This manoeuvre was
universally
attributed to a
fine stroke of politics.
fine stroke of politics.
Treitschke - 1915 - Confessions of Frederick the Great
But these embassies
must be ever considered as extraordinary.
Never ask faintly, but seem rather to demand.
If you have any cause of discontent given you,
reserve your revenge for the moment in which you
may obtain the most complete satisfaction, but
especially do not stand in fear of reprisals; your
glory will not suffer for it, it will only be so much
the worse for those of your subjects on whom
the damage may fall. It must, then, be your great
aim that all your neighbours should be persuaded
that you fear nothing, and that nothing can as-
tonish you.
Endeavour, above all things, to pass with them
for one of a dangerous cast of mind, who knows no
other principles but those that lead to military
fame. Manage so that they may be fully con-
vinced that you would sooner lose two kingdoms
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? Frederick the Great 73
than not play a part that may transmit you to
posterity. As these sentiments are those of a
soul above the common order, they strike, they
confound, the greatest part of mankind; and it
is this that, in truth, constitutes in the world the
greatest monarchs.
When a stranger comes to your court, overwhelm
him with civilities, and especially try to have
him always near you ; this will be the best way to
keep concealed from him the defects of your
government.
If he is a military man, let the exercise of your
regiments be performed before him, and let it be
yourself that commands them. If he is a wit who
has composed a work, let him see it lying on your
table, and talk to him of his talents. If he is in a
mercantile life, listen to him with affability, caress
him, and try to fix him in your country.
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? MORNING THE SIXTH
MILITARY
A CELEBRATED author has compared the
mihtary to mastiffs which ought to be
chained up carefully, and ought not to be loosed
except when necessary. The comparison is rather
strained, but, for all that, it will serve you, not as a
maxim, but as a warning.
You have been able to learn in the two cam-
paigns which you have made with me the spirit of
officer and soldier, and you have been able to per-
ceive that in general they are veritable machines,
with no other forward movement than that which
you give them.
You persuade these troops that they are superior
to those whom you oppose to them; a mere no-
thing makes them believe that they are weaker;
it is, however, these nothings which make the
glory or disgrace of a general.
Therefore apply yourself to get a good know-
ledge of the causes which produce them. I go
further, and say that it is the nothings which create
the enthusiasm, and if once you can confer it on
your army, you can count on victory.
I will not recall here that which you will have
74
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? Confessions of Frederick the Great 75
noticed in history, but remember only the Rus-
sians, and you will acknowledge that only inspired
beasts could stand being slaughtered like them.
My kingdom, by its nature, is military, and,
shortly speaking, it is only by its assistance that
you can hope to sustain and aggrandize your-
self. It is necessary, therefore, that your atten-
tion should always be fixed on this. But you
must take care that the military should not per-
ceive that they are your only resoiu"ce. When I
took over the reins of Government, I looked into
this to the bottom, and corrected it ; but it was not
without much trouble that I arrived at the goal
of my design, for your officer does not readily bend
to new regulations, above all when it touches his
own personal interest. You can judge of this by
two examples.
The captains had each a district (canton) for
recruiting. Every male infant who was born in
that canton was by right his captain's soldier, and
was registered as such from the cradle.
It is true that his father could buy him out,
but if that captain happened to die, the buying out
was annulled, and the infant became once more by
right the soldier of the new captain.
You understand well what authority this captain
exercised in this unhappy canton; he became its
tyrant.
During the lifetime of my father I was several
times offended with this, and when I became the
Master, I resolved to abolish such an oppression.
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? 76 The Confessions of
However, you must not offend the old soldiers who
know nothing but their routine, above all, when
it is advantageous to them.
I amassed proofs, therefore, and soon had more
than I wanted. They showed me, among others,
that Captain Colan, of the Regiment of Opo (in-
fantry), had drawn from his canton in ten years
more than fifty thousand crowns, and they made
me see that there was in general no captain who
did not derive a revenue of two thousand crowns
from the cotmtry under him.
Accordingly, I reformed this abuse, but, believe
me, most of my generals wished to prove to me
that it was a great advantage for me, because by
it one was surer of training a soldier as one wished,
and one knew his character from his infancy. And,
in fine, a thousand other like stupidities.
Believe me, also, that in spite of the most abso-
lute orders, there were majors who always went
this way, and that I was obliged to cashier two or
three who would not submit.
My father had a passion for tall men : he adored
the captains who got most of them : it was enough
for a soldier to be six feet two or three inches
for him to be allowed to do anything, and a captain
who had twenty of this height was sure to enjoy
the good graces of the King. From this sprang
a lax and very variable discipline, and a service
of parade.
As I did not have the same taste, I did not make
any exceptions. I wished the tall to be punished
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? Frederick the Great 77
in the same way as the short: I only took into
consideration the goodness of the soldier, and not
his height. This conduct displeased my officers
very much, as well as my giants. The former were
alarmed by the desertions, which, in truth, were
then considerable. Because the great statures
were not respected, they had even the effrontery
to tell me that a man of six feet two or three
inches deserved consideration, and ought not to be
subjected to ordinary discipHne. I asked them the
reason for it: they did not know what to reply:
in consequence of which the difference soon ceased
to exist.
You can see by these two examples how much
the particular interest is reckoned above the gen-
eral interest, and at the same time the attention
which you ought to pay to the representations
of the military, when you touch their pockets.
You must take great care, my dear nephew, not
to confuse the word discipline: it is a word which
can only draw its signification from the spirit of
the faculties and the situation in the state of
which you employ it. It means that each state
ought to have its special discipHne, and it is mad
for it to wish to adopt that of its neighbour. I
am going to make you understand this by my own
position.
A very wise regulation made by my father was
the foiindation of our modem discipline. Listen
to it well. Following this rule each captain is
obliged to have two thirds of his company foreign-
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? 78 The Confessions of
ers. But to make these foreigners feel more like
citizens, and to make their lot, which is really
rather an unhappy one, since they have no hope of
seeing it finish, pleasanter, we have thought that
we ought to bestow upon these poor people that
air of freedom and authority over the rest of man-
kind which they like to assume.
