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+Project Gutenberg's Etext History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 17
+#23 in our series by Thomas Carlyle
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+History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 1x
+
+by Thomas Carlyle
+
+March, 2000  [Etext #2117]
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Etext History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 17
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+Prepared by D.R. Thompson <drthom@ihug.co.nz>
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+
+Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia"
+
+Book XVII
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN-YEARS WAR: FIRST CAMPAIGN.
+
+1756-1757.
+
+Chapter I.
+
+WHAT FRIEDRICH HAD READ IN THE MENZEL DOCUMENTS.
+
+The ill-informed world, entirely unaware of what Friedrich had been
+studying and ascertaining, to his bitter sorrow, for four years
+past, was extremely astonished at the part he took in those French-
+English troubles; extremely provoked at his breaking out again into
+a Third Silesian War, greater than all the others, and kindling all
+Europe in such a way. The ill-informed world rang violently, then
+and long after, with a Controversy, "Was it of his beginning, or
+Not of his beginning?" Controversy, which may in our day be
+considered as settled by unanimous mankind; finished forever;
+and can now have no interest for any creature.
+ 
+Omitting that, our problem is (were it possible in brief compass),
+To set forth, by what authentic traits there are,--not the
+"ambitious," "audacious," voracious and highly condemnable
+Friedrich of the Gazetteers,--but the thrice-intricately situated
+Friedrich of Fact. What the Facts privately known to Friedrich
+were, in what manner known; and how, in a more complex crisis than
+had yet been, Friedrich demeaned himself: upon which latter point,
+and those cognate to it, readers ought not to be ignorant, if now
+fallen indifferent on so many other points of the Affair. What a
+loud-roaring, loose and empty matter is this tornado of
+vociferation which men call "Public Opinion"! Tragically howling
+round a man; who has to stand silent the while; and scan, wisely
+under pain of death, the altogether inarticulate, dumb and
+inexorable matter which the gods call Fact! Friedrich did read his
+terrible Sphinx-riddle; the Gazetteer tornado did pipe and blow.
+King Friedrich, in contrast with his Environment at that time, will
+most likely never be portrayed to modern men in his real
+proportions, real aspect and attitude then and there,--which are
+silently not a little heroic and even pathetic, when well seen
+into;--and, for certain, he is not portrayable at present, on our
+side of the Sea. But what hints and fractions of feature we
+authentically have, ought to be given with exactitude, especially
+with brevity, and left to the ingenuous imagination of readers.
+
+The secret sources of the Third Silesian War, since called "Seven-
+Years War," go back to 1745; nay, we may say, to the First Invasion
+of Silesia in 1740. For it was in Maria Theresa's incurable sorrow
+at loss of Silesia, and her inextinguishable hope to reconquer it,
+that this and all Friedrich's other Wars had their origin.
+Twice she had signed Peace with Friedrich, and solemnly ceded
+Silesia to him: but that too, with the Imperial Lady, was by no
+means a finis to the business. Not that she meant to break her
+Treaties; far from her such a thought,--in the conscious form.
+Though, alas, in the unconscious, again, it was always rather near!
+practically, she reckoned to herself, these Treaties would come to
+be broken, as Treaties do not endure forever; and then, at the good
+moment, she did purpose to be ready. "Silesia back to us; Pragmatic
+Sanction complete in every point! Was not that our dear Father's
+will, monition of all our Fathers and their Patriotisms and
+Traditionary Heroisms; and in fact, the behest of gods and men?"
+Ten years ago, this notion had been cut down to apparent death, in
+a disastrous manner, for the second time. But it did not die in the
+least: it never thinks of dying; starts always anew, passionate to
+produce itself again as action valid at last; and lives in the
+Imperial Heart with a tenacity that is strange to observe.
+Still stranger, in the envious Valet-Heart,--in that of Bruhl, who
+had far less cause!
+
+ 
+The Peace of Dresden, Christmas, 1745, seemed to be an act of
+considerable magnanimity on Friedrich's part. It was, at the first
+blush of it, "incredible" to Harrach, the Austrian Plenipotentiary;
+whose embarrassed, astonished bow we remember on that occasion,
+with English Villiers shedding pious tears. But what is very
+remarkable withal is a thing since discovered: [INFRA, next Note
+(p. 276).] That Harrach, magnanimous signature hardly yet dry, did
+then straightway, by order of his Court, very privately inquire of
+Bruhl, "There is Peace, you see; what they call Peace:--but our
+TREATY OF WARSAW, for Partition of this magnanimous man, stands all
+the same; does n't it?" To which, according to the Documents,
+Bruhl, hardly escaped from the pangs of death, and still in a very
+pale-yellow condition, had answered in effect, "Hah, say you so?
+One's hatred is eternal;--but that man's iron heel! Wait a little;
+get Russia to join in the scheme!"--and hung back; the willing
+mind, but the too terrified! And in this way, like a famishing dog
+in sight of a too dangerous leg of mutton, Bruhl has ever since
+rather held back; would not re-engage at all, for almost two years,
+even on the Czarina's engaging; and then only in a cautious,
+conditional and hypothetic manner,--though with famine increasing
+day by day in sight of the desired viands. His hatred is fell;
+but he would fain escape with back unbroken.
+
+
+HOW FRIEDRICH DISCOVERED THE MYSTERY. CONCERNING MENZEL
+AND WEINGARTEN.
+
+Friedrich has been aware of this mystery, at least wide awake to it
+and becoming ever more instructed, for almost four years.
+Traitor Menzel the Saxon Kanzellist--we, who have prophetically
+read what he had to confess when laid hold of, are aware, though as
+yet, and on to 1757, it is a dead secret to all mortals but himself
+and "three others"--has been busy for Prussia ever since "the end
+of 1752." Got admittance to the Presses; sent his first Excerpt
+"about the time of Easter-Fair, 1753,"--time of Voltaire's taking
+wing. And has been at work ever since. Copying Despatches from the
+most secret Saxon Repositories; ready always on Excellency
+Mahlzahn's indicating the Piece wanted; and of late, I should
+think, is busier than ever, as the Saxon Mystery, which is also an
+Austrian and Russian one, gets more light thrown into it, and seems
+to be fast ripening towards action of a perilous nature. The first
+Excerpts furnished by Menzel, readers can judge how enigmatic they
+were. These Menzel Papers, copies mainly of Petersburg or Vienna
+DESPATCHES to Bruhl, with Bruhl's ANSWERS,--the principal of which
+were subsequently printed in their best arrangement and liveliest
+point of vision [In Friedrich's Manifestoes, chiefly in MEMOIRE
+RAISONNE SUR LA CONDUITE DES COURS DE VIENNE ET DE SAXE (compiled
+from the MENZEL ORIGINALS, so soon as these were got hold of:
+Berlin, Autumn, 1756). A solid and able Paper; rapidly done, by one
+Count Herzberg, who rose high in after times. Reprinted, with many
+other "Pieces" and "Passages," in <italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten
+und Urkunden, <end italic>--which is a "Collection" of such
+(2 vols., 113 Nos. small 8vo, no Place, 1757, my Copy of it).]--are
+by no means a luminous set of Documents to readers at this day.
+Think what a study they were at Potsdam in 1753, while still in the
+chaotic state; fished out, more or less at random, as Menzel could
+lay hold of them, or be directed to them; the enigma clearing
+itself only by intense inspection, and capability of seeing in
+the dark!
+
+It appears,--if you are curious on the anecdotic part,--
+
+"Winterfeld was the first that got eye on this dangerous Saxon
+Mystery; some Ex-Saxon, about to settle in Berlin, giving hint of
+it to Winterfeld; who needed only a hint. So soon as Winterfeld
+convinced himself that there was weight in the affair, he imparted
+it to Friedrich: 'Scheme of partitioning, your Majesty, of picking
+quarrel, then overwhelming and partitioning; most serious scheme,
+Austrian-Russian as well as Saxon; going on steadily for years
+past, and very lively at this time!' If true, Friedrich cannot but
+admit that this is serious enough: important, thrice over, to
+discover whether it is true;--and gives Winterfeld authority to
+prosecute it to the bottom, in Dresden or wherever the secret may
+lie. Who thereupon charged Mahlzahn, the Prussian Minister   at
+Dresden, to find some proper Menzel, and bestir himself.
+How Mahlzahn has found his Menzel, and has bestirred himself, we
+saw. Thief-keys were made to pattern in Berlin; first set did not
+fit, second did; and stealthy Menzel gains admittance to that
+Chamber of the Archives, can steal thither on shoes of felt when
+occasion serves, and copy what you wish,--for a consideration.
+Intermittently, since about Easter-Fair, 1753. Three persons are
+cognizant of it, Winterfeld, Mahlzahn, Friedrich; three, and no
+more. Probably the abstrusest study; and the most intense, going on
+in the world at that epoch. [Rotzow, <italic> Charakteristik des
+Siebenjahrigen Krieges <end italic> (Berlin, 1802), i. 23.]
+
+"At a very early stage of the Menzel Excerpts it became manifest
+that certain synchronous Austrian Ditto would prove highly
+elucidative; that, in fact, it would be indispensable to get hold
+of these as well. Which also Winterfeld has managed to do. A deep-
+headed man, who has his eyes about him; and is very apt to manage
+what he undertakes. One Weingarten Junior, a Secretary in the
+Austrian Embassy at Berlin (Excellency Peubla's second Secretary),
+has his acquaintanceships in Berlin Society; and for one thing, as
+Winterfeld discovers, is 'madly in love' with some Chambermaid or
+quasi-chambermaid (let us call her Chambermaid), 'Daughter of the
+Castellan at Charlottenburg.' Winterfeld, through the due channels,
+applied to this Chambermaid, 'Get me a small secret Copy of such
+and such Despatches, out of your Weingarten; it will be well for
+you and him; otherwise perhaps not well!' Chambermaid, hope urging,
+or perhaps hope and fear, did her best; Weingarten had to yield the
+required product and products, as required. By this Weingarten,
+from some date not long after Menzel's first mysterious Dresden
+Excerpts, the necessary Austrian glosses, so far as possible to
+Weingarten on the indications given him, have been regularly had,
+for the two or three years past.
+
+"Weingarten first came to be seriously suspected June, 1756
+(Weingarten Junior, let us still say, for there was a Senior of
+unstained fidelity); 'June 15th,' Excellency Peubla pointedly
+demands him from Friedrich and the Berlin Police:
+'Weingarten Junior, my SECOND Secretar, fugitive and traitor;
+hidden somewhere!' ["BERLIN, 22d JUNE: Every research making for
+Mr. Weingatten,--in vain hitherto" (<italic> Gentleman's Magazine,
+<end italic> xxvi., i. e. for 1756, p. 363).] Excellency Peubla is
+answered, 24th June: 'We would so fain catch him, if we could!
+We have tried at Stendal,--not there: tried his Mother-in-law;
+knows nothing: have forborne laying up his poor Wife and Children;
+and hope her Imperial Majesty will have pity on that poor creature,
+who is fallen so miserable.' [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end
+italic> iii. 713.] So that Excellency Peubla had nothing for it but
+to compose himself; to honor the unstainable fidelity of Weingarten
+Senior by a public piece of promotion, which soon ensued; and let
+the Junior run. Weingarten Junior, on the first suspicion, had
+vanished with due promptitude,--was not to be unearthed again.
+We perceive he has married his Charlottenburg Beauty, and there are
+helpless babies. It seems, he lived long years after, in the
+Altmark, as a Herr von Weiss,'--his reflections manifold, but
+unknown. [Retzow, i. 37.] What is much notabler, Cogniazzo, the
+Austrian Veteran, heard Weingarten's MASTER, Graf von Peubla, talk
+of the 'GRAND MYSTERE,' soon after, and how Friedrich had heard of
+it, not from Weingarten alone, but from Gross-Furst PETER, Russian
+Heir-Apparent! [Cogniazzo, i. 225.]
+
+"As to Menzel, he did not get away. Menzel, as we saw, lasted in
+free activity till 1757; and was then put under lock and key.
+Was not hanged; sat prisoner for twenty-seven years after;
+overgrown with hair, legs and arms chained together, heavy iron bar
+uniting both ankles; diet bread-and-water;--for the rest, healthy;
+and died, not very miserable it is said, in 1784. Shocking
+traitors, Weingarten and he."
+
+Yes, a diabolical pair, they, sure enough:--and the thing they
+betrayed against their Masters, was that a celestial thing?
+Servants of the Devil do fall out; and Servants not of the Devil
+are fain, sometimes, to raise a quarrel of that kind!--
+
+The then world, as we said, was one loud uproar of logic on the
+right reading and the wrong of those Sibylline Documents: "Did your
+King of Prussia interpret them aright, or even try it? Did not he
+use them as a cloak for highway robbery, and swallowing of a
+peaceable Saxony, bad man that he surely is?" For Friedrich's
+demeanor, this time again, when it came to the acting point, was of
+eminent rapidity; almost a swifter lion-spring than ever; and it
+brought on him, in the aerial or vocal way, its usual result:
+huge clamor of rage and logic from uninformed mankind.
+Clamorous rage and logic, which has now sunk irresuscitably dead;--
+nothing of it much worth mentioning to modern readers, scarcely
+even its HIC JACET (in Footnotes, for the benefit of the
+curious!),--and it is, at last, a thing not doubtful to anybody
+that Friedrich, in that matter did read aright. So that now the
+loud uproar is reduced to one small question with us, What did he
+read in those Menzel Documents? What Fact lying in them was it that
+Friedrich had to read? Here, smelted down by repeated roastings, is
+succinct answer;--for the ultimate fragment of incombustible here
+as elsewhere, will go into a nutshell, once the continents of
+Diplomatist-Gazetteer logic and disorderly stable-litter,
+threatening to heap themselves over the very stars, have been
+faithfully burnt away.
+
+Readers heard of a "Union of Warsaw," early in 1745, concluded by
+the Sea-Powers and the Saxon-Polish and Hungarian Majesties:
+very harmless UNION of Warsaw, public to all the world,--but with a
+certain thrice-secret "TREATY of Warsaw" (between Polish and
+Hungarian Majesty themselves two, the Sea-Powers being horror-
+struck by mention of it) which had followed thereupon, in an eager
+and wonderful manner. Thrice-secret Treaty, for Partitioning
+Friedrich, and settling the respective shares of his skin.
+Treaty which, to denote its origin, we called of Warsaw; though it
+was not finished there (shares of skin so difficult to settle), and
+"Treaty of LEIPZIG, 18th May, 1745," is its ALIAS in Books:--of
+which Treaty, as the Sea-Powers had recoiled horror-struck, there
+was no whisper farther, to them or to the rest of exoteric
+mankind;--though it has been one of the busiest Entities ever
+since. From the Menzel Documents, I know not after what circuitous
+gropings and searchings, Friedrich first got notice of that Treaty:
+[Now printed in <italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> iv.
+40-42.] figure his look on discovering it!
+
+We said it was the remarkablest bit of sheepskin in its Century.
+Readers have heard too, That it was proposed to Bruhl, by a
+grateful Austria, directly on signing the Peace of Dresden:
+"Our Partition-Treaty stands all the same, does it not?"--and in
+what humor Bruhl answered: "Hah? Get Russia to join!" Both these
+facts, That there is a Treaty of Warsaw and that this is the
+Austrian-Saxon temper and intention towards him and it, Friedrich
+learned from the Menzel Documents. And if the reader will possess
+himself of these two facts, and understand that they are of a
+germinative, most vital quality, indestructible by the times and
+the chances; and have been growing and developing themselves, day
+and night ever since, in a truly wonderful manner,--the reader
+knows in substance what Menzel had to reveal.
+
+Russia was got to join;--there are methods of operating on Russia,
+and kindling a poor fat Czarina into strange suspicions and
+indignations. In May, 1746, within six months of the Peace of
+Dresden, a Treaty of Petersburg, new version of the Warsaw one, was
+brought to parchment; Czarina and Empress-Queen signing,--Bruhl
+dying to sign, but not daring. How Russia has been got to join, and
+more and more vigorously bear a hand; how Bruhl's rabidities of
+appetite, and terrors of heart, have continued ever since;
+how Austria and Russia,--Bruhl aiding with hysterical alacrity,
+haunted by terror (and at last mercifully EXCUSED from signing),--
+have, year after year, especially in this last year, 1755, brought
+the matter nearer and nearer perfection; and the Two Imperial
+Majesties, with Bruhl to rear, wait only till they are fully ready,
+and the world gives opportunity, to pick a quarrel with Friedrich,
+and overwhelm and partition him, according to covenant:
+This, wandering through endless mazes of detail, is in sum what the
+Menzel Documents disclose to Friedrich and us. How, in a space of
+ten years, the small seed-grain of a Treaty of Warsaw, or Treaty of
+Petersburg, planted and nourished in that manner, in the Satan's
+Invisible World, has grown into a mighty Tree there,--prophetic of
+Facts near at hand; which were extremely sanguinary to the Human
+Race for the next Seven Years.
+
+This is the sum-total: but for Friedrich's sake, and to illustrate
+the situation, let us take a few glances more, into the then
+Satan's Invisible World, which had become so ominously busy round
+Friedrich and others. The Czarina, we say, was got to engage;
+22d May, 1746, there came a Treaty of Petersburg duly valid, which
+is that of Warsaw under a new name: and still Bruhl durst not, for
+above a year coming,--not till August 15th, 1747; [MEMOIRE RAISONNE
+(in <italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten <end italic>), i. 459.] and
+then, only in a hypothetic half-and-half way, with fear and
+trembling, though with hunger unspeakable, in sight of the viands. 
+A very wretched Bruhl, as seen in these Menzel Documents. On poor
+Polish Majesty Bruhl has played the sorcerer, this long while, and
+ridden him as he would an enchanted quadruped, in a shameful
+manner: but how, in turn (as we study Menzel), is Bruhl himself
+hagridden, hunted by his own devils, and leads such a ghastly
+phantasmal existence yonder, in the Valley of the Shadow of
+CLOTHES,--mere Clothes, metaphorical and literal! ["MONTREZ-MOI DES
+VERTUS, PAS DES CULOTTES (Have you no virtues then to show me;
+nothing but pain of breeches)!" exclaimed an impatient French
+Traveller, led about in Bruhl's Palace one day: Archenholtz,
+<italic> Geschichte des Siebenjahrigen Krieges, <end italic>
+i. 63.] Wretched Bruhl, agitated with hatreds of a rather infernal
+nature, and with terrors of a not celestial, comes out on our
+sympathies, as a dog almost pitiable,--were that possible, with
+twelve tailors sewing for him, and a Saxony getting shoved over the
+precipices by him.
+
+A famishing dog in the most singular situation. What he dare do, he
+does, and with such a will. But there is almost only one thing safe
+to him: that of egging on the Czarina against Friedrich; of coining
+lies to kindle Czarish Majesty; of wafting on every wind rumors to
+that end, and continually besieging with them the empty Czarish
+mind. Bruhl has many Conduits, "the Sieur de Funck," "the Sieur
+Gross" plenty of Legationary Sieurs and Conduits;--which issue from
+all quarters on Petersburg, and which find there a Reservoir, and
+due Russian SERVICE-PIPES, prepared for them;--and Bruhl is busy.
+"Commerce of Dantzig to be ruined," suggests he, "that is plain:
+look at his Asiatic Companies, his Port of Embden. Poland is to be
+stirred up;--has not your Czarish Majesty heard of his intrigues
+there? Courland, which is almost become your Majesty's--cunningly
+snatched by your Majesty's address, like a valuable moribund whale
+adrift among the shallows,--this bad man will have it out to sea
+again, with the harpoons in it; fairly afloat amid the Polish
+Anarchies again!" These are but specimens of Bruhl. Or we can give
+such in Bruhl's own words, if the reader had rather. Here are Two,
+which have the advantage of brevity:--
+
+1. ... The Sieur de Funck, Saxon Minister at Petersburg, wrote to
+Count Bruhl, 9th July, 1755 (says an inexorable Record),
+  "That the Sieur Gross [now Minister of Russia at Dresden, who
+vanished out of Berlin like an angry sky-rocket some years ago]
+would do a good service to the Common Cause, if he wrote to his
+Court, 'That the King of Prussia had found a channel in Courland,
+by which he learned all the secrets of the Russian Court;'"
+and Sieur Funck added, "that it was expected good use could be made
+of such a story with her Czarish Majesty."--To which Count Bruhl
+replies, 23d July, "That he has instructed the Sieur Gross, who
+will not fail to act in consequence."
+
+2. Sieur Prasse, same Funck's Secretary of Legation, at Petersburg,
+writes to Count Bruhl, 12th April, 1756:--
+  "I am bidden signify to your Excellency that it is greatly
+wished, in order to favor certain views, you would have the
+goodness to cause arrive in Petersburg, by different channels, the
+following intelligence: 'That the King of Prussia, on pretext of
+Commerce, is sending officers and engineers into the Ukraine, to
+reconnoitre the Country and excite a rebellion there.' And this
+advice, be pleased to observe, is not to come direct from the Saxon
+Court, nor by the Envoy Gross, but by some third party,--to the end
+there may be no concert noticed;--as they [L'ON, the "service-
+pipes," and managing Excellencies, Russian and Austrian] have given
+the same commission to other Ministers, so that the news shall come
+from more places than one.
+
+"They [the said managing Excellencies] have also required me to
+write to the Baron de Sack," our Saxon Minister in Sweden, "upon
+it, which I will not fail to do; and they assured me that our
+Court's advantage was not less concerned in it than that of their
+own; adding these words [comfortable to one's soul], 'The King of
+Prussia [in 1745] gave Saxony a blow which it will feel for fifty
+years; but we will give him one which he will feel for a hundred.'"
+
+To which beautiful suggestion Excellency Bruhl answers, 2d June,
+1756: "As to the Secret Commission of conveying to Petersburg, by
+concealed channels, Intelligence of Prussian machinations in the
+Ukraine, we are still busy finding out a right channel; and they
+[L'ON, the managing Excellencies] shall very soon, one way or the
+other, see the effect of my personal inclination to second what is
+so good an intention, though a little artful (UN PEU ARTIFICIEUSE,"
+--UN PEU, nothing to speak of)! [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in <italic>
+Gesammelte Nachrichten <end italic>), i. 424-425; and ib. 472.]
+
+Fancy a poor fat Czarina, of many appetites, of little judgment,
+continually beaten upon in this manner by these Saxon-Austrian
+artists and their Russian service-pipes. Bombarded with cunningly
+devised fabrications, every wind freighted for her with phantasmal
+rumors, no ray of direct daylight visiting the poor Sovereign
+Woman; who is lazy, not malignant if she could avoid it: mainly a
+mass of esurient oil, with alkali on the back of alkali poured in,
+at this rate, for ten years past; till, by pouring and by stirring,
+they get her to the state of SOAP and froth! Is it so wonderful
+that she does, by degrees, rise into eminent suspicion, anger,
+fear, violence and vehemence against her bad neighbor? One at last
+begins to conceive those insane whirls, continual mad suspicions,
+mad procedures, which have given Friedrich such vexation, surprise
+and provocation in the years past.
+
+Friedrich is always specially eager to avoid ill-will from Russia;
+but it has come, in spite of all he could do and try. And these
+procedures of the Czarish Majesty have been so capricious,
+unintelligible, perverse, and his feeling is often enough
+irritation, temporary indignation,--which we know makes Verses
+withal! I can nowhere learn from those Prussian imbroglios of
+Books, what the Friedrich Sayings or Satirical Verses properly
+were: Retzow speaks of a PRODUKT, one at least, known in interior
+Circles. [Retzow, i. 34.] PRODUKT which decidedly requires
+publication, beyond anything Friedrich ever wrote;--though one can
+do without it too, and invoke Fancy in defect of Print.
+The sharpness of Friedrich's tongue we know; and the diligence of
+birds of the air. To all her other griefs against the bad man, this
+has given the finish in the tender Czarish bosom;--and like an
+envenomed drop has set the saponaceous oils (already dosed with
+alkali, and well in solution) foaming deliriously over the brim, in
+never-imagined deluges of a hatred that is unappeasable;--very
+costly to Friedrich and mankind. Rising ever higher, year by year;
+and now risen, to what height judge by the following:--
+
+AT PETERSBURG, 14th-15th MAY, 1753, "There was Meeting of the
+Russian Senate, with deliberation held for these two days; and for
+issue this conclusion come to:--
+
+"That it should be, and hereby is, settled as a fundamental maxim
+of the Russia Empire, Not only to oppose any farther aggrandizement
+of the King of Prussia, but to seize the first convenient
+opportunity for overwhelming (ECRASER), by superior force, the
+House of Brandenburg [Hear, hear!], and reducing it to its former
+state of mediocrity." [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in <italic> Gesammelte
+Nachrichten <end italic>), i. 421.] Leg of mutton to be actually
+gone into. With what an enthusiasm of "Hear, hear!" from Bruhl and
+kindred parties; especially from Bruhl,--who, however, dare not yet
+bite, except hypothetically, such his terrors and tremors. Or, look
+again (same Senate,
+
+AT PETERSBURG, OCTOBER, 1755): "To which Fundamental Maxim,
+articulately fixed ever since those Maydays of 1753, the august
+Russian Sanhedrim, deliberating farther in October, 1755, adds this
+remarkable extension,
+
+"That it is our resolution to attack the King of Prussia without
+farther discussion, whensoever the said King shall attack any Ally
+of Russia's, or shall himself be attacked by any of them."
