he wrote, spoke, read nothing but French: he delighted in French society: the admiration of the French he proposed to himself as the best reward of all his exploits.It seemed incredible that any French Government, however notorious for levity or stupidity, could spurn away such an ally.
The Court of Vienna, however, did not despair.The Austrian diplomatists propounded a new scheme of politics, which, it must be owned, was not altogether without plausibility.The great powers, according to this theory, had long been under a delusion.
They had looked on each other as natural enemies, while in truth they were natural allies.A succession of cruel wars had devastated Europe, had thinned the population, had exhausted the public resources, had loaded governments with an immense burden of debt; and when, after two hundred years of murderous hostility or of hollow truce, the illustrious Houses whose enmity had distracted the world sat down to count their gains, to what did the real advantage on either side amount? Simply to this, that they had kept each other from thriving.It was not the King of France, it was not the Emperor, who had reaped the fruits of the Thirty Years' War, or of the War of the Pragmatic Sanction.Those fruits had been pilfered by states of the second and third rank, which, secured against jealousy by their insignificance, had dexterously aggrandised themselves while pretending to serve the animosity of the great chiefs of Christendom.While the lion and tiger were tearing each other, the jackal had run off into the jungle with the prey.The real gainer by the Thirty Years' War had been neither France nor Austria, but Sweden.The real gainer by the War of the Pragmatic Sanction had been neither France nor Austria, but the upstart of Brandenburg.France had made great efforts, had added largely to her military glory, and largely to her public burdens; and for what end? Merely that Frederic might rule Silesia.For this and this alone one French army, wasted by sword and famine, had perished in Bohemia; and another had purchased with flood of the noblest blood, the barren glory of Fontenoy.And this prince, for whom France had suffered so much, was he a grateful, was he even an honest ally? Had he not been as false to the Court of Versailles as to the Court of Vienna?
Had he not played, on a large scale, the same part which, in private life, is played by the vile agent of chicane who sets his neighbours quarrelling, involves them in costly and interminable litigation, and betrays them to each other all round, certain that, whoever may be ruined, he shall be enriched? Surely the true wisdom of the great powers was to attack, not each other, but this common barrator, who, by inflaming the passions of both, by pretending to serve both, and by deserting both, had raised himself above the station to which he was born.The great object of Austria was to regain Silesia; the great object of France was to obtain an accession of territory on the side of Flanders.If they took opposite sides, the result would probably be that, after a war of many years, after the slaughter of many thousands of brave men, after the waste of many millions of crowns, they would lay down their arms without having achieved either object;but, if they came to an understanding, there would be no risk, and no difficulty.Austria would willingly make in Belgium such cessions as France could not expect to obtain by ten pitched battles.Silesia would easily be annexed to the monarchy of which it had long been a part.The union of two such powerful governments would at once overawe the King of Prussia.If he resisted, one short campaign would settle his fate.France and Austria, long accustomed to rise from the game of war both losers, would, for the first time, both be gainers.There could be no room for jealousy between them.The power of both would be increased at once; the equilibrium between them would be preserved; and the only sufferer would be a mischievous and unprincipled buccaneer, who deserved no tenderness from either.
These doctrines, attractive from their novelty and ingenuity, soon became fashionable at the supper-parties and in the coffee-houses of Paris, and were espoused by every gay marquis and every facetious abbe who was admitted to see Madame de Pompadour's hair curled and powdered.It was not, however, to any political theory that the strange coalition between France and Austria owed its origin.The real motive which induced the great continental powers to forget their old animosities and their old state maxims was personal aversion to the King of Prussia.This feeling was strongest in Maria Theresa; but it was by no means confined to her.Frederic, in some respects a good master, was emphatically a bad neighbour.That he was hard in all dealings, and quick to take all advantages, was not his most odious fault.His bitter and scoffing speech had inflicted keener wounds than his ambition.In his character of wit he was under less restraint than even in his character of ruler.Satirical verses against all the princes and ministers of Europe were ascribed to his pen.In his letters and conversation he alluded to the greatest potentates of the age in terms which would have better suited Colle, in a war of repartee with young Crebillon at Pelletier's table, than a great sovereign speaking of great sovereigns.About women he was in the habit of expressing himself in a manner which it was impossible for the meekest of women to forgive; and, unfortunately for him, almost the whole Continent was then governed by women who were by no means conspicuous for meekness.