Fancy a poor fat Czarina, of many appetites, of little judgment, continually beaten upon in this manner by these Saxon-Austrian artists and their Russian service-pipes. Bombarded with cunningly devised fabrications, every wind freighted for her with phantasmal rumors, no ray of direct daylight visiting the poor Sovereign Woman; who is lazy, not malignant if she could avoid it: mainly a mass of esurient oil, with alkali on the back of alkali poured in, at this rate, for ten years past; till, by pouring and by stirring, they get her to the state of SOAP and froth! Is it so wonderful that she does, by degrees, rise into eminent suspicion, anger, fear, violence and vehemence against her bad neighbor? One at last begins to conceive those insane whirls, continual mad suspicions, mad procedures, which have given Friedrich such vexation, surprise and provocation in the years past.
Friedrich is always specially eager to avoid ill-will from Russia;but it has come, in spite of all he could do and try. And these procedures of the Czarish Majesty have been so capricious, unintelligible, perverse, and his feeling is often enough irritation, temporary indignation,--which we know makes Verses withal! I can nowhere learn from those Prussian imbroglios of Books, what the Friedrich Sayings or Satirical Verses properly were: Retzow speaks of a PRODUKT, one at least, known in interior Circles. [Retzow, i. 34.] PRODUKT which decidedly requires publication, beyond anything Friedrich ever wrote;--though one can do without it too, and invoke Fancy in defect of Print.
The sharpness of Friedrich's tongue we know; and the diligence of birds of the air. To all her other griefs against the bad man, this has given the finish in the tender Czarish bosom;--and like an envenomed drop has set the saponaceous oils (already dosed with alkali, and well in solution) foaming deliriously over the brim, in never-imagined deluges of a hatred that is unappeasable;--very costly to Friedrich and mankind. Rising ever higher, year by year;and now risen, to what height judge by the following:--AT PETERSBURG, 14th-15th MAY, 1753, "There was Meeting of the Russian Senate, with deliberation held for these two days; and for issue this conclusion come to:--"That it should be, and hereby is, settled as a fundamental maxim of the Russia Empire, Not only to oppose any farther aggrandizement of the King of Prussia, but to seize the first convenient opportunity for overwhelming (ECRASER), by superior force, the House of Brandenburg [Hear, hear!], and reducing it to its former state of mediocrity." [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in <italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten <end italic>), i. 421.] Leg of mutton to be actually gone into. With what an enthusiasm of "Hear, hear!" from Bruhl and kindred parties; especially from Bruhl,--who, however, dare not yet bite, except hypothetically, such his terrors and tremors. Or, look again (same Senate, AT PETERSBURG, OCTOBER, 1755): "To which Fundamental Maxim, articulately fixed ever since those Maydays of 1753, the august Russian Sanhedrim, deliberating farther in October, 1755, adds this remarkable extension, "That it is our resolution to attack the King of Prussia without farther discussion, whensoever the said King shall attack any Ally of Russia's, or shall himself be attacked by any of them."Hailed by Bruhl, as natural, with his liveliest approval.
"A glorious Deliberation, that, indeed!" writes he: "It clears the way of action for Russia's Allies in this matter; and for us too;though nobody can blame us, if we proceed with the extremest caution,"--and rather wait till the Bear is nearly killed.
[MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in <italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten <end italic>), i. 422.]
Many marvels Friedrich had deciphered out of this Weingarten-Menzel Apocalypse of Satan's Invisible World; and one often fancies Friedrich's tone of mind, in his intense inspecting of that fateful continent of darkness, and his labyrinthic stepping by degrees to the oracular points, which have a light in them when flung open.
But in respect of practical interest, this of October, 1755 (which would get to Potsdam probably in few weeks after) must have surpassed all the others. Marvels many, one after the other:
[For example, or in recapitulation: a Treaty of Warsaw or Leipzig, to partition him (18th May, 1745); Treaty of Petersburg (22d May, 1746, new form of Warsaw Treaty, with Czarina superadded);tremulous Quasi-Accession thereto of his Polish Majesty (most tremulous, hypothetic Quasi-Accession, "Yes-AND-No," 15th August, 1747, and often afterwards); first Deliberation of the Russian Senate, 15th May, 1753; &c. &c. For example, or in recapitulation:
a Treaty of Warsaw or Leipzig, to partition him (18th May, 1745);Treaty of Petersburg (22d May, 1746, new form of Warsaw Treaty, with Czarina superadded); tremulous Quasi-Accession thereto of his Polish Majesty (most tremulous, hypothetic Quasi-Accession, "Yes-AND-No," 15th August, 1747, and often afterwards); first Deliberation of the Russian Senate, 15th May, 1753; &c. &c.] no doubt left, long since, of the constant disposition, preparation and fixed intention to partition him. But here, in this last indication by the Russian Senate,--which kindles into dismal evidence so many other enigmatic tokens,--there has an ulterior oracular point disclosed itself to Friedrich; in vaguer condition, but not less indubitable, and much more perilous: namely, That now, at last (end of 1755), the Two Imperial Majesties, very eager both, consider that the time is come. And are--as Friedrich looks abroad on the Austrian-Russian marchings of troops, campings, and unusual military symptoms and combinations--visibly preparing to that end.