+Hailed by Bruhl, as natural, with his liveliest approval.
+"A glorious Deliberation, that, indeed!" writes he: "It clears the
+way of action for Russia's Allies in this matter; and for us too;
+though nobody can blame us, if we proceed with the extremest
+caution,"--and rather wait till the Bear is nearly killed.
+[MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in <italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten <end
+italic>), i. 422.]
+
+Many marvels Friedrich had deciphered out of this Weingarten-Menzel
+Apocalypse of Satan's Invisible World; and one often fancies
+Friedrich's tone of mind, in his intense inspecting of that fateful
+continent of darkness, and his labyrinthic stepping by degrees to
+the oracular points, which have a light in them when flung open.
+But in respect of practical interest, this of October, 1755 (which
+would get to Potsdam probably in few weeks after) must have
+surpassed all the others. Marvels many, one after the other:
+[For example, or in recapitulation: a Treaty of Warsaw or Leipzig,
+to partition him (18th May, 1745); Treaty of Petersburg (22d May,
+1746, new form of Warsaw Treaty, with Czarina superadded);
+tremulous Quasi-Accession thereto of his Polish Majesty (most
+tremulous, hypothetic Quasi-Accession, "Yes-AND-No," 15th August,
+1747, and often afterwards); first Deliberation of the Russian
+Senate, 15th May, 1753; &c. &c. For example, or in recapitulation:
+a Treaty of Warsaw or Leipzig, to partition him (18th May, 1745);
+Treaty of Petersburg (22d May, 1746, new form of Warsaw Treaty,
+with Czarina superadded); tremulous Quasi-Accession thereto of his
+Polish Majesty (most tremulous, hypothetic Quasi-Accession,
+"Yes-AND-No," 15th August, 1747, and often afterwards); first
+Deliberation of the Russian Senate, 15th May, 1753; &c. &c.] no
+doubt left, long since, of the constant disposition, preparation
+and fixed intention to partition him. But here, in this last
+indication by the Russian Senate,--which kindles into dismal
+evidence so many other enigmatic tokens,--there has an ulterior
+oracular point disclosed itself to Friedrich; in vaguer condition,
+but not less indubitable, and much more perilous: namely, That now,
+at last (end of 1755), the Two Imperial Majesties, very eager both,
+consider that the time is come. And are--as Friedrich looks abroad
+on the Austrian-Russian marchings of troops, campings, and unusual
+military symptoms and combinations--visibly preparing to that end.
+
+"They have agreed to attack me next Year (1756), if they can; and
+next again (1757), without IF:" so Friedrich, putting written word
+and public occurrence together, gradually reads; and so, all
+readers will see, the fact was,--though Imperial Majesty at
+Schonbrunn, as we shall find, strove to deny it when applied to;
+and scouted, as mere fiction and imagination, the notion of such an
+"Agreement." Which I infer, therefore, NOT to have existed in
+parchment; not in parchment, but only in reality, and as a mutual
+Bond registered in--shall we say "in Heaven", as some are wont?--
+registered, perhaps, in TWO Places, very separate indeed! No truer
+"Agreement" ever did exist;--though a devout Imperial Majesty
+denies it, who would shudder at the lie direct.
+
+Poor Imperial Majesty: who can tell her troubles and straits in
+this abstruse time! Heaven itself ordering her to get back the
+Silesia of her Fathers, if she could;--yet Heaven always looking
+dubious, surely, upon this method of doing it. By solemn Public
+Treaties signed in sight of all mankind; and contrariwise, in the
+very same moments, by Secret Treaties, of a fell nature, concocted
+underground, to destroy the life of these! Imperial Majesty
+flatters herself it may be fair: "Treaty of Dresden, Treaty of
+Aix-la-Chapelle; Treaties wrung from me by force, the tyrannic
+Sea-Powers screwing us; Kaunitz can tell! A consummate Kaunitz;
+who has provided remedies. Treaties do get broken. Besides, I will
+not go to War, unless HE the Bad One of Prussia do!"--Alas, your
+noble Majesty, plain it at least is, your love of Silesia is very
+strong. And consummate Kaunitz and it have led you into strange
+predicaments. The Pompadour, for instance: who was it that
+answered, "JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS; I don't know her, I"? How gladly
+would the Imperial Maria Theresa, soul of Propriety, have made that
+answer! But she did not; she had to answer differently. For Kaunitz
+was imperative: "A kind little Note to the Pompadour; one, and then
+another and another; it is indispensable, your Imperial Majesty!"
+And Imperial Majesty always had to do it. And there exist in
+writing, at this hour, various flattering little Notes from
+Imperial Majesty to that Address; which begin, "MA COUSINE,"
+"PRINCESSE ET COUSINE," say many witnesses; nay "MADAME MA TRES
+CHERE SOEUR," says one good witness: [Hormayr (cited in Preuss, i.
+433 n.,--as are Duclos; Montgaillard; MEMOIRES DE RICHELIEU;
+&c.]--Notes which ought to have been printed, before this, or given
+at least to the Museums. "My Cousin," "Princess and Cousin,"
+"Madame my dearest Sister:" Oh, high Imperial Soul, with what
+strange bed-fellows does Misery of various kinds bring
+us acquainted!
+
+Friedrich was blamably imprudent in regard to Pompadour, thinks
+Valori: "A little complaisance might have"--what might it not have
+done!--"But his Prussian Majesty would not. And while the Ministers
+of all the other Powers" allied with France "went assiduously to
+pay their court to Madame, the Baron von Knyphausen alone, by his
+Master's order, never once went ["Don't! JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS"],--
+while the Empress-Queen was writing her the most flattering
+letters. The Prince of Prussia, King's eldest Brother, wished
+ardently to obtain her Portrait, and had applied to me for it;
+as had Prince Henri to my Predecessor. The King, who has such
+gallant and seductive ways when he likes, could certainly have
+reconciled this celebrated Lady",--a highly important Improper
+Female to him and others. [Valori, i. 320.]
+
+Yes; but he quite declined, not counting the costs. Costs may be
+immediate; profits are remote,--remote, but sure. Costs did indeed
+prove considerable, perhaps far beyond his expectation; though, I
+flatter myself, they never awoke much remorse in him, on
+that score!--
+
+Friedrich's Enigma, towards the end of 1755 and onwards, is
+becoming frightfully stringent; and the solution, "What practically
+will be the wise course for me?" does not lessen in abstruse
+intricacy, but the reverse, as it grows more pressing. A very
+stormy and dubious Future, truly! Two circumstances in it will be
+highly determinative: one of them evident to Friedrich; the other
+unknown to him, and to all mortals, except two or three. FIRST,
+
+That there will be an English-French War straightway; and that, as
+usual, the French, weaker at sea, will probably attack Hanover;--
+that is to say, bring the War home to one's own door, and ripen
+into fulfilment those Austrian-Russian Plots. This is the evident
+circumstance, fast coming on; visible to Friedrich and to
+everybody. But that, in such event, Austria will join, not with
+England, but with France: this is a SECOND circumstance, guessable
+by nobody; known only to Kaunitz and a select one or two; but which
+also will greatly complicate Friedrich's position, and render his
+Enigma indeed astonishingly intricate, as well as stringent for
+solution!
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+ENGLISH DIPLOMACIES ABROAD, IN PROSPECT OF A FRENCH WAR.
+
+Britannic Majesty, I know not at what date, but before the
+launching of that poor Braddock thunder-bolt, much more after the
+tragic explosion it made, had felt that French War was nearly
+inevitable, and also that the French method would be, as
+heretofore, to attack Hanover, and wound him in that tender part.
+There goes on, accordingly, a lively Foreign Diplomatizing, on his
+Majesty's part, at present,--in defect, almost total, of Domestic
+Preparation, military and other;--Majesty and Ministers expecting
+salvation from abroad, as usual. Military preparation does lag at a
+shameful rate: but, on the other hand, there is a great deal of
+pondering, really industrious considering and contriving, about
+Foreign Allies, and their subsidies and engagements. That step, for
+example, the questionable Seizure of the French Ships WITHOUT
+Declaration of War, was a contrivance by diplomatic Heads (of bad
+quality): "Seize their ships," said some bad Head, after
+meditating; "put their ships in SEQUESTRATION, till they do us
+justice. If they won't, and go to War,--then THEY are the
+Aggressors, not we; and our Allies have to send their auxiliary
+quotas, as per contract!" So the Ships were seized; held in
+sequestration, "till many of the cargoes (being perishable goods,
+some even fish) rotted." [Smollett's <italic> History of England;
+<end italic> &c. &c.] And in return, as will be seen, not one
+auxiliary came to hand: so that the diplomatic Head had his rotted
+cargoes, and much public obloquy, for his pains. Not a fortunate
+stroke of business, that!--
+
+Britannic Majesty, on applying at Vienna (through Keith, Sir or Mr.
+Robert Keith, the FIRST Excellency of that name, for there are two,
+a father and a son, both Vienna Excellencies), was astonished to
+learn That, in such event of an Aggression, even on Hanover, there
+was no co-operation to be looked for here. Altogether cold on that
+subject, her Imperial Majesty seems; regardless of Excellency
+Keith's remonstrances and urgencies; and, in the end, is flatly
+negatory: "Cannot do it, your Excellency; times so perilous, bad
+King of Prussia so minatory,"--not to mention, SOTTO VOCE that we
+have turned on our axis, and the wind (thanks to Kaunitz) no longer
+hits us on the same cheek as formerly!
+
+"Cannot? Will not?" Britannic Majesty may well stare, wide-eyed;
+remembering such gigantic Subsidizings and Alcides Labors,
+Dettingens, Fontenoys, on the per-contra side. But so stands the
+fact: "No help from an ungrateful Vienna;--quick, then, seek
+elsewhere!" And Hanbury and the Continental British Excellencies
+have to bestir themselves as they never did. Especially Hanbury;
+who is directed upon Russia,--whom alone of these Excellencies it
+is worth while to follow for a moment. Russia, on fair subsidy,
+yielded us a 35,000 last War (willingly granted, most useful,
+though we had no fighting out of them, mere terror of them being
+enough): beyond all things, let Hanbury do his best in Russia!
+
+Hanbury, cheerfully confident, provides himself with the
+requisites, store of bribe-money as the chief;--at Warsaw withal,
+he picks up one Poniatowski (airy sentimental coxcomb, rather of
+dissolute habits, handsomest and windiest of young Polacks):
+"Good for a Lover to the Grand-Duchess, this one!" thinks Hanbury.
+Which proved true, and had its uses for Hanbury;--Grand-Duchess and
+Grand-Duke (Catherine and Peter, whom we saw wedded twelve years
+ago, Heirs-Apparent of this Russian Chaos) being an abstrusely
+situated pair of Spouses; well capable of something political, in
+private ways, in such a scene of affairs; and Catherine, who is an
+extremely clever creature, being out of a lover just now. A fine
+scene for the Diplomatist, this Russia at present. Nowhere in the
+world can you do so much with bribery; quite a standing item, and
+financial necessary-of-life to Officials of the highest rank there,
+as Hanbury well knows. [His Letters (in Raumer), PASSIM.] That of
+Poniatowski proved, otherwise too, a notable stroke of Hanbury's;
+and shot the poor Polish Coxcomb aloft into tragic altitudes, on
+the sudden, as we all know!
+
+Hanbury's immense dexterities, and incessant labors at Petersburg,
+shall lie hidden in the slop-pails: it is enough to say, his
+guineas, his dexterities and auxiliary Poniatowskis did prevail;
+and he triumphantly signed his Treaty (Petersburg, 30th September)
+"Subsidy-Treaty for 55,000 men, 15,000 of them cavalry," not to
+speak of "40 to 50 galleys" and the like; "to attack whomsoever
+Britannic Majesty bids: annual cost a mere 500,OOO pounds while on
+service; 100,000 pounds while waiting." [In <italic> Adelung, <end
+italic> vii. 609.] And, what is more, and what our readers are to
+mark, the 55,000 begin on the instant to assemble,--along the
+Livonian Frontier or Lithuanian, looking direct into Preussen.
+Diligently rendezvousing there; 55,000 of them, nay gradually
+70,000; no stinginess in the Czarina to her Ally of England. A most
+triumphant thing, thinks Hanbury: Could another of you have done
+it? Signed, ready for ratifying, 30th September, 1755 (bad Braddock
+news not hindering);--and before it is ratified (this also let
+readers mark), the actual Troops getting on march.
+
+Hanbury's masterpiece, surely; a glorious triumph in the
+circumstances, and a difficult, thinks Hanbury. Had Hanbury seen
+the inside of the cards, as readers have, he would not have thought
+it so triumphant. For years past,--especially since that
+"Fundamental maxim, May 14th-15th, 1753," which we heard of,--the
+Czarina's longings had been fixed. And here now--scattering money
+from both hands of it, and wooing us with diplomatic finessings--is
+the Fulfilment come! "Opportunity" upon Preussen; behold it here.
+
+The Russian Senate again holds deliberation; declares (on the heel
+of this Hanbury Treaty), "in October, 1755," what we read above,
+That its Anti-Prussian intentions are--truculent indeed. And it is
+the common talk in Petersburg society, through Winter, what a dose
+the ambitious King of Prussia has got brewed for him, [MEMOIRE
+RAISONNE (in <italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten <end italic>), i. 429,
+&c.] out of Russian indignation and resources, miraculously set
+afloat by English guineas. A triumphant Hanbury, for the time
+being,--though a tragical enough by and by!
+
+THE TRIUMPHANT HANBURY TREATY BECOMES, ITSELF, NOTHING
+OR LESS;--BUT PRODUCES A FRIEDRICH TREATY, FOLLOWED BY
+RESULTS WHICH SURPRISE EVERYBODY.
+
+King Friedrich's outlooks, on this consummation, may well seem to
+him critical. The sore longing of an infuriated Czarina is now let
+loose, and in a condition to fulfil itself! To Friedrich these
+Petersburg news are no secret; nor to him are the Petersburg
+private intentions a thing that can be doubted. Apart from the
+Menzel-Weingarten revelations, as we noticed once, it appears the
+Grand-Duke Peter (a great admirer of Friedrich, poor confused soul)
+had himself thrice-secretly warned Friedrich, That the mysterious
+Combination, Russia in the van, would attack him next Spring;--"not
+Weingarten that betrayed our GRAND MYSTERE; from first hand, that
+was done!" said Excellency Peubla, on quitting Berlin not long
+after. [Cogniazzo, <italic> Gestandnisse eines OEsterreichischen
+Veterans <end italic> (as cited above), i. 225. "September 16th,
+1756," Peubla left Berlin (Rodenbeck, i. 298),--three months after
+Weingarten's disappearance.] The Grand Mystery is not uncertain to
+Friedrich; and it may well be very formidable,--coupled with those
+Braddock explosions, Seizures of French ships, and English-French
+War imminent, and likely to become a general European one;
+which are the closing prospects of 1755. The French King he reckons
+not to be well disposed to him; their old Treaty of "twelve years"
+(since 1744) is just about running out. Not friendly, the French
+King, owing to little rubs that have been; still less the
+Pompadour;--though who could guess how implacable she was at "not
+being known (NE LA CONNAIS PAS)"! At Vienna, he is well aware, the
+humor towards him is mere cannibalism in refined forms. But most
+perilous of all, most immediately perilous, is the implacable
+Czarina, set afloat upon English guineas!
+
+With a hope, as is credibly surmised, that the English might soothe
+or muzzle this implacable Czarina, Friedrich, directly after
+Hanbury's feat in Petersburg, applied at London, with an Offer
+which was very tempting there: "Suppose your Britannic Majesty
+would make, with me, an express 'NEUTRALITY CONVENTION;' mutual
+Covenant to keep the German Reich entirely free of this War now
+threatening to break out? To attack jointly, and sweep home again
+with vigor, any and every Armed Non-German setting foot on the
+German soil!" An offer most welcome to the Heads of Opposition, the
+Pitts and others of that Country; who wish dear Hanover safe enough
+(safe in Davy-Jones's locker, if that would do); but are tired of
+subsidizing, and fighting and tumulting, all the world over, for
+that high end. So that Friedrich's Proposal is grasped at;
+and after a little manipulation, the thing is actually concluded.
+
+By no means much manipulation, both parties being willing.
+There was uncommonly rapid surgery of any little difficulties and
+discrepancies; rapid closure, instant salutary stitching together
+of that long unhealable Privateer Controversy, as the main item:
+"20,000 pounds allowed to Prussia for Prussian damages; and to
+England, from the other side, the remainder of Silesiau Debt,
+painfully outstanding for two or three years back, is to be paid
+off at once;"--and in this way such "NEUTRALITY CONVENTION OF
+PRUSSIA WITH ENGLAND" comes forth as a Practical Fact upon mankind.
+Done at Westminster, 16th January, 1756. The stepping-stone, as it
+proved, to a closer Treaty of the same date next Year; of which we
+shall hear a great deal. The stepping-stone, in fact, to many large
+things;--and to the ruin of our late "Russian-Subsidy Treaty"
+(Hanbury's masterpiece), for one small thing. "That is a Treaty
+signed, sure enough," answer they of St. James's; "and we will be
+handsome about it to her Czarish Majesty; but as to RATIFYING it,
+in its present form,--of course, never!"
+
+What a clap of thunder to Excellency Hanbury; his masterpiece found
+suddenly a superfluity, an incommodity! The Orthodox English course
+now is, "No foreign soldiers at all to be allowed in Germany;"
+and there are the 55,000 tramping on with such alacrity. "We cannot
+ratify that Treaty, Excellency Hanbury," writes the Majesty's
+Ministry, in a tone not of gratitude: "you must turn it some other
+way!" A terrible blow to Hanbury, who had been expecting gratitude
+without end. And now, try how he might, there was no turning it
+another way; this, privately, and this only, being the Czarina's
+own way. A Czarina obstinate to a degree; would not consent, even
+when they made her the liberal offer, "Keep your 55,000 at home;
+don't attack the King of Prussia with them; you shall have your
+Subsidy all the same!" "No, I won't!" answered she,--to Hanbury's
+amazement. Hanbury had not read the Weingarten-Menzel Documents;--
+what double double of toil and trouble might Hanbury have saved
+himself and others, could he have read them!
+
+Hanbury could not, still less could the Majesty's Ministry, surmise
+the Czarina's secret at all, now or for a good while coming. And in
+fact, poor Hanbury, busy as a Diplomatic bee, never did more good
+in Russia, or out of it. By direction of the Majesty's Ministry,
+Hanbury still tried industriously, cash in both hands; tried
+various things: "Assuage the Czarina's mind; reconcile her to King
+Friedrich;"--all in vain. "Unite Austria, Russia and England, can't
+you, then?--in a Treaty against the Designs of France:" how very
+vain! Then, at a later stage, "Get us the Czarina to mediate
+between Prussia and Austria" (so very possible to sleek them down
+into peace, thought Majesty's Ministry):--and unwearied Hanbury,
+cunning eloquence on his lips, and money in both hands, tries
+again, and ever again, for many months. And in the way of making
+ropes from sand, it must be owned there never was such twisting and
+untwisting, as that appointed Hanbury. Who in fact broke his heart
+by it;--and died mad, by his own hand, before long. [Hanbury's
+"Life" (in <italic> Works, <end italic> vol. iii.) gives sad
+account.] Poor soul, after all!--Here are some Russian Notices from
+him (and he has many curious, not pertinent here), which are still
+worth gleaning.
+
+PETERSBURG, 2d OCTOBER, 1755. ... "The health of the Empress
+[Czarina Elizabeth, CATIN DU NORD, age now forty-five] is bad.
+She is affected with spitting of blood, shortness of breath,
+constant coughing, swelled legs and water on the chest; yet she
+danced a minuet with me," lucky Hanbury. "There is great
+fermentation at Court. Peter [Grand-Duke Peter] does not conceal
+his enmity to the Schuwalofs [paramours of CATIN, old and new];
+Catherine [Grand-Duchess, who at length has an Heir, unbeautiful
+Czar Paul that will be, and "miscarriages" not a few] is on good
+terms with Bestuchef" (corruptiblest brute of a Chancellor ever
+known, friend to England by England's giving him 10,000 pounds, and
+the like trifles, pretty frequently; Friedrich's enemy, chiefly
+from defect of that operation)--she is "on good terms with
+Bestuchef. I think it my duty to inform the King [great George, who
+will draw his prognostics from it] of my observations upon her;
+which I can the better do, as I often have conversations with her
+for hours together, as at supper my rank places me always next to
+her," twice-lucky Hanbury.
+
+"Since her coming to this Country, she has, by every method in her
+power, endeavored to gain the affections of the Nation: she applied
+herself with diligence to study their language; and speaks it at
+present, as the Russians tell me, in the greatest perfection.
+She has also succeeded in her other aim; for she is esteemed and
+beloved here in a high degree. Her person is very advantageous, and
+her manners very captivating. She has great knowledge of this
+Empire; and makes it her only study. She has parts; and Great-
+Chancellor [brute Bestuchef] tells me that nobody has more
+steadiness and resolution. She has, of late, openly declared
+herself to me in respect of the King of Prussia;"--hates him a good
+deal, "natural and formidable enemy of Russia;" "heart certainly
+the worst in the world [and so on; but will see better by and by,
+having eyes of her own]:--she never mentions the King of England
+but with the utmost respect and highest regard; is thoroughly
+sensible of the utility of the union between England and Russia;
+always calls his Majesty the Empress's best and greatest Ally
+[so much of nourishment in him withal, as in a certain web-footed
+Chief of Birds, reckoned chief by some]; and hopes he will also
+give his friendship and protection to the Grand-Duke and herself.--
+As for the Grand-Duke, he is weak and violent; but his confidence
+in the Grand-Duchess is so great, that sometimes he tells people,
+that though he does not understand things himself, his Wife
+understands everything. Should the Empress, as I fear, soon die,
+the Government will quietly devolve on them." [Hanbury's Despatch,
+"October 2d, 1755" (Raumer, pp. 223-225); Subsidy Treaty still at
+its floweriest.]
+
+Catherine's age is twenty-six gone; her Peter's twenty-seven:
+one of the cleverest young Ladies in the world, and of the
+stoutest-hearted, clearest-eyed;--yoked to a young Gentleman much
+the reverse. Thank Hanbury for this glimpse of them, most
+intricately situated Pair; who may concern us a little in the
+sequel.--And, in justice to poor Hanover, the sad subject-matter of
+Excellency Hanbury's Problems and Futilities in Russia and
+elsewhere, let us save this other Fraction by a very different
+hand; and close that Hanbury scene:--
+
+"Friedrich himself was so dangerous," says the Constitutional
+Historian once: "Friedrich, in alliance with France, how easy for
+him to catch Hanover by the throat at a week's notice, throw a
+death-noose round the throat of poor Hanover, and hand the same to
+France for tightening at discretion! Poor Hanover indeed; she reaps
+little profit from her English honors: what has she had to do with
+these Transatlantic Colonies of England? An unfortunate Country, if
+the English would but think; liable to be strangled at any time,
+for England's quarrels: the Achilles'-heel to invulnerable England;
+a sad function for Hanover, if it be a proud one, and amazingly
+lucrative to some Hanoverians. The Country is very dear to his
+Britannic Majesty in one sense, very dear to Britain in another!
+Nay Germany itself, through Hanover, is to be torn up by War for
+Transatlantic interests,--out of which she does not even get good
+Virginia tobacco, but grows bad of her own. No more concern than
+the Ring of Saturn with these over-sea quarrels; and can, through
+Hanover, be torn to pieces by War about them. Such honor to give a
+King to the British Nation, in a strait for one; and such profit
+coming of it:--we hope all sides are grateful for the
+blessings received!"
+
+THERE HAS BEEN A COUNTER-TREATY GOING ON AT VERSAILLES IN THE
+INTERIM; WHICH HEREUPON STARTS OUT, AND TUMBLES THE WHOLLY
+ASTONISHED EUROPEAN DIPLOMACIES HEELS-OVER-HEAD.
+
+To expectant mankind, especially to Vienna and Versailles, this
+Britannic-Prussian Treaty was a great surprise. And indeed it
+proved the signal of a general System of New Treaties all round.
+The first signal, in fact,--though by no means the first cause,--of
+a total circumgyration, summerset, or tumble heels-over-head in the
+Political relations of Europe altogether, which ensued thereupon;
+miraculous, almost as the Earthquake at Lisbon, to the Gazetteer,
+and Diplomatic mind, and incomprehensible for long years after.
+First signal we say, by no means that it was the first cause, or
+indeed that it was a cause at all,--the thing being determined
+elsewhere long before; ever since 1753, when Kaunitz left it ready,
+waiting only its time.