And in consequence we do not pay much atten-
tion to the little tricks which they play in the
garrisons: we grant them in this respect a sort
of independence which makes them forget their
misfortunes: they think themselves somebodies,
and this idea alone saves them from despair.
This discipline does not agree badly with my
subjects who are soldiers: by this means they
contract an advantageous idea of their trade, and
little by little they accustom themselves to regard
it as a profession.
We believe that discipline alone constitutes a
soldier. We are mistaken; it is oftener the tone
which we give him: I have proved this in my
recent wars, where I had not already done so in
my former wars.
The armies of the Empire and Sweden filled my
ranks every day, and these men had no sooner
donned my uniform than they were Prussians,
and in the first encounter one could only recognize
them by their singular valour. Discipline itself
must be subordinate to such circumstances, it
could not be so good if it was always equal.
When I commenced war my troops recognized
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? Frederick the Great 79
me, and most of my soldiers loved me, because I
paid them, fed them and entertained them well.
At the same time, I was severe, and expected my
orders to be executed with the utmost rigour; I
passed nothing, especially when they were under
arms.
After two campaigns I changed this severity for
pleasantness. I had nothing but deserters for
recruiting my army. I could neither pay them
nor feed them nor maintain them well. I was
obliged to pay them in debased money. It was
my belief that I ought to attach them to myself by
some means at some point. I tried to inspire
them with an air of jollity, and relaxed my hand on
marauding: I pretended not to mind when they
took the roof off a house to make their fires, and
I spared no effort to make them think well of
themselves; I shut my eyes to many small negli-
gences in their service; I only punished them
lightly. When a regiment played up a little too
much, I sent it to Saxony, and my brother Henry,
who was in the secret, put matters on a proper
footing, because his army was only engaged in
observation.
Your principal object, my dear nephew, ought
to be to create good officers and good generals,
so you ought to make a plan of discipline, and
still more, of conduct for them. Behold what I
have done up to the present in this line.
In time of peace as well as in time of war, I go
into the smallest details with them. Every officer
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? 8o The Confessions of
is under the belief that he is known to me person-
ally, and there is no general with whom I am not
in relation. Although they play the chief role in
my dominions, they are no more than the head
slaves. An officer and a general cannot leave his
post without proper permission; and if either did
leave it without my permission, it is a hanging
matter. By this means, when I have a valuable
man, I keep him always.
The most fortunate officers have three years of
misery and humiliation to go through (at the
beginning of their careers). Of misery because
they have wretched appointments, and of humilia-
tion because the discipline is terrible. To recom-
pense them, I make their lot very honourable when
they come to the higher ranks. But, even then,
they have no chance of retiring.
In the present war I have not named one of
them to a command, to a provincial governorship
or a headquarters' appointment which has fallen
vacant. To give my officers ambition, I give them
great distinction for brilliant performances. In
the battle of Rosbach I embraced a cavalry major
in the middle of the action, and I conferred the
Order of True Merit on an officer in the field. At
Dresden I sent my carriage for the lieutenant in
the Guards who had been wounded after having
attacked the same entrenchment four times. And
I gave him his company.
To inspire them with a contempt for death, I
had the famous ode of General Keith recited to
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? Frederick the Great 8i
them, and I had the libre avoitre preached to them
all through the war.
While I had the money I paid them well, and
when my resources were diminished, I debased the
coinage. But I overlooked some of the little
tricks which they played upon their hosts, when
times became harder, and I let them be witnesses
of my misfortimes; I gave them the idea that
their constancy was the only thing which could res-
cue us from our embarrassments, which have really
been very lamentable in the latest campaigns.
I do not know how I succeeded in reducing to
the greatest exactitude in the army those who
were regular bandits, and who had an air of the
greatest arrogance. I appeared to inspire them
with a way of thinking to suit the circumstances.
They were Arabs who crushed the country but won
the battles.
The same spirit animated, more or less, the
general officers: I closed my eyes to all the op-
pressions which they committed ; they worked for
me in working for themselves. In which way
it was necessary that we should live together.
Everyone told me that Major Keller, the Com-
mandant at Leipzig, was feathering his nest. I
knew it well, but other people did not know that
he was worth millions a year to me.
As one gets accustomed little by little to his
ease, and as one learns more and more how to live
well, I had generals who were not too anxious to
seek glory in the heat of the fray. I knew them
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? 82 The Confessions of
well, and I explained to them generally the neces-
sity of showing themselves well and confronting
the greatest dangers. I preached by shewing them
the way, and made two or three examples. From
this moment everybody was dauntless.
When you give a command, leave nothing to
be brought home by your generals: confer an air
of superiority always on the Profession of Arms.
But always attribute to your generals the disaster
of a battle, or the disastrous result of a campaign.
You have seen how I punished Le Kizel^ and
Fink^ for the surrender at Maxin, Zartroit^ for the
surrender at Schweidnitz, and Roule"* for having
advised the surrender of the citadel of Gratz. ^
In point of fact, none of these were their fault:
they were mine.
You are not, my dear nephew, in a position to
exercise a very rigorous discipline, and you are
obliged to avoid increasing the yoke; real men
are rare in your dominions, and foreigners cost too
much for you to take them. You need not alter
the administration of justice in your regiments,
but you should make the death penalty very rare.
Make your surgeons observe the same principles
as I have impressed upon them, with regard to
the arms and legs of your soldiers and your officers.
Do not demand from a subaltern anything more
than good routine, because you have no need for
^ A misspelling which cannot be identified. * Should be
FiNCK. 3 Should be Zastrow. * Should be Fouquet. s Should
be Glatz.
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? Frederick the Great 83
him to know anything more. But demand from
a higher officer genius and theory; and, above all,
make a point of not confusing details with great
principles, and especially make a great difference
between a good quartermaster and a great general,
because you can be one without being the other.
I am now coming to the point of my theories
about common soldiers and subaltern officers. It
is a question now of laying before your eyes the
ideas I have maintained in my recent campaigns.
When I saw that France, the Queen of Hungary
(Maria Theresa) and Russia were against me, I
abandoned half my dominions in order to concen-
trate and put myself in a condition to be able
to invade Saxony.
This manoeuvre was universally attributed to a
fine stroke of politics. It was really due to neces-
sity, because I should none the less have lost all
my dominions if I have been crushed in defending
them.
