isguise her determination to hold Bavaria
by the right of conquest, and to annex it to Austria; she had compelled
the Bavarians to take the oath of allegiance to her; she was avowedly
meditating gigantic projects in the conquest of France and Italy; and it
was very evident that she was maturing her plans for the reconquest of
Silesia. Such inordinate ambition alarmed all the neighboring courts.
Frederic of Prussia was particularly alarmed lest he should lose
Silesia. With his accustomed energy he again drew his sword against the
queen, and became the soul of a new confederacy which combined many of
the princes of the empire whom the haughty queen had treated with so
much indignity. In this new league, formed by Frederic, the Elector
Palatine and the King of Sweden were brought into the field against
Maria Theresa. All this was effected with the utmost secrecy, and the
queen had no intimation of her danger until the troops were in motion.
Frederic published a manifesto in which he declared that he took up arms
"to restore to the German empire its liberty, to the emperor his
dignity, and to Europe repose."

With his strong army he burst into Bohemia, now drained of its troops to
meet the war in the Netherlands and on the Rhine. With a lion's tread,
brushing all opposition away, he advanced to Prague. The capital was
compelled to surrender, and the garrison of fifteen thousand troops
became prisoners of war. Nearly all the fortresses of the kingdom fell
into his hands. Establishing garrisons at Tabor, Budweiss, Frauenberg,
and other important posts, he then made an irruption into Bavaria,
scattered the Austrian troops in all directions, entered Munich in
triumph, and reinstated the emperor in the possession of his capital and
his duchy. Such are the fortunes of war. The queen heard these tidings
of accumulated disaster in dismay. In a few weeks of a summer's
campaign, when she supposed that Europe was almost a suppliant at her
feet, she found herself deprived of the Netherlands, of the whole
kingdom of Bohemia, the brightest jewel in her crown, and of the
electorate of Bavaria.

But the resolution and energy of the queen remained indomitable. Maria
Theresa and Frederic were fairly pitted against each other. It was Greek
meeting Greek. The queen immediately recalled the army from Alsace, and
in person repaired to Presburg, where she summoned a diet of the
Hungarian nobles. In accordance with an ancient custom, a blood-red