June 5th, 1741, Friedrich, spurring Podewils to the utmost speed, and "ordering secrecy on pain of death," signs his Treaty with France! A kind of provisional off-and-on Treaty, I take it to be; which was never published, and is thought to have had many IFS in it: signs this Treaty;--and next day (June 6th, such is the impetuosity of haste) instructs his Rasfeld at the Hague, "You will beforehand inform the High Mightinesses, in regard to that Advice of April 24th, which they determined on giving me, through the Excellency Herr von Ginkel along with Excellency Hyndford, That such Advice can, by me, only be considered as a blind complaisance to the Court of Vienna's improper urgencies, improper in such a matter. That for certain I will not quit Silesia till my claims be satisfied. And the longer I am forced to continue warring for them here," wasting more resource and risk upon them, "the higher they will rise!" [_Helden-Geschichte,_ i. 963.] And this is what comes of that terribly courageous Dutch-English "Joint-Resolution of a strong nature;" it has literally cut before the point: the Exhortation is not yet presented, but the Treaty with France is signed in virtue of it!-- Undoubtedly this of June 5th is the most important Treaty in the Austrian-Succession War, and the cardinal element of Friedrich's procedure in that Adventure. And it has never been published; nor, till Herr Professor Ranke got access to the Prussian Archives, has even the date of signing it been rightly known; but is given two or three ways in different express Collections of Treaties. [Scholl, ii. 297 (copying "Flassan, _Hist. de la Diplom. Franc._ v. 142"), gives "5th July" as the date; Adelung (ii. 357, 390, 441) guesses that it was "in August;" Valori (i. 108), who was himself in it, gives the correct date,--but then his Editor (thought inquiring readers) was such a sloven and ignoramus. See Stenzel, iv. 143; Ranke, ii. 274.] Herr Ranke knows this Treaty, and the correspondences, especially Friedrich's correspondence with Podewils preparatory to it; and speaks, as his wont is, several exact things about it; thanks to him, in the circumstances. I wish it could be made, even with his help, fully intelligible to the reader! For, were the Treaty never so express, surely the mode of keeping it, on both parts, was very strange; and that latter concerns us somewhat.