The year 1739 was spent by the prince mostly at Reinsberg. Many distinguished visitors were received at the chateau. Frederick continued busily engaged in his studies, writing both prose and verse, and keeping up a lively correspondence with Voltaire and other literary friends. He engaged very earnestly in writing a book entitled Anti-Machiavel, which consisted of a refutation of Machiavels Prince. This book was published, praised, and read, but has long since been forgotten. The only memorable thing about the book now is that in those dark days of absolutism, when it was the almost universally recognized opinion that power did not ascend from the people to their sovereign, but descended from the monarch to his subjects, Frederick should have spoken of the king as the born servant of his people.
Frederick, having regained Silesia, was anxious for peace. He wrote a polite letter to Maria Theresa, adroitly worded, so as to signify that desire without directly expressing it. The empress queen, disheartened by the disasters of Rossbach and Leuthen, was rather inclined to listen to such suggestions; but the Duchess448 of Pompadour verified the adage that hell has no fury like a woman scorned. She governed the wretched Louis XV., and through him governed France. In her intense personal exasperation against Frederick she would heed no terms of compromise, and infused new energy into all warlike operations. Large subsidies were paid by France to Austria, Sweden, and Russia, to prepare for the campaign of 1758.
ONE:Every body here is on tiptoe for the event, of which both origin and end are a riddle to most. Those who, in the style of theologians, consider themselves entitled to be certain, maintain that your majesty is expected with religious impatience by the Protestants; and that the Catholics hope to see themselves delivered from a multitude of imposts, which cruelly tear up the beautiful bosom of their Church. You can not but succeed in your valiant and stoical enterprise, since both religion and worldly interest rank themselves under your flag. Wallis, they say, has punished a Silesian heretic, of enthusiastic turn, as blasphemer, for announcing that a new Messiah is just coming. I have a taste for that kind of martyrdom. Critical persons consider the present step as directly opposed to certain maxims in the Anti-Machiavel.
Permit me to say there is not a man on the earth but owes thanks for the care you take to cultivate, by sound philosophy,175 a soul that is born for command. Good kings there never were except those who had begun by seeking to instruct themselves; by knowing good men from bad; by loving what was true; by detesting persecution and superstition. No prince, persisting in such thoughts, but might bring back the golden age into his countries.As you pass through Neisse, please present my compliments to Marshal Neipperg; and you can say, your excellency, that I hope to have the pleasure of calling upon him one of these days.MARIA THERESA AT THE HEAD OF HER ARMY.
路见不平Eason吼
