774.] That was Meagher's message; that is the purport of all his Polish Majesty's Eleven Letters to Friedrich, which precede or follow,-- reiterating with a certain bovine obstinacy, insensible to time or change, That such is Polish Majesty's fixed notion: "Strict neutrality, friendship even; and leave me unmolested here." [In _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv.

235-260 ("29th August-10th September-18th September," 1756), are collected now, the Eleven Letters, with their Answers.] "Strict neutrality, yes: but disperse your Army, then," answers Friedrich; send your Army back to its cantonments: I must myself have the keeping of my Highway, lest I lose it, as in 1744." This is Friedrich's answer; this at first, and for some time coming; though, as the aspects change, and the dangerous elements heap themselves higher, Friedrich's answer will rise with them, and his terms, like the Sibyl's, become worse and worse.

This is the utmost that Meagher, at Wilsdruf, can make of it; and this, in conceivable circumstances, will grow less and less.
Next day, September 9th, Friedrich, with some Battalions, entered Dresden, most of his Column taking Camp near by; General Wylich had entered yesterday, and is already Commandant there.

Friedrich sends, by Feldmarschall Keith, highest Officer of his Column, his homages to her Polish Majesty:--nothing given us of Keith's Interview; except by a side-wind, "That Majesty complained of those Prussian Sentries walking about in certain of her corridors" (with an eye to Something, it may be feared!)--of which, doubtless, Keith undertook to make report.

Friedrich himself waits upon the Junior Princes, who are left here: is polite and gracious as ever, though strict, and with business enough; lodges, for his own part, "in the Garden-House of Princess Moczinska;"-- and next morning leads off his Column, a short march eastward, to the Pirna Country; where, on the right and on the left, Ferdinand at Cotta, Bevern at Lohmen (if readers will look on their Map), he finds the other Two in their due positions.