The preliminaries of peace were signed on the 30th of April; it was not
long before Austria and Spain gave in their adhesion. On the 18th of
October the definitive treaty was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. France
generously restored all her conquests, without claiming other advantages
beyond the assurance of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza to the Infante
Don Philip, son-in-law of Louis XV. England surrendered to France the
Island of Cape Breton and the colony of Louisbourg, the only territory
she had preserved from her numerous expeditions against the French
colonies and from the immense losses inflicted upon French commerce.
The Great Frederic kept Silesia; the King of Sardinia the territories
already ceded by Austria. Only France had made great conquests; and
only she retained no increment of territory. She recognized the
Pragmatic-Sanction in favor of Austria and the Protestant succession in
favor of George II. Prince Charles Edward, a refugee in France, refused
to quit the hospitable soil which had but lately offered so magnificent
an asylum to the unfortunates of his house: he was, however, carried off,
whilst at the Opera, forced into a carriage, and conveyed far from the
frontier. "As stupid as the peace!" was the bitter saying in the streets
of Paris.

[Illustration: Arrest of Charles Edward----166]

The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had a graver defect than that of
fruitlessness; it was not and could not be durable. England was excited,
ambitious of that complete empire of the sea which she had begun to build
up upon the ruins of the French navy and the decay of Holland, and greedy
of distant conquests over colonies which the French could not manage to
defend. In proportion as the old influence of Richelieu and of Louis
XIV. over European politics grew weaker and weaker, English influence,
founded upon the growing power of a free country and a free government,
went on increasing in strength. Without any other ally but Spain,
herself wavering in her fidelity, the French remained exposed to the
attempts of England, henceforth delivered from the phantom of the
Stuarts. "The peace concluded between England and France in 1748 was, as
regards Europe, nothing but a truce," says Lord Macaulay "it was not even
a truce in other quarters of the globe." The mutual rivalry and mistrust
between the two nations began to show themselves everywhere, in the East
as well as in the West, in India as well as in America.