. Here, with much military and civic pomp,
the Duke of Bavaria was inaugurated Archduke of the Austrian duchies. A
detachment of the army was then dispatched down the river to Polten,
within twenty-four miles of Vienna; from whence a summons was sent to
the capital to surrender. At the same time a powerful army turned its
steps north, and pressing on a hundred and fifty miles, over the
mountains and through the plains of Bohemia, laid siege to Prague, which
was filled with magazines, and weakly garrisoned. Frederic, now in
possession of all Silesia, was leading his troops to cooperate with
those of France and Bavaria.

The cause of Maria Theresa was now, to human vision, desperate. Immense
armies were invading her realms. Prague was invested; Vienna threatened
with immediate siege; her treasury was empty; her little army defeated
and scattered; she was abandoned by her allies, and nothing seemed to
remain for her but to submit