r internal development Charles had
done much. His religious attitude was moderate and tolerant, and he did his
best to promote the enlightenment of his subjects. He was zealous, too, for
the promotion of trade and industry, and, besides the East India Company
which he established at Ostend, he encouraged the development of Trieste
and Fiume as sea-ports and centres of trade with the Levant.

[Sidenote: Maria Theresa.]

[v.03 p.0010] The accession of Maria Theresa to the throne of the Habsburgs
marks an important epoch in the history of Austria. For a while, indeed, it
seemed that the monarchy was on the point of dissolution. To the diplomacy
of the 18th century the breach of a solemn compact was but lightly
regarded; and Charles VI. had neglected the advice of Prince Eugene to
leave an effective army of 200,000 men as a more solid guarantee of the
Pragmatic Sanction than the signatures of the powers. As it was, the
Austrian forces, disorganized in the long confusion of the Turkish wars,
were in no condition to withstand Frederick the Great, when in 1740, at the
head of the splendid army bequeathed to him by his father, he invaded
Silesia (see AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION, WAR OF). The Prussian victory at Mollwitz
(April 10, 1741) brought into the field against Austria all the powers
which were ambitious of expansion at her expense: France, Bavaria, Spain,
Saxony and Sardinia. Nor was the peril wholly external. Apart from the
perennial discontents of Magyars and Slavs, the confusion and corruption of
the administration, and the misery caused by the ruin of the finances, had
made the Habsburg dynasty unpopular even in its German states, and in
Vienna itself a large section of public opinion was loudly in favour of the
claims of Charles of Bavaria. Yet the war, if it revealed the weakness of
the Austrian monarchy, revealed also unexpected sources of strength. Not
the least of these was the character of Maria Theresa herself, who to the
fascination of a young and beautiful woman added a very masculine
resolution and judgment. In response to her personal appeal, and also to
her wise and timely concessions, the Hungarians had rallied to her support,
and for the first time in history awoke not only to a feeling of
enthusiastic loyalty to a Habsburg monarch, but also to the realization
that their true interests were bound up with those of Austria (see HUNGARY:
_History_). Although, then, as the result of the war, Silesia was by the
trea