that Russia marks out for herself,” wrote Frederick to Count Solms, his ambassador at St. Petersburg.  “I have expressly left all that blank in order that she may settle it according to her interests and her own good pleasure.  When the negotiations for peace have advanced to a certain stage of consistency, it will no longer depend upon the Austrians to break them off if we declare our views unanimously as to Poland.  She cannot rely any further upon France, which happens to be in such a fearful state of exhaustion that it could not give any help to Spain, which was on the point of declaring war against England.  If that war do not take place, it must be attributed simply to the smash in the finances of France.  I guarantee, then, to the Russians all that may happen to suit them; they will do as much for me; and, supposing that the Austrians should consider their share of Poland too paltry in comparison with ours, and it were desirable to satisfy them, one would only have to offer them that strip of the Venetian dominions which cuts them off from Trieste in order to keep them quiet; even if they were to turn nasty, I will answer for it with my head that our union with Russia, once clearly established, will tide them over all that we desire.  They have to do with two powers, and they have not a single ally to give them a shoulder.”

Frederick said truly; his sound and powerful judgment took in the position of Europe:  France, exhausted by the lingering decay of her government and in travail with new and confused elements which had as yet no strength but to shatter and destroy; Spain, lured on by France and then abandoned by her; England, disturbed at home by parliamentary agitation, favorably disposed to the court of Russia and for a long while allied to Frederick; Sweden and Denmark, in the throes of serious events; there was nothing to oppose the iniquity projected and prepared for with so much art and ability.  It was in vain that the King of Prussia sought to turn into a joke the unscrupulous manoeuvres of his diplomacy when he wrote to D’Alembert in January, 1772, “I would rather undertake to put the whole history of the Jews into madrigals than to cause to be of one mind three sovereigns amongst whom must be numbered two women.”  The undertaking was already accomplished.  Three months later, the first partition of Poland had been settled between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and on the 2d of September, 1772, the treaty was made known at Warsaw.  The manifesto was short.  “It is a general rule of policy,” Frederick had said, “that, in default of unanswerable arguments, it is better to express one’s self laconically, and not go beating about the bush.”  The care of drawing it up had been intrusted to Prince Kaunitz.  “It was of importance,” said the document, “to establish the commonwealth of Poland on a solid basis whilst doing justice to the claims of the three powers for services rendered against the insurrection.”  The king and the senate protested.  The troops