Before the commencement of the war I laid down
a system which I have never abandoned: I have
always hung on with the greatest obstinacy to
part of Saxony: and though I have been sur-
rounded on all sides, I have never been willing to
retire from this country, and I was well advised,
for I should have been lost without power of
recovery.
I know well that it is considered extraordinary
that I have allowed Berlin to be laid under contri-
bution twice, and that all the towns in my kingdom,
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? 84 The Confessions of
except five or six, have been taken. But every-
thing has been given back to me, as the price of
retiring from Saxony.
If you were to consult my subjects at the present
moment, I believe that you would find that the
enthusiasm is a little dwindled. I am persuaded
myself that they have long ago begun to reckon the
obligations of a prince to his subjects.
I had made the late war as a pupil. Marshal
d'Anhalt^ and Marshal de Schwerin gave battle;
I only figured in the battles. In this campaign
my amour propre had desired to play the leading
part. I had need of Marshal Schwerin ; I felt that
he was necessary; but I was jealous of his glory.
It is certain that if he had not been killed, I should
have been ungrateful.
People pay me, my dear nephew, a little more
honour than I deserve. For since his death I
have made several bad mistakes. I lost the battle
of Kollin and raised the siege of Prague quite un-
necessarily; I made a false move when I arrived
in Moravia, and Marshal Daun, like a good Gen-
eral, had secured Olmiitz before he left Vienna.
At Maxin I lost fifteen thousand men by pig-
headedness, and ignorance, because I did not see
that Marshal Daun had advanced with his army.
General Laudon profited by a false move which
I made to take me in the- flank at Schweidnitz;
I let him crush poor Fouquet before Glatz.
I should have lost the battle of Torgau if Mar-
* Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau -- the old Dessauer.
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? Frederick the Great 85
shal Daun had not been wounded, and the Russians
have beaten me three times out of four; I have
never been able to retake Dresden; and I have
been fifty-nine days in the open trenches before
Schweidnitz.
For all that, I am a general, and no one could
dispute that I have great abilities, for, if I have
lost battles, I have won them also, and I have
niade retreats which have won me infinite honour ;
I have discovered admirable expedients for extri-
cating myself from the most cruel embarrassments.
But, my dear nephew, what has saved me is my
desperateness and my vanity. I have preferred
to be buried under the ruins of my kingdom to
yielding, and it is my obstinacy which has worn
everyone out. A man can try this once, but if he
is wise he does not expose himself to it a second
time.
At present, while I am in cold blood, I see all my
glory vanishing in smoke; I have made a noise,
but what have I gained? Nothing! On the con-
trary, I have lost much since the election of the
King of the Romans has taken place.
You know the ambition of our house, and I
assure you that I shall die of grief if I do not
make the Empire pass to some Protestant Prince.
But what afflicts me most is the state of affairs
in my own dominions. When I compare the situa-
tion of my kingdom in '56 with its situation to-
day, I am confounded. I must lay it before you
in order that, in advance, you may come to the
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? 86 The Confessions of
resolution of sacrificing everything to re-establish
it.
Since '56 I have lost by fighting more than three
hundred thousand men. The population is de-
creased by more than one third, the number of
horses and other animals by more than a half;
the treasure accumulated by my father has been
consumed, and my coinage is debased by one
tenth. All the Provinces pay twice as heavily as
they did in '56, by the interest of the money which
they have been obliged to borrow for the contribu-
tions of which it is impossible for me to keep count.
I have no commerce outside of my kingdom,
because my money loses too much in exchange
abroad, and the bankruptcy of M. Donenville has
made me lose all my credit.
The majority of my magazines are empty, my
artillery is very bad, and I have very few muni-
tions of war left; it is this which determines me
to demolish most of my fortifications: for I am
no longer in a condition to put the places which
I have abandoned in a state of defence.
Otherwise, in a moment, if I were to come to
have war, it would be absolutely impossible for
me to guard them.
You see by this that you have no more than one
step to take to be ruined, and that would be to
undertake a new war, for however glorious it might
be for you, it would crush you.
The only way of re-establishing yourself is to
make an alliance with England to pay you heavy
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? Frederick the Great 87
subsidies to conduct the campaign, and to keep
within your borders as long as possible.
It would not be a question of waging an offensive
war; you would no longer be in a condition to
reassemble large armies, because you could not
supply them either with provisions or with muni-
tions of war. It would only, therefore, be in the
last extremity that you ought to advance.
In what situation would you find yourself, if
your dominions were once more the prey of the
enemy? How would your dominions pay in the
future the interest on the contributions they had
borrowed? To what extent would your people
not suffer, and how far would the deficiency in
animals not go?
As for me, I cannot resist the sad ideas which
this picture presents to me. I know the reputa-
tion which I bear throughout Europe, of loving
war, and I confess that it is my passion, but I
know its calamities, and I yield to the evidence.
It is not possible to do this, because I should risk
the entire ruin of my dominions.
I pretend to be wicked, but I do it to impose
on others. One is not lucky twice, or, to put it
better, fortune becomes greedy when one demands
too much. She would certainly not be sufficiently
generous to rescue our house a second time from
the abyss in which it found itself in '57 and '61.
In '57, in the month of October, the French
were at the gates of Magdeburg; the Austrians
had Schweidnitz and Breslau, the Russians had
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? 88 The Confessions of
all Prussia, and part of Brandenburg, and the
Swedes had nearly all Pomerania. Berlin had
been made to pay a ransom, and all my allies were
prisoners.
Rossbach saved me at the edge of the precipice,
and the affair of Breslau removed me further back
from it for a year.
In '58 the Russians had my kingdom in their
hands for three days: if I had unluckily yielded,
I should have been lost irretrievably.
At the end of '61, in the month of November,
Colberg being taken, the Russians were masters
of the road to Berlin; the Austrians with the
possession of Schweidnitz and Glatz could dispose
of Silesia; the French, with the occupation of
Hesse, shut me in on the side of Franconia; and
Marshal Daun had more than half of Saxony; I
scarcely had enough room for quartering my
troops.