+
+Kaiser Franz, they say, when (probably during those Keith
+urgencies) the joining with France and turning against poor
+Britannic Majesty was proposed in Council at Vienna, opened his
+usually silent lips; and opined with emphasis against such a
+course, no Kaunitz or creature able to persuade Kaiser Franz that
+good would come of it;--though, finding Sovereign Lady and
+everybody against him, he held his peace again. And returned to his
+private banking operations, which were more extensive than ever,
+from the new troubles rising. "Lent the Empress-Queen, always on
+solid securities," says Friedrich, "large sums, from time to time,
+in those Wars; dealt in Commissariat stores to right and left;
+we ourselves had most of our meal from him this year."
+[<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> iv. 8.] Kaiser Franz
+was, and continued, of the old way of thinking; but consummate
+Kaunitz, and the High Lady's fixed passion for her Schlesien, had
+changed everybody else. The ulterior facts are as follows,
+abbreviated to the utmost.
+
+September 22d, 1755, a few days before Hanbury's Subsidy-feat at
+Petersburg, which took such a whirl for Hanbury, there had met for
+the first time at Versailles, more especially at Babiole, Pleasure-
+House of the Pompadour, a most Select Committee of Three Persons:
+Graf von Stahremberg, Austrian Ambassador; Pompadour herself; and a
+certain infinitely elegant Count and Reverence de Bernis (beautiful
+Clerico-Mundane Gentleman, without right Benefice hitherto, but
+much in esteem with the Pompadour);--for deepest practical
+consideration in regard to closure of a French-Austrian Alliance.
+Reverend Count (subsequently Cardinal) de Bernis has sense in
+Diplomacy; has his experiences in Secular Diplomatic matters; a
+soft-going cautious man, not yet official, but tending that way:
+whom the Pompadour has brought with her as henchman, or unghostly
+counsellor, in this intricate Adventure.
+
+Stahremberg, instructed from home, has no hesitation; nor has
+Pompadour herself, remembering that insolent "JE NE LA CONNAIS
+PAS," and the per-contra "MA COUSINE," "PRINCESSE ET SOEUR:"--but
+Bernis, I suppose, looks into the practical difficulties; which are
+probably very considerable, to the Official French eye, in the
+present state of Europe and of the public mind. From September 22d,
+or autumnal equinox, 1755, onward to this Britannic-Prussian
+phenomenon of January, 1756, the Pompadour Conclave has been
+sitting,--difficulties, no doubt, considerable. I will give only
+the dates, having myself no interest in such a Committee at
+Babiole; but the dates sufficiently betoken that there were
+intricacies, conflicts between the new and the old. Hitherto the
+axiom always was, "Prussia the Adjunct and Satellite of France:"
+now to be entirely reversed, you say?
+
+JULY, 1755, that is two months before this Babiole Committee met, a
+Duc de Nivernois, respectable intelligent dilettante French
+Nobleman, had been named as Ambassador to Friedrich, "Go, you
+respectable wise Nivernois, Nobleman of Letters so called; try and
+retain Friedrich for us, as usual!" And now, on meeting of the
+Babiole Committee, Nivernois does not go; lingers, saddled and
+bridled, till the very end of the Year; arrives in Berlin January
+12th, 1756. Has his First Audience January 14th; a man highly
+amiable to Friedrich; but with proposals,--wonderful indeed.
+
+The French, this good while back, are in no doubt about War with
+England, a right hearty War; and have always expected to retain
+Prussia as formerly,--though rather on singular terms. Some time
+ago, for instance, M. de Rouille, War-Minister, requested
+Knyphausen, Prussian Envoy at Paris: "Suggest to your King's
+Majesty what plunder there is at Hanover. Perfectly at liberty to
+keep it all, if he will plunder Hanover for us!" [<italic> OEuvres
+de Frederic, <end italic> iv. 29.] Pleasant message to the proud
+King; who answered with the due brevity, to the purport, "Silence,
+Sir!"--with didactic effects on the surprised Rouille. Who now
+mends his proposal; though again in a remarkable way.
+Instructs Nivernois, namely, "To offer King Friedrich the Island of
+Tobago, if he will renew Treaty, and take arms for us. Island of
+Tobago (a deserted, litigated, but pretty Island, were it ever
+ours), will not that entice this King, intent on Commerce?"
+Friedrich, who likes Nivernois and his polite ways, answers
+quizzingly: "Island of Tobago? Island of Barataria your Lordship
+must be meaning; Island of which I cannot be the Sancho Panza!"
+[Ib. 31.] And Nivernois found he must not mention Tobago again.
+
+For the rest, Friedrich made no secret of his English Treaty;
+showed it with all frankness to Nivernois, in all points:
+"Is there, can the most captious allege that there is, anything
+against France in it. My one wish and aim, that of Peace for
+myself: judge!" Nivernois stayed till March; but seems to have had,
+of definite, only Tobago and good words; so that nothing farther
+came of him, and there was no Renewal of Treaty then or after.
+Thus, in his third month (March, 1756), practical Nivernois was
+recalled, without result;--instead of whom fat Valori was sent;
+privately intending "to do nothing but observe, in Berlin." From
+all which, we infer that the Babiole Committee now saw land;
+and that Bernis himself had decided in the affirmative: "Austria,
+not Prussia; yes, Madame!" To the joy of Madame and everybody.
+For, it is incredible, say all witnesses, what indignation broke
+out in Paris when Friedrich made this new "defection," so they
+termed it; revolt from his Liege Lord (who had been so exemplary to
+him on former occasions!), and would not bite at Tobago when
+offered. So that the Babiole Committee went on, henceforth, with
+flowing sea; and by Mayday (1st MAY, 1756) brought out its French-
+Austrian Treaty in a completed state. "To stand by one another,"
+like Castor and Pollux, in a manner; "24,000, reciprocally, to be
+ready on demand;" nay I think something of "subsidies" withal,--TO
+Austria, of course. But the particulars are not worth giving;
+the Performance, thanks to a zealous Pompadour, having quite outrun
+the Stipulation, and left it practically out of sight, when the
+push came. Our Constitutional Historian may shadow the rest:--
+
+"France and England going to War in these sad circumstances, and
+France and Austria being privately prepared [by Kaunitz and others]
+to swear everlasting friendship on the occasion, instead of
+everlasting enmity as heretofore; unexpected changes, miraculous to
+the Gazetteers, became inevitable;--nothing less, in short, than
+explosion or topsy-turvying of the old Diplomatic-Political Scheme
+of Europe. Old dance of the Constellations flung heels-over-head on
+the sudden; and much pirouetting, jigging, setting, before they
+could change partners, and continue their august dance again,
+whether in War or Peace. No end to the industrious wonder of the
+Gazetteer mind, to the dark difficulties of the Diplomatic.
+What bafflings, agonistic shufflings, impotent gazings into the
+dark; what seductive fiddling, and being fiddled to! A most sad
+function of Humanity, if sometimes an inevitable one; which ought
+surely at all times to be got over as briefly as possible.
+To be written of, especially, with a maximum of brevity;
+human nature being justly impatient of talk about it, beyond the
+strictly needful."
+
+Most true it is, and was most miraculous, though now quite
+forgotten again, Political Europe had to make a complete whirl-
+round on that occasion. And not in a day, and merely saying to
+itself, "Let me do summerset!" as idle readers suppose,--but with
+long months of agonistic shuffle and struggle in all places, and
+such Diplomatic fiddling and being fiddled to, as seldom was
+before. Of which, these two instances, the Bernis and the Hanbury,
+are to serve as specimen; two and no more: a universe of extinct
+fiddling compressed into two nutshells, if readers have an ear.
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+FRENCH-ENGLISH WAR BREAKS OUT.
+
+The French, in reality a good deal astonished at the Prussian-
+Britannic Treaty, affected to take it easy: "Treaty for Neutrality
+of Germany?" said they: "Very good indeed. Perhaps there are places
+nearer us, where our troops can be employed to more advantage!"
+[Their "Declaration" on it (Adelung, vii. 613.]--hinting vocally,
+as henceforth their silent procedures, their diligence in the
+dockyards, moving of troops coastward and the like, still more
+clearly did, That an Invasion of England itself was the thing next
+to be expected.
+
+England and France are, by this time, alike fiercely determined on
+War; but their states of preparation are very different. The French
+have War-ships again, not to mention Armies which they always have;
+some skilful Admirals withal,--La Gallisonniere, our old Canada
+friend, is one, very busy at present;--and mean to try seriously
+the Question of Sea-Supremacy once more. If an Invasion did chance
+to land, the state of England would be found handy beyond hope!
+How many fighting regiments England has, I need not inquire, nor
+with what strategic virtue they would go to work;--enough to
+mention the singular fact (recently true, and still, I perceive,
+too like the truth), That of all their regiments, "only Three are
+in this Country", or have Colonels even nominated. Incredible;
+but certain. And the interesting point is, his Grace of Newcastle
+dare not have Colonels, still less higher Officers nominated;
+because Royal Highness of Cumberland would have the naming of them,
+and they would be enemies to his Grace. [Walpole, <italic> George
+the Second, <end italic> ii. 19 (date, "March 25th, 1755;" and how
+long after, is not said: but see Pitt's Speeches, ib., all through
+1756, and farther).] In such posture stands the Envy of surrounding
+Nations at this moment.
+
+"Hire Hessians," cry they; "hire Hanoverians; if France land on us,
+we are undone!"--and continue their Parliamentary Eloquences in a
+most distressful manner. "Apply to the Dutch, at any rate, for
+their 6,000 as per Treaty", cries everybody. Which is done. But the
+Dutch piteously wring their hands: "Dare not, your Majesty;
+how dare we, for France and our neglected Barrier! Oh, generous
+Majesty, excuse us!"--and the generous Majesty has to do it;
+and leave the Dutch in peace, this time. Hessians, Hanoverians,
+after eloquence enough, are at last got sent for, to guard us
+against this terrible Invasion: about 10,000 of each kind; and do
+land, --the native populations very sulky on them ("We won't billet
+you, not we; build huts, and be--!"), with much Parliamentary and
+Newspaper Commentary going on, of a distressful nature.
+"Saturday, 15th May, 1756, Hessians disembark at Southampton;
+obliged to pitch Camp in the neighborhood: Friday, 21st May, the
+Hanoverians, at Chatham, who hut themselves Canterbury way;"--and
+have (what is the sum-total of their achievements in this Country)
+a case of shoplifting, "pocket-handkerchief, across the counter, in
+open day;" one case (or what seemed to be one, but was not);
+["At Maidstone, 13th Septemher, 1756;" Hanoverian soldier,
+purchasing a handkerchief, imagines he has purchased two (not yet
+clipt asunder), haberdasher and he having no language in common:
+<italic> Gentleman's Magazine, <end italic> for 1756, pp. 259, 448,
+&c.; Walpole, SAEPIUS.] "and the fellow not to be tried by us for
+it!" which enrages the constitutional heart. Alas, my heavy-laden
+constitutional heart; but what can we do? These drilled louts will
+guard us, should this terrible Invasion land. And indeed, about
+three weeks BEFORE these louts arrived, the terrible Invasion had
+declared itself to have been altogether a feint; and had lifted
+anchor, quite in the opposite direction, on an errand we shall hear
+of soon!
+
+About the same date, I observe, "the first regiment of Footguards
+practising the Prussian drill-exercise in Hyde Park;" and hope his
+Grace of Newcastle and the Hero of Culloden (immortal Hero, and
+aiming high in Politics at this time) will, at least, have fallen
+upon some method of getting Colonels nominated. But the wide-
+weltering chaos of platitudes, agitated by hysterical imbecilities,
+regulating England in this great crisis, fills the constitutional
+mind with sorrow; and indeed is definable, once more, as amazing!
+England is a stubborn Country; but it was not by procedures of the
+Cumberland-Newcastle kind that England, and her Colonies, and Sea-
+and-Land Kingdoms, was built together; nor by these, except miracle
+intervene, that she can stand long against stress! Looking at the
+dismal matter from this distance, there is visible to me in the
+foggy heart of it one lucent element, and pretty much one only;
+the individual named William Pitt, as I have read him: if by
+miracle that royal soul could, even for a time, get to something of
+Kingship there? Courage; miracles do happen, let us hope!--This is
+whitherward the grand Invasion had gone:--
+
+TOULON, 10th APRIL, 1756. La Gallisonniere, our old Canadian
+friend, a crooked little man of great faculty, who has been busy in
+the dockyards lately, weighs anchor from Toulon; "12 sail of the
+line, 5 frigates and above 100 transport-ships;" with the grand
+Invasion-of-England Armament on board: 16,000 picked troops,
+complete in all points, Marechal Duc de Richelieu commanding.
+[Adelung, viii. 70.] Weighs anchor; and, singular to see, steers,
+not for England, and the Hessian-Hanover Defenders (who would have
+been in such excellent time); but direct for Minorca, as the surer
+thing! Will seize Minorca; a so-called inexpugnable Possession of
+the English,--Key of their Mediterranean Supremacies;--really
+inexpugnable enough; but which lies in the usual dilapidated state,
+though by chance with a courageous old Governor in it, who will not
+surrender quite at once.
+
+APRIL 18th, La Gallisonniere disembarks his Richelieu with a
+Sixteen Thousand, unopposed at Port-Mahon, or Fort St. Philip, in
+Minorca; who instantly commences Siege there. To the astonishment
+of England and his Grace of Newcastle who, except old Governor
+Blakeney, much in dilapidation ("wooden platforms rotten,"
+"batteries out of repair," and so on), have nothing ready for
+Richelieu in that quarter. The story of Minorca; and the furious
+humors and tragic consummations that arose on it, being still well
+known, we will give the dates only.
+
+FORT ST. PHILIP, APRIL 18th-MAY 20th. For a month, Richelieu,
+skilful in tickling the French troops, has been besieging, in a
+high and grandiose way; La Gallisonniere vigilantly cruising;
+old Blakeney, in spite of the rotten platforms, vigorously holding
+out; when--May 19th, La Gallisonniere descries an English fleet in
+the distance; indisputably an English fleet; and clears his decks
+for a serious Affair just coming. THURSDAY, 20th MAY, Admiral Byng
+accordingly (for it is he, son of that old seaworthy Byng, who once
+"blew out" a minatory Spanish Fleet and "an absurd Flame of War" in
+the Straits of Messina, and was made Lord Torrington in
+consequence,--happily now dead)--Admiral Byng does come on;
+and gains himself a name badly memorable ever since. Attacks La
+Gallisonniere, in a wide-lying, languid, hovering, uncertain
+manner:--"Far too weak" he says; "much disprovided, destitute, by
+blame of Ministry and of everybody" (though about the strength of
+La Gallisonniere, after all);--is almost rather beaten by La
+Gallisonniere; does not in the least, beat him to the right
+degree:--and sheers off: in the night-time, straight for Gibraltar
+again. To La Gallisonniere's surprise, it is said; no doubt to old
+Blakeney and his poor Garrison's, left so, to their rotten
+platforms and their own shifts.
+
+Blakeney and Garrison stood to their guns in a manful manner, for
+above a month longer; day after day, week after week, looking over
+the horizon for some Byng or some relief appearing, to no purpose!
+JUNE 14th, there are three available breaches; the walls, however,
+are very sheer (a Fortress hewn in the rock): Richelieu scanning
+them dubiously, and battering his best, for about a fortnight more,
+is ineffectual on Blakeney.
+
+JUNE 27th, Richelieu, taking his measures well, tickling French
+honor well, has determined on storm. Richelieu, giving order of the
+day, "Whosoever of you is found drunk shall NOT be of the storm-
+party" (which produced such a teetotalism as nothing else had
+done),--storms, that night, with extreme audacity. The Place has to
+capitulate: glorious victory; honorable defence: and Minorca gone.
+
+And England is risen to a mere smoky whirlwind, of rage, sorrow and
+darkness, against Byng and others. Smoky darkness, getting streaked
+with dangerous fire. "Tried?" said his Grace of Newcastle to the
+City Deputation: "Oh indeed he shall be tried immediately; he shall
+be hanged directly!"--assure yourselves of that. [Walpole, ii. 231:
+Details of the Siege, ib. 218-225; in <italic> Gentleman's
+Magazine, xxvi. 256, 312-313, 358; in Adelung, vii.; &c. &c.]
+And Byng's effigy was burnt all over England. And mobs attempt to
+burn his Seat and Park; and satires and caricatures and firebrands
+are coming out: and the poor Constitutional Country is bent on
+applying surgery, if it but know how. Surgery to such indisputable
+abominations was certainly desirable. The new Relief Squadron,
+which had been despatched by Majesty's Ministry, was too late for
+Blakeney, but did bring home a superseded Byng.
+
+SPITHEAD, TUESDAY, 27th JULY, The superseded Byng arrives; is
+punctually arrested, on arriving: "Him we will hang directly:--
+is there anything else we can try [except, perhaps, it were hanging
+of ourselves, and our fine methods of procedure], by way of
+remedying you?"--War against France, now a pretty plain thing, had
+been "declared," 17th May (French counter-declaring, 9th June):
+and, under a Duke of Newcastle and a Hero of Culloden, not even
+pulling one way, but two ways; and a Talking-Apparatus full of
+discords at this time, and pulling who shall say how many ways,--
+the prospects of carrying on said War are none of the best.
+Lord Loudon, a General without skill, and commanding, as Pitt
+declares, "a scroll of Paper hitherto" (a good few thousands marked
+on it, and perhaps their Colonels even named), is about going for
+America; by no means yet gone, a long way from gone: and, if the
+Laws of Nature be suspended--Enough of all that!
+
+
+KING PRIEDRICH'S ENIGMA GETS MORE AND MORE STRINGENT.
+
+Friedrich's situation, in those fatefully questionable months and
+for many past (especially from January 16th to July),--readers must
+imagine it, for there is no description possible. In many
+intricacies Friedrich has been; but never, I reckon, in any equal
+to this. Himself certain what the Two Imperial Women have vowed
+against him; self and Winterfeld certain of that sad truth; and all
+other mortals ready to deny it, and fly delirious on hint of it,
+should he venture to act in consequence! Friedrich's situation is
+not unimaginable, when (as can now be done by candid inquirers who
+will take trouble enough) the one or two internal facts of it are
+disengaged from the roaring ocean of clamorous delusions which then
+enveloped them to everybody, and are held steadily in view, said
+ocean being well run off to the home of it very deep underground.
+Lies do fall silent; truth waits to be recognized, not always in
+vain. No reader ever will conceive the strangling perplexity of
+that situation, now so remote and extinct to us. All I can do is,
+to set down what features of it have become indisputable; and leave
+them as detached traceries, as fractions of an outline, to coalesce
+into something of image where they can.
+
+Winterfeld's opinion was, for some time past, distinct:
+"Attack them; since it is certain they only wait to attack us!"
+But Friedrich would by no means listen to that. "We must not be the
+aggressor, my friend; that would spoil all. Perhaps the English
+will pacify the Russian CATIN for me; tie her, with packthreads,
+bribes and intrigues, from stirring? Wait, watch!" Fiery
+Winterfeld, who hates the French, who despises the Austrians, and
+thinks the Prussian Army a considerable Fact in Politics, has great
+schemes: far too great for a practical Friedrich. "Plunge into the
+Austrians with a will: Prussian Soldiery,--can Austrians resist it?
+Ruin them, since they are bent on ruining us. Stir up the Hungarian
+Protestants; try all things. Home upon our implacable enemies,
+sword drawn, scabbard flung away! And the French,--what are the
+French? Our King should be Kaiser of Teutschland; and he can, and
+he may:--the French would then be quieter!" These things Winterfeld
+carried in his head; and comrades have heard them from him over
+wine. [Retzow, i. 43, &c.] To all which Friedrich, if any whisper
+of them ever got to Friedrich, would answer one can guess how.
+
+It is evident, Friedrich had not given up his hope (indeed, for
+above a year more, he never did) that England might, by profuse
+bribery,--"such the power of bribery in that mad court!"--assuage,
+overnet with backstairs packthreads, or in some way compesce the
+Russian delirium for him. And England, his sole Ally in the world,
+still tender of Austria, and unable to believe what the full
+intentions of Austria are; England demands much wariness in his
+procedures towards Austria; reiterating always, "Wait, your
+Majesty! Oh, beware!"--
+
+His own Army, we need not say, is in perfect preparation. The Army
+--let us guess, 150,000 regular, or near 200,000 of all arms and
+kinds [Archenholtz (i, 8) counts vaguely "160,000" at this date.]--
+never was so perfect before or since. Old Captains in it, whom we
+used to know, are grayer and wiser; young, whom we heard less of,
+are grown veterans of trust. Schwerin, much a Cincinnatus since we
+last saw him, has laid down his plough again, a fervid "little
+Marlborough" of seventy-two;--and will never see that beautiful
+Schwerinsburg, and its thriving woods and farm-fields, any more.
+Ugly Walrave is not now chief Engineer; one Balbi, a much prettier
+man, is. Ugly Walrave (Winterfeld suspecting and watching him) was
+found out; convicted of "falsified accounts," of "sending plans to
+the Enemy," of who knows all what;--and sits in Magdeburg (in a
+thrice-safe prison-cell of his own contriving), prisoner for life.
+["Arrested at Potsdam 12th February, 1748, and after trial put into
+the STERN at Magdeburg; sat there till he died, 16th January, 1773"
+(<italic> Militalr-Lexikon, <end italic> iv. 150-151).] The Old
+Dessauer is away, long since; and not the Old alone. Dietrich of
+Dessau is now "Guardian to his Nephew," who is a Child left Heir
+there. Death has been busy with the Dessauers:--but here is Prince
+Moritz, "the youngest, more like his Father than any of them."
+Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, Moritz of Dessau, Keith, Duke of
+Brunswick-Bevern: no one of these people has been idle, in the ten
+years past. Least of all, has the Chief Captain of them,--whose
+diligence and vigilance in that sphere, latterly, were not likely
+to decline!
+
+Friedrich's Army is in the perfection of order. Ready at the hour,
+for many months back; but the least motion he makes with it is a
+subject of jealousy. Last year, on those Russian advancings and
+alacrities, he had marched some Regiments into Pommern, within
+reach of Preussen, should the Russians actually try a stroke there:
+"See!" cried all the world: "See!" cried the enlightened Russian
+Public. This year 1756, from June onwards and earlier, there are
+still more fatal symptoms, on the Austrian side: great and evident
+War-preparations; Magazines forming; Camps in Bohemia, Moravia;
+Camp at Konigsgratz, Camp at Prag,--handy for the Silesian Border.
+Friedrich knows they have deliberated on their Pretext for a War,
+and have fixed on what will do,--some new small Prussian-
+Mecklenburg brabble, which there has lately been; paltry enough
+recruiting-quarrel, such as often are (and has been settled
+mutually some time ago, this one, but is capable of being ripped up
+again);--and that, on this cobweb of a pretext, they mean to draw
+sword when they like. Russia too has its Pretext ready. And if
+Friedrich hint of stirring, England whispers hoarse, England and
+other friends, "Wait, your Majesty! Oh, beware!" To keep one's  
+sword at its sharpest, and, with an easy patient air, one's eyes
+vigilantly open: this is nearly all that Friedrich can do, in
+neighborhood of such portentous imminencies. He has many critics,
+near and far;--for instance:--
+
+BERLIN, 31st JULY, 1756, Excellency Valori writes to Versailles:
+... "to give you account of a Conversation I have had, a day or two
+ago, with the Prince of Prussia [August Wilhelm, Heir-Apparent],
+who honors me with a particular confidence,"--and who appears to
+be, privately, like some others, very strong in the Opposition
+view. "He talked to me of the present condition of the King his
+Brother, of his Brother's apprehensions, of his military
+arrangements, of the little trust placed in him by neighbors, of
+their hostile humor towards him, and of many other things which
+this good Prince [little understanding them, as would appear, or
+the dangerous secret that lay under them] did not approve of.
+The Prince then said,"--listen to what the Prince of Prussia said
+to Valori, one of the last days of July, 1756,--
+
+"'There is an Anecdote which continually recurs to me, in the
+passes we are got to at present. Putting the case we might be
+attacked by Russia, and perhaps by Austria, the late Rothenburg was
+sent [as readers know], on the King's part, to Milord Tyrconnel, to
+know of him what, in such case, were the helps he might reckon on
+from France. Milord enumerated the various helps; and then added
+[being a blusterous Irishman, sent hither for his ill tongue]:
+"Helps enough, you observe, Monsieur; but, MORBLEU, if you deceive
+us, you will be squelched (VOUS SEREZ ECRASES)!" The King my
+'Brother was angry enough at hearing such a speech: but, my dear
+Marquis,' and the Prince turned full upon me with a face of
+inquiry, 'Can the thing actually come true? And do you think it can
+be the interest of your Master [and his Scarlet Woman] to abandon
+us to the fury of our enemies? Ah, that cursed Convention
+[Neutrality-Convention with England]! I would give a finger from my
+hand that it had never been concluded. I never approved of it;
+ask the Duc de Nivernois, he knows what we said of it together.
