The nation was offered an opportunity to prove by her alacrity in complying with the wishes of Charles in regard to a change in the order of the dynastic succession, that his kind feelings towards the country were fully reciprocated by the trustfulness of the people. The right of succession was thus extended to the female line too of those very Hapsburgs, whose dynasty the nation, not many years before, had declared to have altogether forfeited their right to the throne. The country was soon called upon at Maria Theresa’s accession to the throne to prove by deeds its attachment and gratitude. The young queen was attacked by all Europe, the enemy being eager to rob her of the fairest portions of her Austrian possessions. In this extreme danger she appealed to chivalrous Hungary for protection, and the nation, forgetting the old quarrels, exclaimed with one voice: “_Vitam et sanguinem! moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresia!_” Eighty thousand soldiers went into the war to meet the queen’s enemies, who were anxious to divide the spoils of the empire, and during a combat of eight years the Hungarians, whilst defending their Pragmatic Sanction, upheld, at the same time, the integrity of the Austrian possessions. The dynasty had thus won in Hungary, by a spirit of conciliation, a country upon which it could count as a trusty support in case of danger from without. [Illustration: HUNGARIAN PEASANT.] Maria Theresa showed herself grateful for the sacrifices and devotion of the nation. The district of Temes, which had been retaken from the Turks by her father, was re-annexed to the kingdom of Hungary, and it was Maria Theresa who gave Hungary the city of Fiume, in order that the country might have a seaport town to promote her commerce and industry. A great deal, too, was done by her, in many ways, to improve the material condition of the country, and still more for the advancement of higher culture through the erection of churches and the foundation and organization of schools. In a word, she always remained, to her end, the “gracious queen” of the nation.