Charles Francis Adams
Published: 2015-06-30
Total Pages: 440
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Excerpt from Studies Military and Diplomatic 1775-1865 In Carlyle's Life of Frederick the Great there is an account of a curious conversation in December, 1745, between Frederick and D'Arget, the secretary of Valori, at that juncture the French ambassador at Berlin. It was at the close of the Second Silesian War, from which Frederick, then only thirty-three years of age, had emerged victorious; thenceforth to be till he died the leading figure in European political action. He was just entering on the eleven years of more or less broken peace which preceded the Seven Years' War. D'Arget, at the instance of Valori, had suggested some grand political combinations in which Frederick was to figure as the "Pacificator of Europe." The king listened to him, and then replied: "It is too dangerous a part for playing. A reverse brings me to the verge of ruin: I know too well the mood I was in last time I left Berlin ever to expose myself to it again! If luck had been against me there, I saw myself a monarch without a throne; ... A bad game that; ... I am not in alarm about the Austrians... They dread my army; the luck that I have. ... I would not henceforth attack a cat except to defend myself." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.