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For centuries France and the Habsburgs had been enemies, as they had during the War of the Austrian Succession that had just ended (1748). But slowly the recognition was dawning on Maria-Theresa and her chancellor Kaunitz, and on Madame de Pompadour and, with less conviction, her lover Louis XV, that they were less threatened by each other than by the emergent powers of England (which was struggling with France for empire in India, North America and the West Indies) and Prussia (which had seized and so far kept Silesia).
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