The seven year old war started with a brilliance feat of arms: the fortress of Port-Mahon, in the island of Minorque, was looked like impregnable: it had high ramparts cut in the rock, of the deep ditches and its accesses were undermined; but nothing could stop the dash of the French: they went up to the attack under a rain of balls and balls, and as their scales were too short, they inserted their bayonets between the stones, and climbed on the shoulders the ones of the others; many fell, but the others arrived on the rampart and collapsed the English; the city capitulated the following day.

The seven year old war was for France a mixture of shame and glory: the duke of Richelieu had great qualities of General, but it gave to its army the example of plundering: the soldiers called it the small father the Petty thieving.

Soubise made proof, in Rosbach, of a scandalous incapacity; many Generals, plus courtiers that soldiers, made pass their particular interest before that of the fatherland.

It would be however unjust to see only the evil, even opposite the reign of Louis XV.

In Clostercamp, with the outposts, the sergeant Dubois, regiment of Auvergne, is surprised the night by the English; threatened of dead if it gives the awakening, it shouts of all its forces, "A us, of Auvergne, they are the enemies", and it falls bored blows.

With its cry the captain of Assas, which is in front of its soldiers: "Draw, hunters, they are the enemies" the French obeys, and draws in front of them in the darkness; they kill their captain, but with him much of English; the army is saved (1760).

The power of Prussia is the work of the longe perseverance of Hohenzollern and the genius of one of them, Frederic II.

With the Middle Ages Hohenzollern are only lords of Germany, the burgraves of Nuremberg; to the fifteenth century they add in their States the vast territory of Brandebourg, where Berlin is located, and they consequently contribute to elect the emperors of Germany.

With the seventeenth century, they increase by the acquisition of the duchy of Prussia and intervene in the great European businesses.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, they take the title of kings de Prusse, and Frederic II, called the Large one, does of Prussia one of the first States of Europe.