Add to this situation the lack of money and
clothing for my troops, and, what is worse, the lack
of provisions. At this critical moment the Em-
press of Russia came to die. ^ If it had been I who
had frightened her into it, the thing could not have
happened more opportunely.
At the peace, like everyone, I made reforms,
but I did not follow the order of seniority. I dis-
missed all the officers whom I suspected of being
bad -- I have already told you that I had over-
' Peter III, an admirer of Frederick's, recalled the Russian
army directly the Empress Elizabeth died.
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? Frederick the Great 89
looked man^ things while campaigning, but I had
recorded on my tablets all their bad actions, and
when I no longer had any need of them, I made a
crime for them out of that which I had appeared to
treat as a petty trouble.
That is, approximately, my way of thinking
about the military, and the way in which I have
treated it. Now let us talk a little about pro-
visioning armies.
Provisioning is so legitimate, or, rather, so
necessary for an army, that it is impossible for the
latter to exist without the former, but it is a great
question how far one ought to occupy oneself
with it.
After mature reflection upon the subject, I have
made the following system. I have accustomed
my soldiers to do without bread, meat, and wine,
and I have allowed them to get their subsistence
from the peasants, and I have made no commis-
sariat except when I could not do otherwise.
Since everything was under the Administration,
every economy was to my profit. When a regi-
ment arrived at a town, the citizens were obliged
to support it for several days. I divided the
profits with my soldiers. I gave them three sous
and I kept back two, for the bread which they
had to take from my magazines.
When an army was advancing and it did with-
out bread for a day, it was so much profit to me.
By this arrangement I gained not only sometimes
as much as six weeks' provisions in a year, but
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? 90 The Confessions of
I could also risk forced marches, because I need
not fear that doing without bread for one or two
days would make the army complain.
When you raise the provisioning to a certain
level, you cannot move one step without great
difficulty, because, before making a move, you
have to think of provisioning. Whereas, when
the soldier is properly broken in, he himself be-
comes careful; he does not eat all he has, except
when he is sure of being newly provided for, and
by this means the general is much less harassed in
his operations.
I should never have been able to make the forced
marches which I have made, if I had not risked
one or two days' provisioning, and if my soldiers
had not been persuaded that one can live without
bread and meat.
You would not believe, my dear nephew, the
advantage which you have when an army is accus-
tomed to this uncertainty. The general need not
abuse it, but he can profit by it at moments which
are decisive.
In not paying serious attention, except in neces-
sary cases, to the provisioning of the soldier, the
air of importance which makes it so expensive is
eliminated.
I do not say, however, my dear nephew, that
you ought not to regard this matter as one of the
essentials, but you ought to know how to profit
by the moment for treating it with a sort of in-
difference.
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? Frederick the Great 91
I do not speak to you of Engineering or Artillery,
because, unfortunately, these two branches are
still in their infancy with us. We have not suf-
ficient resources to put them on a good footing.
You cannot, under any pretext whatever, dispense
with your presence at the head of your troops,
because two thirds of your soldiers could not be
inspired by any other influence except your
presence. Since your situation does not permit
you to have a well supplied army, you ought to be
present to profit by everything. It is following
out this principle that as soon as I have entered
any country I treat it as if I had conquered it.
I went through Franconia and the Cote de
Neuberg; in the contributions^ which I levied I
often took, in place of money, cloth, or shoes,
leather, flour, everything, down to peas and beans.
Everything is good, my dear nephew, when you
have a use to make of it. You ought not to be
under any illusion as to the past. Events have
made me great, more than my talents or my
forces.
The faults of the French founded my glory:
the corruption of the Russian generals kept it
up for some time, and the divisions between the
Austrian generals have nourished it to the end.
When you are lucky, the arms which are opposed
to you turn to your profit.
Without the armies of the Empire and Sweden
' The German army still levies contributions in kind as at
Ghent.
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? 92 Confessions of Frederick the Great
I should never have been able to shew mine. It
was a real God-send for me. I had thrown such
ridicule on these two nations that the soldiers who
had any feeling felt themselves dishonoured by-
serving them.
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? MORNING THE SEVENTH
CONCERNING FINANCE
NOTHING is so easy, my dear nephew, as to
put finance on an honest footing, and no-
thing renders it tolerable, except the tone which one
gives to it. It is in this that I find that my pre-
decessors have conceived very well in creating
the Land Courts. There you have a jurisdiction
which appears to have no other function than that
of adjusting the interests of the King and of his
subjects, whereas, in reaHty, it thinks only of the
former. For this reason, all the offices in any way
appertaining to it are regarded as necessary, and
it appears as if the financier had been overlooked
in favour of the man who is useful to the King.
My kingdom pays as much, in proportion, as
any other, and the taxes on it are very numerous,
since my revenues are derived from Crown Lands,
Woods, Mills, Subsidies, Tithes, Ferry-dues, Tolls,
Salt, Fisheries, Game-Hcences, Stamped-paper,
Stamp-Office and Registration of Deeds, Great and
Little Seals, Forfeiture of Estate, Taxes on Em-
ployment, Excise -- which includes the rights over
every kind of commodity in general, coming into
the towns, whether necessaries or luxuries, and
93
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? 94 The Confessions of
over all merchandise -- the duty of billeting soldiers,
the money for recruits, and finally, the men and
horses for the artillery.
In spite of this multiplication of taxes, which
are exacted with the utmost rigour, my subjects
do not complain, because everything is done in
my name, and care is taken to give to my repre-
sentatives a certain social position.
There are authors who have advanced the theory
that it is a part of kingly policy to farm out all
sources of revenue, because, by this means, the
hatred of the people is diverted to the collectors
(farmers) alone. But these authors have not
considered that the hatred recoils little by little
upon the protector of these agents.
For a true comprehension of finance, you should
read the Memorial prepared by the Royal Council
of my father, upon the demise of my grandfather.
The Memorial of the Council
The King enquires how, without overburdening his
subjects, he can extinguish a debt of thirty millions?
Finance is the Monster of the fable. In every State
contempt of it is a point of honour, yet in every State
it is the object of the greatest courtship and flattery.
This contradiction inflicts considerable wrong upon
the governing Princes.
We must discover the truth in everything, and to
this end let us examine this Monster.
