I grant it, my dear DArget, said the king, but it is too372 dangerous a part to play. A reverse brings me to the edge of ruin. I know too well the mood of mind I was in the last time I left Berlin ever to expose myself to it again. If luck had been against me there, I saw myself a monarch without a throne. A bad game that. In fine, I wish to be at peace.Have I not, on all occasions, meant honorably by you? Last time I got wind of your debts, did I not, as a father, admonish you to tell me all? I would pay all; you were only to tell me the truth; whereupon you said there were still two thousand thalers beyond the sum named. I paid these also at once, and fancied I had made peace with you. And then it was found, by-and-by, you owed many thousands more. And as you knew you could not pay, it was as good as if the money had been stolennot to reckon how the French vermin, Montholieu and partner, cheated you with their new loans.
ONE:To add to the embarrassments of Frederick, the King of Poland, entirely under the control of his minister Brühl, who hated Frederick, entered into an alliance with Maria Theresa, and engaged to furnish her with thirty thousand troops, who were to be supported by the sea powers England and Holland, who were also in close alliance with Austria.
ONE:Again, on the 8th, Dr. Zimmermann wrote: The king is extraordinarily ill. On the 4th erysipelas appeared on the leg. This announces bursting and mortification. He has much oppression, and the smell of the wound is very bad.In July, 1756, Frederick, for forms sake, inquired, through his embassador at Vienna, why Maria Theresa was making such formidable military preparations. At the same time he conferred with two of his leading generals, Schwerin and Retzow, if it would not be better, since it was certain that Austria and Russia would soon declare war, to anticipate them by an attack upon Austria. The opinion of both, which was in perfect accord with that of the king, was that it was best immediately to seize upon Saxony, and in that rich and fertile country to gather magazines, and make it the base for operations in Bohemia.
TWO:The prospects of Maria Theresa seemed now quite desperate. We know not that history records a more inglorious act than that Europe should have thus combined to take advantage of the youth and inexperience of this young queen, weeping over the grave of her father, and trembling in view of her own approaching hour of anguish, by wresting from her the inheritance which had descended to her from her ancestors. France and272 Germany, inspired by the most intense motives of selfish ambition, were to fall upon her, while the most effectual precautions were adopted to prevent Russia and England from coming to her aid.
TWO: Frederick.Lord Hyndford, evidently embarrassed, for the facts were strongly against him, endeavored, in some additional remarks, to assume ignorance of any unfriendly action on the part of the British government. The king again, in a loud and angry tone, replied,
THREE:Her majesty, all in tears, complained of her situation. The king is nigh losing his senses on account of the differences with Hanover; goes from bed to bed in the night-time, and from chamber to chamber, like one whose brains are turned. Took a fit at two in the morning lately to be off to Wusterhausen. Since his return he gives himself up entirely to drink. The king will not suffer the prince royal to sit next his majesty at table, but obliges him to go to the lower end, where things are so ordered that the poor prince often rises without getting one bit, insomuch that the queen was obliged two days ago to send, by one of the servants who could be trusted, a box of cold fowls and other eatables for his royal highnesss subsistence.
