I have acquired; it is theirs to preserve. I am not in alarm about the Austrians;--and this is my answer to what you have been saying about the weakness of my guarantees. They dread my Army; the luck that I have. I am sure of their sitting quiet for the dozen years or so which may remain to me of life;--quiet till I have, most likely, done with it. What! Are we never to have any good of our life, then (NE DOIS-JE DONC JAMAIS JOUIR)? There is more for me in the true greatness of laboring for the happiness of my subjects, than in the repose of Europe. I have put Saxony out of a condition to do hurt. She owes 14,775,000 crowns of debt [two millions and a quarter sterling]; and by the Defensive Alliance which I form with her, I provide myself [but ask Bruhl withal!] a help against Austria. I would not henceforth attack a cat, except to defend myself.' ["These are his very words," adds D'Arget;--and well worth noting.] (Ambition (GLOIRE) and my interests were the occasion of my first Campaigns. The late Kaiser's situation, and my zeal for France [not to mention interests again], gave rise to these second:
and I have been fighting always since for my own hearths,--for my very existence, I might say! Once more, I know the state I had got into:--if I saw Prince Karl at the gates of Paris, I would not stir.'--'And us at the gates of Vienna,' answered I promptly, 'with the same indifference?'--'Yes; and I swear it to you, D'Arget. In a word, I want to have some good of my life (VEUX JOUIR). What are we, poor human atoms, to get up projects that cost so much blood?
Let us live, and help to live.'
"The rest of the conversation passed in general talk, about Literature, Theatres and such objects. My reasonings and objectings, on the great matter, I need not farther detail: by the frank discourse his Prussian Majesty was kind enough to go into, you may gather perhaps that my arguments were various, and not ill-chosen;--and it is too evident they have all been in vain."--Your Excellency's (really in a very faithful way)--D'ARGET.
[Valori, i. 290-294 (no date, except "Dresden, 1745,"--sleepy Editor feeling no want of any).]
D'Arget, about a month after this, was taken into Friedrich's service; Valori consenting, whose occupation was now gone;--and we shall hear of D'Arget again. Take this small Note, as summary of him: "D'Arget (18th January, 1746) had some title, 'Secretary at Orders (SECRETAIRE DES COMMANDEMENTS),' bit of pension; and continued in the character of reader, or miscellaneous literary attendant and agent, very much liked by his Master, for six years coming. A man much heard of, during those years of office.
March, 1752, having lost his dear little Prussian Wife, and got into ill health and spirits, he retired on leave to Paris; and next year had to give up the thought of returning;--though he still, and to the end, continued loyally attached to his old Master, and more or less in correspondence with him. Had got, before long, not through Friedrich's influence at Paris, some small Appointment in the ECOLE MILITAIRE there. He is, of all the Frenchmen Friedrich had about him, with the exception of D'Argens alone, the most honest-hearted. The above Letter, lucid, innocent, modest, altogether rational and practical, is a fair specimen of D'Arget:
add to it the prompt self-sacrifice (and in that fine silent way)at Jaromirz for Valori, and readers may conceive the man. He lived at Paris, in meagre but contented fashion, RUE DE L'ECOLEMILITAIRE, till 1778; and seems, of all the Ex-Prussian Frenchmen, to have known most about Friedrich; and to have never spoken any falsity against him. Duvernet, the 'M----' Biographer of VOLTAIRE, frequented him a good deal; and any true notions, or glimmerings of such, that he has about Prussia, are probably ascribable to D'Arget." [See OEuvres de Frederic, xx.
(p. xii of PREFACE to the D'ARGET CORRESPONDENCE there).]
The Treaty of Dresden can be read in Scholl, Flassan, Rousset, Adelung; but, except on compulsion, no creature will now read it,--nor did this Editor, even he, find it pay. Peace is made. Peace of Dresden is signed, Christmas Day, 1745: "To me Silesia, without farther treachery or trick; you, wholly as you were." Europe at large, as Friedrich had done, sees "the sky all on fire about Dresden." The fierce big battles done against this man have, one and all of them, become big defeats. The strenuous machinations, high-built plans cunningly devised,--the utmost sum-total of what the Imperial and Royal Potencies can, for the life of them, do:
behold, it has all tumbled down here, in loud crash; the final peal of it at Kesselsdorf; and the consummation is flame and smoke, conspicuous over all the Nations. You will let him keep his own henceforth, then, will you? Silesia, which was NOT yours nor ever shall be? Silesia and no afterthought? The Saxons sign, the high Plenipotentiaries all; in the eyes of Villiers, I am told, were seen sublimely pious tears. Harrach, bowing with stiff, almost incredulous, gratitude, swears and signs;--hurries home to his Sovereign Lady, with Peace, and such a smile on his face; and on her Imperial Majesty's such a smile!--readers shall conceive it.
There are but Two new points in the Treaty of Dresden,--nay properly there is but One point, about which posterity can have the least care or interest; for that other, concerning "The Toll of Schidlo," and settlement of haggles on the Navigation of the Elbe there, was not kept by the Saxons, but continued a haggle still:
this One point is the Eleventh Article. Inconceivably small;but liable to turn up on us again, in a memorable manner. That let us translate,--for M. de Voltaire's sake, and time coming!
STEUER means Land-Tax; OBER-STEUER-EINNAHME will be something like Royal Exchequer, therefore; and STEUER-SCHEIN will be approximately equivalent to Exchequer Bill. Article Eleventh stipulates: