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THREE:Frederick, in describing this interview, writes: “Augustus answered yes to every thing, with an air of being convinced, joined to a look of great ennui. Count Brühl,61 whom this interview displeased, interrupted it by announcing to his majesty that the Opera was about to commence. Ten kingdoms to conquer would not have kept the King of Poland a minute longer. He went, therefore, to the Opera; and the King of Prussia obtained at once, in spite of those who opposed it, a final decision.”62

THREE:In the court-yard there was a fountain with stone steps, where Frederick William loved to sit on summer evenings and smoke his pipe. He frequently took his frugal dinner here in the open air under a lime-tree, with the additional protection of an awning. After dinner he would throw himself down for a nap on a wooden bench, apparently regardless of the flaming sun.On the other hand, Frederick himself was in the very prime of manhood. He was ambitious of military renown. He had a compact army of one hundred thousand men, in better drill and more amply provided with all the apparatus of war than any other troops in Europe. The frugality of his father had left him with a treasury full to overflowing. To take military possession of Silesia would be a very easy thing. There was nothing to obstruct the rush of his troops across the frontiers. There were no strongly garrisoned fortresses, and not above three thousand soldiers in the whole realm. No one even suspected that Frederick would lay any claim to the territory, or that there was the slightest danger of invasion. The complicated claim which he finally presented, in official manifestoes, was founded upon transactions which had taken place a hundred years before. In conversation with his friends he did not lay much stress upon any legitimate title he had to the territory. He frankly admitted, to quote his own words, that “ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me, carried the day, and I decided for war.”37

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