What is Finance?
It is the collection of the revenues of a State, or else
the expenditure of these same revenues.
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must be ever considered as extraordinary.
Never ask faintly, but seem rather to demand.
If you have any cause of discontent given you,
reserve your revenge for the moment in which you
may obtain the most complete satisfaction, but
especially do not stand in fear of reprisals; your
glory will not suffer for it, it will only be so much
the worse for those of your subjects on whom
the damage may fall. It must, then, be your great
aim that all your neighbours should be persuaded
that you fear nothing, and that nothing can as-
tonish you.
Endeavour, above all things, to pass with them
for one of a dangerous cast of mind, who knows no
other principles but those that lead to military
fame. Manage so that they may be fully con-
vinced that you would sooner lose two kingdoms
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? Frederick the Great 73
than not play a part that may transmit you to
posterity. As these sentiments are those of a
soul above the common order, they strike, they
confound, the greatest part of mankind; and it
is this that, in truth, constitutes in the world the
greatest monarchs.
When a stranger comes to your court, overwhelm
him with civilities, and especially try to have
him always near you ; this will be the best way to
keep concealed from him the defects of your
government.
If he is a military man, let the exercise of your
regiments be performed before him, and let it be
yourself that commands them. If he is a wit who
has composed a work, let him see it lying on your
table, and talk to him of his talents. If he is in a
mercantile life, listen to him with affability, caress
him, and try to fix him in your country.
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? MORNING THE SIXTH
MILITARY
A CELEBRATED author has compared the
mihtary to mastiffs which ought to be
chained up carefully, and ought not to be loosed
except when necessary. The comparison is rather
strained, but, for all that, it will serve you, not as a
maxim, but as a warning.
You have been able to learn in the two cam-
paigns which you have made with me the spirit of
officer and soldier, and you have been able to per-
ceive that in general they are veritable machines,
with no other forward movement than that which
you give them.
You persuade these troops that they are superior
to those whom you oppose to them; a mere no-
thing makes them believe that they are weaker;
it is, however, these nothings which make the
glory or disgrace of a general.
Therefore apply yourself to get a good know-
ledge of the causes which produce them. I go
further, and say that it is the nothings which create
the enthusiasm, and if once you can confer it on
your army, you can count on victory.
I will not recall here that which you will have
74
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? Confessions of Frederick the Great 75
noticed in history, but remember only the Rus-
sians, and you will acknowledge that only inspired
beasts could stand being slaughtered like them.
My kingdom, by its nature, is military, and,
shortly speaking, it is only by its assistance that
you can hope to sustain and aggrandize your-
self. It is necessary, therefore, that your atten-
tion should always be fixed on this. But you
must take care that the military should not per-
ceive that they are your only resoiu"ce. When I
took over the reins of Government, I looked into
this to the bottom, and corrected it ; but it was not
without much trouble that I arrived at the goal
of my design, for your officer does not readily bend
to new regulations, above all when it touches his
own personal interest. You can judge of this by
two examples.
The captains had each a district (canton) for
recruiting. Every male infant who was born in
that canton was by right his captain's soldier, and
was registered as such from the cradle.
It is true that his father could buy him out,
but if that captain happened to die, the buying out
was annulled, and the infant became once more by
right the soldier of the new captain.
You understand well what authority this captain
exercised in this unhappy canton; he became its
tyrant.
During the lifetime of my father I was several
times offended with this, and when I became the
Master, I resolved to abolish such an oppression.
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? 76 The Confessions of
However, you must not offend the old soldiers who
know nothing but their routine, above all, when
it is advantageous to them.
I amassed proofs, therefore, and soon had more
than I wanted. They showed me, among others,
that Captain Colan, of the Regiment of Opo (in-
fantry), had drawn from his canton in ten years
more than fifty thousand crowns, and they made
me see that there was in general no captain who
did not derive a revenue of two thousand crowns
from the cotmtry under him.
Accordingly, I reformed this abuse, but, believe
me, most of my generals wished to prove to me
that it was a great advantage for me, because by
it one was surer of training a soldier as one wished,
and one knew his character from his infancy. And,
in fine, a thousand other like stupidities.
Believe me, also, that in spite of the most abso-
lute orders, there were majors who always went
this way, and that I was obliged to cashier two or
three who would not submit.
My father had a passion for tall men : he adored
the captains who got most of them : it was enough
for a soldier to be six feet two or three inches
for him to be allowed to do anything, and a captain
who had twenty of this height was sure to enjoy
the good graces of the King. From this sprang
a lax and very variable discipline, and a service
of parade.
As I did not have the same taste, I did not make
any exceptions. I wished the tall to be punished
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? Frederick the Great 77
in the same way as the short: I only took into
consideration the goodness of the soldier, and not
his height. This conduct displeased my officers
very much, as well as my giants. The former were
alarmed by the desertions, which, in truth, were
then considerable. Because the great statures
were not respected, they had even the effrontery
to tell me that a man of six feet two or three
inches deserved consideration, and ought not to be
subjected to ordinary discipHne. I asked them the
reason for it: they did not know what to reply:
in consequence of which the difference soon ceased
to exist.
You can see by these two examples how much
the particular interest is reckoned above the gen-
eral interest, and at the same time the attention
which you ought to pay to the representations
of the military, when you touch their pockets.
You must take great care, my dear nephew, not
to confuse the word discipline: it is a word which
can only draw its signification from the spirit of
the faculties and the situation in the state of
which you employ it. It means that each state
ought to have its special discipHne, and it is mad
for it to wish to adopt that of its neighbour. I
am going to make you understand this by my own
position.
A very wise regulation made by my father was
the foiindation of our modem discipline. Listen
to it well. Following this rule each captain is
obliged to have two thirds of his company foreign-
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? 78 The Confessions of
ers. But to make these foreigners feel more like
citizens, and to make their lot, which is really
rather an unhappy one, since they have no hope of
seeing it finish, pleasanter, we have thought that
we ought to bestow upon these poor people that
air of freedom and authority over the rest of man-
kind which they like to assume.
And in consequence we do not pay much atten-
tion to the little tricks which they play in the
garrisons: we grant them in this respect a sort
of independence which makes them forget their
misfortunes: they think themselves somebodies,
and this idea alone saves them from despair.
