e reasons that led me to write
'Frederic' was that he managed not to be a liar and charlatan as his
century was"; and indeed his adoration for Frederic is quite
pardonable. He had spent thirteen years of his life in the supreme
effort of making him a hero, and his great work, contained in eight
volumes, is a matchless piece of literature; but there is nothing in
it to justify anyone believing that Frederic was neither a liar nor a
charlatan. It is true Frederic finished better than he began, but
truthfulness and honesty were not conspicuous virtues of his. He lied,
broke faith, and plundered wherever and whenever it suited his
purpose, and some of his other vices were unspeakable. There is no
doubt he was both a quack and a coward when he broke the Pragmatic
Sanction and began to steal the territory of Maria Theresa. The powers
of England, France, Spain, Russia, Poland, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark,
the Germanic body, all had agreed by treaty to keep it. Had he been an
honourable man and possessed of the qualities Carlyle credits him
with, he would have stood by his oath. Instead of defending his ally,
he pounced upon her like a vulture, and plunged Europe into a
devastating, bloody war, with the sole object of robbery; and all he
could say for himself in extenuation of such base conduct was:
"Ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me,
carried the day; and I decided for war."

Truly Frederic was not a good man, and his reputation for being great
was mainly acquired because the Powers and circumstances allowed him
to succeed after seven long years of sanguinary conflict.

Indeed, there was not a single act in the whole of Napoleon's career
that approaches the lawlessness and cruelty of Frederic. He really
usurped nothing, and Frederic usurped everything that he could put his
hands on, regardless of every moral law; but then he ignored all moral
laws. There is no need for comparison, but it is just as well to point
out that the plea of legitimacy is very shallow, and the contention of
the Allies is an amazing burlesque emanating from the brains of an
industrious mediocrity.

These legitimate monarchs, through their Ministers, used barefacedly
to inspire journalists to write the doctrine of waste of blood as
being a natural process of dealing with the problem of overpopulation.
History is pregnant with proof that their cry for peace was an
impudent hypocrisy. They might have had it at any time, but this