At this crisis the King twice met Joseph II. face to face. At Neisse, in August, 1769, little save a personal introduction was effected. Frederick professed to be charmed with the beautiful soul and noble ambitions of the young Emperor, while Joseph reported to his mother that the King talked admirably, but betrayed the knave in every word he spoke. At the second meeting, which took place in Moravia in September, 1770, Frederick spared no effort to captivate Joseph and Kaunitz. He donned the Austrian uniform of white, though he smilingly confessed that his mania for snuff made him too dirty to wear it. He extolled the Imperial grenadiers as worthy to guard the person of the God of War. He made Laudon sit beside him, saying in graceful allusion to Hochkirch and Kunersdorf, that he would rather have General Laudon at his side than be obliged to face him. After sacrificing to the vanity of the Chancellor by listening for an hour to a monologue on political affairs, he won his heart by posing as a grateful convert to his views. [Illustration: WENZEL ANTON, PRINCE VON KAUNITZ. AFTER THE PAINTING BY STEINER.] The result was that Frederick was able to offer Catherine the joint mediation of Austria and Prussia to end the war. The offer was not accepted, but it proved that the two foes were not irreconcilable. The mere hint that Austria might compete for the Prussian alliance was enough to raise its value at St. Petersburg. It became clear, too, that only the fear of Prussia was preventing Austria from interfering on behalf of the Turk. Urged on by his brother Henry, who had just returned from the Russian capital, Frederick determined early in 1771 to take the risk of offending Russia and provoking Austria to war, in order to net his profit from this advantageous situation ere it changed. In the summer of 1770 Austria had drifted, half involuntarily, into an occupation of Zips, a portion of the territory of Poland which was almost surrounded by her own, and of some of the adjacent districts. Frederick now seized upon this, though the Queen was willing to draw back, as an excuse for pressing upon Russia a plan which he had promulgated under an alias at an early stage in the war. On February 1, 1769, he had suggested to his ambassador at St. Petersburg “that Russia should offer to the Court of Vienna Lemberg and the surrounding country in return for support against the Turks; that she should give us Polish Preussen with Ermland and the protectorate over Danzig; and that she should herself incorporate a suitable part of Poland by way of indemnity for the expenses of the war.”