Too much was, however, in the wind for Frederick’s keen scent to be entirely baffled. Austria, indeed, sincerely desired peace for the present. The published articles of the Treaty of Versailles were innocent. The English ministry disingenuously tried to lull the protector of Hanover into false security by assurances that they could answer for Russia. But the King of Prussia had his own sources of information as well as the most perfect faith in the malevolence of his fellow-men. For three years and a half one Menzel, a clerk in the Saxon Foreign Office, had been furnishing him with copies of the secret state-papers of Augustus. The whole truth about the negotiations against Prussia was not known at Dresden, but enough reached Frederick from this source to impress upon him the desirability of anticipating his foes. So early as June 23, 1756, he sent to General Lehwaldt, in Königsberg, three sets of instructions, military, economic, and secret, for dealing with the anticipated Russian invasion, and even for negotiations with a view to peace. “You know already,” wrote the King, “how I have allied myself with England, and that thereupon the Austrian court, from hatred of my successful convention with England, took the course of allying itself with France. It is true that Russia has concluded a subsidy-treaty with England, but I have every reason to believe that it will be broken by Russia and that she has joined the Austrian party and concerted with her a threatening plan. But all this would not have caused me to move if it had not been brought to my notice through many channels and also by the march of Russian and Austrian troops that this concert is directed against myself.” Frederick probably told the truth to his commander-in-chief in Ost-Preussen. On the same day Sir Andrew Mitchell, the shrewd and honest Scotchman who then represented England at the court of Prussia, had an audience with the King. He reported that, notwithstanding the great number of enemies, the King seemed in no wise disconcerted, and had already given orders everywhere. “In a fortnight’s time he will be ready to act. His troops, as I am informed, are complete, and the artillery in excellent order.” On the eve of war, then, Frederick’s sword was as sharp as of old and his courage as high. He soon showed that his pen had not lost its cunning. At the end of June he indicted his enemy before the judgment-seat of England. Austria regarded her new connexions, so stated his clever memoir, as the triumvirate of Augustus, Antony, and Lepidus. The three courts, like the three Romans of old, had sacrificed their friends to each other.