This discipline does not agree badly with my
subjects who are soldiers: by this means they
contract an advantageous idea of their trade, and
little by little they accustom themselves to regard
it as a profession.
We believe that discipline alone constitutes a
soldier. We are mistaken; it is oftener the tone
which we give him: I have proved this in my
recent wars, where I had not already done so in
my former wars.
The armies of the Empire and Sweden filled my
ranks every day, and these men had no sooner
donned my uniform than they were Prussians,
and in the first encounter one could only recognize
them by their singular valour. Discipline itself
must be subordinate to such circumstances, it
could not be so good if it was always equal.
When I commenced war my troops recognized
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? Frederick the Great 79
me, and most of my soldiers loved me, because I
paid them, fed them and entertained them well.
At the same time, I was severe, and expected my
orders to be executed with the utmost rigour; I
passed nothing, especially when they were under
arms.
After two campaigns I changed this severity for
pleasantness. I had nothing but deserters for
recruiting my army. I could neither pay them
nor feed them nor maintain them well. I was
obliged to pay them in debased money. It was
my belief that I ought to attach them to myself by
some means at some point. I tried to inspire
them with an air of jollity, and relaxed my hand on
marauding: I pretended not to mind when they
took the roof off a house to make their fires, and
I spared no effort to make them think well of
themselves; I shut my eyes to many small negli-
gences in their service; I only punished them
lightly. When a regiment played up a little too
much, I sent it to Saxony, and my brother Henry,
who was in the secret, put matters on a proper
footing, because his army was only engaged in
observation.
Your principal object, my dear nephew, ought
to be to create good officers and good generals,
so you ought to make a plan of discipline, and
still more, of conduct for them. Behold what I
have done up to the present in this line.
In time of peace as well as in time of war, I go
into the smallest details with them. Every officer
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? 8o The Confessions of
is under the belief that he is known to me person-
ally, and there is no general with whom I am not
in relation. Although they play the chief role in
my dominions, they are no more than the head
slaves. An officer and a general cannot leave his
post without proper permission; and if either did
leave it without my permission, it is a hanging
matter. By this means, when I have a valuable
man, I keep him always.
The most fortunate officers have three years of
misery and humiliation to go through (at the
beginning of their careers). Of misery because
they have wretched appointments, and of humilia-
tion because the discipline is terrible. To recom-
pense them, I make their lot very honourable when
they come to the higher ranks. But, even then,
they have no chance of retiring.
In the present war I have not named one of
them to a command, to a provincial governorship
or a headquarters' appointment which has fallen
vacant. To give my officers ambition, I give them
great distinction for brilliant performances. In
the battle of Rosbach I embraced a cavalry major
in the middle of the action, and I conferred the
Order of True Merit on an officer in the field. At
Dresden I sent my carriage for the lieutenant in
the Guards who had been wounded after having
attacked the same entrenchment four times. And
I gave him his company.
To inspire them with a contempt for death, I
had the famous ode of General Keith recited to
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? Frederick the Great 8i
them, and I had the libre avoitre preached to them
all through the war.
While I had the money I paid them well, and
when my resources were diminished, I debased the
coinage. But I overlooked some of the little
tricks which they played upon their hosts, when
times became harder, and I let them be witnesses
of my misfortimes; I gave them the idea that
their constancy was the only thing which could res-
cue us from our embarrassments, which have really
been very lamentable in the latest campaigns.
I do not know how I succeeded in reducing to
the greatest exactitude in the army those who
were regular bandits, and who had an air of the
greatest arrogance. I appeared to inspire them
with a way of thinking to suit the circumstances.
They were Arabs who crushed the country but won
the battles.
The same spirit animated, more or less, the
general officers: I closed my eyes to all the op-
pressions which they committed ; they worked for
me in working for themselves. In which way
it was necessary that we should live together.
Everyone told me that Major Keller, the Com-
mandant at Leipzig, was feathering his nest. I
knew it well, but other people did not know that
he was worth millions a year to me.
As one gets accustomed little by little to his
ease, and as one learns more and more how to live
well, I had generals who were not too anxious to
seek glory in the heat of the fray. I knew them
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? 82 The Confessions of
well, and I explained to them generally the neces-
sity of showing themselves well and confronting
the greatest dangers. I preached by shewing them
the way, and made two or three examples. From
this moment everybody was dauntless.
When you give a command, leave nothing to
be brought home by your generals: confer an air
of superiority always on the Profession of Arms.
But always attribute to your generals the disaster
of a battle, or the disastrous result of a campaign.
You have seen how I punished Le Kizel^ and
Fink^ for the surrender at Maxin, Zartroit^ for the
surrender at Schweidnitz, and Roule"* for having
advised the surrender of the citadel of Gratz. ^
In point of fact, none of these were their fault:
they were mine.
You are not, my dear nephew, in a position to
exercise a very rigorous discipline, and you are
obliged to avoid increasing the yoke; real men
are rare in your dominions, and foreigners cost too
much for you to take them. You need not alter
the administration of justice in your regiments,
but you should make the death penalty very rare.
Make your surgeons observe the same principles
as I have impressed upon them, with regard to
the arms and legs of your soldiers and your officers.
Do not demand from a subaltern anything more
than good routine, because you have no need for
^ A misspelling which cannot be identified. * Should be
FiNCK. 3 Should be Zastrow. * Should be Fouquet. s Should
be Glatz.
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? Frederick the Great 83
him to know anything more. But demand from
a higher officer genius and theory; and, above all,
make a point of not confusing details with great
principles, and especially make a great difference
between a good quartermaster and a great general,
because you can be one without being the other.
I am now coming to the point of my theories
about common soldiers and subaltern officers. It
is a question now of laying before your eyes the
ideas I have maintained in my recent campaigns.
When I saw that France, the Queen of Hungary
(Maria Theresa) and Russia were against me, I
abandoned half my dominions in order to concen-
trate and put myself in a condition to be able
to invade Saxony.
This manoeuvre was universally attributed to a
fine stroke of politics. It was really due to neces-
sity, because I should none the less have lost all
my dominions if I have been crushed in defending
them.
