rved her fame unsullied even by
the breath of slander.

To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty of Hohenzollern to the dust,
was the great object of her life. She toiled during many years for this
end, with zeal as indefatigable as that which the poet ascribes to the
stately goddess who tired out her immortal horses in the work of raising
the nations against Troy, and who offered to give up to destruction her
darling Sparta and Mycenae, if only she might once see the smoke going up
from the palace of Priam. With even such a spirit did the proud Austrian
Juno strive to array against her foe a coalition such as Europe had
never seen. Nothing would content her but that the whole civilized
world, from the White Sea to the Adriatic, from the Bay of Biscay to the
pastures of the wild horses of the Tanais, should be combined in arms
against one petty state.

She early succeeded by various arts in obtaining the adhesion of Russia.
An ample share of spoil was promised to the King of Poland; and that
prince, governed by his favorite, Count Bruhl, readily promised the
assistance of the Saxon forces. The great difficulty was with France.
That the Houses of Bourbon and of Hapsburg should ever cordially
cooperate in any great scheme of European policy had long been thought,
to use the strong expression of Frederic, just as impossible as that
fire and water should amalgamate. The whole history of the Continent,
during two centuries and a half, had been the history of the mutual
jealousies and enmities of France and Austria. Since the administration
of Richelieu, above all, it had been considered as the plain policy of
the Most Christian King to thwart on all occasions the Court of Vienna,
and to protect every member of the Germanic body who stood up against
the dictation of the Caesars. Common sentiments of religion had been
unable to mitigate this strong antipathy. The rulers of France, even
while clothed in the Roman purple, even while persecuting the heretics
of Rochelle and Auvergne, had still looked with favor on the Lutheran
and Calvinistic princes who were struggling against the chief of the
empire. If the French ministers paid any respect to the traditional
rules handed down to them through many generations, they would have
acted towards Frederic as the greatest of their predecessors acted
towards Gustavus Adolphus. That there was deadly enmity between Prussia
and Austria was of itself a sufficient reason for close friendsh