+But how return on our steps? Who would now trust us?'" This Prince
+appeared "to be much affected by the King his Brother's situation
+[of which he understood as good as nothing], and agreed that he,"
+the King his Brother, "had well deserved it." [Valori, ii,
+129-131.]
+
+This is not the first example, nor the last, of August Wilhelm's
+owning a heedless, good-natured tongue; considerably prone to take
+the Opposition side, on light grounds. For which if he found a kind
+of solacement and fame in some circles, it was surely at a dear
+rate! To his Brother, that bad habit would, most likely, be known;
+and his Brother, I suppose, did not speak of it at all; such his
+Brother's custom in cases of the kind.--Judicious Valori, by way of
+answer, dilated on the peculiar esteem of his Majesty Louis XV. for
+the Prussian Majesty,--"so as my Instructions direct me to do;" and
+we hear no more of the Prince of Prussia's talk, at this time;
+but shall in future; and may conjecture a great deal about the
+atmosphere Friedrich had now to live in. A Friedrich undergoing,
+privately, a great deal of criticism: "Mad tendency to war; lust of
+conquest; contempt for his neighbors, for the opinion of the
+world;--no end of irrational tendencies:" [Ib. ii. 124-151 ("July
+27th-August 21st").] from persons to whom the secret of his Problem
+is deeply unknown.
+
+One wise thing the English have done: sent an Excellency Mitchell,
+a man of loyalty, of sense and honesty, to be their Resident at
+Berlin. This is the noteworthy, not yet much noted, Sir Andrew
+Mitchell; by far the best Excellency England ever had in that
+Court. An Aberdeen Scotchman, creditable to his Country:
+hard-headed, sagacious; sceptical of shows; but capable of
+recognizing substances withal, and of standing loyal to them,
+stubbornly if needful; who grew to a great mutual regard with
+Friedrich, and well deserved to do so; constantly about him, during
+the next seven years; and whose Letters are among the perennially
+valuable Documents on Friedrich's History. [Happily secured in the
+British Museum; and now in the most perfect order for consulting
+(thanks to Sir F. Madden "and three years' labor" well invested);--
+should certainly, and will one day, be read to the bottom, and
+cleared of their darknesses, extrinsic and intrinsic (which are
+considerable) by somebody competent.]
+
+Mitchell is in Berlin since June 10th. Mitchell, who is on the
+scene itself, and looking into Friedrich with his own eyes, finds
+the reiterating of that "Beware, your Majesty!" which had been his
+chief task hitherto, a more and more questionable thing;
+and suggests to him at last: "Plainly ask her Hungarian Majesty,
+What is your meaning by those Bohemian Campings?" "Pshaw," answers
+Friedrich: "Nothing but some ambiguous answer, perhaps with insult
+in it!"--nevertheless thinks better; and determines to do so.
+[Mitchell Papers.]
+
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+FRIEDRICH PUTS A QUESTION AT VIENNA, TWICE OVER.
+
+July 18th, 1756, Friedrich despatches an Express to Graf von
+Klinggraf, his Resident at Vienna (an experienced man, whom we have
+seen before in old Carteret, "Conference-of-Hanau" times), To
+demand audience of the Empress; and, in the fittest terms, friendly
+and courteous, brief and clear, to put that question of Mitchell's
+suggesting. "Those unwonted Armaments, Camps in Bohmen, Camps in
+Mahren, and military movements and preparations," Klinggraf is to
+say, "have caused anxiety in her Majesty's peaceable Neighbor of
+Prussia; who desires always to continue in peace; and who requests
+hereby a word of assurance from her Majesty, that these his
+anxieties are groundless." Friedrich himself hopes little or
+nothing from this; but he has done it to satisfy people about him,
+and put an end to all scruples in himself and others. The Answer
+may be expected in ten or twelve days.
+
+And, about the same time,--likely enough, directly after, though
+there is no date given, to a fact which is curious and authentic,--
+Friedrich sent for two of his chief Generals, to Potsdam, for a
+secret Conference with Winterfeld and him. The Generals are, old
+Schwerin and General Retzow Senior,--Major-General Retzow, whom we
+used to hear of in the Silesian Wars,--and whose Son reports on
+this occasion. Conference is on this Imminency of War, and as to
+what shall be done in it. Friedrich explains in general terms his
+dangers from Austria and Russia, his certainty that Austria will
+attack him; and asks, Were it, or were it not, better to attack
+Austria, as is our Prussian principle in such case? Schwerin and
+Retzow--Schwerin first, as the eldest; and after him Retzow, "who
+privately has charge from the Prussian Princes to do it"--opine
+strongly: That indications are uncertain, that much seems
+inevitable which does not come; that in a time of such tumultuous
+whirlings and unexpected changes, the true rule is, Watch well,
+and wait.
+
+After enough of this, with Winterfeld looking dissent but saying
+almost nothing, Friedrich gives sign to Winterfeld;--who spreads
+out, in their lucidest prearranged order, the principal Menzel-
+Weingarten Documents; and bids the two Military Gentlemen read.
+They read; with astonishment, are forced to believe; stand gazing
+at one another;--and do now take a changed tone. Schwerin, "after a
+silence of everybody for some minutes,"--"bursts out like one
+inspired; 'If War is to be and must be, let us start to-morrow;
+seize Saxony at once; and in that rich corny Country form Magazines
+for our Operations on Bohemia!'" [Retzow, i. 39.]
+
+That is privately Friedrich's own full intention. Saxony, with its
+Elbe River as Highway, is his indispensable preliminary for
+Bohemia: and he will not, a second time, as he did in 1744 with
+such results, leave it in an unsecured condition. Adieu then,
+Messieurs; silent: AU REVOIR, which may be soon! Retzow Junior, a
+rational, sincere, but rather pipe-clayed man, who is wholly to be
+trusted on this Conference, with his Father for authority, has some
+touches of commentary on it, which indicate (date being 1802) that
+till the end of his life, or of Prince Henri his Patron's, there
+remained always in some heads a doubt as to Friedrich's wisdom in
+regard to starting the Seven-Years War, and to Schwerin's entire
+sincerity in that inspired speech. And still more curious, that
+there was always, at Potsdam as elsewhere, a Majesty's Opposition
+Party; privately intent to look at the wrong side; and doing it
+diligently,--though with lips strictly closed for most part;
+without words, except well-weighed and to the wise: which is an
+excellent arrangement, for a Majesty and Majesty's Opposition,
+where feasible in the world!--
+
+From Retzow I learn farther, that Winterfeld, directly on the back
+of this Conference, took a Tour to the Bohemian Baths, "To
+Karlsbad, or Toplitz, for one's health;" and wandered about a good
+deal in those Frontier Mountains of Bohemia, taking notes, taking
+sketches (not with a picturesque view); and returned by the Saxon
+Pirna Country, a strange stony labyrinth, which he guessed might
+possibly be interesting soon. The Saxon Commandant of the
+Konigstein, lofty Fortress of those parts, strongest in Saxony, was
+of Winterfeld's acquaintance: Winterfeld called on this Commandant;
+found his Konigstein too high for cannonading those neighborhoods,
+but that there was at the base of it a new Work going on; and that
+the Saxons were, though languidly, endeavoring to bestir themselves
+in matters military. Their entire Army at present is under 20,000;
+but, in the course of next Winter, they expect to have it 40,000.
+Shall be of that force, against Season 1757. No doubt Winterfeld's
+gatherings and communications had their uses at Potsdam, on his
+getting home from this Tour to Toplitz.
+
+Meanwhile, Klinggraf has had his Audience at Vienna; and has sped
+as ill as could have been expected. The Answer given was of
+supercilious brevity; evasive, in effect null, and as good as
+answering, That there is no answer. Two Accounts we have, as
+Friedrich successively had them, of this famed passage:
+FIRST, Klinggraf's own, which is clear, rapid, and stands by the
+essential; SECOND, an account from the other side of the scenes,
+furnished by Menzel of Dresden, for Friedrich's behoof and ours;
+which curiously illustrates the foregoing, and confirms the
+interpretation Friedrich at once made of it. This is Menzel's
+account; in other words, the Saxon Envoy at Vienna's, stolen
+by Menzel.
+
+July 26th, it appears, Klinggraf--having applied to Kaunitz the day
+before, who noticed a certain flurry in him, and had answered
+carelessly, "Audience? Yes, of course; nay I am this moment going
+to the Empress: only you must tell me about what?"--was admitted to
+the Imperial Presence, he first of many that were waiting. Imperial
+Presence held in its hand a snip of Paper, carefully composed by
+Kaunitz from the data, and read these words: "DIE BEDENKLICHEN
+UMSTANDE, The questionable circumstances of the Time have moved me
+to consider as indispensably necessary those measures which, for my
+own security and for defence of my Allies, I am taking, and which
+otherwise do not tend the least towards injury of anybody
+whatsoever;"--and adding no syllable more, gave a sign with her
+hand, intimating to Klinggraf that the Interview was done.
+Klinggraf strode through the Antechamber, "visibly astonished," say
+on-lookers, at such an Answer had. Answer, in fact, "That there is
+no answer," and the door flung in your face! [<italic> Helden-
+Geschichte, <end italic> iii. 772. In Valori, ii. 128, Friedrich's
+little Paper of INSTRUCTIONS to Klinggraf; this Vienna ANSWER to
+it, ib. 138:--see ib. 138, 162; and <italic> Gesammelte
+Nachrichten, <end italic> ii. 214-221.]
+
+Friedrich, on arrival of report from Klinggraf, and without waiting
+for the Menzel side of the scenes, sees that the thing is settled.
+Writes again, however (August 2d, probably the day after, or the
+same day, Klinggraf's Despatch reached him); instructing Klinggraf
+To request "a less oracular response;" and specially, "If her
+Imperial Majesty (Austria and Russia being, as is understood, in
+active League against, him) will say, That Austria will not attack
+him this year or the next?" Draw up memorial of that, Monsieur
+Klinggraf; and send us the supercilious No-Answer: till which
+arrive we do not cross the Frontier,--but are already everywhere on
+march to it, in an industrious, cunningly devised, evident and yet
+impenetrably mysterious manner.
+
+Excellency Valori never saw such activity of military preparation:
+such Artillery, "2,000 big pieces in the Park here;" Regiments,
+Wagon-trains, getting under way everywhere, no man can guess
+whitherward; "drawn up in the Square here, they know not by what
+Gate they are to march." By three different Gates, I should think;
+--mysteriously, in Three Directions, known only to King Friedrich
+and his Adjutant-General, all these Regiments in Berlin and
+elsewhere are on march. Towards Halle (Leipzig way);
+towards Brietzen (Wittenberg and Torgau way); towards Bautzen
+neighborhood,--towards Three settled Points of the Saxon Frontier;
+will step across the instant the supercilious No-Answer comes to
+hand. Are to converge about Dresden and the Saxon Switzerland;--
+about 65,000 strong, equipped as no Army before or since has been;
+--and take what luck there may be.
+
+Bruhl and Polish Majesty's Army, still only about 18,000, have
+their apprehensions of such visit: but what can they do? The Saxon
+Army draws out into Camp, at sight of this mysterious marching;
+strong Camp "in the angle of Elbe and Mulde Rivers;"--then draws in
+again; being too weak for use. And is thinking, Menzel informs us,
+to take post in the stony labyrinthic Pirna Country: such the
+advice an Excellency Broglio has given;--French Excellency, now in
+Dresden; Marechal de Broglio's Son, and of little less explosive
+nature than his Father was. Bruhl and Polish Majesty, guessing that
+the hour is come, are infinitely interested. Interested, not
+flurried. "Austrian-Russian Anti-Prussian Covenant!" say Bruhl and
+Majesty, rather comfortably to themselves: "We never signed it.
+WE never would sign anything; what have we to do with it? Courage;
+steady; To Pirna, if they come! Are not Excellency Broglio, and
+France, and Austria, and the whole world at our back?"
+
+It was full three weeks before Klinggraf's Message of Answer could
+arrive at Berlin. Of Friedrich in the interim, launching such a
+world-adventure, himself silent, in the midst of a buzzing Berlin,
+take these indications, which are luminous enough. Duke Ferdinand
+of Brunswick is to head one of the Three "Columns." Duke Ferdinand,
+Governor of Magdeburg, is now collecting his Column in that
+neighborhood, chiefly at Halle; whitherward, or on what errand, is
+profoundly unknown. Unknown even to Ferdinand, except that it is
+for actual Service in the Field. Here are two Friedrich Letters
+(ruggedly Official, the first of them, and not quite peculiar to
+Ferdinand), which are worth reading:--
+
+THE KING TO DUKE FERDINAND OF BRUNSWICK.
+
+"POTSDAM, 15th August, 1756.
+
+"For time of Field-Service I have made the arrangement, That for
+the Subaltern Officers of your regiment, over and above their
+ordinary Equipage-moneys, there shall, to each Subaltern Officer,
+and once for all, be Eight Thalers [twenty-four shillings sterling]
+advanced. That sum [eight thalers per subaltern] shall be paid to
+the Captain of every Company; and besides this there shall,
+monthly, Two Thalers be deducted from the Subaltern's Pay, and be
+likewise paid over to the Captain:--in return for which, He is to
+furnish Free Table for the Subalterns throughout the Campaign, and
+so long as the regiment is in the field.
+
+"Of the Two Baggage-carts per Company, the regiment shall take only
+One, and leave the other at home. No Officer, let him be who or of
+what title he will, Generals not excepted, shall take with him the
+least of Silver Plate, not even a silver spoon. Whoever wants,
+therefore, to keep table, great or small (TAFEL ODER TISCH), must
+manage the same with tin utensils;--without exception, be he who
+he will.
+
+"Each Captain shall take with him a little Cask of Vinegar;
+of which, as soon as the regiments get to Camp, he must give me
+reckoning, and I will then have him repaid. This Vinegar shall
+solely and exclusively be employed for this purpose, That in places
+where the water is bad, there be poured into it, for the soldiers,
+a few drops of the vinegar, to correct the water, and thereby
+preserve them from illnesses.
+
+"So soon as the regiment gets on march, the Women who have
+permission to follow are put under command of the Profoss;
+that thereby all plunderings and disorders may the more be guarded
+against. If the Captains and Officers take Grooms (JAGER) or the
+like Domestics, there can muskets be given to these, that use may
+be had of them, in case of an attack in quarters, or on march, when
+a WAGENBURG (wagon-fortress) is to be formed. ...    FRIEDRICH."
+[Preuss, ii. 6, 7.]
+
+SAME TO SAME (Confidential, this one).
+
+"POTSDAH, 24th August.
+
+... "Make as if you were meaning to go into Camp at Halle.
+The reason why I stop you is, that the Courier from Vienna has not
+yet come. We must therefore reassure the Saxon neighborhood.
+... I have been expecting answer from hour to hour; cannot suitably
+begin a War-Expedition till it come; do therefore apprise Your
+Dilection, though under the deepest secrecy.
+
+"And it is necessary, and my Will is, That, till farther order, you
+keep all the regiments and corps belonging to your Column in the
+places where they are when this arrives. And shall, meanwhile, with
+your best skill mask all this, both from the Town of Halle, and
+from the regiments themselves; making, in conformity with what I
+said yesterday, as if you were a Corps of Observation come to
+encamp here, and were waiting the last orders to go into camp.
+
+FRIEDRICH." [Ib. ii. 7, 8.]
+
+
+And in regard to the Vienna Courier, and Friedrich's attitude
+towards that Phenomenon, read only these Two Notes:--
+
+ 1. FRIEDRICH TO THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA AND THE PRINCESS AMELIA (at Berlin)
+
+POTSDAM, "25th August," 1756.
+
+"MY DEAR BROTHER, MY DEAR SISTER,--I write to you both at once, for
+want of time. I will follow the advice you are so good as give me;
+and will take leave of the Queen [our dear Mamma] by Letter.
+And that the reading of my Letter may not frighten her, I will send
+it by my Sister, to be presented in a favorable moment.
+
+"I have yet got no Answer from Vienna; by Klinggraf's account, I
+shall not receive it till to-morrow [came this night], But I count
+myself surer of War than ever; as the Austrians have named
+Generals, and their Army is ordered to march, from Kolin to
+Konigsgratz"--Schlesien way. "So that, expecting nothing but a
+haughty Answer, or a very uncertain one, on which there will be no
+reliance possible, I have arranged everything for setting out on
+Saturday next. To-morrow, so soon as the news comes, I will not
+fail to let you know. Assuring you that I am, with a perfect
+affection, my dear Brother and my dear Sister,--Yours,--F."
+[<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> xxvi. 155.]
+
+Answer comes from Klinggraf that same night. Once more, an Answer
+almost worse than could have been expected. "The 'League with
+Russia against you' is nonextant, a thing of your imagination:
+Have not we already answered?" [In <italic> Gesammelte Urkunden,
+<end italic> i. 217: Klinggraf's second question (done by Letter
+this time), "18th August;" Maria Theresa's Answer, "21st August,"]
+Whereupon,
+
+2. FRIEDRICH TO THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA.
+
+POTSDAM, "26th August," 1756.
+
+"MY DEAR BROTHER,--I have already written to the Queen; softening
+things as much as I could [Letter lost]. My Sister, to whom I
+address the Letter, will deliver it.
+
+"You have seen the Paper I sent to Klinggraf. Their Answer is 'That
+they have not made an Offensive Alliance with Russia against me.'
+The Answer is impertinent, high and contemptuous; and of the
+Assurance that I required [as to This Year and next], not one word.
+So that the sword alone can cut this Gordian Knot. I am innocent of
+this War; I have done what I could to avoid it; but whatever be
+one's love of peace, one cannot and must not sacrifice to that,
+one's safety and one's honor. Such, I believe, will be your opinion
+too, from the sentiments I know in you. At present, our one thought
+must be, To do War in such a way as may cure our Enemies of their
+wish to break Peace again too soon. I embrace you with all my
+heart. I have had no end of business (TERRIBLEMENT A FAIRE)."--F.
+[<italic> OEuvres, <end italic> xxvi. 116.]
+
+THE MARCH INTO SAXONY, IN THREE COLUMNS.
+
+Ahead of that last Note, from an earlier hour of the same day,
+Thursday, 26th August, there is speeding forth, to all Three
+Generals of Division, this Order (take Duke Ferdinand's copy}:--
+                                       {not in original] ^
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+"I hereby order that Your Dilection (EW. LIEBDEN), with all the
+regiments and corps in the Column standing under your command,
+Shall now, without more delay, get on march, on the 29th inst.;
+and proceed, according to the March-Tables and Instructions already
+given, to execute what Your Dilection has got in charge."--F.
+
+The same Thursday, 26th, Excellency Mitchell, informed by Podewils
+of the King's wish to see him at Potsdam, gets under way from
+Berlin; arrives "just time enough to speak with the King before he
+sat down to supper." Very many things to be consulted of, and
+deliberatively touched upon, with Mitchell and England; no end of
+things and considerations, for England and King Friedrich, in this
+that is now about to burst forth on an astonished world!--Over in
+London, we observe, just in the hours when Mitchell was harnessing
+for Potsdam, and so many Orders and Letters were speeding their
+swiftest in that quarter, there is going forward, on Tower-Hill
+yonder, the following Operation:--
+
+"LONDON, THURSDAY, 26th AUGUST, 1756. About five in the afternoon,
+a noted Admiral [only in Effigy as yet; but who has been held in
+miserable durance, and too actual question of death or life, ever
+since his return: "Oh, yes indeed! Hang HIM at once",--if that can
+be a remedy!] was, after having been privately shown to many ladies
+and gentlemen, brought--in an open sedan, guarded by a number of
+young gentlemen under arms, with drums beating, colors flying--to
+Tower-Hill, where a Gallows had been erected for him at six the
+same morning. He was richly dressed, in a blue and gold coat, buff
+waistcoat, trimmed, &c. in full uniform. When brought under the
+Gallows, he stayed a small space, till his clergyman (a chimney-
+sweeper) had given him some admonitions: that done, he was drawn,
+by pulleys, to the top of the Gallows, which was twenty feet high;
+every person expressing as much satisfaction as if it had been the
+real man.
+
+"He remained there, guarded by the above volunteers, without any
+molestation, two hours; when, upon a supposition of being
+obstructed by the Governor of the Tower, some sailors appeared, who
+wanted to pull him down, in order to drag him along the streets.
+But a fire being kindled, which consisted of tar-barrels, fagots,
+tables, tubs, &c., he was consumed in about half an hour."
+[Old Newspapers (<italic> Gentleman's Magazine, <end italic>
+xxvi. 409).]
+
+That is their employment on Tower-Hill, over yonder, while Mitchell
+is getting under way to see Friedrich.
+
+Mitchell continued at Potsdam over Friday; and was still in eager
+consultation that night, when the King said to him, with a certain
+expressiveness of glance: "BON SOIR, then;--To-morrow morning
+about four!" And on the morrow, Saturday, 28th, Mitchell
+reports hurriedly:--
+
+"... Am just returned to Berlin, in time to write to your Lordship.
+This morning, between four and five, I took leave of the King of
+Prussia. Hr went immediately upon the Parade; mounted on horseback;
+and, after a very short exercise of his Troops, put himself at
+their head; and marched directly for Belitz [half-way to Brietzen,
+TREUENbrietzen as they call it]; where, To-morrow, he will enter
+the Saxon Territory,"--as, at their respective points, his two
+other Columns will;--and begin, who shall say what terrible game;
+incalculable to your Lordship and me, with such Operations afoot on
+Tower-Hill! [Mitchell Papers, vi. 804 ("To Lord Holderness, 28th
+August, 1756").]--
+
+Seven Hussar Regiments of Duke Ferdinand's Column got the length of
+Leipzig that Sunday Evening, 29th; and took possession of the
+place. [In <italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iii. 731, his
+"Proclamation" there, 29th August, 1756.] Duke Ferdinand to right
+of the King, Duke of Brunswick-Bevern to left,--the Three Columns
+cross the Border, at points, say 80 miles from one another;
+occasionally, on the march, bending to rightwards and leftwards, to
+take in the principal Towns, and make settlements there, the two
+might be above a hundred miles from Friedrich on each hand. The
+length of march for each Column,--Ferdinand "from Leipzig, by
+Chemnitz, Freyberg, Dippoldiswalde, to the Village of Cotta" (Pirna
+neighborhood, south of Elbe); Bevern, "through the Lausitz, by
+Bautzen, to Lohmen" (same neighborhood, north of Elbe);
+King Friedrich, to Dresden, by the course of the Elbe itself, was
+not far from equal, and may be called about 150 miles. They marched
+with diligence, not with hurry; had their pauses, rest-days, when
+business required. They got to their ground, with the
+simultaneousness appointed, on the eleventh or twelfth day.
+
+The middle Column, under the King, where Marshal Keith is second in
+command, goes by Torgau (detaching Moritz of Dessau to pick up
+Wittenberg, and ruin the slight works there); crosses the Elbe at
+Torgau, September 2d; marches, cantoning itself day after day,
+along the southern bank of the River; leaves Meissen to the left, I
+perceive, does not pass through Meissen; comes first at Wilsdruf on
+ground where we have been,--and portions of it, I doubt not, were
+billeted in Kesselsdorf; and would take a glance at the old Field,
+if they had time. There is strict discipline in all the Columns;
+the authorities complying on summons, and arranging what is
+needful. Nobody resists; town-guards at once ground arms, and there
+is no soldier visible; soldiers all ebbing away, whitherward we
+guess. [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iii. 732, 733;
+<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> iv. 81.]
+
+At Wilsdruf, Friedrich first learns for certain, that the Saxon
+Army, with King, with Bruhl and other chief personages, are
+withdrawn to Pirna, to the inexpugnable Konigstein and Rock-
+Country. The Saxon Army had begun assembling there, September 1st,
+directly on the news that Friedrich was across the Border;
+September 9th, on Friedrich's approach, the King and Dignitaries
+move off thither, from Dresden, out of his way. Excellency Broglio
+has put them on that plan. Which may have its complexities for
+Friedrich, hopes Broglio,--though perhaps its still greater for
+some other parties concerned! For Bruhl and Polish Majesty, as will
+appear by and by, nothing could have turned out worse.
+
+Meanwhile Friedrich pushes on: "Forward, all the same." Polish
+Majesty, dating from Struppen, in the Pirna Country, has begun a
+Correspondence with Friedrich, very polite on both hands; and his
+Adjutant-General, the Chevalier Meagher ("Chevalier de MARRE," as
+Valori calls him,--MA'AR, as he calls himself in Irish), has just
+had, at Wilsdruf, an interview with Friedrich; but is far from
+having got settlement on the terms he wished. Polish Majesty
+magnanimously assenting to "a Road through his Country for military
+purposes;" offers "the strictest Neutrality, strictest friendship
+even; has done, and will do, no injury whatever to his Prussian
+Majesty--["Did we ever SIGN anything?" whisper comfortably Bruhl
+and he to one another];--expects, therefore, that his Prussian
+Majesty will march on, whither he is bound; and leave him
+unmolested here." [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic>
+iii. 774.]
