ies] have also required me to write to
the Baron de Sack," our Saxon Minister in Sweden, "upon it, which I will
not fail to do; and they assured me that our Court's advantage was
not less concerned in it than that of their own; adding these words
[comfortable to one's soul], 'The King of Prussia [in 1745] gave Saxony
a blow which it will feel for fifty years; but we will give him one
which he will feel for a hundred.'"

To which beautiful suggestion Excellency Bruhl answers, 2d June, 1756:
"As to the Secret Commission of conveying to Petersburg, by concealed
channels, Intelligence of Prussian machinations in the Ukraine, we are
still busy finding out a right channel; and they [L'ON, the managing
Excellencies] shall very soon, one way or the other, see the effect of
my personal inclination to second what is so good an intention, though
a little artful (UN PEU ARTIFICIEUSE,"--UN PEU, nothing to speak of)!
[MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in _ Gesammelte Nachrichten _), i. 424-425; and ib.
472.]

Fancy a poor fat Czarina, of many appetites, of little judgment,
continually beaten upon in this manner by these Saxon-Austrian artists
and their Russian service-pipes. Bombarded with cunningly devised
fabrications, every wind freighted for her with phantasmal rumors, no
ray of direct daylight visiting the poor Sovereign Woman; who is lazy,
not malignant if she could avoid it: mainly a mass of esurient oil,
with alkali on the back of alkali poured in, at this rate, for ten years
past; till, by pouring and by stirring, they get her to the state of
SOAP and froth! Is it so wonderful that she does, by degrees, rise into
eminent suspicion, anger, fear, violence and vehemence against her bad
neighbor? One at last begins to conceive those insane whirls, continual
mad suspicions, mad procedures, which have given Friedrich such
vexation, surprise and provocation in the years past.

Friedrich is always specially eager to avoid ill-will from Russia; but
it has come, in spite of all he could do and try. And these procedures
of the Czarish Majesty have been so capricious, unintelligible,
perverse, and his feeling is often enough irritation, temporary
indignation,--which we know makes Verses withal! I can nowhere learn
from those Prussian imbroglios of Books, what the Friedrich Sayings
or Satirical Verses properly were: Retzow speaks of a PRODUKT, one
at least, known in interior Circles. [Retzow, i. 34.] PRODUKT which
decidedly requires publication, beyo