[History of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. XX. (of XXI.) by Thomas Carlyle]@TWC D-Link bookHistory of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. XX. (of XXI.) CHAPTER XIII 24/26
As in the foregoing case, we have to be patient and keep hoping. 3.
In regard to France.
It appears, noble old Teutschland, with such pieties and unconquerable silent valors, such opulences human and divine, amid its wreck of new and old confusions, is not to be cut in Four, and made to dance to the piping of Versailles or another.
Far the contrary! To Versailles itself there has gone forth, Versailles may read it or not, the writing on the wall: "Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting" (at last even "FOUND wanting")! France, beaten, stript, humiliated; sinful, unrepentant, governed by mere sinners and, at best, clever fools (FOUS PLEINS D'ESPRIT),--collapses, like a creature whose limbs fail it; sinks into bankrupt quiescence, into nameless fermentation, generally into DRY-ROT.
Rotting, none guesses whitherward;--rotting towards that thrice-extraordinary Spontaneous-Combustion, which blazed out in 1789.
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