<638> could not help doubting of the sincerity of France, especially since their late advantages in Hesse, which must have been known at Paris at the time the Duke of Choiseul's letter was written, which was five days later than the defeat of the Hereditary Prince.
His Prussian Majesty answered with some warmth: « You are certainly mistaken, for France is sincere in the offers she has made. By all the intelligence I can have from that country, the nation is tired of the war and dissatisfied with the alliance. The late affair that happened at Langensalza to the troops under the command of Monsieur de Stainville has raised flame at Paris, and they openly complain of the Austrian general Hadik as the cause of that disgrace; but there is still a stronger reason which is the ruin of her commerce and credit, by which France is deprived of the necessary resources to carry on the war. »
I afterwards took the liberty to ask what could induce the Empress Queen to agree to the proposal for a congress, since it was sufficient for her purpose to have obliged France by consenting to their treating separately with England. To this the King of Prussia said that, though this proposal for a congress was an imposition upon the public, the hopes of a general peace might encourage her subjects to pay the heavy taxes with more alacrity, might have an effect upon the Spaniards with regard to their pretensions upon Italy, and upon the Turks, in case they had any intention to attack the Empress Queen by holding out to them a negotiation begun and, as they would pretend, ready to be concluded.
When I asked the King of Prussia what he thought was the readiest and most probable way of obtaining a general pacification so much wished for, and so much wanted by all the parties concerned, except the Empress Queen, his answer was that the separate peace between France and England must serve as the basis of the whole, that, so soon as their differences were entirely settled, those two powers concerting together might agree upon preliminary articles for a general peace, which the other belligerant powers must accept of, and thereby put an end to a war destructive of mankind, and which has already lasted too long.
In the course of conversation, the King of Prussia dropped that he had written to his ministers in England to desire that a general armistice might be proposed by the King; but, as he did not insist upon it nor say anything to support the hint he had thrown put, I thought proper to say nothing upon the subject, fearing that this demand of a general armistice might afford a pretence to the French for retarding the separate treaty with England, which, in the present situation of affairs in Gerrnany, might be detrimental to the King's interest.
The King of Prussia does not seem much to rely upon the assurances given in the Duke of Choiseul's letter that the allies of France