days of persecution
at Vienna would have passed in peace and pleasure: nor should I have
entered the dungeon of Magdeburg.

CHAPTER XII.

How little did the Great Frederic know my heart. Without having
offended, he had rendered me miserable, had condemned me to imprisonment
at Glatz on mere suspicion, and on my flying thence, naked and destitute,
had confiscated my paternal inheritance. Not contented with inflicting
all these calamities, he would not suffer me peaceably to seek my fortune
in a foreign land.

Few are the youths who, in so short a time, being expelled their native
country with disgrace, by their own efforts, merits, and talents, have
obtained honour and favour so great, acquired such powerful friends, or
been entrusted with confidence equally unlimited in transactions so
important. Enraged as I was at the treachery of Goltz, had opportunity
offered, I might have been tempted even to turn my native country into a
desert; nor do I deny that I afterwards promoted the views of the
Austrian envoy, who knew well how to cherish the flame that had been
kindled, and turn it to his own use. Till this moment I never felt the
least enmity either to my country or king, nor did I suffer myself, on
any occasion, to be made the agent of their disadvantage.

No sooner was I entrusted more intimately with cabinet secrets, than I
discovered the state of factions, and that Bestuchef and Apraxin were
even then in Prussian pay; that a counterpoise, by their means, might be
formed to the prevalence of the Austrian party.

Hence we may date the change of Russian politics in the year 1762. Here
also we may find a clue to the contradictory orders, artifices,
positions, retreats and disappointments of the Russian army, in the seven
years' war, beginning in 1756. The countess, who was obliged to act with
greater caution, foresaw the consequence of the various intrigues in
which her husband was engaged: her love for me naturally drew her from
her former party; she confided every secret to me, and ever remained till
her fall, which happened in 1758, during my imprisonment, my best friend
and correspondent. Hence was I so well informed of all the plans against
Prussia, to the years 1754 and 1756; much more so than many ministers of
the interested courts, who imagined they alone were in the secret. How
many after events could I then have foretold! Such was the perverseness
of my destiny, that where I should most ha