d in the dispatches of the Austrian
embassy. It was therefore necessary to get the key of these archives,
and to have copies of these dispatches. I succeeded in doing both,
Chance, or if you prefer it, a kind Providence, came to my aid. The
Saxon chancellor, Reinitz, a former servant of General Winterfeldt, came
from Dresden to Potsdam to look for Winterfeldt and to confide to him
that a friend of his, Chancellor Minzel of Dresden, had informed him
that the state papers interchanged between the court of Vienna and
Dresden were kept in the Dresden archives, of which he had the key.
Winterfeldt brought me this important message. Reinitz conducted the
first negotiations with Menzel, which I then delivered into the hands of
my ambassador in Dresden, Count Mattzahn. Menzel was poor and covetous.
He was therefore easily to be bribed. For three years Mattzahn has
received copies of every dispatch that passed between the three courts.
I am quite as well informed of all negotiations between Austria and
France, for the secretary of the Austrian legation of this place,
a Count Weingarten, gave me, for promises and gold, copies of all
dispatches that came from Vienna and were forwarded to France. You see
the corruption of man has borne me good fruit, and that gold is a magic
wand which reveals all secrets. And now let us cast a hasty glance over
these papers which I have obtained by the aid of treachery and bribery."

He took one of the papers and spread it before the astonished generals.
"You see here," he continued, "a sample of all other negotiations. It is
a copy of a share contract which the courts of Vienna and Dresden
formed in 1745. They then regarded the decline of Prussia as so sure
an occurrence that they had already divided amongst themselves the
different parts of my land. Russia soon affixed her name also to this
contract, and here in this document you will see that these three powers
have sworn to attack Prussia at the same moment, and that for this
conquest, each one of the named courts was to furnish sixty thousand
men."

While the generals were engaged in reading these papers, the king leaned
back in his arm-chair, gazing keenly at Retzow and Schwerin. He smiled
gayly as he saw Schwerin pressing his lips tightly together, and trying
in vain to suppress a cry of rage, and Retzow clinching his fists
vehemently.

When the papers had been read, and Schwerin was preparing to speak, the
king, with his head thrown pro