hopes she had been encouraged to imagine that LOUIS XV. might one day aid
her in recovering the provinces which the King of Prussia had violently
wrested from her ancient dominions. She felt the many advantages to be
derived from a union with her ancient enemy, and she looked for its
accomplishment by the marriage of her daughter.

"Policy, in sovereigns, is paramount to every other consideration. They
regard beauty as a source of profit, like managers of theatres, who, when
a female candidate is offered, ask whether she is young and
handsome,--not whether she has talent. Maria Theresa believed that her
daughter's beauty would prove more powerful over France than her own
armies. Like Catharine II., her envied contemporary, she consulted no
ties of nature in the disposal of her children,--a system more in
character where the knout is the logician than among nations boasting
higher civilization: indeed her rivalry with Catharine even made her
grossly neglect their education. Jealous of the rising power of the
North, she saw that it was the purpose of Russia to counteract her views
in Poland and Turkey through France, and so totally forgot her domestic
duties in the desire to thwart the ascendency of Catharine that she often
suffered eight or ten days to go by without even seeing her children,
allowing even the essential sources of instruction to remain unprovided.
Her very caresses were scarcely given but for display, when the children
were admitted to be shown to some great personage; and if they were
overwhelmed with kindness, it was merely to excite a belief that they
were the constant care and companions of her leisure hours. When they
grew up they became the mere instruments of her ambition. The fate of
one of them will show how their mother's worldliness was rewarded.

"A leading object of Maria Theresa's policy was the attainment of
influence over Italy. For this purpose she first married one of the