This victory brought into the arena new and eager claimants for some part of the Austrian spoils, now apparently so available. The eminent guarantors of the integrity of Austria were suddenly transformed into hungry schemers for her immediate partition. Spain, Sardinia, and Poland-Saxony all advanced pretensions. But a mightier enemy was preparing to join hands with Frederick and take the field; for it was scarcely to be supposed that the secular enemy of the House of Hapsburg could remain quiescent at such a moment. France saw a unique opportunity for breaking up the Austrian dominions, and reducing the portion reserved to the young Queen to comparative insignificance. In France, as in England, the Minister was peaceful, but the party of war carried the day. Two French armies of 40,000 men each crossed the Rhine in August 1741. One under Marshal Maillebois marched on Hanover. The ruler of that State, who, as sovereign of Great Britain, was the active ally of Maria Theresa, hastily concluded a treaty of neutrality for one year, promising to give no assistance to the young Queen in his Hanoverian capacity, and to refrain from voting for her husband as Emperor. For this treaty George II. was violently attacked by his British subjects, who believed themselves to be fighting for Hanoverian interests, while Hanover itself was thus snugly removed into a haven of peace. The censure was, we think, excessive, if not undeserved. The treaty did indeed accentuate the duality which somewhat unequally divided the person of George. But if that be once conceded, it must be admitted that he was right as Elector to do his very best for Hanover, just as King he was bound to do his very best for England. As Elector, then, he was fully justified in keeping his defenceless State out of the devastation of war, from which it was destined to suffer so terribly sixteen years later from another French army under the Duke of Richelieu, when neutrality was no longer possible. While Maillebois marched towards Hanover, the other army, under Marshals Belleisle and Broglie, marched through Bavaria and menaced Vienna. Maria Theresa had to fly to Hungary, and appeal in a manner made familiar by description to the chivalry of the Magyars. The Elector of Bavaria, who was the figure-head chosen by the confederates for the imperial throne, and who had his fill of titles in the lack of more substantial fare, was proclaimed Archduke of Austria at Linz, King of Bohemia in Prague, and soon afterwards Emperor in Frankfort. It seemed as if a vast partition was about to take place, and the House of Austria destined to disappear.