Note 295 — IV. NOVEMBER, 1744—JANUARY, 1747. Foreign Politics—D'Argenson's Ministry—1745: The Convention of Augsburg—The Convention of Hanover—The Imperial Election—The Treaty of Dresden—1746: The Negotiation of Turin—The Saxon Marriage—Review.

"Where we should look for the breadth of view and the decision of the statesman, we find but the emotion of a doctrinaire who has attained to office full of confidence in his theories, and who finds himself suddenly thrown into a confused medley of practical complications which he had not even suspected; it is the bewilderment of a solitary who issues from obscurity and is blinded by the unexpected play of light" (De Broglie, "Marie Thérèse," I. p. 208).

Upon this we remark that the above is based upon "the first instructions which he sends after the unforeseen event of Munich;" that that event destroyed a great system, and created what Frederick described as "a terrible crisis"; and that it was just because d'Argenson realised, with a statesman's breadth of view, the appalling consequences either at home or abroad, that he hesitated to take his choice of disasters. When grave issues are so nicely balanced, precipitation is a sign, not of strength, but of weakness.

Frederick, it is true, did not hesitate; and M. de Broglie aptly supplies the reason. A man does not hesitate about the next move when he has no alternative but to throw up the game (De Broglie, "Marie Thérèse," I. p. 219, &c., cf. Zevort, pp. 137, 138).