<88> endeavour, by degrees, to bring them back to their former firmness and intrepidity.
He told me, by way of news, that he heard General Laudon was to be detached with 25 000 men from the Austrian army to join with the army of the Empire, which is reckoned at 15000, who are intended to make an invasion into Saxony on the side of Leipzig. Of this he said he had informed the hereditary Prince and Prince Ferdinand, with whom it was absolutely necessary to act in concert. He added that he heard the Empress Queen had demanded of the court of France, soon after the march of the hereditary Prince, that Marshai Broglie should himself advance towards Saxony at the head of 40 000 French.1
I found His Prussian Majesty still thinks that France is inclined to treat for a separate peace, and he wished the negociators the King shall think proper to employ, might be as superior to the French as His Majesty's admirais and gênerais had hitherto. been; which, however, he observed, had never been the case in any treaty which England had made with France.
When I hinted to the King of Prussia, that perhaps the connections he had at the court of France, might be able to give more certain intelligence of the real intentions of that court, than any the King, my master, could procure in the présent situation of affairs, he answered, he should fairly communicate everything he could learn, but that the court of Versailles was at présent entirely governed by caprice and resentment; that the Dauphiness and Madame de Pompadour were at the head of the intrigue; that the Duke de Choiseul was entirely Austrian, and Marshai Belle-Isle superannuated.
The King of Poland's firm adherence to his allies, and the deplorable State of the Elector of Saxony being mentioned, I happened to say that I feared this would be a subject of much altercation at any future congress for treating of a general peace; the King of Prussia answered, he had thought of that, and had proposed the cession of the territory of Erfurt, which formerly belonged to the Electors of Saxony,2 as an indemnification for the King of Poland.
In the last conversation I had with the King of Prussia, he told me that he had received a letter from King Stanislaus, forwarded by the French ministers, in which that Prince proposed the town of Nancy, as a proper place for holding the congress.3 His Prussian Majesty said, it was equal to him where it was held, but that his letter seemed to confirm a piece of intelligence which he thought of much importance, and would communicate, but at the same time recommended to me absolute secrecy, adding, that he believed my court was by this time informed of it.
1 Vergl. S. 64.
2 Sachsen hatte bis 1664 die Schutzgerechtigkeit über Erfurt ausgeübt.
3 Vergl. Nr. 11820.