History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 18

on him from different points. In the field, 150,000 soldiers, probably the best that ever were; and in garrison, up and down (his Country being, by nature, the least defensible of all Countries), near 40,000, which he reckons of inferior quality. So stands the account. [Stenzel, iv. 308, 306, v. 39; Ranke, iii. 415; Preuss, ii, 389, 43, 124; &c. &c.;-- substantially true, I doubt not; but little or nothing of it so definite and conclusively distinct as it ought, in all items, to have been by this time,--had poor Dryasdust known what he was doing.] These are, arithmetically precise, his resources,--PLUS only what may lie in his own head and heart, or funded in the other heads and hearts, especially in those 150,000, which he and his Fathers have been diligently disciplining, to good perfection, for four centuries come the time.

France, urged by Pompadour and the enthusiasms, was first in the field. The French Army, in superb equipment, though privately in poorish state of discipline, took the road e