harine at St. Petersburg.
This ambitious and unprincipled woman snatched at the bait presented,
and the infamous partition was agreed to. Maria Theresa was very greedy,
and demanded nearly half of Poland as her share. This exorbitant claim,
which she with much pertinacity adhered to, so offended the two other
sovereigns that they came near fighting about the division of the spoil.
The queen was at length compelled to lower her pretensions. The final
treaty was signed between the three powers on the 5th of August, 1772.

The three armies were immediately put in motion, and each took
possession of that portion of the Polish territory which was assigned to
its sovereign. In a few days the deed was done. By this act Austria
received an accession of twenty-seven thousand square miles of the
richest of the Polish territory, containing a population of two million
five hundred thousand souls. Russia received a more inhospitable region,
embracing forty-two thousand square miles, and a population of one
million five hundred thousand. The share of Frederic amounted to
thirteen thousand three hundred and seventy-five square miles, and eight
hundred and sixty thousand souls.

Notwithstanding this cruel dismemberment, there was still a feeble
Poland left, upon which the three powers were continually gnawing, each
watching the others, and snarling at them lest they should get more than
their share. After twenty years of jealous watchings the three powers
decided to finish their infamous work, and Poland was blotted from the
map of Europe. In the two divisions Austria received forty-five thousand
square miles and five million of inhabitants. Maria Theresa was now upon
the highest pinnacle of her glory and her power. She had a highly
disciplined army of two hundred thousand men; her treasury was
replenished, and her wide-spread realms were in the enjoyment of peace.
Life had been to her, thus far, but a stormy sea, and weary of toil and
care, she now hoped to close her days in tranquillity.

The queen was a stern and stately mother. While pressed by all these
cares of state, sufficient to have crushed any ordinary mind, she had
given birth to sixteen children. But as each child was born it was
placed in the hands of careful nurses, and received but little of
parental caressings. It was seldom that she saw her children more than
once a week. Absorbed by high political interests, she contented herself
with receiving a daily report from