TREATY OF FRANCKFORT.

The inflexibility of the house of Austria, and its chief ally, proved serviceable to the emperor. The forlorn situation of this unfortunate prince excited the compassion of divers princes; they resented the insolence with which the head of the empire had been treated by the court of Vienna; and they were alarmed at the increasing power of a family noted for pride, tyranny, and ambition. These considerations gave rise to the treaty of Franckfort, concluded in May between the emperor, the king of Prussia, the king of Sweden as landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and the elector palatine. They engaged to preserve the constitution of the empire, according to the treaty of Westphalia, and to support the emperor in his rank and dignity. They agreed to employ their good offices with the queen of Hungary, that she might be induced to acknowledge the emperor, to restore his hereditary dominions, and give up the archives of the empire that were in her possession. They guaranteed to each other their respective territories; the disputes about the succession of the late emperor they referred to the decision of the states of the empire; they promised to assist one another in case of being attacked; and they invited the king of Poland, the elector of Cologn, and the bishop of Liege, to accede to this treaty. Such was the confederacy that broke all the measures which had been concerted between the king of Great Britain and her Hungarian majesty, for the operations of the campaign. In the meantime, the French king declared war against this princess, on pretence that she was obstinately deaf to all terms of accommodation, and determined to carry the war into the territories of France. In her counter-declaration, she taxed Louis with having infringed the most solemn engagement, with respect to the pragmatic sanction; with having spirited up different pretenders to lay claim to the succession of the late emperor; with having endeavoured to instigate the common enemy of Christendom against her; and with having acted the incendiary in the north of Europe, that the czarina might be prevented from assisting the house of Austria, while his numerous armies overspread the empire and desolated her hereditary countries. These recriminations were literally true. The houses of Bourbon and Austria have, for many centuries, been the common disturbers and plagues of Europe.