uctions directly from the empress."

The king slowly shook his head, and an imperceptible smile played around
his lips.

"Does the young emperor approve of these instructions?"

"Sire, his majesty, the emperor, is only the co-regent," answered
Thugut, hastily. "It is not therefore necessary, that my sovereign
should make her decisions dependent upon her son's concordance."

"The empress will negotiate for peace," said the king to himself, "but
the emperor desires to win laurels in the war, and will try to cut off
the negotiations of his mother by a coup de main. One must be on his
guard!"

Just then the door opened and Herzberg returned.

"You perceive I expected you, Baron von Thugut," said the king, "and I
ordered here my minister of state, Herr von Herzberg. This is the Baron
von Thugut, my dear minister, the ambassador of the empress-queen, who
carries in his pocket peace or war, as it may be."

"Sire, I must protest against being so important a personage, as peace
and war alone depend upon your majesty. It alone depends upon the lofty
King of Prussia whether he will give peace and tranquillity to Germany,
or suffer the guilt of permitting the bloody scourge of civil war again
to tear in pieces the unhappy German nation."

"That sounds very sentimental," cried the king, smiling. "The Baron von
Thugut will appeal to my heart, when we have only to do with the head.
Austria wishes to be the head of Germany, and as such would devour one
German state after another, as a very palatable morsel. But if you will
be the head, Monsieur le Baron, you cannot represent the stomach also,
for, as I have been told, it only exists in those soft animals of the
sea whose head is in their stomach, and which think and digest at the
same time. Austria does not belong to this class, but has rather a very
hard and impenetrable shell. We cannot let her devour as stomach what as
the head she has chosen as booty. That the electorate of Bavaria is not
to be devoured, is the necessary and fundamental preliminary upon which
the temple of peace may be erected. If you, or rather the empress-queen,
agree to it, the negotiations can be concluded by you two gentlemen.
But if you think to erect a temple of peace upon any other basis,
your propositions will be in vain. I have not taken the field to make
conquests, but to protect the rights of a German prince, and not suffer
others to appropriate a German state. I know, as you have said, that war