+
+That was Meagher's message; that is the purport of all his Polish
+Majesty's Eleven Letters to Friedrich, which precede or follow,--
+reiterating with a certain ovine obstinacy, insensible to time or
+change, That such is Polish Majesty's fixed notion:
+"Strict neutrality, friendship even; and leave me unmolested here."
+[In <italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> iv. 235-260 ("29th
+August-10th September-18th September," 1756), are collected now,
+the Eleven Letters, with their Answers.] "Strict neutrality, yes:
+but disperse your Army, then," answers Friedrich; send your Army
+back to its cantonments: I must myself have the keeping of my
+Highway, lest I lose it, as in 1744." This is Friedrich's answer;
+this at first, and for some time coming; though, as the aspects
+change, and the dangerous elements heap themselves higher,
+Friedrich's answer will rise with them, and his terms, like the
+Sibyl's, become worse and worse. This is the utmost that Meagher,
+at Wilsdruf, can make of it; and this, in conceivable
+circumstances, will grow less and less.
+
+Next day, September 9th, Friedrich, with some Battalions, entered
+Dresden, most of his Column taking Camp near by; General Wylich had
+entered yesterday, and is already Commandant there. Friedrich
+sends, by Feldmarschall Keith, highest Officer of his Column, his
+homages to her Polish Majesty:--nothing given us of Keith's
+Interview; except by a side-wind, "That Majesty complained of those
+Prussian Sentries walking about in certain of her corridors" (with
+an eye to Something, it may be feared!)--of which, doubtless, Keith
+undertook to make report. Friedrich himself waits upon the Junior
+Princes, who are left here: is polite and gracious as ever, though
+strict, and with business enough; lodges, for his own part, "in the
+Garden-House of Princess Moczinska;"--and next morning leads off
+his Column, a short march eastward, to the Pirna Country; where, on
+the right and on the left, Ferdinand at Cotta, Bevern at Lohmen (if
+readers will look on their Map), he finds the other Two in their
+due positions. Head-quarter is Gross-Sedlitz (westernmost skirt of
+the Rock-region); and will have to continue so, much longer than
+had been expected.
+
+The Diplomatic world in Dresden is in great emotion; more
+especially just at present. This morning, before leaving, Friedrich
+had to do an exceedingly strict thing: secure the Originals of
+those Menzel Documents. Originals indispensable to him, for
+justifying his new procedures upon Saxony. So that there has been,
+at the Palace, a Scene this morning of a very high and dissonant
+nature,--"Marshal Keith" in it, "Marshal Keith making a second
+visit" (say some loose and false Accounts);--the facts being
+strictly as follows.
+
+Far from removing those Prussian sentries complained of last night,
+here seems to be a double strength of them this morning. And her
+Polish Majesty, a severe, hard-featured old Lady, has been filled
+with indignant amazement by a Prussian Officer--Major von
+Wangenheim, I believe it is--requiring, in the King of Prussia's
+name, the Keys of that Archive-room; Prussian Majesty absolutely
+needing sight, for a little while, of certain Papers there.
+"Enter that room? Archives of a crowned Head? Let me see the living
+mortal that will dare to do it!"--one fancies the indignant Polish
+Majesty's answer; and how, calling for materials, she "openly
+sealed the door in question," in Wangenheim's presence. As this is
+a celebrated Passage, which has been reported in several loose
+ways, let us take it from the primary source, Chancery style and
+all. Graf von Sternberg, Austrian Excellency, writing from the spot
+and at the hour, informs his own Court, and through that all
+Courts, in these solemnly Official terms:--
+
+"DRESDEN, 10th SEPTEMBER, 1756. The Queen's Majesty, this forenoon,
+has called to her all the Foreign Ministers now at Dresden; and in
+Highest Own Person has signified to us, How, the Prussian
+intrusions and hostilities being already known, Highest said
+Queen's Majesty would now simply state what had farther taken place
+this morning:--
+
+"Highest said Queen's Majesty, to wit, had, in her own name,
+requested the King of Prussia, in conformity with his assurances
+[by Keith, yesternight] of paying every regard for Her and the
+Royal Family, To remove the Prussian Sentries pacing about in those
+Corridors,"--Corridors which lead to the Secret Archives, important
+to some of us!--"Instead of which, the said King had not only
+doubled his Sentries there; but also, by an Officer, demanded the
+Keys of the Archive-apartment [just alluded to]! And as the Queen's
+Majesty, for security of all writings there, offered to seal the
+Door of it herself, and did so, there and then,--the said Officer
+had so little respect, that he clapped his own seal thereon too.
+
+"Nor was he content therewith,"--not by any means!--"but the same
+Officer [having been with Wylich, Commandant here] came back, a
+short time after, and made for opening of the Door himself.
+Which being announced to the Queen's Majesty, she in her own person
+(HOCHSTDIESELBE, Highest-the-Same) went out again; and standing
+before the Door, informed him, 'How Highest-the-Same had too much
+regard to his Prussian Majesty's given assurance, to believe that
+such order could proceed from the King.' As the Officer, however,
+replied, 'That he was sorry to have such an order to execute;
+but that the order was serious and precise; and that he, by not
+executing it, would expose himself to the greatest responsibility,"
+Her Majesty continued standing before the Door; and said to the
+Officer, 'If he meant to use force, he might upon Her make his
+beginning.'" There is for you, Herr Wangenheim!--
+
+"Upon which said Officer had gone away, to report anew to the King
+[I think, only to Wylich the Commandant; King now a dozen miles
+off, not so easily reported to, and his mind known]; and in the
+mean while Her Majesty had called to her the Prussian and English
+Ambassadors [Mahlzahn and Stormont; sorry both of them, but how
+entirely resourceless,--especially Mahlzahn!], and had represented
+and repeated to them the above; beseeching that by their
+remonstrances and persuasions they would induce the King of
+Prussia, conformably with his given assurance, to forbear.
+Instead, however, of any fruit from such remonstrances and
+urgencies, final Order came, 'That, Queen's Majesty's own Highest
+Person notwithstanding, force must be used.'
+
+"Whereupon her Majesty, to avoid actual mistreatment, had been
+obliged to"--to become passive, and, no Keys being procurable from
+her, see a smith with his picklocks give these Prussians admission.
+Legation-Secretary Plessmann was there (Menzel one fancies sitting,
+rather pale, in an adjacent room [Supra, p. 266.]); and they knew
+what to do. Their smith opens the required Box for them (one of
+several "all lying packed for Warsaw," says Friedrich); from which
+soon taking what they needed, Wangenheim and Wylich withdrew with
+their booty, and readers have the fruit of it to this day.
+"Which unheard-of procedure, be pleased, your Excellencies, to
+report to your respective Courts." [<italic> Gesammelte
+Nachrichten, <end italic> i. 222 (or "No. 26" of that Collection);
+<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> iv. 83.]
+
+Poor old Lady, what a situation! And I believe she never saw her
+poor old Husband again. The day he went to Pirna (morning of
+yesterday, September 9th, Friedrich entering in the evening), these
+poor Spouses had, little dreaming of it, taken leave of one another
+forevermore. Such profit lies in your Bruhl. Kings and Queens that
+will be governed by a Jesuit Guarini, and a Bruhl of the Twelve
+Tailors, sometimes pay dear for it. They, or their representatives,
+are sure to do so. Kings and Queens,--yes, and if that were all:
+but their poor Countries too? Their Countries;--well, their
+Countries did not hate Beelzebub, in his various shapes, ENOUGH.
+Their Countries should have been in watch against Beelzebub in the
+shape of Bruhls;--watching, and also "praying" in a heroic manner,
+now fallen obsolete in these impious times!
+
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+FRIEDRICH BLOCKADES THE SAXONS IN PIRNA COUNTRY.
+
+Friedrich reckons himself to have 65,000 men in Saxony. Schwerin is
+issuing from Silesia, through the Glatz Mountains, for Bohemia, at
+the head of 40,000. The Austrian force is inferior in quantity, and
+far from ready:--Two "Camps" in Bohemia they have; the chief one
+under Browne (looking, or intending, this Saxon way), and a smaller
+under Piccolomini, in the Konigshof-Kolin region:--if well run into
+from front and rear, both Browne and Piccolomini might be
+beautifully handled; and a gash be cut in Austria, which might
+incline her to be at peace again! Nothing hinders but this paltry
+Camp of the Saxons; itself only 18,000 strong, but in a Country of
+such strength. And this does hinder, effectually while it
+continues: "How march to Bohemia, and leave the road blocked in
+our rear?"
+
+The Saxon Camp did continue,--unmanageable by any method, for five
+weeks to come; the season of war-operations gone, by that time:--
+and Friedrich's First Campaign, rendered mostly fruitless in this
+manner, will by no means check the Austrian truculencies, as by his
+velocity he hoped to do. No; but, on the contrary, will rouse the
+Austrians, French and all Enemies, to a tenfold pitch of temper.
+And bring upon himself, from an astonished and misunderstanding
+Public, such tempests and world-tornadoes of loud-roaring obloquy,
+as even he, Friedrich, had never endured before.
+
+To readers of a touring habit this Saxon Country is perhaps well
+known. For the last half-century it has been growing more and more
+famous, under the name of "Saxon Switzerland (SACHSISCHE
+SCHWEITZ)," instead of "Misnian Highlands (MEISSNISCHE HOCHLAND),"
+which it used to be called. A beautiful enough and extremely rugged
+Country; interesting to the picturesque mind. Begins rising, in
+soft Hills, on both sides of the Elbe, a few miles east of Dresden,
+as you ascend the River; till it rises into Hills of wild
+character, getting ever wilder, and riven into wondrous chasms and
+precipices. Extends, say almost twenty miles up the River, to
+Tetschen and beyond, in this eastern direction; and with perhaps
+ten miles of breadth on each side of the River: area of the Rock-
+region, therefore, is perhaps some four hundred square miles.
+The Falkenberg (what we should call HAWKSCRAG) northeastward in the
+Lausitz, the Schneeberg (SNOW MOUNTAIN), southeastward on the
+Bohemian border, are about thirty-five miles apart: these two are
+both reckoned to be in it,--its last outposts on that eastern side.
+But the limits of it are fixed by custom only, and depend on no
+natural condition.
+
+We might define it as the Sandstone NECK of the Metal Mountains: a
+rather lower block, of Sandstone, intercalated into the Metal-
+Mountain range, which otherwise, on both hands, is higher, and of
+harder rocks. Southward (as SHOULDER to this sandstone NECK) lies,
+continuous, broad and high, the "Metal-Mountain range" specially so
+called: northward and northeastward there rise, beyond that
+Falkenberg, many mountains, solitary or in groups,--"the Metal
+Mountains" fading out here into "the Lausitz Hills," still in fine
+picturesque fashion, which are Northern Border to the great
+Bohemian "Basin of the Elba," after you emerge from this Sandstone
+Country.
+
+Saxon Switzerland is not very high anywhere; 2,000 feet is a
+notable degree of height: but it is torn and tumbled into stone
+labyrinths, chasms and winding rock-walls, as few regions are.
+Grows pinewood, to the topmost height; pine-trees far aloft look
+quietly down upon you, over sheer precipices, on your intricate
+path. On the slopes of the Hills is grass enough; in the intervals
+are Villages and husbandries, are corn and milk for the laborious
+natives,--who depend mainly on quarrying, and pine-forest work:
+pines and free-stone, rafts of long slim pines, and big stone
+barges, are what one sees upon the River there. A Note, not very
+geological, says of it:--
+
+"Elbe sweeps freely through this Country, for ages and aeons past;
+curling himself a little into snake-figure, and with increased
+velocity, but silent mostly, and trim to the edge, a fine flint-
+colored river;--though in aeons long anterior, it must have been a
+very different matter for torrents and water-power. The Country is
+one huge Block of Sandstone, so many square miles of that material;
+ribbed, channelled, torn and quarried, in this manner, by the ever-
+busy elements, for a million of Ages past! Chiefly by the Elbe
+himself, since he got to be a River, and became cosmic and
+personal; ceasing to be a mere watery chaos of Lakes and Deluges
+hereabouts. For the Sandstone was of various degrees of hardness;
+tenacious as marble some parts of it, soft almost as sand other
+parts. And the primordial diluviums and world-old torrents, great
+and small, rushing down from the Bohemian Highlands, from the Saxon
+Metal Mountains, with such storming, gurgling and swashing, have
+swept away the soft parts, and left the hard standing in this
+chaotic manner, and bequeathed it all to the Elbe, and the common
+frosts and rains of these human ages.
+
+"Elbe has now a trim course; but Elbe too is busy quarrying and
+mining, where not artificially held in;--and you notice at every
+outlet of a Brook from the interior, north side and south side, how
+busy the Brook has been. Boring, grinding, undermining; much helped
+by the frosts, by the rains. AEons ago, the Brook was a lake, in
+the interior; but was every moment laboring to get out; till it has
+cut for itself that mountain gullet, or sheer-down chasm, and
+brought out with it an Alluvium or Delta,--on which, since Adam's
+time, human creatures have built a Hamlet. That is the origin, or
+unwritten history, of most hamlets and cultivated spots you fall in
+with here: they are the waste shavings of the Brook, working
+millions of years, for its own object of getting into the Elbe in
+level circumstances. Ploughed fields, not without fertility, are in
+the interior, if you ascend that Brook; the Hamlet, at the delta or
+mouth of it, is as if built upon its TONGUE and into its GULLET:
+think how picturesque, in the November rains, for example!
+
+"The road" one road, "from Dresden to Aussig, to Lobositz, Budin,
+Prag, runs up the river-brink (south brink); or, in our day, as
+Prag-Dresden Railway, thunders through those solitudes; strangely
+awakening their echoes; and inviting even the bewildered Tourist to
+reflect, if he could. The bewildered Tourist sees rock-walls
+heaven-high on both hands of him; River and he rushing on between,
+by law of gravitation, law of ennui (which are laws of Nature
+both), with a narrow strip of sky in full gallop overhead; and has
+little encouragement to reflect, except upon his own sorrows, and
+delirious circumstances, physical and moral. 'How much happier,
+were I lying in my bed!' thinks the bewildered Tourist;--does
+strive withal to admire the Picturesque, but with little success;
+notices the 'BASTEI (Bastion),' and other rigorously prescribed
+points of the Sublime and Beautiful, which are to be 'done.'
+That you will have to DO, my friend: step out, you will have to go
+on that Pinnacle, with indifferent Hotel attached; on that iron
+balcony, aloft among the clouds yonder; and shudder to project over
+Elbe-flood from such altitudes, admiring the Picturesque in
+prescribed manner.
+
+"This Country has for its permanent uses, timber, free-stone,
+modicum of milk and haver, serviceable to the generality;--and to
+his Polish Majesty, at present, it is as the very Ark of Noah:
+priceless at this juncture; being the strongest military country in
+the world. Excellent strength in it; express Fortresses; especially
+one Fortress called the Konigstein, not far from Schandau, of a
+towering precipitous nature, with 'a well 900 feet deep' in it, and
+pleasant Village outside at the base;--Fortress which is still, in
+our day, reckoned a safe place for the Saxon Archives and
+preciosities. Impregnable to gunpowder artillery; not to be had
+except by hunger. And then, farther down the River, close by Pirna,
+presiding over Pirna, as that Konigstein in some sort does over
+Schandau, is the Sonnenstein: Sonnenstein too was a Fortress in
+those days of Friedrich, but not impregnable, if judged worth
+taking. The Austrians took it, a year or two hence; Friedrich
+retook it, dismantled it: 'the Sonnenstein is now a Madhouse,' say
+the Guide-books.
+
+"Sonnenstein stands close east or up-stream of Pirna, which is a
+town of 5,000 souls, by much the largest in those parts;
+Konigstein a little down-stream of Schandau, which latter is on the
+opposite or north side of the River. These are the two chief Towns,
+which do all the trade of this region; picturesque places both:--
+the Tourist remembers Pirna? Standing on its sleek table or stair-
+step, by the River's edge; well above floodmark; green, shaggy or
+fringy mountains looking down on it to rearward; in front, beyond
+the River, nothing visible but mile-long cream-colored rock-wall,
+with bushes at bottom and top, wall quarried by Elbe, as you can
+see. Pirna is near the beginning [properly END, but we start from
+Dresden] or western extremity of Saxon Schweitz. Schandau, almost
+at the opposite or eastern extremity, is still more picturesque;
+standing on the delta of a little Brook, with high rock-cliffs,
+with garden-shrubberies, sanded walks, tufts of forest-umbrage;
+a bright-painted, almost OPERATIC-looking place,--with spa-waters,
+if I recollect: "yes truly, and the "Bath Season" making its
+packages in great haste, breaking up prematurely, this
+Year (1756)!--
+
+Directly on arriving at Gross-Sedlitz, Friedrich takes ocular
+survey of this Country, which is already not unknown to him.
+He finds that the Saxons have secured themselves within the
+Mountains; a rocky streamlet, Brook of Gottleube, which issues into
+Elbe just between Gross-Sedlitz and them, "through a dell of eighty
+or a hundred feet deep," serving as their first defence; well in
+front of the mere rocky Heights and precipices behind it, which
+stretch continuously along to southward, six miles or more, from
+Pirna and the south brink of Elbe. At Langen-Hennersdorf, which is
+the southernmost part, these Heights make an elbow inwards, by
+Leopoldshayn, towards the Konigstein, which is but four miles off;
+here too the Saxons are defended by a Brook (running straight
+towards Konigstein, this one) in front of their Heights; and stand
+defensive, in this way, along a rock-bulwark of ten miles long:
+the passes all secured by batteries, by abatis, palisades, mile
+after mile, as Friedrich rides observant leftward: behind them,
+Elbe rushing swifter through his rock-walls yonder, with chasms and
+intricate gorges; defending them inexpugnably to rear. Six miles
+long of natural bulwark (six to Hennersdorf), where the gross of
+the Saxons lie; then to Konigstein four other miles, sufficiently,
+if more sparsely, beset by them. "No stronger position in the
+world," Friedrich thinks; [<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end
+italic> iv. 83, 84 (not a very distinct Account; and far from
+accurate in the details,--which are left without effectual
+correction even in the best Editions).]--and that it is impossible
+to force this place, without a loss of life disproportionate even
+to its importance at present. Not to say that the Saxons will make
+terms all the easier, BEFORE bloodshed rise between us;--and
+furthermore that Hunger (for we hear they have provision only for
+two weeks) may itself soon do it. "Wedge them in, therefore; block
+every outgate, every entrance; nothing to get in, except gradually
+Hunger. Hunger, and on our part rational Offers, will suffice."
+That is Friedrich's plan; good in itself,--though the ovine
+obstinacy, and other circumstances, retarded the execution of it to
+an unexpected extent, lamentable to Friedrich and to some others.
+
+The Prussian-Saxon military operations for the next five weeks need
+not detain us. Their respective positions on the Heights behind
+that Brook Gottleube, and on the plainer Country in front of it,--
+How the Prussians lie, first Division of them, from Gross-Sedlitz
+to Zehist, under the King; then second Division from Zehist to
+Cotta, and onward by "the Rothschenke" (RED-HOUSE Tavern), by
+Markersbach, and sparsely as far as Hellendorf on the Prag Highway;
+in brief, where all the Divisions of them lie, and under whom;
+and where the Prussians, watching Elbe itself, have Batteries and
+Posts on the north side of it: all this is marked on the Map;
+--to satisfy ingenuous curiosity, should it make tour in those
+parts. To which add only these straggles of Note, as farther
+elucidative:--
+
+"The Saxons, between Elbe and their Lines, possess about thirty
+square miles of country. From Pirna or Sonnenstein to Konigstein,
+as the crow flies, may be five miles east to west; but by Langen-
+Hennersdorf, and the elbow there, it will be ten: at Konigstein,
+moreover, Elbe makes an abrupt turn northward for a couple of
+miles, instead of westward as heretofore, turning abruptly westward
+again after that: so that the Saxon 'Camp' or Occupancy here, is an
+irregular Trapezium, with Pirna and Konigstein for vertices, and
+with area estimable as above,--ploughable, a fair portion of it,
+and not without corn of its own. So that the 'two weeks' provision'
+spun themselves out (short allowance aiding) to two months, before
+actual famine came.
+
+... "The High-road from the Lausitz parts crosses Elbe at Pirna;
+falls into the Dresden-Prag High-road there; and from Pirna towards
+Toplitz, for the first few miles, this latter runs through the
+Prussian Posts; but we may guess it is not much travelled at
+present. North of Elbe, too, the Prussians have batteries on the
+fit points; detachments of due force, from Gross-Sedlitz Bridge-of-
+Pontoons all round to Schandau, or beyond; could fire upon the
+Konigstein, across the River: they have plugged up the Saxon
+position everywhere. They have a Battery especially, and strong
+post, to cannonade the Bridge at Pirna, should the Saxons think of
+trying there. It is now the one Saxon or even Half-Saxon Bridge;
+Sonnenstein and Pirna command the Saxon end of it, a strong battery
+the Prussian end: a Bridge lying mainly idle, like the general
+Highway to Toplitz at this time. Beyond the Konigstein, again, at a
+place called Wendisch-Fahre (WENDS'-FERRY), the Prussians have, by
+means of boats swinging wide at anchor on the swift current, what
+is called a Flying-bridge, with which the north side can
+communicate with the south. They have a post at Nieder-Raden (OBER
+Raden, railway station in our time, is on the south side):
+Nether Raden is an interesting little Hamlet, mostly invisible to
+mankind (built in the THROAT of the stone chasms there), from which
+you begin mounting to the BASTEI far aloft. A Raden to be noted, by
+the Tourist and us."
+
+Little, or even nothing, of fighting there is: why should there be?
+The military operations are a dead-lock, and require no word.
+Thirty thousand, half of the Prussian Force, lie, vigilant as
+lynxes, blockading here; other half, 32,000, under Marshal Keith,
+have marched forward to Aussig, to Nollendorf on the Bohemian
+frontier, to clear the ways, and look into any Austrian motion
+thereabouts,--with whom, with some Pandour detachment of whom, Duke
+Ferdinand, leading the vanguard, has had a little brush among the
+Hills; smiting them home again, in his usual creditable way
+(September 13th); and taking Camp at Peterswalde, he and others of
+the Force, that night. [<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic>
+iv. 85; ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG, i. 19.] It is with this Keith Army,
+with this if with any, that adventures are to be looked for at
+present.
+
+Polish Majesty's Head-quarters are at Struppen, well in the centre
+of the Saxon lines; "goes always to the Konigstein to sleep."
+Polish Majesty's own table is, by Friedrich's permission for that
+special object, supplied AD LIBITUM: but the common men were at
+once put on short allowance, which grows always the shorter.
+Polish Majesty corresponds with Friedrich, as we saw; and above
+all, sends burning Messages to Austria, to France, to every
+European Court, charged with mere shrieks: "Help me; a robber has
+me!" In which sense, Excellencies of all kinds, especially one Lord
+Stormont, the English Excellency, daily running out from Dresden to
+Gross-Sedlitz, are passionately industrious with Friedrich; who is
+eager enough to comply, were there any safe means possible.
+But there are none. Unfortunately, too, it appears the Austrians
+are astir; Feldmarschall Browne actually furbishing himself at Prag
+yonder with an eye hitherward, and extraordinary haste and spirit
+shown: which obliges Friedrich to rise in his demands;
+ovine obstinacy, on the other side, naturally increasing from the
+same cause.
+
+"Polish Majesty, we say, has liberty to bring in proviant for self
+and suite, rigorously for no mortal more; and he lives well, in the
+culinary sense,--surely for most part 'in his dressing-gown,' too,
+poor loose collapsed soul! Bruhl and he have plenty of formal
+business: but their one real business is that of crying, by
+estafettes and every conceivable method, to Austria, 'Get us out of
+this!' To which Austria has answered, 'Yes; only patience, and be
+steady!'--Friedrich's head-quarters are at Sedlitz; and the
+negotiating and responding which he has, transcends imagination.
+His first hope was, Polish Majesty might be persuaded to join with
+him;--on the back of that, certainty, gradually coming, that Polish
+Majesty never would; and that the Austrians would endeavor a
+rescue, were they once ready. Starvation, or the Austrians, which
+will be first here? is the question; and Friedrich studies to think
+it will be the former. At all events, having settled on the
+starvation method, and seen that all his posts are right, we
+perceive he does not stick close by Sedlitz; but runs now hither
+now thither; is at Torgau, where an important establishment, kind
+of New Government for Saxony, on the Finance side, is organizing
+itself. What his work with Ambassadors was, and how delicate the
+handling needed, think!"--Here is another Clipping:--
+
+... "Polish Majesty passes the day at Struppen, amid many vain
+noises of Soldiering, of Diplomatizing; the night always at
+Konigstein, and finally both day and night,--quite luxuriously
+accommodated, Bruhl and he, to the very end of this Affair.