Before the commencement of the war I laid down
a system which I have never abandoned: I have
always hung on with the greatest obstinacy to
part of Saxony: and though I have been sur-
rounded on all sides, I have never been willing to
retire from this country, and I was well advised,
for I should have been lost without power of
recovery.
I know well that it is considered extraordinary
that I have allowed Berlin to be laid under contri-
bution twice, and that all the towns in my kingdom,
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? 84 The Confessions of
except five or six, have been taken. But every-
thing has been given back to me, as the price of
retiring from Saxony.
If you were to consult my subjects at the present
moment, I believe that you would find that the
enthusiasm is a little dwindled. I am persuaded
myself that they have long ago begun to reckon the
obligations of a prince to his subjects.
I had made the late war as a pupil. Marshal
d'Anhalt^ and Marshal de Schwerin gave battle;
I only figured in the battles. In this campaign
my amour propre had desired to play the leading
part. I had need of Marshal Schwerin ; I felt that
he was necessary; but I was jealous of his glory.
It is certain that if he had not been killed, I should
have been ungrateful.
People pay me, my dear nephew, a little more
honour than I deserve. For since his death I
have made several bad mistakes. I lost the battle
of Kollin and raised the siege of Prague quite un-
necessarily; I made a false move when I arrived
in Moravia, and Marshal Daun, like a good Gen-
eral, had secured Olmiitz before he left Vienna.
At Maxin I lost fifteen thousand men by pig-
headedness, and ignorance, because I did not see
that Marshal Daun had advanced with his army.
General Laudon profited by a false move which
I made to take me in the- flank at Schweidnitz;
I let him crush poor Fouquet before Glatz.
I should have lost the battle of Torgau if Mar-
* Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau -- the old Dessauer.
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? Frederick the Great 85
shal Daun had not been wounded, and the Russians
have beaten me three times out of four; I have
never been able to retake Dresden; and I have
been fifty-nine days in the open trenches before
Schweidnitz.
For all that, I am a general, and no one could
dispute that I have great abilities, for, if I have
lost battles, I have won them also, and I have
niade retreats which have won me infinite honour ;
I have discovered admirable expedients for extri-
cating myself from the most cruel embarrassments.
But, my dear nephew, what has saved me is my
desperateness and my vanity. I have preferred
to be buried under the ruins of my kingdom to
yielding, and it is my obstinacy which has worn
everyone out. A man can try this once, but if he
is wise he does not expose himself to it a second
time.
At present, while I am in cold blood, I see all my
glory vanishing in smoke; I have made a noise,
but what have I gained? Nothing! On the con-
trary, I have lost much since the election of the
King of the Romans has taken place.
You know the ambition of our house, and I
assure you that I shall die of grief if I do not
make the Empire pass to some Protestant Prince.
But what afflicts me most is the state of affairs
in my own dominions. When I compare the situa-
tion of my kingdom in '56 with its situation to-
day, I am confounded. I must lay it before you
in order that, in advance, you may come to the
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? 86 The Confessions of
resolution of sacrificing everything to re-establish
it.
Since '56 I have lost by fighting more than three
hundred thousand men. The population is de-
creased by more than one third, the number of
horses and other animals by more than a half;
the treasure accumulated by my father has been
consumed, and my coinage is debased by one
tenth. All the Provinces pay twice as heavily as
they did in '56, by the interest of the money which
they have been obliged to borrow for the contribu-
tions of which it is impossible for me to keep count.
I have no commerce outside of my kingdom,
because my money loses too much in exchange
abroad, and the bankruptcy of M. Donenville has
made me lose all my credit.
The majority of my magazines are empty, my
artillery is very bad, and I have very few muni-
tions of war left; it is this which determines me
to demolish most of my fortifications: for I am
no longer in a condition to put the places which
I have abandoned in a state of defence.
Otherwise, in a moment, if I were to come to
have war, it would be absolutely impossible for
me to guard them.
You see by this that you have no more than one
step to take to be ruined, and that would be to
undertake a new war, for however glorious it might
be for you, it would crush you.
The only way of re-establishing yourself is to
make an alliance with England to pay you heavy
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? Frederick the Great 87
subsidies to conduct the campaign, and to keep
within your borders as long as possible.
It would not be a question of waging an offensive
war; you would no longer be in a condition to
reassemble large armies, because you could not
supply them either with provisions or with muni-
tions of war. It would only, therefore, be in the
last extremity that you ought to advance.
In what situation would you find yourself, if
your dominions were once more the prey of the
enemy? How would your dominions pay in the
future the interest on the contributions they had
borrowed? To what extent would your people
not suffer, and how far would the deficiency in
animals not go?
As for me, I cannot resist the sad ideas which
this picture presents to me. I know the reputa-
tion which I bear throughout Europe, of loving
war, and I confess that it is my passion, but I
know its calamities, and I yield to the evidence.
It is not possible to do this, because I should risk
the entire ruin of my dominions.
I pretend to be wicked, but I do it to impose
on others. One is not lucky twice, or, to put it
better, fortune becomes greedy when one demands
too much. She would certainly not be sufficiently
generous to rescue our house a second time from
the abyss in which it found itself in '57 and '61.
In '57, in the month of October, the French
were at the gates of Magdeburg; the Austrians
had Schweidnitz and Breslau, the Russians had
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? 88 The Confessions of
all Prussia, and part of Brandenburg, and the
Swedes had nearly all Pomerania. Berlin had
been made to pay a ransom, and all my allies were
prisoners.
Rossbach saved me at the edge of the precipice,
and the affair of Breslau removed me further back
from it for a year.
In '58 the Russians had my kingdom in their
hands for three days: if I had unluckily yielded,
I should have been lost irretrievably.
At the end of '61, in the month of November,
Colberg being taken, the Russians were masters
of the road to Berlin; the Austrians with the
possession of Schweidnitz and Glatz could dispose
of Silesia; the French, with the occupation of
Hesse, shut me in on the side of Franconia; and
Marshal Daun had more than half of Saxony; I
scarcely had enough room for quartering my
troops.
Add to this situation the lack of money and
clothing for my troops, and, what is worse, the lack
of provisions. At this critical moment the Em-
press of Russia came to die. ^ If it had been I who
had frightened her into it, the thing could not have
happened more opportunely.
