INTERIM; WHICH HEREUPON STARTS OUT, AND TUMBLES THE WHOLLY
ASTONISHED EUROPEAN DIPLOMACIES HEELS-OVER-HEAD.

To expectant mankind, especially to Vienna and Versailles, this
Britannic-Prussian Treaty was a great surprise. And indeed it
proved the signal of a general System of New Treaties all round.
The first signal, in fact,--though by no means the first cause,--of
a total circumgyration, summerset, or tumble heels-over-head in the
Political relations of Europe altogether, which ensued thereupon;
miraculous, almost as the Earthquake at Lisbon, to the Gazetteer,
and Diplomatic mind, and incomprehensible for long years after.
First signal we say, by no means that it was the first cause, or
indeed that it was a cause at all,--the thing being determined
elsewhere long before; ever since 1753, when Kaunitz left it ready,
waiting only its time.

Kaiser Franz, they say, when (probably during those Keith
urgencies) the joining with France and turning against poor
Britannic Majesty was proposed in Council at Vienna, opened his
usually silent lips; and opined with emphasis against such a
course, no Kaunitz or creature able to persuade Kaiser Franz that
good would come of it;--though, finding Sovereign Lady and
everybody against him, he held his peace again. And returned to his
private banking operations, which were more extensive than ever,
from the new troubles rising. "Lent the Empress-Queen, always on
solid securities," says Friedrich, "large sums, from time to time,
in those Wars; dealt in Commissariat stores to right and left;
we ourselves had most of our meal from him this year."
[ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 8.] Kaiser Franz
was, and continued, of the old way of thinking; but consummate