Chapter XIII

Sweden severed, Persia and Turkey conquered, Poland subjugated, our armies united, the Black and Baltic Seas guarded by our vessels, you must make propositions separately and discreetly—first to the Court of Versailles, then to that of Vienna, to share with them the Empire of the Universe.

If one of them accept—and it cannot be otherwise, so as you flatter their pride and ambition—make use of it to crush the other—then crush, in its turn, the surviving one, by engaging with it in a death-struggle; the issue of which cannot be doubtful, Russia possessing already all the East and a great part of Europe.