But a pragmatic sanction, once more invoked, seems to have covered the necessities of the situation by providing that the succession in the absence of a male heir might descend to a female, and so there was a young and beautiful empress on the throne at Vienna, who was going to make a great deal of history for Europe; and who would open her brilliant reign by a valiant fight for possession of Silesia, which the young king of Prussia intended to seize as an addition to his own new kingdom.

This young King Frederick was also making history very fast, and after a stormy career was going to convert his Kingdom into a Power, and to be the one sovereign of his age whom the world would call _Great_! But at this particular period of his youth, Frederick and his nobility, still blinded by the splendors of the reign of Louis XIV., were mere servile imitators of the court at Versailles, and the culture and the civilization for which they hungered were French--only French; and for Frederick, an intimate companionship with Voltaire was his supreme desire.

But a closer view of the witty, cynical Frenchman wrought a wonderful change.

The finely pointed shafts of ridicule when aimed at himself were not so entertaining.

And his guest, no longer _persona grata_, was escorted over the frontier to France.
A nearer view of Versailles at this time might also have disenchanted these worshippers at the shrine of French civilization.