The messenger was sent, and the letter transmitted, which contained the order sent to Broglio, who was, first, forbidden to mix his troops on any occasion with the Prussians.  Secondly, he was ordered to act always at a distance from the king.  Thirdly, to keep always a body of twenty thousand men to observe the Prussian army.  Fourthly, to observe very closely the motions of the king, for important reasons.  Fifthly, to hazard nothing; but to pretend want of reinforcements, or the absence of Bellisle.

The king now, with great reason, considered himself as disengaged from the confederacy, being deserted by the Saxons, and betrayed by the French; he, therefore, accepted the mediation of king George, and, in three weeks after the battle of Czaslaw, made peace with the queen of Hungary, who granted to him the whole province of Silesia, a country of such extent and opulence, that he is said to receive from it one third part of his revenues.  By one of the articles of this treaty it is stipulated, “that neither should assist the enemies of the other.”

The queen of Hungary, thus disentangled on one side, and set free from the most formidable of her enemies, soon persuaded the Saxons to peace; took possession of Bavaria; drove the emperour, after all his imaginary conquests, to the shelter of a neutral town, where he was treated as a fugitive; and besieged the French in Prague, in the city which they had taken from her.

Having thus obtained Silesia, the king of Prussia returned to his own capital, where he reformed his laws, forbade the torture of criminals, concluded a defensive alliance with England, and applied himself to the augmentation of his army.

This treaty of peace with the queen of Hungary was one of the first proofs given by the king of Prussia, of the secrecy of his counsels.  Bellisle, the French general, was with him in the camp, as a friend and coadjutor in appearance, but in truth a spy, and a writer of intelligence.  Men who have great confidence in their own penetration are often by that confidence deceived; they imagine that they can pierce through all the involutions of intrigue, without the diligence necessary to weaker minds, and, therefore, sit idle and secure; they believe that none can hope to deceive them, and, therefore, that none will try.  Bellisle, with all his reputation of sagacity, though he was in the Prussian camp, gave, every day, fresh assurances of the king’s adherence to his allies; while Broglio, who commanded the army at a distance, discovered sufficient reason to suspect his desertion.  Broglio was slighted, and Bellisle believed, till, on the 11th of June, the treaty was signed, and the king declared his resolution to keep a neutrality.

This is one of the great performances of polity which mankind seem agreed to celebrate and admire; yet, to all this nothing was necessary but the determination of a very few men to be silent.

From this time the queen of Hungary proceeded with an uninterrupted torrent of success.  The French, driven from station to station, and deprived of fortress after fortress, were, at last, enclosed with their two generals, Bellisle and Broglio, in the walls of Prague, which they had stored with all provisions necessary to a town besieged, and where they defended themselves three months before any prospect appeared of relief.