This
Construction Of The Prince Gallitzin Has Contributed To Fill The Grosser
Garten With The Beau Monde, Every Day From Twelve To Two O'clock; So
That You See We Are In No Want Of Amusements At Dresden.
The King frequently attends the theatre; he is a tall, fine looking man,
and is usually dressed in the uniform of his Foot-Guards, which is scarlet
faced with yellow.
The poor King has taken much to heart the injustice with
which he has been treated by the coalition, and no doubt will not easily
forget the ill-bred and insolent letter of Castlereagh to the Congress,
wherein he said that the King of Saxony deserved to lose his dominions for
adhering to Napoleon. But how the King of Saxony could act otherwise I am
at a loss to find: so little could he possibly deserve this treatment for
adhering to Napoleon, that had his advice been taken in the year 1805, the
French would never have been able to extend their conquests so far, nor to
dictate laws to Germany. But Lord Castlereagh seems to have either never
known or wilfully forgotten the anterior political conduct of Saxony. Had
he been more versed in German affairs, or had studied with more accuracy
the events passing before his eyes, it would have been a check upon his
arrogance; but here was a genuine disciple of the Pitt school (that school
of ignorance and insolence), who sets himself up as the moral regenerator
of nations and as a distributor of provinces, while he is grossly ignorant
of the political system of the country on whose destinies he pretends to
decide so peremptorily. Had Castlereagh paid attention to what was going
forward in Germany in 1805, he would have seen too that of all powers
Prussia was the very last who with any shadow of justice could pretend
to an indemnification at the expense of Saxony. In the year 1805, the King,
then Elector of Saxony, strongly advised the Prussian Cabinet to forget its
ancient rivalry and jealousy of Austria and to coalesce with the latter
power, in resisting the encroachments of Napoleon, in order to prevent the
latter from attempting the overthrow of the whole fabric of the
constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, with the intricacy and fragility of
which no prince in Germany was better acquainted than the Elector of
Saxony. Prussia however was still reluctant to engage in the contest and
gave no support whatever to Austria. Napoleon defeats the Austrians at
Austerlitz and dictates peace. Six months after the Prussian Cabinet,
excited by a patriotic but rash and ill-calculating party, has recourse to
arms, not from any generous policy, but because she sees herself outwitted
by Napoleon, who refuses to cede to her Hanover in perpetuity. Prussia
begins the war and calls on Saxony, who always moved in her orbit, to join
her. To the Elector of Saxony this war (in 1806) appeared then ill-timed
and too late; but with that good faith, nevertheless, which invariably
characterized him, he remained faithful to his engagement and furnished his
quota of troops to Prussia.
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