[292] Ibid., Appendix, p. 350.
[293] De Broglie, "Marie Thérèse," I. p. 131.
[294] But three lines appearing in a despatch drafted by him (January 31, 1745. Zevort, Appendix, p. 352) are sufficient to prove what might have been suspected:
"En effet n'en aurions-nous tant fait en faveur de la liberté germanique que pour la revoir tombée dans son ancien esclavage."
Only one hand could have written the word "esclavage."
[295] "Where we should look for the breadth of view and the decision of the statesman, we find but the emotion of a doctrinaire who has attained to office full of confidence in his theories, and who finds himself suddenly thrown into a confused medley of practical complications which he had not even suspected; it is the bewilderment of a solitary who issues from obscurity and is blinded by the unexpected play of light" (De Broglie, "Marie Thérèse," I. p. 208).
Upon this we remark that the above is based upon "the first instructions which he sends after the unforeseen event of Munich;" that that event destroyed a great system, and created what Frederick described as "a terrible crisis"; and that it was just because d'Argenson realised, with a statesman's breadth of view, the appalling consequences either at home or abroad, that he hesitated to take his choice of disasters. When grave issues are so nicely balanced, precipitation is a sign, not of strength, but of weakness.
Frederick, it is true, did not hesitate; and M. de Broglie aptly supplies the reason. A man does not hesitate about the next move when he has no alternative but to throw up the game (De Broglie, "Marie Thérèse," I. p. 219, &c., cf. Zevort, pp. 137, 138).
[296] On the evidence of a certain note, M. de Broglie suggests ("Marie Thérèse," I. p. 213) that d'Argenson was by no means at one with the Council, and that he accepted with reluctance a policy which was forced upon him.
The note may be read with equanimity, for it only marks the reappearance of an ideal regret, to be met with occasionally in d'Argenson's Journal—a regret for the policy of merely indirect interference which he sometimes mentions in connection with "un habile homme tel que M. Chauvelin." His true feeling with regard to the crisis is conveyed by some important words in the note immediately preceding: