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for a long time deaf to all reprefentations and entreaties. As Count Seckendorff waspreffing him one day upon the parade, he {hewed him a regiment which had bufferedconfiderably in the firft Silefiaii war. “ Behold,” fays he, “ what war cofts me ;this regiment has loft above half its men, and /hall I expofe my people to the danger ofbeing fo roughly handled again ?”—This is the king whom people call upon as a rob-ber and tyrant!—Seckendorff, who was a greater ftatefman than he was a general, in vaintried all his rhetoric to carry’ his point; nor would any thing have induced the Kingagain to become the enemy of Auftria, but the being informed in what an unmanlymanner the Auftrians had behaved in Bavaria , how they had plundered the archives,robbed the nobility, laid wafte the country, and carried the peafants into captivity; thatin fhort, their known pride, their fpirit of revenge, and their cruelty, gave caufe toapprehend every thing for the houfe of Bavaria .
The King undertook to free the Emperor from his diftrefs, without hurting Auftriamuch : and he compaffed it with a moderation which the unprejudiced part of the worldftill admires. He obliged Prince Charles to give the Emperor breathing room, byforcing him to haften with his army from the Rhine to Bohemia . When he hgd donethis he was quiet, and afking nothing for himfelf, was contented with having donewhat equity and the fhare he took in the Emperor ’s calamity required of him. It is■well known what little {hare his love of robbery and conqueft had in the breaking outof that war in which he eciipfed all that had been done by ancient or modern heroes.In the very heat of this war, in which he himfelf gathered fo many laurels, he wrote aletter to Voltaire , filled with wifhes for philofophical quiet, and full of lamentations onthe cruelties of war. Very far from being intoxicated with his fame, and untaintedwith any degree of the pride which filled the bread of that Roman governor, who, re-turning from the government of a diftant province, thought that all Italy mull incef-fantly be filled with the praife of his adminiftration ; he afked Gellert, who fued to himfor peace in the middle of the theatre of war, whether he had not heard or feen therewere three powers inarms againft him ; and whether he thought it depended upon himto make Germany a prefent of peace 1 So free was he from being elated with the eclatof his wonderful arms, and fo far from thinking of higher things than how to defendhimfelf.
In this wonderful letter to Voltaire , he-promifes, when he (hall once be quiet, to cutoff the moft diftant pretences for war, nor to take any concern in the politics of Eu-rope ; but to give up all his time to the improvement of his own country, amidft thebleffings of peace. This promife he has hitherto moft religioufly adhered .to. Youthink, perhaps, that he did not in the affair of the divifion of Poland ; but he took theleaft part poffible in that affair. The world will be aftonilhed when the particulars ofthis bufinefs come to be known, as none has ever been fo mifreprefented and diftortedby political motives. I collected at Vienna fotne very extraordinary documents rela-tive to this matter, which I will communicate to you when we meet. Thus far is no-torious to all mankind ; that in this famous partition, the King had not a third of whatfell to Ruffia, nor a quarter of what Auftria had. A ftronger proof of the King’s mode-ration, and of his pacific difpofition, it is impoffible to give. Poffibly the divifionwould have been a little more equal if ever the parties had come to blows.
In the laft Bavarian war, he again obferved the fame wonderful moderation. Thecaufe of his taking up arms was to reftore the Houfe of Wittelfbach to his inheritance,and to maintain the conftitution of the empire; which, as a member of that body, hewas bound to proteft. He afked nothing for himfelf, and did not go a ftep fartherthan he was forced to by the ftrongeft neceffity. No monarch ever went into the field
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