ter
which the gods call Fact! Friedrich did read his terrible Sphinx-riddle;
the Gazetteer tornado did pipe and blow. King Friedrich, in contrast
with his Environment at that time, will most likely never be portrayed
to modern men in his real proportions, real aspect and attitude then and
there,--which are silently not a little heroic and even pathetic, when
well seen into;--and, for certain, he is not portrayable at present,
on our side of the Sea. But what hints and fractions of feature we
authentically have, ought to be given with exactitude, especially with
brevity, and left to the ingenuous imagination of readers.

The secret sources of the Third Silesian War, since called "Seven-Years
War," go back to 1745; nay, we may say, to the First Invasion of Silesia
in 1740. For it was in Maria Theresa's incurable sorrow at loss of
Silesia, and her inextinguishable hope to reconquer it, that this and
all Friedrich's other Wars had their origin. Twice she had signed Peace
with Friedrich, and solemnly ceded Silesia to him: but that too, with
the Imperial Lady, was by no means a finis to the business. Not that
she meant to break her Treaties; far from her such a thought,--in the
conscious form. Though, alas, in the unconscious, again, it was always
rather near! practically, she reckoned to herself, these Treaties would
come to be broken, as Treaties do not endure forever; and then, at the
good moment, she did purpose to be ready. "Silesia back to us; Pragmatic
Sanction complete in every point! Was not that our dear Father's will,
monition of all our Fathers and their Patriotisms and Traditionary
Heroisms; and in fact, the behest of gods and men?" Ten years ago, this
notion had been cut down to apparent death, in a disastrous manner, for
the second time. But it did not die in the least: it never thinks of
dying; starts always anew, passionate to produce itself again as action
valid at last; and lives in the Imperial Heart with a tenacity that is
strange to observe. Still stranger, in the envious Valet-Heart,--in that
of Bruhl, who had far less cause!

The Peace of Dresden, Christmas, 1745, seemed to be an act of
considerable magnanimity on Friedrich's part. It was, at the first blush
of it, "incredible" to Harrach, the Austrian Plenipotentiary; whose
embarrassed, astonished bow we remember on that occasion, with English
Villiers shedding pious tears. But what is very remarkable withal is
a thing since discovered: [INFRA, next