that three great Princes laid plot in concert to destroy
a Fourth, who had done nothing against them? I have not had the least
quarrel either with France or with Russia, still less with Sweden. If,
in common life, three citizens took it into their heads to fall upon
their neighbor, and burn his house about him, they very certainly,
by sentence of tribunal, would be broken on the wheel. What! and will
Sovereigns, who maintain these tribunals and these laws in their States,
give such example to their subjects?... Happy, my dear Sister, is the
obscure man, whose good sense from youth upwards, has renounced all
sorts of glory; who, in his safe low place, has none to envy him, and
whose fortune does not excite the cupidity of scoundrels!

"But these reflections are vain. We have to be what our birth, which
decides, has made us in entering upon this world. I reckoned that, being
King, it beseemed me to think as a Sovereign; and I took for principle,
that the reputation of a Prince ought to be dearer to him than life.
They have plotted against me; the Court of Vienna has given itself the
liberty of trying to maltreat me; my honor commanded me not to suffer
it. We have come to War; a gang of robbers falls on me, pistol in hand:
that is the adventure which has happened to me. The remedy is difficult:
in desperate diseases there are no methods but desperate ones.

"I beg a thousand pardons, dear Sister: in these three long pages I talk
to you of nothing but my troubles and affairs. A strange abuse it would
be of any other person's friendship. But yours, my dear Sister, yours
is known to me; and I am persuaded you are not impatient when I open
my heart to you:--a heart which is yours altogether; being filled with
sentiments of the tenderest esteem, with which I am, my dearest Sister,
your [in truth, affectionate Brother at all times] F." [_OEuvres de
Frederic,_ xxvii. i. 294, 295, 296-298.]

PRINCE AUGUST WILHELM FINDS A BAD PROBLEM AT JUNG-BUNZLAU; AND DOES IT
BADLY: FRIEDRICH THEREUPON HAS TO RISE FROM LEITMERITZ, AND TAKE THE
FIELD ELSEWHERE, IN BITTER HASTE AND IMPATIENCE, WITH OUTLOOKS WORSE
THAN EVER.

The Prince of Prussia's Enterprise had its intricacies; but, by
good management, was capable of being done. At least, so Friedrich
thought;--though, in truth, it would have been better had Friedrich gone
himself, since the chief pressure happened to fall there! The Prince has
to retire, Parthian-like, as slowly as pos