[Voltaire died May 30th; Marischal, May 25th; Pitt, May 11th;--and May 4th, in the Cantonment here, died General von Rentzel, the same who, as Lieutenant Rentzel, sixty years ago, had taught the little Crown-Prince his drill (Rodenbeck, iii.

187).] "Now was the time," cry Schmettau and the unfavorable, "when he might have walked across into Eastern Bohemia, into Mahren, whither you like; to Vienna itself, and taken Austria by the throat at discretion: 'Do justice, then, will you! Let go Bavaria, or--!' In his young years, would not he have done so?
His Plan, long since laid down, was grand: To march into Mahren, leaving Silesia guarded; nay leaving Bohemia to be invaded,--for Prince Henri, and the Saxons, who are a willing handful, and will complete Henri likewise to 100,000, were to do that, feat the while;--March into Mahren, on to Vienna if he chose; laying all flat.
Infallible," say the Schmettau people.

"He had the fire of head to contrive it all; but worn down and grown old, he could not execute his great thoughts." Which is obviously absurd, Friedrich's object not being to lay Austria flat, or drive animosities to the sanguinary point, and kindle all Europe into war; but merely to extract, with the minimum of violence, something like justice from Austria on this Bavarian matter.
For which end, he may justly consider slow pressure preferable to the cutting method.

His problem is most ticklish, not allowed for by Schmettau.
The encampment round Schonwalde, especially as there was nothing ready thereabouts on the Austrian side, produced a visible and great effect on the negotiations; and notably altered the high Kaunitz tone towards Friedrich.

"Must two great Courts quarrel, then, for the sake of a small one ?" murmured Kaunitz, plaintively now, to himself and to the King,--to the King not in a very distinct manner, though to himself the principle is long since clear as an axiom in Politics: "Great Courts should understand one another; then the small would be less troublesome." For a quarter of a century this has been the Kaunitz faith.