Before news had come of the peace of Villafranca he was constantly in dread that Prussia would go to war on behalf of Austria: "We have prepared too soon and too thoroughly, the weight of the burden we have taken on ourselves is drawing us down the incline.

We shall not be even an Austrian reserve; we shall simply sacrifice ourselves for Austria and take away the war from her." How disturbed he was, we can see by the tone of religious resignation which he assumes--no doubt a sign that he fears his advice has not yet been acted upon.
"As God will.

Everything here is only a question of time; peoples and men, wisdom and folly, war and peace, they come and go like rain and water, and the sea alone remains.

There is nothing on earth but hypocrisy and deceit." The language of this and other letters was partly due to the state of his health; the continual anxiety and work of his life at Frankfort, joined to irregular hours and careless habits, had told upon his constitution.

He fell seriously ill in St.Petersburg with a gastric and rheumatic affection; an injury to the leg received while shooting in Sweden, became painful; the treatment adopted by the doctor, bleeding and iodine, seems to have made him worse.