+Towards Struppen [this is weeks farther on, but we give it here],--
+Comte de Broglio [Old Broglio's elder Son, younger is in the
+Military line], who is Ambassador to his Saxon-Polish Majesty, sets
+out from Dresden for an interview with said Majesty. At the
+Prussian lines, he is informed, 'Yes, you can go; but, without our
+King's Order, you cannot return.' 'What? The Most Christian
+Majesty's Ambassador, and treated in this way? I will go to where
+the Polish King is, and I will return to my own King, so often as I
+find business: stop me at your peril!' and threatened and argued,
+and made a deal of blusterous noise;--far too much, thinks Valori;
+think the Prussian Officers, who are sorry, but inflexible.
+Margraf Karl, Commandant of the place, in absence of King Friedrich
+(who is gone lately, on a Business we shall hear of), earnestly
+dissuaded Excellency Broglio; but it was to no purpose. Next day
+Broglio appeared in his state-carriage, formally demanding
+entrance, free thoroughfare: 'Do you dare refuse me?' 'Yes,'
+answered Margraf Karl; 'we do and must.' Indignant Broglio
+reappeared, next day, on foot; Lieutenant-General Prince Friedrich
+Eugen of Wurtemberg the chief man in charge: 'Do you dare?'
+'Indubitably, Yes;'--and Broglio still pushing on incredulous,
+Eugen actually raised his arm,--elbow and fore-arm across the
+breast of Most Christian Majesty's Ambassador,--who recoiled, to
+Dresden, in mere whirlwinds of fire; and made the most of it
+[unwisely, thinks Valori] in writing to Court. [Valori, ii. 349,
+209, 353 ("Wednesday, 6th October," the day of it, seemingly);
+ib. i. 312, &c.] Court, in high dudgeon, commanded Valori to quit
+Berlin without taking leave. Valori, in his private capacity, wrote
+an Adieu; [Friedrich's kind Letter in answer to it, "2d November,
+1756," in Valori, i. 313.] and in his public, as the fact stood,
+That he was gone without Adieu."
+
+And the Dauphiness, daughter of those injured Polish Majesties,
+fell on her knees (Pompadour permitting and encouraging) at the
+feet of Most Christian Majesty; on her knees, all in passion of
+tears; craved help and protection to her loved old Mother, in the
+name of Nature and of all Kings: could any King resist? And his
+Pompadour was busy: "Think of that noble Empress, who calls me
+COUSIN AND DEAR PRINCESS; think of that insolent Prussian Robber:
+Ah, your Majesty:" -and King Louis, though not a hating man, did
+privately dislike Friedrich; and evil speeches of Friedrich's had
+been reported to him. And, in short, the upshot was: King Louis,
+bound only to 24,000 for help of Austria, determined to send, and
+did send, above 100,000 across the Rhine, next Year, for that
+object; as will be seen. And all Frenchmen--all except Belleisle,
+who is old--are charmed with these new energetic measures, and
+beautiful new Austrian connections.
+
+Certain it is, the Austrians are coming, her Imperial Majesty bent
+with all her might on relief of those Saxon martyrs; which indeed
+is relief of herself, as she well perceives: "Courage, my friends;
+endure yet a little!" Messengers smuggle themselves through the
+Mountain paths, and go and return, though with difficulty.
+
+Since September 19th, the Correspondence with Polish Majesty has
+ceased: no persuading of the Polish Majesty. Winterfeld went twice
+to him; conferred at large, Bruhl forbidden to be there, on the
+actual stringencies and urgencies of Fact between the Two
+Countries; but it was with no result at all. Polish Majesty has not
+the least intention that Saxony shall be even a Highway for
+Friedrich, if at any time Polish Majesty can hinder it:
+"Neutrality," therefore, will not do for Friedrich; he demands
+Alliance, practical Partnership; and to that his Polish Majesty is
+completely abhorrent. Diplomatizing may cease; nothing but wrestle
+of fight will settle this matter.
+
+Friedrich, able to get nothing from the Sovereign of Saxony, is
+reduced to grasp Saxony itself: and we can observe him doing it;
+always the closer, always the more carefully, as the complicacy
+deepens, and the obstinacy becomes more dangerous and provoking.
+What alternative is there? On first entering Saxony, Friedrich had
+made no secret that he was not a mere bird of passage there.
+At Torgau, there was at once a "Field-Commissariat" established,
+with Prussian Officials of eminence to administer, the Military
+Chest to be deposited there, and Torgau to be put in a state of
+defence. Torgau, our Saxon Metropolis of War-Finance, is becoming
+more and more the Metropolis of Saxon Finance in general.
+Saxon Officials were liable, from the first, to be suspended, on
+Friedrich's order. Saxon Finance-Officials, of all kinds, were from
+the first instructed, that till farther notice there must be no
+disbursements without King Friedrich's sanction. And, in fact, King
+Friedrich fully intends that Saxony is to help him all it can;
+and that it either will or else shall, in this dire pressure of
+perplexity, which is due in such a degree to the conduct of the
+Saxon Government for twelve years past. Would Saxony go with him in
+any form of consent, how much more convenient to Friedrich!
+But Saxony will not; Polish Majesty, not himself suffering hunger,
+is obstinate as the decrees of Fate (or as sheep, when too much put
+upon), regardless of considerations;--and, in fine, here is Browne
+actually afoot; coming to relieve Polish Majesty!--The Austrians
+had uncommonly bestirred themselves:--
+
+The activity, the zeal of all ranks, ever since this expedition
+into Saxony, and clutching of Saxony by the throat, contemporary
+witnesses declare to have been extraordinary. "Horses for
+Piccolomini's Cavalry,--they had scarcely got their horses, not to
+speak of training them, not to speak of cannon and the heavier
+requisites, when Schwerin began marching out of Glatz on
+Piccolomini. As to the cannon for Browne and him, draught-cattle
+seem absolutely unprocurable. Whereupon Maria Theresa flings open
+her own Imperial Studs: 'There, yoke these to our cannon; let them
+go their swiftest;'--which awoke such an enthusiasm, that noblemen
+and peasants crowded forward with their coach-horses and their
+cart-horses, to relay Browne, all through Bohemia, at different
+stages; and the cannon and equipments move to their places at the
+gallop, in a manner," [Archenholtz, i. 24.]--and even Browne, at
+the base of the Metal Mountains, has got most of his equipments.
+And is astir towards Pirna (Army of 60,000, rumor says), for relief
+of the Saxon martyrs. Friedrich's complexities are getting day by
+day more stringent.
+
+From the middle of September, Marshal Keith, as was observed, with
+Half of the Prussians, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick under him, has
+been on the Bohemian slope of the Metal Mountains; securing the
+roads, towns and passes thereabouts, and looking out for the
+advance of Marshal Browne from the interior parts. Town of Aussig,
+and the River-road (castle of Tetschen, on its high rock known to
+Tourists, which always needs to be taken on such occasions), these
+Keith has secured. Lies encamped from Peterswalde to Aussig, the
+middle or main strength of him being in the Hamlet of Johnsdorf
+(discoverable, if readers like): there lies Keith, fifteen miles in
+length; like a strap, or bar, thrown across the back of that Metal-
+Mountain Range,--or part of its back; for the range is very broad,
+and there is much inequality, and many troughs, big and little,
+partial and general, in the crossing of it. A tract which my
+readers and I have crossed before now, by the "Pascopol" or Post-
+road and otherwise; and shall often have to cross!
+
+Browne, vigorously astir in the interior (cannon and equipments
+coming by relays at such a pace), is daily advancing, with his best
+speed: in the last days of September, Browne is encamped at Budin;
+may cross the Eger River any day, and will then be within two
+marches of Keith. His intentions towards Pirna Country are fixed
+and sure; but the plan or route he will take is unknown to
+everybody, and indeed to Browne himself, till he see near at hand
+and consider. Browne's problem, he himself knows, is abundantly
+abstruse,--bordering on the impossible; but he will try his best.
+To get within reach of the Saxons is almost impossible to Browne,
+even were there no Keith there. As good as impossible altogether,
+by any line of march, while Keith is afoot in those parts.
+By Aussig, down the River, straight for the interior of their Camp,
+it is flatly impossible: by the south or southeast corner of their
+Camp (Gottleube way), or by the northeast (by Schandau way, right
+bank of Elbe), it is virtually so,--at least without beating Keith.
+Could one beat Keith indeed;--but that will not be easy! And that,
+unluckily, is the preliminary to everything.
+
+"By the Hellendorf-Hennersdorf side, in the wastes where Gottleube
+Brook gathers itself, Browne might have a chance. There, on that
+southeast corner of their Camp, were he once there to attack the
+Prussians from without, while the Saxons burst up from within,--
+there," thinks a good judge, "is much the favorablest place.
+But unless Browne's Army had wings, how is it ever to get there?
+Across those Metal-Mountain ranges, barred by Keith:--by Aussig,
+with the rocks overhanging Elbe River and him, he cannot go in auy
+case. Were there no Keith, indeed (but there always is, standing
+ready on the spring), one might hold to leftward, and by stolen
+marches, swift, far round about--!
+
+"By Schandau region, north side of the Elbe, is Browne's easiest,
+and indeed one feasible, point of approach,--no Prussians at
+present between him and that; the road open, though a far circuit
+northward for Browne,--were he to cross the Elbe in Leitmeritz
+circle, and march with velocity? That too will be difficult,--
+nearly impossible in sight of Keith. And were that even done, the
+egress for the Saxons, by Schandau side, is through strait mountain
+gorges, intricate steep passes, crossings of the Elbe: what force
+of Saxons or of Austrians will drive the Prussians from their
+redoubts and batteries there?" [<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end
+italic> iv. 86, 93, 96.]
+
+Browne's problem is none of the feasiblest: but his orders are
+strict, "Relieve the Saxons, at all risks." And Browne, one of the
+ablest soldiers liviug ("Your Imperial Majesty's best general,"
+said the dying Khevenhuller long since), will do his utmost upon
+it. Friedrich does not think the enterprise very dangerous,--
+beating of Keith the indispensable preliminary to it; but will
+naturally himself go and look into it.
+
+Tuesday, September 28th, Friedrich quits Pirna Country by the Prag
+Highway; making due inspection of his Posts as he goes along;
+and, the outmost of these once past, drives rapidly up the
+Mountains; gets, with small escort, through Peterswalde on to
+Johnsdorf that night. Does not think this Keith position good;
+breaks up this "Camp of Johnsdorf" bodily next morning; and marches
+down the Mountains, direct towards Browne; who, we hear, is about
+crossing the Eger (his Pontoons now come at last), and will himself
+be on the advance. From Turmitz, a poor mountain hamlet in the
+hollow of the Hills, which is head-quarters that night, the march
+proceeds again; Friedrich with the vanguard; Army, I think, on
+various country-roads, on both hands; till all get upon the Great
+Road again,--Prag-Toplitz-Dresden Post-road; which is called,
+specially in this part of it, and loosely in whole, "The Pascopol,"
+and leads down direct to Budin and Browne.
+
+"A 'Pascopol' famed in military annals," says our Tourist. "It is a
+road with many windings, many precipitous sweeps of up and down;
+road precipitous in structure;--offers views to the lover of wild
+Nature: huge lonesome Hills scattered in the distance;
+waste expanses nearer hand, and futile attempts at moorish
+agriculture; but little else that is comfortable. In times of
+Peace, you will meet, at long intervals, some post-vehicle
+struggling forward under melancholy circumstances; some cart, or
+dilapidated mongrel between cart and basket, with a lean ox
+harnessed to it, and scarecrow driver, laden with pit-coal,--which
+you wish safe home, and that the scarecrow were getting warmed by
+it. But in War-time the steep road is livelier; the common Invasion
+road between Saxony and Bohemia; whole Armies sweeping over it, and
+their thousand-fold wagons and noises making clangor enough.
+... One of those Hollows, on the Pascopol, is Joachimsthal, with
+its old Silver Mines; yielding coins which were in request with
+traders, the silver being fine. 'Let my ducat be a Joachimsthal
+one, then!' the old trader would say: 'a JOACHIMSTHAL-ER;' or, for
+brevity, a 'THAL-ER;' whence THALER, and at last DOLLAR (almighty
+and otherwise),--now going round the world! [Busching, <italic>
+Erdbeschreibung, <end italic> v. 178.] Pascopol finishes in Welmina
+Township. From the last hamlet in Welmina, at the neck of the last
+Hill, step downward one mile, holding rather to the left, you will
+come on the innocent Village of Lobositz, its poor corn-mills and
+huckster-shops all peaceably unknown as yet, which is soon to
+become very famous."
+
+The Country-roads where Friedrich's Army is on march, I should
+think, are mostly on the mounting hand. For here, from Turmitz, is
+a trough again; though the last considerable one; and on the crest
+of that, we shall look down upon the Bohemian Plains and the grand
+Basin of the Elbe,--through various scrubby villages which are not
+nameworthy; through one called Kletschen, which for a certain
+reason is. Crossing the shoulder of Kletschenberg (HILL of this
+Kletschen), which abuts upon the Pascopol,--yonder in bright
+sunshine is your beautiful expansive Basin of the Elbe, and the
+green Bohemian Plains, revealed for a moment. Friedrich snatches
+his glass, not with picturesque object: "See, yonder is
+Feldmarschall Browne, then! In camp yonder, down by Lobositz, not
+ten miles from us,--[it is most true; Browne marched this morning,
+long before the Sun; crossed Eger, and pitched camp at noon]--
+Good!" thinks Friedrich. And pushes down into the Pascopol,
+into the hollows and minor troughs, which hide Browne henceforth,
+till we are quite near.
+
+Quite near, through Welmina and a certain final gap of the Hills,
+Friedrich with the vanguard does emerge, "an hour before sunset;"
+overhanging Browne; not above a mile from the Camp of Browne.
+A very large Camp, that of Browne's, flanked to right by the Elbe;
+goes from Sulowitz, through Lobositz, to Welhoten close on Elbe;--
+and has properties extremely well worth studying just now!
+"Friedrich" the Books say, "bivouacs by a fire of sticks," short
+way down on the southern slope of the Hill; and till sunset and
+after, has eye-glass, brain, and faculties and activities
+sufficiently occupied for the rest of the night;--his Divisions
+gradually taking post behind him, under arms; "not till midnight,
+the very rearmost of them." ["Tuesday, 28th September, left the
+Camp at Sedlitz, with 8 battalions 20 squadrons, to Johnsdorf:
+29th, to Turmitz,--Browne is to pass the Eger tomorrow. From the
+tops of the Pascopol (30th), SEE an Austrian Camp in the Plain of
+Lobositz. Vanguard bivouacs in the 'neck' of the two Hills or a
+little beyond." PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT OF CAMPAIGN 1756 (in <italic>
+Gesammelte Nachrichten, i. 844-845, 840-858); Anonymous of Hamburg;
+&c. &c.]
+
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+BATTLE OF LOBOSITZ.
+
+Welmina,--or Reschni-Aujest, last pertinent of Welmina (but we will
+take Friedrich's name for it), offers to the scrutinizing eye
+nothing, in our day, but some bewildered memory of "Alte Fritz"
+clinging obstinately even to the Peasant mind thereabouts. A sleepy
+littery place; some biggish haggard untrimmed trees, some broken-
+backed sleepy-looking thatched houses, not in contact, and each as
+far as might be with its back turned on the other, and cloaked in
+its own litter and privacy. Probably no human creature will be
+visible, as you pass through. Much straw lying about, chiefly where
+the few gaunt trees look down on it (cattle glad of any shelter):
+in fact, it is mainly an extinct tumult of straw; nothing alive, as
+you pass, but a few poor oxen languidly sauntering up and down,
+finding much to trample, little to eat. The Czech Populations
+(were it not for that "Question of the Nationalities") are not
+very beautiful!
+
+Close south of this poor Hamlet is a big Hill, conspicuous with
+three peaks; quite at the other base of which, a good way down,
+lies Lobositz, the main Village in those parts; a place now of
+assiduous corn-mill and fruit trade; and one of the stations on the
+Dresden-Prag Railway. This Hill is what Lloyd calls the Lobosch;
+[Major-General Lloyd, <italic> History of the late War in Germany,
+<end italic> 1756-1759 (3 vols. 4to, London, 1781), i. 2-11.] twin
+to which, only flatter, is Lloyd's "Homolka Hill" (Hill of
+RADOSTITZ in more modern Plans and Books). Conspicuous Heights, and
+important to us here,--though I did not find the Peasants much know
+them under those names. By the southern shoulder of this Lobosch
+Hill runs the road from Welmina to Lobositz, with branches towards
+many other villages. To your right or southern hand, short way
+southward, rises the other Hill, which Lloyd calls Homolka Hill;
+the gap or interval between Homolka and Lobosch, perhaps a furlong
+in extent, is essentially the PASS through those uplands.
+This pass, Friedrich, at the first moment, made sure of;
+filling the same with battalions, there to bivouac. He likewise
+promptly laid hold of the two Hills, high Lobosch to his left, and
+lower Homolka to right; which precautionary measure it is reckoned
+a fault in Browne to have neglected, that night; fault for which he
+smarted on the morrow.
+
+From this upland pass, or neck between the two Mountains,
+Friedrich's battalions would have had a fine view, had the morning
+shone for them: Lobositz, Leitmeritz, Melnick; a great fertile
+Valley, or expanse of fruitful country, many miles in breadth and
+length; Elbe, like a silver stripe, winding grandly through the
+finest of all his countries, before ducking himself into the rock-
+tumults of that Pirna district. The mountain gorges of Prag and
+Moldau River, south of Melnick, lie hidden under the horizon, or
+visible only as peaks, thirty miles and more to southeastward;
+a bright country intervening, sprinkled with steepled towns.
+To northwestward, far away, are the Lausitz Mountains, ranked in
+loose order, but massive, making a kind of range: and as outposts
+to them in their scattered state, Hills of good height and aspect
+are scattered all about, and break the uniformity of the Plain.
+Nowhere in North Germany could the Prussian battalions have a finer
+view,--if the morning were fine, and if views were their object.
+
+The morning, first in October, was not fine; and it was far other
+than scenery that the Prussian battalions had in hand!--Friday, 1st
+October, 1756, Day should have broken: but where is day? At seven
+in the morning (and on till eleven), thick mist lay over the plain;
+thin fog to the very hill-tops; so that you cannot see a hundred
+yards ahead. Lobositz is visible only as through a crape;
+farther on, nothing but gray sea; under which, what the Austrians
+are doing, or whether there are any Austrians, who can say?
+Leftward on the Lobosch-Hill side, as we reconnoitre, some Pandours
+are noticeable, nestled in the vineyards there:--that sunward side
+of the Lobosch is all vineyards, belonging to the different
+Lobositzers: scrubby vineyards, all in a brown plucked state at
+this season. Vineyards parted by low stone walls, say three or four
+feet high (parted by hurdles, or by tiny trenches, in our day, and
+the stone walls mere stone facings): there are the Pandours
+crouched, and give fire in a kneeling posture when you approach.
+Lower down, near Lobositz itself, flickerings as of Horse
+squadrons, probably Hussar parties, twinkle dubious in the wavering
+mist. Problem wrapt in mist; nothing to be seen; and all depends on
+judging it with accuracy! Seven by the clock: Deploy, at any rate;
+let us cover our post; and be in readiness for events.
+
+Friedrich's vanguard of itself nearly fills that neck, or space
+between the Lobosch and Homolka Hills. He spreads his Infantry and
+"hundred field-pieces," in part, rightwards along the Homolka Hill;
+but chiefly leftwards along the Lobosch, where their nearest duty
+is to drive off those Pandours. Always as a new battalion, pushing
+farther leftward, comes upon its ground, the Pandours give fire on
+it;--and it on the Pandours; till the Left Wing is complete, and
+all the Lobosch is, in this manner, a crackling of Pandour
+musketry. and anti-musketry. Right Wing, steady to its guns on the
+Homolka, has as yet nothing to do. Those wings of Infantry are two
+lines deep; the Cavalry, in three lines, is between them in the
+centre; no room for Cavalry elsewhere, except on the outskirts some
+fringing of light horse, to be ready for emergencies.
+
+The Pandour firing, except for the noise of it, does not amount to
+much; they can take no aim, says Lloyd, crouching behind their
+stone fences; and the Prussian Battalions, steadily pushing
+downwards, trample out their sputtering, and clear the Lobosch of
+them to a safe distance. But the ground is intricate, so wrapt in
+mist for the present. That crackling lasts for hours; decisive of
+nothing; and the mist also, and one's anxious guessings and
+scrutinizings, lasts in a wavering fitful manner.
+
+Once, for some time, in the wavering of the mist, there was seen,
+down in the plain opposite our centre, a body of Cavalry. Horse for
+certain: say ten squadrons of them, or 1,500 Horse; continually
+manoeuvring, changing shape; now in more ranks, now in fewer;
+sometimes "checkerwise," formed like a draught-board; shooting out
+wings: they career about, one sees not whither, or vanish again
+into the mist behind. "Browne's rear-guard this, that we are come
+upon," thinks Friedrich; "these squatted Pandours, backed by Horse,
+must be his rear-guard, that are amusing us: Browne and the Army
+are off; crossing the Elbe, hastening towards the Schandau, the
+Pirna quarter, while we stand bickering and idly sputtering here!"
+--Weary of such idle business, Friedrich orders forward Twenty of
+his Squadrons from the centre station: "Charge me those Austrian
+Horse, and let us finish this." The Twenty Squadrons, preceded by a
+pair of field-pieces, move down hill; storm in upon the Austrian
+party, storm it furiously into the mist; are furiously chasing it, 
+--when unexpected cannon-batteries, destructive case-shot, awaken
+on their left flank (batteries from Lobositz, one may guess);
+and force them to draw back. To draw back, with some loss; and rank
+again, in an indignantly blown condition, at the foot of their
+Hill. Indignant; after brief breathing, they try it once more.
+
+"Don't try it!" Friedrich had sent out to tell them: for the mist
+was clearing; and Friedrich, on the higher ground, saw new
+important phenomena: but it was too late. For the Twenty Squadrons
+are again dashing forward; sweeping down whatever is before them:
+in spite of cannon-volleys, they plunge deeper and deeper into the
+mist; come upon "a ditch twelve feet broad" (big swampy drain, such
+as are still found there, grass-green in summer-time); clear said
+ditch; forward still deeper into the mist: and after three hundred
+yards, come upon a second far worse "ditch;" plainly impassable
+this one,--"ditch" they call it, though it is in fact a vile sedgy
+Brook, oozing along there (the MORELL BACH, considerable Brook,
+lazily wandering towards Lobositz, where it disembogues in rather
+swifter fashion);--and are saluted with cannon, from the farther
+side; and see serried ranks under the gauze of mist: Browne's Army,
+in fact! The Twenty Squadrons have to recoil out of shot-range, the
+faster, the better; with a loss of a good many men, in those two
+charges. Friedrich orders them up Hill again; much regretful of
+this second charge, which he wished to hinder; and posts them to
+rearward,--where they stand silent, the unconscious stoic-
+philosophers in buff, and have little farther service through the
+rest of the day.
+
+It is now 11 o'clock; the mist all clearing off; and Friedrich,
+before that second charge, had a growing view of the Plain and its
+condition. Beyond question, there is Browne; not in retreat, by any
+means; but in full array; numerous, and his position very strong.
+Ranked, unattackable mostly, behind that oozy Brook, or BACH of
+Morell; which has only two narrow Bridges, cannon plenty on both:
+one Bridge from the south parts to Sulowitz (OUR road to Sulowitz
+and it would be by Radostitz and the Homolka); and then one other
+Bridge, connecting Sulowitz with Lobositz,--which latter is
+Browne's own Bridge, uniting right wing and left of Browne, so to
+speak; and is still more unattackable, in the circumstances.
+What will Friedrich decide on attempting?
+
+That oozy Morell Brook issues on Browne's side of Lobositz, cutting
+Browne in two; but is otherwise all in Browne's favor.
+Browne extends through Lobositz; and beyond it, curves up to
+Welhoten on the River-brink; at Lobositz are visible considerable
+redoubts, cannon-batteries and much regular infantry. Browne will
+be difficult to force yonder, in the Lobositz part; but yonder
+alone can he be tried. He is pushing up more Infantry that way;
+conscious probably of that fact,--and that the Lobosch Hill is not
+his, but another's. What would not Browne now give for the Lobosch
+Hill! Yesternight he might have had it gratis, in a manner;
+and indeed did try slightly, with his Pandour people (durst not at
+greater expense),--who have now ceased sputtering, and cower
+extinct in the lower vineyards there. Browne, at any rate, is
+rapidly strengthening his right wing, which has hold of Lobositz;
+pushing forward in that quarter,--where the Brook withal is of
+firmer bottom and more wadable. Thither too is Friedrich bent.
+So that Lobositz is now the key of the Battle; there will the tug
+of war now be.
