, there is no continuance of it
through eternity. It is the gloomiest thing to think of in this
whole world.

But Frederic was too busy and pre-occupied a man to mourn long for a
departed joy. He was absorbed in preparations for war. The sword of
Damocles was suspended over his head, and he knew it better than any
other man in Europe; he knew it from his spies and emissaries. Though he
had enjoyed ten years' peace, he knew that peace was only a truce; that
the nations were arming in behalf of the injured empress; that so great
a crime as the seizure of Silesia must be visited with a penalty; that
there was no escape for him except in a tremendous life-and-death
struggle, which was to be the trial of his life; that defeat was more
than probable, since the forces in preparation against him were
overwhelming. The curses of the civilized world still pursued him, and
in his retreat at Sans-Souci he had no rest; and hence he became
irritable and suspicious. The clouds of the political atmosphere were
filled with thunderbolts, ready to fall upon him and crush him at any
moment; indeed, nothing could arrest the long-gathering storm.

It broke out with unprecedented fury in the spring of 1756. Austria,
Russia, Sweden, Saxony, and France were combined to ruin him,--the most
powerful coalition of the European powers seen since the Thirty Years'
War. His only ally was England,--an ally not so much to succor him as to
humble France, and hence her aid was timid and incompetent.

Thus began the famous Seven Years' War, during which France lost her
colonial possessions, and was signally humiliated at home,--a war which
developed the genius of the elder Pitt, and placed England in the proud
position of mistress of the ocean; a war marked by the largest array of
forces which Europe had seen since the times of Charles V., in which six
hundred thousand men were marshalled under different leaders and
nations, to crush a man who had insulted Europe and defied the law of
nations and the laws of God. The coalition represented one hundred
millions of people with inexhaustible resources.

Now, it was the memorable resistance of Frederic II. to this vast array
of forces, and his successful retention of the province he had seized,
which gave him his chief claim as a hero; and it was his patience, his
fortitude, his energy, his fertility of resources, and the enthusiasm
with which he inspired his troops even after the most discouraging and
demo