Henceforth he remained alone confronting Germany, which was neutral, or had rallied round the restored empire. On the 13th of September, the Grand-duke of Tuscany had been proclaimed emperor at Frankfurt, under the name of Francis I. The indomitable resolution of the queen his wife had triumphed. In spite of the checks she suffered in the Low Countries, Maria Theresa still withstood, at all points, the pacific advances of the belligerents. On the 4th of June, the King of Prussia had gained a great victory at Freilberg. “I have honored the bill of exchange your Majesty drew on me at Fontenoy,” he wrote to Louis XV. A series of successful fights had opened the road to Saxony. Frederick headed thither rapidly; on the 18th of December he occupied Dresden. This time, the King of Poland, Elector of Saxony, forced the hand of the new empress: “The Austrians and the Saxons have just sent ministers hither to negotiate for peace,” said a letter to France from the King of Prussia; “so I have no course open but to sign. Would that I might be fortunate enough to serve as the instrument of general pacification. After discharging my duty towards the state I govern, and towards my family, no object will be nearer to my heart than that of being able to render myself of service to your Majesty’s interests.” Frederick the Great returned to Berlin covered with glory, and definitively master of Silesia. “Learn once for all,” he said at a later period, in his instructions to his successor, “that where a kingdom is concerned, you take when you can, and that you are never wrong when you are not obliged to hand over. An insolent and a cynical maxim of brute force, which conquerors have put in practice at all times, without daring to set it up as a principle. Whilst Berlin was in gala trim to celebrate the return of her monarch in triumph, Europe had her eyes fixed upon the unparalleled enterprise of a young man, winning, courageous, and frivolous as he was, attempting to recover by himself alone the throne of his fathers. For nearly three years past, Charles Edward Stuart, son of Chevalier St. George, had been awaiting in France the fulfilment of the promises and hopes which had been flashed before his eyes. Weary of hope deferred, he had conceived the idea of a bold stroke. “Why not attempt to cross in a vessel to the north of Scotland?” had been the question put to him by Cardinal Tencin, who had, some time before, owed his cardinal’s hat to the dethroned King of Great Britain. “Your presence will be enough to get you a party and an army, and France will be obliged to give you aid.”