“You have nothing to fear on my account, dear sister, men are always in the hands of what is called destiny.... Germany is passing through a terrible crisis. I am obliged to stand alone in defending her liberties and her faith. If I fall, there will be an end of them. But I have good hope. However great may be the number of my enemies, I trust in the goodness of my cause, in the admirable courage of my troops and in the goodwill which exists from the marshals down to the humblest soldier.” Then the blow fell and for two days, even at such a crisis, the flow of political correspondence is checked. His grief finds utterance in an agonised note to his sister Amelia. “All kinds of misfortune are overwhelming me at once.... I am more dead than alive.... Perhaps Heaven has taken away our dear Mother that she may not see the misfortunes of our House.” “Yesterday and the day before,” writes Eichel on July 3d, “His Majesty’s grief has been very great and violent, but today it is somewhat lessened, because his Majesty has taken into consideration his duty to his state, his army and his faithful subjects at the present crisis, and the necessary orders have somewhat relieved his depression, though there is no lack of gloomy moments and intervals.” On the same day the King began to pour out his soul to Mitchell, who owns himself “most sensibly affected to see him indulging his grief and giving way to the warmest filial affections.” Calamity was, however, as impotent as success to teach Frederick good faith towards his allies. Mitchell had reported on June 30, 1757, that “he renewed to me on this occasion his firm resolution to hearken to no terms of peace without His Majesty’s privity and approbation.” On July 9th he describes a further interview in which “His Prussian Majesty said that, as he resolved to continue firmly united with His Majesty, it would be for their mutual interests to think of terms of peace, honourable and safe for both, and to concert together what terms they would adopt, if a favourable opportunity occurred to propose them.” Yet between these assurances of fidelity to England Frederick accepted with enthusiasm an offer made by Wilhelmina to send an envoy to procure peace with France by bribing the Pompadour. “I will willingly charge myself with his expenses,” he writes on July 7th. “He may offer the favourite anything up to 500,000 crowns for peace, and he may raise his offers far higher if at the same time they would promise to procure us some advantages. You see all the nicety of which I have need in this affair and how little I must be seen in it. If England should have the least wind of it all would be lost.”