s now greatly roused. She resolved to
retain the whole of Bavaria which she had taken from the elector. The
duchy of Lorraine, which had been wrested from her husband, was
immediately to be invaded and restored to the empire. The dominions
which had been torn from her father in Italy were to be reannexed to the
Austrian crown, and Alsace upon the Rhine was to be reclaimed. Thus, far
from being now satisfied with the possessions she had inherited from her
father, her whole soul was roused, in these hours of triumph, to conquer
vast accessions for her domains. She dreamed only of conquest, and in
her elation parceled out the dominions of France and Bavaria as
liberally and as unscrupulously as they had divided among themselves the
domain of the house of Austria.

The French, alarmed, made a great effort to relieve Prague. An army,
which on its march was increased to sixty thousand men, was sent six
hundred miles to cross rivers, to penetrate defiles of mountains crowded
with hostile troops, that they might rescue Prague and its garrison from
the besiegers. With consummate skill and energy this critical movement
was directed by General Mallebois. The garrison of the city were in a
state of great distress. The trenches were open and the siege was pushed
with great vigilance. All within the walls of the beleaguered city were
reduced to extreme suffering. Horse flesh was considered a delicacy
which was reserved for the sick. The French made sally after sally to
spike the guns which were battering down the walls. As Mallebois, with
his powerful reenforcement, drew near, their courage rose. The Duke of
Lorraine became increasingly anxious to secure the capitulation before
the arrival of the army of relief, and proposed a conference to decide
upon terms, which should be transmitted for approval to the courts of
Vienna and of Paris. But the imperious Austrian queen, as soon as she
heard of this movement, quite regardless of the feelings of her husband,
whom she censured as severely as she would any corporal in the army,
issued orders prohibiting, peremptorily, any such conference.

"I will not suffer," she said "any council to be held in the army. From
Vienna alone are orders to be received. I disavow and forbid all such
proceedings, _let the blame fall where it may_."

She knew full well that it was her husband who had proposed this plan;
and he knew, and all Austria knew, that it was the Duke of Lorraine who
was thus severely