"Hm; something very like it, I assure you. Listen! It is the secret treaty that our minister at Constantinople, Herr von Thugut, has just concluded with the Porte. The Sultan has already signed it, and to-day I shall present it for signature to the empress. She will do it readily; for although she may not absolutely dote on the infidel, she hates Russia; and the unbelieving Turk is dearer to her than her Christian cousin, the Empress Catharine."
"Then, after all, we are the firm allies of Turkey?" said Binder.
The prince gave a shrug, and trifled with the papers he had brought with him. "We have bound ourselves," said he, reading here and there among the leaves, "to bring about a peace between Russia and Turkey, by which the former shall restore to the latter all the provinces which she has conquered from the Porte; or, if not all, those which are indispensable to preserve the honor of Turkey intact. We have furthermore bound ourselves to secure the independence of the Republic of Poland."
"But, prince, that contradicts all your previous understandings with Prussia and Russia; it contradicts your plans for the partition of Poland. It will certainly lead to war, for our highness has forgotten that Prussia and Russia have already agreed, for the soi disant pacification of Poland, to appropriate the greater part of her provinces to themselves."
"I beg you to believe, my verdant friend, that I never forget any thing," said Kaunitz, somewhat haughtily. "I am perfectly au fait to the Russo-Prussian treaty; but I have not been invited to the banquet, and I do not intend to go uninvited. When they speak, we will consider their offers. If they say nothing, we go to war. If they speak, we will allow ourselves to be persuaded to share the booty which we cannot restore to its owners. In that way, we are in a manner forced into this coalition, and the opprobrium of the act falls upon those who devised it, while Maria Theresa's scruples will be more easily overcome."
"Prince," said Binder, with a sigh, "I give it up. I never will make a statesman. I listen to your words as to a Delphic oracle, and do not pretend to understand their ambiguous meaning. I understand, however, do I not, that we are the allies of the Sultan? Now we thereby do him a great favor—what does he give in return?"
"Not much, but still something," said Kaunitz, with composure, while his fingers again turned over the leaves. "The Porte, who, like yourself, apprehends war with Russia, understands that if Austria is to befriend him, she must put her army upon a war footing. If Austria is to do this for the sake of Turkey, Turkey of course must furnish the means. The Porte then, in the course of the next eight months, will pay us the sum of twenty thousand purses, each containing five hundred silver piasters. Four thousand purses will be paid down as soon as the treaty is signed." [Footnote: Dohm, "Memoirs of My Time," vol. i., p. 471.]
"Ten millions of piasters!" exclaimed Binder, with uplifted hands. "By Heaven, prince, you are a second Moses. You know how to strike a rock so that a silver fountain shall gush from its barrenness."
"I shall make good use of it, too. Our coffers need replenishing, and the emperor will rejoice to see them filled with the gold of the infidel. It will enable him to raise and equip a gallant army, and that will give him such unbounded delight that we are sure of his signature. Besides this, the Porte presents us with a goodly portion of Wallachia; he fixes the boundaries of Transylvania to our complete satisfaction, and allows us free trade with the Ottoman empire, both by land and by water."
"But all these concessions will cost us a war with Russia. The rapacious
Czarina will be furious when she hears of them."