arian-Austrian case should ripen better. At
Schonwalde, what was important in his private circle, he heard of Lord
Marischal's death, then of Voltaire's; not to mention that of English
Pitt, and perhaps others interesting to him. [Voltaire died May 30th;
Marischal, May 25th; Pitt, May 11th;--and May 4th, in the Cantonment
here, died General von Rentzel, the same who, as Lieutenant Rentzel,
sixty years ago, had taught the little Crown-Prince his drill
(Rodenbeck, iii. 187).]

"Now was the time," cry Schmettau and the unfavorable, "when he might
have walked across into Eastern Bohemia, into Mahren, whither you like;
to Vienna itself, and taken Austria by the throat at discretion: 'Do
justice, then, will you! Let go Bavaria, or--!' In his young years,
would not he have done so? His Plan, long since laid down, was grand:
To march into Mahren, leaving Silesia guarded; nay leaving Bohemia to be
invaded,--for Prince Henri, and the Saxons, who are a willing handful,
and will complete Henri likewise to 100,000, were to do that, feat the
while;--March into Mahren, on to Vienna if he chose; laying all flat.
Infallible," say the Schmettau people. "He had the fire of head to
contrive it all; but worn down and grown old, he could not execute his
great thoughts." Which is obviously absurd, Friedrich's object not being
to lay Austria flat, or drive animosities to the sanguinary point, and
kindle all Europe into war; but merely to extract, with the minimum of
violence, something like justice from Austria on this Bavarian matter.
For which end, he may justly consider slow pressure preferable to
the cutting method. His problem is most ticklish, not allowed for by
Schmettau.

The encampment round Schonwalde, especially as there was nothing ready
thereabouts on the Austrian side, produced a visible and great effect
on the negotiations; and notably altered the high Kaunitz tone towards
Friedrich. "Must two great Courts quarrel, then, for the sake of a small
one?" murmured Kaunitz, plaintively now, to himself and to the King,--to
the King not in a very distinct manner, though to himself the principle
is long since clear as an axiom in Politics: "Great Courts should
understand one another; then the small would be less troublesome." For
a quarter of a century this has been the Kaunitz faith. In 1753, when he
miraculously screwed round the French into union with the Austrians to
put down an upstart Prussia, this was his grand fulcrum, the immov