"They have agreed to attack me next Year (1756), if they can; and next again (1757), without IF:" so Friedrich, putting written word and public occurrence together, gradually reads; and so, all readers will see, the fact was,--though Imperial Majesty at Schonbrunn, as we shall find, strove to deny it when applied to; and scouted, as mere fiction and imagination, the notion of such an "Agreement." Which I infer, therefore, NOT to have existed in parchment; not in parchment, but only in reality, and as a mutual Bond registered in--shall we say "in Heaven", as some are wont?--registered, perhaps, in TWO Places, very separate indeed! No truer "Agreement" ever did exist;--though a devout Imperial Majesty denies it, who would shudder at the lie direct. Poor Imperial Majesty: who can tell her troubles and straits in this abstruse time! Heaven itself ordering her to get back the Silesia of her Fathers, if she could;--yet Heaven always looking dubious, surely, upon this method of doing it. By solemn Public Treaties signed in sight of all mankind; and contrariwise, in the very same moments, by Secret Treaties, of a fell nature, concocted underground, to destroy the life of these! Imperial Majesty flatters herself it may be fair: "Treaty of Dresden, Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; Treaties wrung from me by force, the tyrannic Sea-Powers screwing us; Kaunitz can tell! A consummate Kaunitz; who has provided remedies. Treaties do get broken. Besides, I will not go to War, unless HE the Bad One of Prussia do!"--Alas, your noble Majesty, plain it at least is, your love of Silesia is very strong. And consummate Kaunitz and it have led you into strange predicaments. The Pompadour, for instance: who was it that answered, "JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS; I don't know her!"? How gladly would the Imperial Maria Theresa, soul of Propriety, have made that answer! But she did not; she had to answer differently. For Kaunitz was imperative: "A kind little Note to the Pompadour; one, and then another and another; it is indispensable, your Imperial Majesty!" And Imperial Majesty always had to do it. And there exist in writing, at this hour, various flattering little Notes from Imperial Majesty to that Address; which begin, "MA COUSINE," "PRINCESSE ET COUSINE," say many witnesses; nay "MADAME MA TRES CHERE SOEUR," says one good witness: [Hormayr (cited in Preuss, i. 433 n.),--as are Duclos; Montgaillard; MEMOIRES DE RICHELIEU; &c.]--Notes which ought to have been printed, before this, or given at least to the Museums. "My Cousin," "Princess and Cousin," "Madame my dearest Sister:" Oh, high Imperial Soul, with what strange bed-fellows does Misery of various kinds bring us acquainted!