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Updated: June 11, 2025
The young Elector of Bavaria had already found himself driven out of Munich, and forced by his exhausted subjects to demand peace of Maria Theresa. The election to the empire was imminent; Maximilian-Joseph promised his votes to the Grand-duke of Tuscany; at that price he was re-established in his hereditary dominions.
At equal step with the ruining of Pragmatic Sanction goes on that spoiling of Grand-Duke Franz's Election to the Kaisership: these two operations run parallel; or rather, under different forms, they are one and the same operation.
It appeared certain that the alliance between France and Spain had been arranged, and that the Pope, Spain, the Grand-duke of Tuscany, and their various adherents had organized a strong combination, and were enrolling large armies to take the field in the spring, against the Protestant League of the princes and electors in Germany. The great king was dead.
It was Sedan Day, but there was apparently no official observance of the holiday, perhaps because the Grand-Duke was away at the manoeuvres, with all the other German princes.
He labored incessantly to get a hearing for the "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser." He forced Wagner's compositions on the band, on the grand-duke; he breasted public opposition and fought nobly for the eccentric and obscure person who was chiefly known as a political outlaw and an inventor of extravagant compositions which it was impossible to play or sing, and odiously unpleasant to listen to.
At length one day Coningsby met Madame Colonna in the vestibule before dinner. 'Milor is in such good temper, Mr. Coningsby, she said; 'Monsieur de Sidonia has arrived. About ten minutes before dinner there was a stir in the chamber. Coningsby looked round. He saw the Grand-duke advancing, and holding out his hand in a manner the most gracious.
We may feast our eyes upon the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, the Marble Palace, the Senate-house, the palace of the Grand-duke Michael, the Column of Alexander, the colleges, universities, imperial gardens and summer-houses, and, after all, we can only feel that they are built upon the necks of an enslaved people; that the mightiest Czars of Russia, in common with the poorest serfs, are but "as grasshoppers upon the earth."
They included the rulers of South Germany, as well as Dalberg the Arch-Chancellor, who now took the title of Prince Primate, the Grand-Duke of Berg, the Landgrave, now Grand-Duke, of Hesse-Darmstadt, two Princes of the House of Nassau, and seven lesser potentates. In some cases German laws were abolished in favour of the Code Napoléon.
The intention seemed to be, that all the Swedo-Russian troops should cross the Elbe at the same point; viz., Lauenburg, six miles from Hamburg. There was not on the 5th of November a single Russian on the southern bank of the Elbe. The first column of the grand Russian army passed through Warsaw on the 1st of November, and on the 2d the Grand-Duke Constantine was expected with the Guards.
In Belleisle's sixth month, the Grand-Duke, after such demolition of Pragmatic, and such disasters and contradictions as had been, saw his case to be desperate; though he still stuck to it, Austrian-like, or rather, Austria for him stuck to it, the Grand-Duke being careless of such things; and indeed, privately, never did give in, even AFTER the Election, as we shall have to note.
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