+
+Friedrich's cavalry is gone all to rearward. His right wing holds
+the Homolka Hill,--that too would now be valuable to Browne;
+and cannot be had gratis, as yesternight! Friedrich's left wing is
+on the Lobosch; Pandours pretty well extinct before it, but now
+from Welhoten quarter new Regulars coming on thither,--as if Browne
+would still take the Lobosch? Which would be victory to him; but is
+not now possible to Browne. Nor will long seem so;--Friedrich
+having other work in view for him;--meaning now to take Lobositz,
+instead of losing the Lobosch to him! Friedrich pushes out his Left
+Wing still farther leftward, leftward and downward withal, to clear
+those vineyard-fences completely of their occupants, Pandour or
+Regular, old or new. This is done; the vineyard-fences swept;--and
+the sweepings driven, in a more and more stormy fashion, towards
+Welhoten and Lobositz; the Lobosch falling quite desperate
+for Browne.
+
+Henceforth Friedrich directs all his industry to taking Lobositz;
+Browne, to the defending of it, which he does with great vigor and
+fire; his batteries, redoubts, doing their uttermost, and his
+battalions rushing on, mass of them after mass, at quick march,
+obstinate, fierce to a degree, in the height of temper; and showing
+such fight as we never had of them before. Friedrich's Left Wing
+and Browne's Right now have it to decide between them;--any attempt
+Browne makes with his Left through Sulowitz (as he once did, and
+once only) is instantly repressed by cannon from the Homolka Hill.
+And the rest of the Battle, or rather the Battle itself,--for all
+hitherto has been pickeering and groping in the mist,--may be made
+conceivable in few words.
+
+Friedrich orders the second line of his Left Wing to march up and
+join with the first; Right Wing, shoving ITS two lines into one, is
+now to cover the Lobosch as well. Left Wing, in condensed
+condition, shall fall down on Lobositz, and do its best. They are
+now clear of the vineyard-works; the ground is leveller, though
+still sloping,--a three furlongs from the Village, and somewhat
+towards the Elbe, when Browne's battalions first came extensively
+to close grips; fierce enough (as was said); the toughest wrestle
+yet had with those Austrians,--coming on with steady fury, under
+such force of cannon; with iron ramrods too, and improved ways,
+like our own. But nothing could avail them; the counter-fury being
+so great. They had to go at the Welhoten part, and even to run,--
+plunging into Elbe, a good few of them, and drowning there, in the
+vain hope to swim. "Never have my troops," says Friedrich, "done
+such miracles of valor, cavalry as well as infantry, since I had
+the honor to command them. By this dead-lift achievement (TOUR DE
+FORCE) I have seen what they can do." [Letter to Schwerin,
+"Lobositz, 2d August, 1756" (Retzow, i. 64); RELATION DE LA
+CAMPAGNE, 1756, that is, PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT (in <italic> Gesammelte
+Nachrichten), <end italic> i. 848. Lloyd, UT SUPRA, i. 2-11 (who
+has solid information at first hand, having been an actor in these
+Wars. A man of great natural sagacity and insight; decidedly
+luminous and original, though of somewhat crabbed temper now and
+then; a man well worth hearing on this and on whatever else he
+handles). Tempelhof, GESCHICHTE DES SIEBENJAHRIGEN KRIEGES (which
+is at first a mere Translation of Lloyd, nothing new in it but
+certain notes and criticisms on Lloyd; when Lloyd ends, Tempelhof,
+Prussian Major and Professor, a learned, intelligent, but diffuse
+man, of far inferior talent to Lloyd, continues and completes on
+his own footing: six very thin 4tos, Berlin, 1794), i. 38 (Battle,
+with FOOTNOTES), and ib. 51 (CRITICISM of Lloyd). Prussian and
+Austrian Accounts in <italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iii.
+800 et seq. Many Narratives in FELDZUGE, and the BEYLAGE to
+Seyfarth; &c. &c.]
+
+In fine, after some three hours more of desperate tugging and
+struggling, cannon on both sides going at a great rate, and
+infinite musketry ("ninety cartridges a man on our Prussian side,
+and ammunition falling done"), not without bayonet-pushings, and
+smitings with the butt of your musket, the Austrians are driven
+into Lobositz; are furiously pushed there, and, in spite of new
+battalions coming to the rescue, are fairly pushed through.
+These Village-streets are too narrow for new battalions from
+Browne; "much of the Village should have been burnt beforehand,"
+say cool judges. And now, sure enough, it does get burnt;
+Lobositz is now all on fire, by Prussian industry. So that the
+Austrians have to quit it instantly; and rush off in great
+disorder; key of the Battle, or Battle itself, quite lost to them.
+
+The Prussian infantry, led by the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern
+("Governor of Stettin," one of the Duke-Ferdinand cousinry, frugal
+and valiant), gave the highest satisfaction; seldom was such
+firing, such furious pushing; they had spent ninety cartridges a
+man; were at last quite out of cartridges; so that Bevern had to
+say, "Strike in with bayonets, MEINE KINDER; butt-ends, or what we
+have; HERAN!" Our Grenadiers were mainly they that burnt Lobositz.
+"How salutary now would it have been," says Epimetheus Lloyd, "had
+Browne had a small battery on the other side of the Elbe;"
+whereby he might have taken them in flank, and shorn them into the
+wind! Epimetheus marks this battery on his Plan; and is wise
+behindhand, at a cheap rate.
+
+Browne's Right Wing, and probably his Army with it, would have gone
+much to perdition, now that Lobositz was become Prussian,--had not
+Browne, in the nick of the moment, made a masterly movement:
+pushed forward his Centre and Left Wing, numerous battalions still
+fresh, to interpose between the chasing Prussians and those
+fugitives. The Prussians, infantry only, cannot chase on such
+terms; the Prussian cavalry, we know, is far rearward on the high
+ground. Browne retires a mile or two,--southward, Budin-ward,--not
+chased; and there halts, and rearranges himself; thinking what
+farther he will do. His aim in fighting had only been to defend
+himself; and in that humble aim he has failed. Chase of the
+Prussians over that Homolka-Lobosch country, with the high grounds
+rearward and the Metal Mountains in their hands, he could in no
+event have attempted.
+
+The question now is: Will he go back to Budin; or will he try
+farther towards Schandau? Nature points to the former course, in
+such circumstances; Friedrich, by way of assisting, does a thing
+much admired by Lloyd;--detaches Bevern with a strong party
+southward, out of Lobositz, which is now his, to lay hold of
+Tschirskowitz, lying Budin-ward, but beyond the Budin Road.
+Which feat, when Browne hears of it, means to him, "Going to cut me
+off from Budin, then? From my ammunition-stores, from my very
+bread-cupboard!" And he marches that same midnight, silently, in
+good order, back to Budin. He is not much ruined; nay the Prussian
+loss is numerically greater: "3,308 killed and wounded, on the
+Prussian side; on the Austrian, 2,984, with three cannon taken and
+two standards." Not ruined at all; but foiled, frustrated; and has
+to devise earnestly, "What next?" Once rearranged, he may
+still try.
+
+The Battle lasted seven hours; the last four of it very hot, till
+Lobositz was won and lost. It was about 5 P.M. when Browne fired
+his retreat-cannon:--cannon happened to be loaded (say the
+Anecdote-Books, mythically given now and then); Friedrich, wearied
+enough, had flung himself into his carriage for a moment's rest, or
+thankful reflection; and of all places, the ball of the retreat-
+cannon lighted THERE. Between Friedrich's feet, as he lay
+reclining,--say the Anecdote-Books, whom nobody is bound
+to believe.
+
+On the strength of those two Prussian charges, which had retired
+from case-shot on their flank, and had not wings, for getting over
+sedge and ooze, Austria pretended to claim the victory.
+"Two charges repelled by our gallant horse; Lobositz, indeed, was
+got on fire, and we had nothing for it but to withdraw; but we took
+a new position, and only left that for want of water;"--with the
+like excuses. "Essentially a clear victory," said the Austrians;
+and sang TE-DEUM about it;--but profited nothing by that piece of
+melody. The fact, considerable or not, was, from the first, too
+undeniable: Browne beaten from the field. And beaten from his
+attempt too (the Saxons not relievable by this method); and lies
+quiet in Budin again,--with his water sure to him; but what other
+advantages gained?
+
+Here are two Letters, brief both, which we may as well read:--
+
+1. FRIEDRICH TO WILHELMINA (at Baireuth).
+
+"LOBOSITZ, 4th October, 1756.
+
+"MY DEAR SISTER,--Your will is accomplished. Tired out by these
+Saxon delays, I put myself at the head of my Army of Bohemia
+[Keith's hitherto]; and marched from Aussig to--a Name which seemed
+to me of good augury, being yours,--to the Village of Welmina
+[Battle was called OF WELMINA, by the Prussians at first]. I found
+the Austrians here, near Lobositz; and, after a Fight of seven
+hours, forced them to run. Nobody of your acquaintance is killed,
+except Generals Luderitz and OErzen [who are not of ours].
+
+"I return you a thousand thanks for the tender part you take in my
+lot. Would to Heaven the valor of my Army might procure us a stable
+Peace! That ought to be the aim of War. Adieu, my dear Sister;
+I embrace you tenderly, assuring you of the lively affection with
+which I am-F." [<italic> OEuvres, <end italic> xxvii. i. 291.]
+
+ 2. PRINCE OF PRUSSIA TO VALORI (who is still at Berlin, but
+ soon going as it proves,--Broglio's explosion at the Lines of
+ Gross-Sedlitz being on hand, during the King's absence, in
+ these very hours ["5th-6th October" (Valori, ii. 353).]
+
+"CAMP OF LOBOSITZ, 5th October, 1756.
+
+"You will know the news of the day; and I am persuaded you take
+part in it. All you say to me betokens the conspiracy there is for
+the destruction of our Country. If that is determined in the Book
+of Fate, we cannot escape it.
+
+"Had my advice been asked, a year ago, I should have voted to
+preserve the Alliance [with YOU] which we had been used to for
+sixteen years [strictly for twelve, though in substance ever since
+1740], and which was by nature advantageous to us. But if my advice
+were asked just now, I should answer, That the said method being
+now impossible, we are in the case of a ship's captain who defends
+himself the best he can, and when all resources are exhausted, has,
+rather than surrender on shameful conditions, to fire the powder-
+magazine, and blow up his ship. You remember that of your
+Francois I."--FORS L'HONNEUR; ah yes, very well!--"Perhaps it will
+be my poor Children who will be the victims of these past errors,"
+--for such I still think them, I for my part.
+
+"The Gazettes enumerate the French troops that are to besiege
+Wesel, Geldern [Wesel they will get gratis, poor Geldern will
+almost break their heart first], and take possession of Ost-
+Friesland; the Russian Declaration [Manifesto not worth reading]
+tells us Russia's intentions for the next year [most truculent
+intentions]: we will defend ourselves to the last drop of our
+blood, and perish with honor. If you have any counsel farther, I
+pray you give it me.
+
+
+MAP GOES HERE-- BETWEEN P. 350 AND 351 Chap VII book 17
+
+
+"Remain always my friend; and believe that in all situations I will
+remain yours; and trying to do what my duty is, will not forfeit
+the sentiments on your part which have been so precious to me.
+Your servant,      GUILLAUME." [Valori, ii. 204-206.]
+
+"Pity this good Prince contemplating the downfall of his House,"
+suggests Valori: "He deserved a better fate! He would be in despair
+to think I had sent this Letter to your Excellency; but I thought
+perhaps you would show it to the King,"--and that it might do good
+one day. [Valori (to the French Minister, "12th October, 1756"),
+ii. 204.] The Prussians lay in their "Camp of Lobositz," posted up
+and down in that neighborhood, for a couple of weeks more;
+waiting whether Rrowne would attempt anything farther in the
+fighting way; and, in fine, whether the solution of the crisis
+would fall out hereabouts, or on the other side of the Hills.
+
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+THE SAXONS GET OUT OF PIRNA ON DISMAL TERMS.
+
+The disaster of October 1st--for which they were trying to sing
+TE-DEUMS at Vienna--fell heavier on the poor Saxons, in their cage
+at Pirna: "Alas, where is our deliverance now?" Friedrich's people,
+in their lines here, gave them such a "joy-firing" for Lobositz as
+Retzow has seldom heard; huge volleyings, salvoings, running-fires,
+starting out, artistically timed and stationed, thunderous, high;
+and borne by the echoes, gloomily reverberative, into every dell
+and labyrinth of the Pirna Country;--intended to strike a deeper
+damp into them, thinks he. [Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty
+was mindful, too; and straightway sent Browne positive order,
+"Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!" And in the course of
+not quite a week from Lobositz, there arrives a confidential
+Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I will try
+it another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the 11th
+stand to your tools, and it shall be done."
+
+Browne is to take a succinct Detachment, 8,000 picked men, horse
+and foot; to make a wider sweep with these, well eastward by the
+foot of Lausitz Hills, and far enough from all Prussian parties and
+scouts; to march, with all speed and silence, "through Bohm-Leipa,
+Kamnitz, Rumburg, Schluckenau; and come in upon the Schandau
+region, quite from the northeast side; say, at Lichtenhayn;
+an eligible Village, which is but seven miles or so from the
+Konigstein, with the chasmy country and the river intervening.
+Monday, October llth, Browne will arrive at Lichtenhayn (sixty
+miles of circling march from Budin); privately post himself near
+Lichtenhayn; Prussian posts, of no great strength, lying ahead of
+him there. You, indignant extenuated Saxons, are to get yourselves
+across,--near the Konigstein it will have to be, under cover of the
+Konigstein's cannon,--on the front or riverward side of those same
+Prussian posts: crossing-place (Browne's Messenger settles) can be
+Thurmsdorf Hamlet, opposite the Lilienstein, opposite the Hamlets
+of Ebenheit and Halbstadt there. Konigstein fire will cover your
+bridge and your building of it.
+
+"Monday night next, I say, post yourselves there, with hearts
+resolute, with powder dry; there, about the eastern roots of the
+Lilienstein [beautiful Show Mountain, with stair-steps cut on it
+for Tourist people, by August the Strong], and avoid the Prussian
+battery and abatis which is on it just now! You at Ebenheit, I at
+Lichtenhayn, trimmed and braced for action, through that Monday
+night. Tuesday morning, the Konigstein, at your beckoning, shall
+fire two cannon-shots; which shall mean, 'All ready here!'
+Then forward, you, on those Prussian posts by the front; I will
+attack them by the rear. With right fury, both of us! I am told,
+they are but weak in those posts; surely, by double impetus, and
+dead-lift effort from us both, they CAN be forced? Only force
+them,--you are in the open field again; and you march away with me,
+colors flying; your hunger-cage and all your tribulations left
+behind you!"--
+
+This is Browne's plan. The poor Saxons accept,--what choice have
+they?--though the question of crossing and bridge-building has its
+intricacies; and that inevitable item of "postponement till the
+11th" is a sore clause to them; for not only are there short and
+ever shorter rations, but grim famine itself is advancing with
+large strides. The "daily twenty ounces of meal" has sunk to half
+that quantity; the "ounce or so of butcher's-meat once a week" has
+vanished, or become HORSE of extreme leanness. The cavalry horses
+have not tasted oats, nothing but hay or straw (not even water
+always); the artillery horses had to live by grazing, brown leaves
+their main diet latterly. Not horses any longer; but walking
+trestles, poor animals! And the men,--well, they are fallen pale;
+but they are resolute as ever. The nine corn-mills, which they have
+in this circuit of theirs, grind now night and day; and all the
+cavalry are set to thresh whatever grain can be found about;
+no hind or husbandman shall retain one sheaf: in this way, they
+hope, utter hunger may be staved off, and the great attempt made.
+[PRECIS DE LA RETRAITE DE L'ARMEE SAXONNE DE SON CAMP DE PIRNA (in
+<italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten, <end italic> i. 482-494).]
+
+Browne skilfully and perfectly did his part of the Adventure.
+Browne arrives punctually at Lichtenhayn, evening of the 11th;
+bivouacs, hidden in the Woods thereabouts, in cold damp weather;
+stealthily reconnoitres the Prussian Villages ahead, and trims
+himself for assault, at sound of the two cannons to-morrow.
+But there came no cannon-signal on the morrow; far other
+signallings and messagings to-morrow, and next day, and next, from
+the Konigstein and neighborhood! "Wait, Excellency Feldmarschall
+[writes Bruhl to him, Note after Note, instead of signalling from
+the Konigstein]: do wait a very little! You run no risk in waiting;
+we, even if we MUST yield, will make that our first stipulation!"
+"YOU will?" grumbles Browne; and waits, naturally, with extreme
+impatience. But the truth is, the Adventure, on the Saxon side of
+it, has already altogether misgone; and becomes, from this point
+onwards, a mere series of failures, futilities and disastrous
+miseries, tragical to think of. Worth some record here, since there
+are Documents abundant;--especially as Feldmarschall Rutowski (who
+is General-in-Chief, an old, not esteemed, friend of ours) has
+produced, or caused to be produced, a Narrative, which illuminates
+the Business from within as well. [PRECIS, &c. (just cited);
+compare TAGEBUCH DER EINSCHLIESSUNG DES SACHSISCHEN LAGERS BEY
+PIRNA ("Diary," &c., which is the Prussian Account: in Seyfarth,
+BEYLAGEN), ii. 22-48.] The latter is our main Document here:--
+
+I know not how much of the blame was General Rutowski's: one could
+surmise some laxity of effort, and a rather slovenly-survey of
+facts, in that quarter. The Enterprise, from the first, was flatly
+impossible, say judges; and it is certain, poor Rutowski's
+execution was not first-rate. "How get across the Elbe?" Rutowski
+had said to himself, perhaps not quite with the due rigor of candor
+proportionate to the rigorous fact: "How get across the Elbe?
+We have copper pontoons at Pirna; but they will be difficult to
+cart. Or we might have a boat-bridge; boats planked together two
+and two. At Pirna are plenty of boats; and by oar and track-rope,
+the River itself might be a road for them? Boats or pontoons to
+Konigstein, by water or land, they must be got. Eight miles of
+abysmal roads, our horses all extenuated? Impossible to cart these
+pontoons!" said Rutowski to himself.--Pity he had not tried it.
+He had a week to do those eight bad miles in; and 2,000 lean
+horses, picking grass or brown leaves, while their riders threshed.
+"We will drag our pontoons by water, by the Elbe tow-path," thought
+Rutowski, "that will be easier;"--and forthwith sets about
+preparing for it, secretly collecting boats at Pirna, steersmen,
+towing-men, bridge-tackle and what else will be necessary. 
+
+Rutowski made, at least, no delay. Browne's messenger, we find, had
+come to him, "Thursday, 7th:" and on Friday night Rutowski has a
+squad of boatmen, steersmen and twoscore of towiug peasants ready;
+and actually gets under way. They are escorted by the due
+battalions with field-pieces;--who are to fire upon the Prussian
+batteries, and keep up such a blaze of musketry and heavier shot,
+as will screen the boats in passing. Surely a ticklish operation,
+this;--arguing a sanguine temper in General Rutowski! The south
+bank of the River is ours; but there are various Prussian
+batteries, three of them very strong, along the north bank, which
+will not fail to pelt us terribly as we pass. No help for it;--we
+must trust in luck! Here is the sequel, with dates adjusted.
+
+ELBE RIVER, NIGHT OF OCTOBER 8th-9th. Friday night, accordingly, so
+soon as Darkness (unusually dark this night) has dropt her veil on
+the business, Rutowski sets forth. The Prussian battery, or bridge-
+head (TETE-DE-PONT), at Pirna, has not noticed him, so silent was
+he. But, alas, the other batteries do not fail to notice; to give
+fire; and, in fact, on being answered, and finding it a serious
+thing, to burst out into horrible explosion; unanswerable by the
+Saxon field-pieces; and surely perilous to human nature steering
+and towing those big River-Boats. "Loyal to our King, and full of
+pity for him; that are we;"--but towing at a rate, say of two
+shillings per head! Before long, the forty towing peasants fling
+down their ropes, first one, then more, then all, in spite of
+efforts, promises, menaces; and vanish among the thickets,--
+forfeiting the two shillings, on view of imminent death.
+Soldiers take the towing-ropes; try to continue it a little;
+but now the steersmen also manage to call halt: "We won't! Let us
+out, let us out! We will steer you aground on the Prussian shore if
+you don't!" making night hideous. And the towing enterprise breaks
+down for that bout; double barges mooring on the Saxon shore, I
+know not precisely at what point, nor is it material.
+
+SATURDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 9th-10th) New boatmen, forty new towmen
+have been hired at immense increase of wages; say four shillings
+for the night: but have you much good probability, my General, that
+even for that high guerdon imminence of death can be made
+indifferent to towmen? No, you have n't. The matter goes this night
+precisely as it did last: towmen vanishing in the horrible cannon
+tumult; steersmen shrieking, "We will ground you on the Prussian
+shore;" very soldiers obliged to give it up; and General Rutowski
+himself obliged to wash his hands of it, as a thing that cannot be
+done. In fact, a thing which need not have been tried, had Rutowski
+been rigorously candid with himself and his hopes, as the facts now
+prove to be. "Twenty-four hours lost by this bad business" (says
+he; "thirty-six," as I count, or, to take it rigorously, "forty-
+eight" even): and now, Sunday morning instead of Friday, at what,
+in sad truth, is metaphorically "the eleventh hour," Rutowski has
+to bethink him of his copper pontoons; and make the impossible
+carting method possible in a day's time, or do worse.
+
+SUNDAY, MONDAY, OCTOBER 10th-11th, By unheard-of exertions, all
+hands and all spent-horses now at a dead-lift effort night and day,
+Rutowski does get his pontoons carted out of the Pirna storehouse;
+lands them at Thurmsdorf,--opposite the Lilienstein,--a mile or so
+short of Konigstein, where his Bridge shall be. It is now the 11th,
+at night. And our pontoons are got to the ground, nothing more.
+Every man of us, at this hour, should have been across, and
+trimming himself to climb, with bayonet fixed! Browne is ready,
+expecting our signal-shot to storm in on his side. And our bridge
+is not built, only the pontoons here. "All things went perverse,"
+adds Rutowski, for farther comfort: "we [Saxon Home-Army] had with
+us, except Officers, only Four Pontoniers, or trained Bridge-
+builders; all the rest are at Warsaw:" sad thought, but too late to
+think it!
+
+TUESDAY, TILL WEDNESDAY EARLY (12th-13th), Bridge, the Four
+Pontoniers, with Officers and numb soldiers doing their best, is
+got built;--Browne waiting for us, on thorns, all day;
+Prussians extensively beginning to strengthen their posts, about
+the Lilienstein, about Lichtenhayn, or where risk is; and in fact
+pouring across to that northern side, quite aware of Rutowski
+and Browne.
+
+That same night, 12th-13th, while the Bridge was struggling to
+complete itself,--rain now falling, and tempests broken out,--the
+Saxon Army, from Pirna down to Hennersdorf, had lifted itself from
+its Lines, and got under way towards Thurmsdorf, and the crossing-
+place. Dark night, plunging rain; all the elements in uproar.
+The worst roads in Nature; now champed doubly; "such roads as never
+any Army marched on before." Most of their cannon are left
+standing; a few they had tried to yoke, broke down, "and choked up
+the narrow road altogether; so that the cavalry had to dismount,
+and lead their horses by side-paths,"--figure what side-paths!
+Distance to Thurmsdorf, from any point of the Saxon Lines, cannot
+be above six miles: but it takes them all that night and all next
+day. Such a march as might fill the heart with pity. Oh, ye
+Rutowskis, Bruhls, though never so decorated by twelve tailors,
+what a sight ye are at the head of men! Dark night, wild raging
+weather, labyrinthic roads worn knee-deep. It is broad daylight,
+Wednesday, 13th, and only the vanguard is yet got across, trailing
+a couple of cannons; and splashes about, endeavoring to take rank
+there, in spite of wet and hunger; rain still pouring, wind
+very high.
+
+Nothing of Browne comes, this Wednesday; but from the opposite
+Gross-Sedlitz and Gottleube side, the Prussians are coming.
+This morning, at daylight, struck by symptoms, "the Prussians
+mounted our empty redoubts:" they are now in full chase of us,
+Ziethen with Hussars as vanguard. A difficult bit of marching, even
+Ziethen and his light people find it; sprawling forward, at their
+cheeriest, with daylight to help, and in chase, not chased, through
+such intricacies of rock and mud. Ziethen's company did not assist
+the Saxons! They wheel round, show fight, and there is volleying
+and bickering all day; the Saxon march getting ever more perturbed.
+Nearly all the baggage has to be left. Ziethen takes into the woods
+near Thurmsdorf; giving fire as the poor wet Saxons, now much in a
+pell-mell condition, pass to their Bridge. [PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT (in
+<italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten), <end italic> i. 852.]
+Heavier Prussians are striding on to rear; these, from some final
+hill-top, do at last belch out two cannon-shots: figure the
+confusion at that Bridge, the speed now becoming delirious there!
