There are many striking suggestions to be found in this memoir; but it may be scrutinised in vain for any evidence of that doubt, hesitation, looseness of grasp, by which d'Argenson's conduct is too readily explained; while, on the contrary, we have only to read it in the light of the measures actually taken by the French Government to detect the real foundation for those charges: and to know how much weight it is necessary to attach to them in so far as they concern the Marquis d'Argenson. We have only to read the above memoir with any of those prepared by Frederick, and to sketch the chain of circumstances which took Louis to Fontenoy, to be in possession of all the threads of the long complication of 1745. In a memoir of the 6th of March,[316] Frederick represents that if the election of the Grand Duke is to be prevented, a majority in the Electoral College must be regained; if that is to be done, the communications between Hanover and the three ecclesiastical Electorates must be severed by the vigour of the army of Maillebois; and the decisive movement must come from the army of Bavaria, which, under vigorous command, must capture Passau, march upon Vienna, and by drawing off the Austrian troops, throw open Moravia to the Prussian army. He does not mince the meaning of his proposals. "If another course is taken in this war, the King of France will reduce his allies to the necessity of withdrawing from it as best they can; for there must be a prompt end to this, and the matter must be decided one way or the other before the imperial election."[317] Frederick's communications with the French Court are one long reiteration of this demand. Never did a man plead more eloquently the cause of reason and manliness; and never was eloquence more desperately sincere. The action, not of the French Minister, but of the French Government, is almost incredible. They had deliberately embarked upon a great policy, and they deliberately refused to take a single step by which it could be realised. All that depended on d'Argenson indeed, was done as strenuously as man could do it. He exhausted himself in efforts to win over the King of Poland, trampling down or shutting his eyes to the obstacles which faced him; and he never relaxed in his entreaties to Frederick to second his efforts at Dresden. "Will your Majesty consider that by this alliance, if it should ever take place, we should become absolute masters of the situation."[318] ... "If your Majesty cannot lay aside the feelings which alienate him from the King of Poland, I see only the prospect[319] of a long war, the Grand Duke Emperor, and the Empire turned against us, whatever efforts we may make."[320]