At the peace, like everyone, I made reforms,
but I did not follow the order of seniority. I dis-
missed all the officers whom I suspected of being
bad -- I have already told you that I had over-
' Peter III, an admirer of Frederick's, recalled the Russian
army directly the Empress Elizabeth died.
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? Frederick the Great 89
looked man^ things while campaigning, but I had
recorded on my tablets all their bad actions, and
when I no longer had any need of them, I made a
crime for them out of that which I had appeared to
treat as a petty trouble.
That is, approximately, my way of thinking
about the military, and the way in which I have
treated it. Now let us talk a little about pro-
visioning armies.
Provisioning is so legitimate, or, rather, so
necessary for an army, that it is impossible for the
latter to exist without the former, but it is a great
question how far one ought to occupy oneself
with it.
After mature reflection upon the subject, I have
made the following system. I have accustomed
my soldiers to do without bread, meat, and wine,
and I have allowed them to get their subsistence
from the peasants, and I have made no commis-
sariat except when I could not do otherwise.
Since everything was under the Administration,
every economy was to my profit. When a regi-
ment arrived at a town, the citizens were obliged
to support it for several days. I divided the
profits with my soldiers. I gave them three sous
and I kept back two, for the bread which they
had to take from my magazines.
When an army was advancing and it did with-
out bread for a day, it was so much profit to me.
By this arrangement I gained not only sometimes
as much as six weeks' provisions in a year, but
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? 90 The Confessions of
I could also risk forced marches, because I need
not fear that doing without bread for one or two
days would make the army complain.
When you raise the provisioning to a certain
level, you cannot move one step without great
difficulty, because, before making a move, you
have to think of provisioning. Whereas, when
the soldier is properly broken in, he himself be-
comes careful; he does not eat all he has, except
when he is sure of being newly provided for, and
by this means the general is much less harassed in
his operations.
I should never have been able to make the forced
marches which I have made, if I had not risked
one or two days' provisioning, and if my soldiers
had not been persuaded that one can live without
bread and meat.
You would not believe, my dear nephew, the
advantage which you have when an army is accus-
tomed to this uncertainty. The general need not
abuse it, but he can profit by it at moments which
are decisive.
In not paying serious attention, except in neces-
sary cases, to the provisioning of the soldier, the
air of importance which makes it so expensive is
eliminated.
I do not say, however, my dear nephew, that
you ought not to regard this matter as one of the
essentials, but you ought to know how to profit
by the moment for treating it with a sort of in-
difference.
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? Frederick the Great 91
I do not speak to you of Engineering or Artillery,
because, unfortunately, these two branches are
still in their infancy with us. We have not suf-
ficient resources to put them on a good footing.
You cannot, under any pretext whatever, dispense
with your presence at the head of your troops,
because two thirds of your soldiers could not be
inspired by any other influence except your
presence. Since your situation does not permit
you to have a well supplied army, you ought to be
present to profit by everything. It is following
out this principle that as soon as I have entered
any country I treat it as if I had conquered it.
I went through Franconia and the Cote de
Neuberg; in the contributions^ which I levied I
often took, in place of money, cloth, or shoes,
leather, flour, everything, down to peas and beans.
Everything is good, my dear nephew, when you
have a use to make of it. You ought not to be
under any illusion as to the past. Events have
made me great, more than my talents or my
forces.
The faults of the French founded my glory:
the corruption of the Russian generals kept it
up for some time, and the divisions between the
Austrian generals have nourished it to the end.
When you are lucky, the arms which are opposed
to you turn to your profit.
Without the armies of the Empire and Sweden
' The German army still levies contributions in kind as at
Ghent.
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? 92 Confessions of Frederick the Great
I should never have been able to shew mine. It
was a real God-send for me. I had thrown such
ridicule on these two nations that the soldiers who
had any feeling felt themselves dishonoured by-
serving them.
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? MORNING THE SEVENTH
CONCERNING FINANCE
NOTHING is so easy, my dear nephew, as to
put finance on an honest footing, and no-
thing renders it tolerable, except the tone which one
gives to it. It is in this that I find that my pre-
decessors have conceived very well in creating
the Land Courts. There you have a jurisdiction
which appears to have no other function than that
of adjusting the interests of the King and of his
subjects, whereas, in reaHty, it thinks only of the
former. For this reason, all the offices in any way
appertaining to it are regarded as necessary, and
it appears as if the financier had been overlooked
in favour of the man who is useful to the King.
My kingdom pays as much, in proportion, as
any other, and the taxes on it are very numerous,
since my revenues are derived from Crown Lands,
Woods, Mills, Subsidies, Tithes, Ferry-dues, Tolls,
Salt, Fisheries, Game-Hcences, Stamped-paper,
Stamp-Office and Registration of Deeds, Great and
Little Seals, Forfeiture of Estate, Taxes on Em-
ployment, Excise -- which includes the rights over
every kind of commodity in general, coming into
the towns, whether necessaries or luxuries, and
93
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? 94 The Confessions of
over all merchandise -- the duty of billeting soldiers,
the money for recruits, and finally, the men and
horses for the artillery.
In spite of this multiplication of taxes, which
are exacted with the utmost rigour, my subjects
do not complain, because everything is done in
my name, and care is taken to give to my repre-
sentatives a certain social position.
There are authors who have advanced the theory
that it is a part of kingly policy to farm out all
sources of revenue, because, by this means, the
hatred of the people is diverted to the collectors
(farmers) alone. But these authors have not
considered that the hatred recoils little by little
upon the protector of these agents.
For a true comprehension of finance, you should
read the Memorial prepared by the Royal Council
of my father, upon the demise of my grandfather.
The Memorial of the Council
The King enquires how, without overburdening his
subjects, he can extinguish a debt of thirty millions?
Finance is the Monster of the fable. In every State
contempt of it is a point of honour, yet in every State
it is the object of the greatest courtship and flattery.
This contradiction inflicts considerable wrong upon
the governing Princes.
We must discover the truth in everything, and to
this end let us examine this Monster.
What is Finance?
It is the collection of the revenues of a State, or else
the expenditure of these same revenues.
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