r
can manage again to run over and pay you in person the homage of a
heart which is more attached to you than that of your near relations,
assuredly I will not neglect the first opportunity that shall present
itself.

"Messieurs the English [Bute, Bedford and Company, with their
Preliminaries signed, and all my Westphalian Provinces left in a
condition we shall hear of] continue to betray. Poor M. Mitchell has
had a stroke of apoplexy on hearing it. It is a hideous thing (CHOSE
AFFREUSE); but I will speak of it no more. May you, Madam, enjoy all the
prosperities that I wish for you, and not forget a Friend, who will
be till his death, with sentiments of the highest esteem and the most
perfect consideration,--Madam, your Highness's most faithful Cousin and
Servant, FRIEDRICH." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xzvii. 201.]

For a fortnight past, Friedrich has had no doubt that general Peace is
now actually at hand. November 25th, ten days before this visit, a Saxon
Privy-Councillor, Baron von Fritsch, who, by Order from his Court, had
privately been at Vienna on the errand, came privately next, with all
speed, to Friedrich (Meissen, November 25th): [Rodenbeck, ii. 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. And, in fact, it had thrown him into very great embarras