text:  After so long defeat that it had extinguished all but the memory of her old triumphs France was a conqueror; after a century of helpless exhaustion she had risen into almost supernatural vigour; after a hundred years scarcely marked by a single victory her capital rang with the daily sound of successful battles against the veterans of Frederick and Maria Theresa; after lingering for generations in the obscurity so bitter to the popular heart France had been suddenly thrown into the broadest lustre of European sovereignty