Treaty was for eight years from day of date.
As Friedrich did not get into war, and Catharine did, with the Turks and certain loose Polacks, the burden of fulfilment happened to fall wholly on Friedrich; and he was extremely punctual in performance,--eager now, and all his life after, to keep well with such a Country under such a Czarina. Which proved to be the whole rule of his policy on that Russian side. "Good that Country cannot bring me by any quarrel with it; evil it can, to a frightful extent, in case of my quarrelling with others! Be wary, be punctual, magnanimously polite, with that grandiose Czarina and her huge territories and notions:" this was Friedrich's constant rule in public and in private. Nor is it thought his CORRESPONDENCE WITHTHE EMPRESS CATHARINE, when future generations see it in print, will disclose the least ground of offence to that high-flying Female Potentate of the North. Nor will it ever be known what the silently observant Friedrich thought of her, except indeed what we already know, or as good as know, That he, if anybody did, saw her clearly enough for what she was; and found good to repress into absolute zero whatever had no bearing upon business, and might by possibility give offence in that quarter. For we are an old King, and have learned by bitter experiences! No more nicknames, biting verses, or words which a bird of the air could carry; though this poor Lady too has her liabilities, were not we old and prudent;--and is entirely as weak on certain points (deducting the devotions and the brandy-and-water) as some others were! The Treaty was renewed when necessary; and continued valid and vital in every particular, so long as Friedrich ruled.
By the end of the first eight years, by strictly following this passive rule, Friedrich, in counterbalance of his losses, unexpectedly found himself invested with a very singular bit of gain,--"unjust gain!" cried all men, making it of the nature of gain and loss to him,--which is still practically his, and which has made, and makes to this day, an immense noise in the world.
Everybody knows we mean West-Preussen; Partition of Poland;bloodiest picture in the Book of Time, Sarmatia's fall unwept without a crime;--and that we have come upon a very intricate part of our poor History.
No prudent man--especially if to himself, as is my own poor case in regard to it, the subject have long been altogether dead and indifferent--would wish to write of the Polish Question. For almost a hundred years the Polish Question has been very loud in the world; and ever and anon rises again into vocality among Able Editors, as a thing pretending not to be dead and buried, but capable of rising again, and setting itself right, by good effort at home and abroad. Not advisable, beyond the strict limits of compulsion, to write of it at present! The rather as the History of it, any History we have, is not an intelligible series of events, but a series of vociferous execrations, filling all Nature, with nothing left to the reader but darkness, and such remedies against despair as he himself can summon or contrive.
"Rulhiere's on that subject," says a Note which I may cite, "is the only articulate-speaking Book to which mankind as yet can apply;[Cl. Rulhiere, Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne (Paris, 1807), 4 vols. 12mo.] and they will by no means find that a sufficient one. Rulhiere's Book has its considerable merits; but it absolutely wants those of a History; and can be recognized by no mind as an intelligible cosmic Portraiture of that chaotic Mass of Occurrences: chronology, topography, precision of detail by time and place; scene, and actors on scene, remain unintelligible. Rulhiere himself knew Poland, at least had looked on it from Warsaw outwards, year after year, and knew of it what an inquiring Secretary of Legation could pick up on those terms, which perhaps, after all, is not very much. His Narrative is drowned in beautiful seas of description and reflection; has neither dates nor references; and advances at an intolerable rate of slowness;in fact, rather turns on its axis than advances; produces on you the effect of a melodious Sonata, not of a lucid and comfortably instructive History.
"I forget for how long Rulhiere had been in Poland, as Ambassador's Assistant: but the Country, the King and leading Personages were personally known to him, more or less; Events with all details of them were known: 'Why not write a History of the Anarchy and Wreck they fell into?' said the Official people to him, on his return home: 'For behoof of the Dauphin [who is to be Louis XVI. shortly];may not he perhaps draw profit from it? At the top of the Universe, experience is sometimes wanted. Here are the Archives, here is Salary, here are what appliances you like to name: Write!' It is well known he was appointed, on a Pension of 250 pounds a year, with access to all archives, documents and appliances in possession of the French Government, and express charge to delineate this subject for benefit of the Dauphin's young mind. Nor can I wonder, considering everything, that the process on Rulhiere's part, being so full of difficulties, was extremely deliberate; that this Book did not grow so steadily or fast as the Dauphin did; and that in fact the poor Dauphin never got the least benefit from it,--being guillotined, he, in 1793, and the Book intended for him never coming to light for fourteen years afterwards, it too in a posthumous and still unfinished condition.
