154.)] (when the upshot had come); and the Secret Bohemian Article NOT then made public, nor ever afterwards,--much the contrary; though it was true enough, but inconvenient to confess, especially as it came to nothing.
"A hypothetical thing, that," says Friedrich carelessly; "wages moderate enough, and proper to be settled beforehand, though the work was never done." To reach down quite over the Mountains, and have the Elbe for Silesian Frontier: this, as an occasional vague thought, or day-dream in high moments, was probably not new to Friedrich; and would have been very welcome to him,--had it proved realizable, which it did not.

That this was "Friedrich's real end in going to War again," was at one time the opinion loudly current in England and other uninformed quarters; "but it is not now credible to anybody," says Herr Ranke; nor indeed worth talking of, except as a memento of the angry eclipses, and temporary dust-clouds, which rise between Nations, in an irritated uninformed condition.
Rapidly progressive in the rear of all this, which was its legalizing German COAT, the French Treaty, which was the interior SUBSTANCE, or muscular tissue, perfected itself under Rothenburg; and was signed June 5th, 1774 (anniversary, by accident, of that First Treaty of all, "June 5th, 1741");--sanctioning, by France, that Bohemian Adventure, if needful; minutely setting forth How, and under what contingencies, what efforts made and what successes arrived at, on the part of France, his Prussian Majesty shall take the field; and try Austria, not "with all imaginable good offices" longer, but with harder medicine.

Of which Treaty we shall only say farther, commiserating our poor readers, That Friedrich considerably MORE than kept his side of it; and France very considerably LESS than hers.

So that, had not there been punctual preparation at all points, and good self-help in Friedrich, Friedrich had come out of this new Adventure worse than he did! Long months ago, the French--as preliminary and rigorous SINE QUA NON to these Friedrich Negotiations--had actually started work, by "declaring War on Austria, and declaring War on England:"-- Not yet at War, then, after so much killing?
Oh no, reader; mere "Allies" of Belligerents, hitherto.

These "Declarations" the French had made; [War on England, 15th March, 1744; on Austria, 27th April (Adelung, iv.