ms, his ambassador at St. Petersburg. "I have expressly left
all that blank in order that she may settle it according to her interests
and her own good pleasure. When the negotiations for peace have advanced
to a certain stage of consistency, it will no longer depend upon the
Austrians to break them off if we declare our views unanimously as to
Poland. She cannot rely any further upon France, which happens to be in
such a fearful state of exhaustion that it could not give any help to
Spain, which was on the point of declaring war against England. If that
war do not take place, it must be attributed simply to the smash in the
finances of France. I guarantee, then, to the Russians all that may
happen to suit them; they will do as much for me; and, supposing that the
Austrians should consider their share of Poland too paltry in comparison
with ours, and it were desirable to satisfy them, one would only have to
offer them that strip of the Venetian dominions which cuts them off from
Trieste in order to keep them quiet; even if they were to turn nasty, I
will answer for it with my head that our union with Russia, once clearly
established, will tide them over all that we desire. They have to do
with two powers, and they have not a single ally to give them a
shoulder."

Frederick said truly; his sound and powerful judgment took in the
position of Europe: France, exhausted by the lingering decay of her
government and in travail with new and confused elements which had as yet
no strength but to shatter and destroy; Spain, lured on by France and
then abandoned by her; England, disturbed at home by parliamentary
agitation, favorably disposed to the court of Russia and for a long while
allied to Frederick; Sweden and Denmark, in the throes of serious events;
there was nothing to oppose the iniquity projected and prepared for with
so much art and ability. It was in vain that the King of Prussia sought
to turn into a joke the unscrupulous manoeuvres of his diplomacy when he
wrote to D'Alembert in January, 1772, "I would rather undertake to put
the whole history of the Jews into madrigals than to cause to be of one
mind three sovereigns amongst whom must be numbered two women." The
undertaking was already accomplished. Three months later, the first
partition of Poland had been settled between Russia, Prussia, and
Austria, and on the 2d of September, 1772, the treaty was made known at
Warsaw. The manifesto was short. "It is a