“But all this,” says the poor man, “was completely rejected as arising from far too great timidity, and at last I was dismissed coldly enough with the words, ‘_Adieu, Monsieur de la timide politique_.’” His concluding phrases, however, have in them so much of prophecy that they may be cited here. “That it was not doubtful that progress and success might at first be brilliant, but that the complication of enemies, at a time when the King was isolated and deprived of all foreign help, which had never happened to him yet, at least in regard to the diversions which had been made in his favour in the two preceding wars, would, perhaps, make him remember one day what I took the respectful liberty of representing to him for _the last time_.” Such is the literal rendering of the French into which Podewils, who writes the bulk of his letter in a jargon of German, French, and Latin, forces his tortuous German thoughts. Frederick, indeed, seems already to have passed the stage at which he could be influenced by argument. An agile rather than a deep thinker, he reached at times a point at which calculation became agony and the only remedy was action. Now, as in his earlier adventure, “pressed with many doubts, he wakes the drumming guns that have no doubts.” That a mere Prussian minister should combat his plans seemed to him little short of _lèse-majesté_. Nor could he be moved by those who were not so tightly bound to the car of Prussia. Mitchell followed Podewils with arguments, and Valori, the French ambassador, followed Mitchell with threats. Frederick’s answer was a series of blunt questions pressed home twice over at Vienna—Have you a treaty with Russia against me? Why are you arming? Will you solemnly declare that you do not intend to attack me this year or next? The final answer was received on August 25, 1756. Next day the Prussians invaded Saxony. The Seven Years’ War had begun. Needless to say, every movement of the Prussians had been planned out long before. The army was under orders which enforced the most perfect mobility. A hundred supernumeraries had been added to every regiment. On the 13th to 15th August Frederick issued directions that the secret of their destination was to be strictly kept from the troops. They were to take with them provisions for nine days, every cavalryman carrying three days’ supply of hay, and every infantryman three days’ supply of bread, while bread for six days was placed in the single baggage-cart allowed to each company. None of this reserve of food was, however, to be broken into save in the utmost need, and no officer of any rank whatever might have table utensils of nobler metal than tin.