The question here is not of his Majesty's own interest at all [everything his Majesty required, or requires, is by the Treaty of Berlin solemnly his, if the Reich and its Laws endure]: and he has taken up arms simply and solely in the view of restoring to the Reich its freedom, to the Kaiser his Headship of the Reich, and to all Europe the Peace which is so desirable.' [Given in Seyfarth, _Beylage,_ i.

121-136, with date "August, 1744."] "'Pretences, subterfuges, lies!' exclaimed the Austrian and Allied Public everywhere, or strove to exclaim; especially the English Public, which had no difficulty in so doing;--a Public comfortably blank as to German facts or non-facts; and finding with amazement only this a very certain fact, That hereby is their own Pragmatic thunder checked in mid-volley in a most surprising manner, and the triumphant Cause of Liberty brought to jeopardy again.

'Perfidious, ambitious, capricious!' exclaimed they: 'a Prince without honor, without truth, without constancy;'-- and completed, for themselves, in hot rabid humor, that English Theory of Friedrich which has prevailed ever since.

Perhaps the most surprising item of which is this latter, very prominent in those old times, That Friedrich has no 'constancy,' but follows his 'caprices,' and accidental whirls of impulse:--item which has dropped away in our times, though the others stand as stable as ever.

A monument of several things! Friedrich's suddenness is an essential part of what fighting talent he has: if the Public, thrown into flurry, cannot judge it well, they must even misjudge it: what help is there?
"That the above were actually Friedrich's reasons for venturing into this Big Game again, is not now disputable.