Answer always No by Friedrich, and some new flash of handled arms,--the physiognomy of which was the one significant point, Austria, which is far from ready with arms, though at each fresh pleading or proposal it tries to give a kind of brandish, says mainly three things, in essence somewhat thus.
AUSTRIA: "Cannot two States of the Reich come to a mutual understanding, as Austria and Bavaria have done?
And what have third parties to say to it ?" FRIEDRICH: "Much! Parties of the Reich have much to say to it!" (This several times with variations.) AUSTRIA: "Our rights seem to us valid: Zweibruck, Saxony, Mecklenburg, if aggrieved, can try in the Reichs Law-Courts." FRIEDRICH: "Law-Courts!" with a new brandish; that is, sets more regiments on march, from Pommern to Wesel all on march, to Berlin, to Silesia, towards the Bohemian Frontier.

AUSTRIA, by the voice of Kaunitz: "We will not give up our rights without sentence of Law.
We cannot recognize the King of Prussia as Law-Judge in this matter." FRIEDRICH: "The King of Prussia is of the Jury!" Pulse after pulse, this is something like the course things had, crescendo till, in about three months, they got to a height which was evidently serious.

Nay, in the course of the pleadings it became manifest that on the Austrian grounds of claim, not Maria Theresa could be heir to Straubingen, but Friedrich himself: "I descend from Three-Crown Albert's Daughter," said Maria Theresa.

"And I from an elder Daughter of his, and do not claim!" Friedrich could have answered, but did not; treating such claim all along as merely colorable and chimerical, not worth attention in serious affairs of fact.

Till, at length, after about three months, there comes a really serious brandish.
SUNDAY, APRIL 5th, 1778, at Berlin, Friedrich holds review of his Army, all assembled, equipped and in readiness; and (in that upper Parole-Room of the Schloss) makes this Speech, which, not without extraneous intention, was printed in the Newspapers:-- FRIEDRICH'S SPEECH TO HIS GENERALS.