193.] "Austria willing for Treaty; is your Majesty willing ?" "Thrice-willing, I; my terms well known!" Friedrich would answer,--gladdest of mankind to see general Pacification coming to this vexed Earth again.

The Dance of the Furies, waltzing itself off, HOME out of this upper sunlight: the mad Bellona steeds plunging down, down, towards their Abysses again, for a season!-- This was a result which Friedrich had foreseen as nearly certain ever since the French and English signed their Preliminaries.

And there was only one thing which gave him anxiety; that of his Rhine Provinces and Strong Places, especially Wesel, which have been in French hands for six years past, ever since Spring, 1757.

Bute stipulates That those places and countries shall be evacuated by his Choiseul, as soon as weather and possibility permit; but Bute, astonishing to say, has not made the least stipulation as to whom they are to be delivered to,--allies or enemies, it is all one to Bute.

Truly rather a shameful omission, Pitt might indignantly think,--and call the whole business steadily, as he persisted to do, "a shameful Peace," had there been no other article in it but this;--as Friedrich, with at least equal emphasis thought and felt.