+Towards evening, rain still violent, the Saxons, baggageless, and
+rushing quite pell-mell the latter part of them, are mostly across,
+still countable to 14,000 or so;--upon which they cut their Bridge
+adrift, and let the river take it. At Raden, a few miles lower, the
+Prussians fished it out; rebuilt it more deliberately,--and we
+shall find it there anon. This day Friedrich, hearing what is
+afoot, has returned in person from the Lobositz Country;
+takes Struppen as his head-quarter, which was lately the
+Polish Majesty's.
+
+From Browne there has nothing come this Wednesday; but to-morrow
+morning at seven there comes a Letter from him, written this night
+at ten; to the effect:--
+
+ "HEAD-QUARTER, LICHTENHAYN, Wednesday, October 13th, 10 P.M.
+"EXCELLENZ,--Have [omitting the I] waited here at Lichtenhayn since
+Tuesday, expecting your signal-cannon; hearing nothing of it,
+conclude you have by misfortune not been able to get across;
+and that the Enterprise is up. My own position being dangerous
+[Prussians of double my strength intrenched within few miles of
+me], I turn homewards to-morrow at nine A.M.: ready for whatever
+occurs TILL then; and sorrowfully say adieu," [PRECIS (ut supra),
+p. 493; <italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iii. 940; &c.]
+
+Dreadful weather for Browne in his bivouac, and wearisome waiting,
+with Prussians and perils accumulating on him! Browne was ill of
+lungs; coughing much; lodging, in these violent tempests, on the
+cold ground. A right valiant soldier and man, as does appear;
+the flower of all the Irish Brownes (though they have quite
+forgotten him in our time), and of all those Irish Exiles then
+tragically spending themselves in Austrian quarrels! "You saw the
+great man," says one who seems to have been present, "how he
+sacrificed himself to this Enterprise. What Austrian Field-marshal
+but himself would ever have lowered his loftiness to lead, in
+person, so insignificant a Detachment, merely for the public good!
+I have seen staff-officers, distinguished only by their sasheries
+and insignia, who would not have stirred to inspect a vedette
+without 250 men. Our Field-marshal was of another turn.
+Sharing with his troops all the hardships, none excepted, of these
+critical days; and in spite of a violent cough, which often brought
+the visible blood from his lungs, and had quite worn him down;
+exposing himself, like the meanest of the Army, to the tempests of
+rainy weather. Think what a sight it was, going to your very heart,
+and summoning you to endurance of every hardship,--that evening
+[not said which], when the Field-marshal, worn out with his
+fatigues and his disorder, sank out of fainting-fits into a sleep!
+The ground was his bed, and the storm of clouds his coverlid.
+In crowds his brave war-comrades gathered round; stripped their
+cloaks, their coats, and strove in noble rivalry which of them
+should have the happiness to screen the Father of the Army at their
+own cost of exposure, and by any device keep the pelting of the
+weather from that loved head!" [Cogniazzo, <italic> Gestandnisse
+eines OEsterreichischen Veterans, <end italic> ii. 251.] There is a
+picture for you, in the heights of Lichtenhayn, as you steam past
+Schandau, in contemplative mood; and perhaps think of "Justice to
+Ireland!" among other sad thoughts that rise.
+
+From Thurmsdorf to the Pontoon-Bridge there was a kind of road;
+down which the Saxons scrambled yesterday; and, by painful degrees,
+got wriggled across. But, on the other shore, forward to the
+Hamlets of Halbstadt and Ebenheit, there is nothing but a steep
+slippery footpath: figure what a problem for the 14,000 in such
+weather! Then at Ebenheit, close behind, Browne-wards, were Browne
+now there, rises the Lilienstein, abrupt rocky mountain, its slopes
+on both hands washed by the River (River making its first elbow
+here, closely girdling this Lilienstein): on both these slopes are
+Prussian batteries, each with its abatis; needing to be stormed:--
+that will be your first operation. Abatis and slopes of the
+Lilienstein once stormed, you fall into a valley or hollow, raked
+again by Prussian batteries; and will have to mount, still
+storming, out of the valley, sky-high across the Ziegenruck
+(GOAT'S-BACK) ridge: that is your second preliminary operation.  
+After which you come upon the work itself; namely, the Prussian
+redoubts at Lichtenhayn, and 12,000 men on them by this time!
+A modern Tourist says, reminding or informing:
+
+"From the Konigstein to Pirna, Elbe, if serpentine, is like a
+serpent rushing at full speed. Just past the Konigstein, the Elbe,
+from westward, as its general course is, turns suddenly to
+northward; runs so for a mile and a half; then, just before getting
+to the BASTEI at Raden, turns suddenly to westward again, and so
+continues. Tourists know Raden,"--where the Prussians have just
+fished out a Bridge for themselves,--"with the BASTEI high aloft to
+west of it. The Old Inn, hospitable though sleepless, stands
+pleasantly upon the River-brink, overhung by high cliffs: close on
+its left side, or in the intricacies to rear of it, are huts and
+houses, sprinkled about, as if burrowed in the sandstone;
+more comfortably than you could expect. The site is a narrow dell,
+narrow chasm, with labyrinthic chasms branching off from it;
+narrow and gloomy as seen from the River, but opening out even into
+cornfields as you advance inwards: work of a small Brook, which is
+still industriously tinkling and gushing there, and has in Pre-
+Adamite times been a lake, and we know not what. Nieder-Raden,
+this, on the north side of the River; of Ober-Raden, on the south
+side, there is nothing visible from your Inn windows,"--nor have we
+anything to do with it farther. An older Guide of Tourists yields
+us this second Fraction (capable of condensation):--
+
+... "To Halbstadt, thence to Ebenheit, your path is steeper and
+steeper; from Ebenheit to the Lilienstein you take a guide.
+The Mountain is conical; coarse RED sandstone; steps cut for you
+where needed: August the Strong's Hunting-Lodge (JAGDHUTTE) is here
+(August went thither in a grand way, 1708, with his Wife);
+Lodge still extant, by the side of a wood;--Lilienstein towering
+huge and sheer, solitary, grand, like some colossal Pillar of the
+Cyclops, from this round Pediment of Country which you have been
+climbing; tops of Lilienstein plumed everywhere with fir and birch,
+Pediment also very green and woody. August the Strong, grandly
+visiting here, 1708, on finish of those stair-steps cut for you,
+set up an Ebenezer, or Column of Memorial at this Hunting-Hut, with
+Inscription which can still be read, though now with difficulty in
+its time-worn state:--
+
+"FRIEDERICUS AUGUSTUS, REX [of what? Dare not say of POLAND just
+now, for fear of Charles XII.], ET ELECTOR SAX., UT FORTUNAEM
+VIRTUTE, ITA ASPERAM HANC RUPEM PRIMUS [PRIMUS not of men, but of
+Saxon Electors] SUPERAVIT, ADITUMQUE FACILIOREM REDDI CURAVIT.
+ANNO 1708."--"UT FORTUNAM VIRTUTE, As his fortune by valor, SO he
+conquered this rugged rock by"--Poor devil, only hear him:--and
+think how good Nature is (for the time being) to poor devils and
+their 354 bastards! [M.(agister) Wilhelm Lebrecht Gotzinger,
+<italic> Schandau und seine Umgebungen, oder Beschreibung der
+Sachsischen Schweitz <end italic> (Dresden, 1812), pp. 145-148.
+Gotzinger, who designates himself as "Pastor at Neustadt near
+Stolpen" (northwest border of the Pirna Country), has made of this
+(which would now be called a TOURIST'S GUIDE, and has something
+geological in it) a modest, good little Book, put together with
+industry, clearness, brevity. Gives interesting Narrative of our
+present Business too, as gathered from his "Father" and other good
+sources and testimonies.]
+
+Bruhl and the Polish Majesty, safe enough they, and snug in the
+Konigstein, are clear for advancing: "Die like soldiers, for your
+King and Country!" writes Polish Majesty, "Thursday, two in the
+morning:" that also Rutowski reads; and I think still other Royal
+Autographs, sent as Postscripts to that. From the Konigstein they
+duly fire off the two Cannon-shot, as signal that we are coming;
+signal which Browne, just in the act of departing, never heard,
+owing to the piping of the winds and rattling of the rain.
+"Advance, my heroes!" counsel they: "You cannot drag your
+ammunitions, say you; your poor couple of big guns? Here are his
+Majesty's own royal horses for that service!"--and, in effect, the
+royal stud is heroically flung open in this pressure; and a
+splashing column of sleek quadrupeds, "150 royal draught-horses,
+early in the forenoon," [Gotzinger, p. 156.] swim across to
+Ebenheit accordingly, if that could encourage. And, "about noon,
+there is strong cannonading from the Konigstein, as signal to
+Browne," who is off. Polish Majesty looking with his spy-glass in
+an astonished manner. In Vain! Rutowski and his Council of War--
+sitting wet in a hut of Ebenheit, with 14,000 starved men outside,
+who have stood seventy-two hours of rain, for one item--see nothing
+for it but "surrender on such terms as we can get."
+
+"In fact," independently of weather and circumstances, "the
+Enterprise," says Friedrich, "was radically impossible; nobody that
+had known the ground could have judged it other." Rutowski had not
+known it, then? Browne never pretended to know it. Rutowski was not
+candid with the conditions; the conditions never known nor candidly
+looked at; and THEY are now replying to him with candor enough.
+From the first his Enterprise was a final flicker of false hope;
+going out, as here, by spasm, in the rigors of impossibility and
+flat despair.
+
+That column of royal horses sent splashing across the River,--that
+was the utmost of self-sacrifice which I find recorded of his
+Polish Majesty in this matter. He was very obstinate; his Bruhl and
+he were. But his conduct was not very heroic. That royal Autograph,
+"General Rutowski, and ye true Saxons, attack these Prussian lines,
+then; sell your lives like men" (not like Bruhl and me), must have
+fallen cold on the heart, after seventy-two hours of rain!
+Rutowski's wet Council of War, in the hut at Ebenheit, rain still
+pouring, answers unanimously, "That it were a leading of men to the
+butchery;" that there is nothing for it but surrender. Bruhl and
+Majesty can only answer: "Well-a-day; it must be so, then!"--
+Winterfeld, Prussian Commander hereabouts, grants Armistice, grants
+liberal "wagon-loads of bread" first of all; terms of Capitulation
+to be settled at Struppen to-morrow.
+
+FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15th, Rutowski goes across to Struppen, the late
+Saxon head-quarter, now Friedrich's;--Friday gone a fortnight was
+the day of Lobositz. Winterfeld and he are the negotiators there;
+Friedrich ratifying or refusing by marginal remarks. The terms
+granted are hard enough: but they must be accepted.
+First preliminary of all terms has already been accepted: a gift of
+bread to these poor Saxons; their haversacks are empty, their
+cartridge-boxes drowned; it has rained on them three days and
+nights. Last upshot of all terms is still well known to everybody:
+That the 14,000 Saxons are compelled to become Prussian, and
+"forced to volunteer"!
+
+That had been Friedrich's determination, and reading of his rights
+in the matter, now that hard had come to hard. "You refused all
+terms; you have resisted to death (or death's-DOOR); and are now at
+discretion!" Of the question, What is to be done with those Saxons?
+Friedricb had thought a great deal, first and last; and had found
+it very intricate,--as readers too will, if they think of it.
+"Prisoners of War,--to keep them locked up, with trouble and
+expense, in that fashion? They can never be exchanged: Saxony has
+now nothing to exchange them with; and Austria will not.
+Their obstinacy has had costs to me; who of us can count what
+costs! In short, they shall volunteer!" 
+
+"Never did I, for my poor part, authorize such a thing," loudly
+asseverated Rutowski afterwards. And indeed the Capitulation is not
+precise on that interesting point. A lengthy Document, and not
+worth the least perusal otherwise; we condense it into three
+Articles, all grounding on this general Basis, not deniable by
+Rutowski: "The Saxon Army, being at such a pass, ready to die of
+hunger, if we did NOT lift our finger, has, so to speak, become our
+property; and we grant it the following terms:"--
+  "1. Kettle-drums, standards and the like insignia and matters of
+honor,--carry these to the Konigstein, with my regretful respects
+to his Polish Majesty. Konigstein to be a neutral Fortress during
+this War. Polish Majesty at perfect liberty to go to Warsaw [as he
+on the instant now did, and never returned].
+  "2. Officers to depart on giving their parole, Not to serve
+against us during this War [Parole given, nothing like too well
+kept].
+  "3. Rest of the Army, with all its equipments, munitions, soul
+and body (so to speak), is to surrender utterly, and be ours, as
+all Saxony shall for the present be." [In <italic> Helden-
+Geschichte, <end italic> iii. 920-928, at full length--with
+Briedrich's MARGINALIA noticeably brief.]
+
+That is, in sum, the Capitulation of Struppen. Nothing articulate
+in it about the one now interesting point,--and in regard to that,
+I can only fancy Rutowski might interject, interrogatively, perhaps
+at some length: "Our soldiers to be Prisoners of War, then?"
+"Prisoners; yes, clearly,--unless they choose to volunteer, and
+have a better fate! Prisoners can volunteer. They are at
+discretion; they would die, if we did NOT lift our finger!" thus I
+suppose Winterfeld would rejoin, if necessary;--and that, in the
+Winterfeld-Rutowski Conferences, the thing had probably been kept
+in a kind of CHIAROSCURO by both parties.
+
+Very certain it is, Sunday, 17th October, 1756, Capitulation being
+signed the night before, Friedrich goes across at Nieder-Raden
+(where the Pilgrim of the Picturesque now climbs to see the BASTEI;
+where the Prussians have, by this time, a Bridge thrown together
+out of those Pontoons),--goes across at Nieder-Raden, up that
+chasmy Pass; rides to the Heights of Waltersdorf, in the opener
+country behind; and pauses there, while the captive Saxon Army
+defiles past him, laying down its arms at his feet. Unarmed, and
+now under Prussian word of command, these Ex-Saxon soldiers go on
+defiling; march through by that Chasm of Nieder-Raden; cross to
+Ober-Raden; and, in the plainer country thereabouts, are--in I know
+not what length of hours, but in an incredibly short length, so
+swift is the management--changed wholly into Prussian soldiers:
+"obliged to volunteer," every one of them!
+
+That is the fact; fact loudly censured; fact surely questionable,--
+to what intrinsic degree I at this moment do not know. Fact much
+blamable before the loose public of mankind; upon which I leave men
+to their verdict. It is not a fact which invites imitation, as we
+shall see! Fact how accomplished; by what methods? that would be
+the question with me; but even that is left dark. "The horse
+regiments, three of heavy horse, he broke; and distributed about, a
+good few in his own Garde-du-Corps." Three other horse regiments
+were in Poland, the sole Saxon Army now left,--of whom, at least of
+one man among whom, we may happen to hear. "Ten foot regiments
+[what was reckoned a fault] he left together; in Prussian uniform,
+with Prussian Officers. They were scattered up and down; put in
+garrisons; not easy handling them: they deserted by whole companies
+at a time in the course of this War." [Preuss, ii. 22, 135;
+in Stenzel (v. 16-20) more precise details.] Not a measure for
+imitation, as we said!--How Friedrich defended such hard conduct to
+the Saxons? Reader, I know only that Destiny and Necessity, urged
+on by Saxons and others, was hard as adamant upon Friedrich at this
+time; and that Friedrich did not the least dream of making any
+defence;--and will have to take your verdict, such as it may be.
+
+Moritz of Dessau had a terrible Winter of it, organizing and
+breaking in these Saxon people,--got by press-gang in this way.
+Polish Majesty, "with 500 of suite," had driven instantly for
+Warsaw; post-horses most politely furnished him, and all the
+Prussian posts and soldiers well kept out of his road,--road chosen
+for him to that end. Poor soul, he never came back. For six years
+coming, he saw, from Warsaw in the distance (amid anarchy and
+NIE-POZWALAM, which he never lacked there), the wide War raging, in
+Saxony especially; and died soon after it was done. Nor did Bruhl
+return, except broken by that event, and to die in few months
+after. Let us pity the poor fat-goose of a Majesty (not ill-natured
+at all, only stupid and idle): some pity even to the doomed-
+phantasm Bruhl, if you can;--and thank Heaven to have got done with
+such a pair!--
+
+Friedrich's treatment of the Saxon Troops, Saxon Majesty and
+Country: who shall say that it was wise in all points? It would be
+singular treatment, if it were! In all things, AFTER is so
+different from BEFORE and DURING. The truth is, Friedrich hoped
+long to have made some agreement with the Saxons. And readers now,
+in the universal silence, have no notion of Friedrich's
+complexities from fact, and of the loud howl of hostile rumor,
+which was piping through all journals, diplomacies and foreign
+human throats, against him at that time.
+
+"The essential passages of War and Peace," says a certain
+Commentator, "during those Five weeks of Pirna, can be made
+intelligible in small compass. But how the world argued of them
+then and afterwards, and rang with hot Gazetteer and Diplomatic
+logic from side to side, no reader will now ever know. A world-
+tornado extinct, gone:--think of the sounds uttered from human
+windpipes, shrill with rage some of them, hoarse others with ditto;
+of the vituperations, execrations, printed and vocal,--grating
+harsh thunder upon Friedrich and this new course of his.
+Huge melody of Discords, shrieking, droning, grinding on that
+topic, through the afflicted Universe in general, for certain
+years. The very Pamphlets printed on it,--cannot Dryasdust give me
+the number of tons weight, then? Dead now every Pamphlet of them;
+a thing fallen horrible to human nature; extinct forever, as is the
+wont in such cases."
+
+I will give only this of Voltaire; a mild Epigram, done at The
+DELICES, in pleasant view of Ferney and good things coming. A bolt
+shot into the storm-tost Sea and its wreckages, by a Mariner now
+cheerily drying his clothes on the shore there;--in fact, an
+indifferent Epigram, on Kings Friedrich and George, which is now
+flying about in select circles:--
+
+<italic>
+"Rivaux du Vainqueur de l'Euphrate,
+  L'Oncle et le Neveu,
+L'un fait la guerre en pirate,
+  L'autre en parti bleu.
+"<end italic>
+
+"Rivals of Alexander the Great, this Uncle and Nephew make war, the
+one as a Pirate [seizure of those French ships], the other [Saxony
+stolen] as Captain of an Accidental Thieving-squad,"--PARTI BLEU,
+as the French soldiers call it. [Walpole's LETTERS, "To Sir Horace
+Mann, 8th December; 1756."]
+
+
+MAP facing page 365, Chap VII, Book 17---------------------
+
++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+Pirna was no sooner done than Friedrich returned to the "Camp at
+Lobositz," where his victorious Keith-Army has been lying all this
+while. The Camp of Lobositz, and all Camps Prussian and Austrian,
+are about to strike their tents, and proceed to Winter-quarters, to
+prepare against next Spring. Friedrich set off thither October 18th
+(the very day after that of Waltersdorf); with intent to bring home
+Keith's Army, and see if Browne meant anything farther (which
+Browne did not, or does only in the small Tolpatch way); also to
+meet, Schwerin, whom he had summoned over from Silesia for a little
+conference there. Schwerin, after eating Konigsgratz Country well,
+--which was all he could do, as Piccolomini would not come out, and
+we know how strong the ground is,--had retired to Silesia again, in
+due season (snapping up, in a sharply conclusive manner, any
+Tolpatcheries that attempted chase of him); taken Winter
+cantonments in Silesia, headquarter Schweidnitz; and is now getting
+his Instructions, here personally, in the Metal Mountains, for a
+day or two. [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iii.
+946, 948.]
+
+Friedrich brought his Keith-Army home to Gross-Sedlitz, to join the
+other Force there; and distributed the whole into their Winter-
+quarters. Cantoned far and wide, spreading out from Pirna on both
+hands: on the left or western hand, by Zwickau, Freyberg, Chemnitz,
+up to Leipzig, Torgau; and on the right or northeast hand, by
+Zittau, Gorlitz, Bautzen, to protect the Lausitz against Austrian
+inroads,--while a remote Detachment, under Winterfeld, watches the
+Bober River with similar views. [In <italic> Helden-Geschichte,
+<end italic> iii. 948 et seq., a minute List by Place and
+Regiment.] All which done, or settled to be done, Friedrich quits
+Gross-Sedlitz, November 14th; and takes up his abode at Dresden for
+this Winter.
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+WINTER IN DRESDEN.
+
+The Saxon Army is incorporated, then; its King gone under the
+horizon; the Saxon Country has a Prussian Board set over it, to
+administer all things of Government, especially to draw taxes and
+recruits from Saxony. Torgau, seat of this new Board, has got
+fortified; "1,500 inhabitants were requisitioned as spademen for
+that end, at first with wages,"--latterly, I almost fear, without!
+
+The Saxon Ministers are getting drilled, cashiered if necessary;
+and on all hands, rigorous methods going forward;--till Saxony is
+completely under grasp; in which state it was held very tight
+indeed, for the six years coming. There is no detailing of all
+that; details, were they even known to an Editor at such distance,
+would weary every reader. Enough to understand that Friedrich has
+not on this occasion, as he did in 1744, omitted to disarm Saxony,
+to hobble it in every limb, and have it, at discretion, tied as
+with ropes to his interests and him. [<italic> Helden-Geschichte,
+<end italic> iii. 945-956.] His management was never accounted
+cruel; and it was studiously the reverse of violent or irregular:
+but it had to be rigorous as the facts were;--nor was it the worst,
+or reckoned the worst, of Saxony's miseries in this time.
+
+Poor Country, suffering for its Bruhl! In the Country, except for
+its Bruhl, there was no sin against Prussia; the reverse rather.
+The Saxon population, as Protestants, have no good-will to Austria
+and its aims of aggrandizement. In Austrian spy-letters, now and
+afterwards, they are described to us as "GUT PREUSSISCH;" "strong
+for Prussia, the most of them, even in Dresden itself."
+
+Whether Friedrich could have had much real hope to end the War this
+Year, or scare it off from beginning, may be a question. If he had,
+it is totally disappointed. The Saxon Government has brought ruin
+on itself and Country, but it has been of great damage to
+Friedrich. Would Polish Majesty have consented to disband his
+soldiers, and receive Friedrich with a BONA-FIDE "Neutrality,"
+Friedrich could have passed the Mountains still in time for a heavy
+stroke on Bohemia, which was totally unprepared for such a visit,
+And he might--from the Towers of Prag, for instance--have, far more
+persuasively, held out the olive-branch to an astonished Empress-
+Queen: "Leave me alone, Madam; will you, then! Security for that;
+I wanted and want nothing more!" But Polish Majesty, taking on him
+the character of Austrian martyr, and flinging himself into the
+gulf, has prevented all that; has turned all that the other way.
+
+Austria, it appears, is quite ungrateful: "Was n't he bound?"
+thinks Austria,--as its wont rather is. Forgetful of the great
+deliverance wrought for it by poor Polish Majesty; whom it could
+not deliver-except into bottomless wreck! Austria, grateful or not,
+stands unscathed; has time to prepare its Armaments, its vocal
+Arguments: Austria is in higher provocation than ever; and its very
+Arguments, highly vocal to the Reich and the world, "Is not this
+man a robber, and enemy of mankind?" do Friedrich a great deal of
+ill. Friedrich's sudden Campaign, instead of landing him in the
+heart of the Austrian States, there to propose Peace, has kindled
+nearly all Europe into flames of rage against him,--which will not
+consist in words merely! Never was misunderstanding of a man at a
+higher pitch: "Such treatment of a peaceable Neighbor and Crowned
+Head,--witness it, ye Heavens and thou Earth!" Dauphiness falling
+on her knees to Most Christian Majesty; "Princess and dearest
+Sister" to Most Christian Majesty's Pompadour; especially no end of
+Pleading to the German Reich, in a furious, Delphic-Pythoness or
+quasi-inspired tone: all this goes on.
+
+From the time when Pirna was blockaded, Kaiser Franz, his high
+Consort and sense of duty urging him, has been busy in the Reich's-
+Hofrath (kind of Privy-Council or Supreme Court of the Reich, which
+sits at Vienna); busy there, and in the Reich's Diet at Regensburg;
+busy everywhere, with utmost diligence over Teutschland,--forging
+Reich thunder. Manifestoes, HOF-DECRETS, DEHORTATORIUMS,
+EXCITATORIUMS; so goes it, exploding like Vesuvius, shock on the
+back of shock:--20th September it began; and lasts, CRESCENDO,
+through Winter and onwards, at an extraordinary rate. [In <italic>
+Helden-Geschichte <end italic> (iv. 163-174; iii. 956; and indeed
+PASSIM through those Volumes), the Originals in frightful
+superabundance.] Of all which, leaving readers to imagine it, we
+will say nothing,--except that it points towards "Armed
+Interference by the Reich," "Reich's Execution Army;" nay towards
+"Ban of the Reich" (total excommunication of this Enemy of Mankind,
+and giving of him up to Satan, by bell, book and candle), which is
+a kind of thunder-bolt not heard of for a good few ages past!
+Thunder-bolt thought to be gone mainly to rust by the judicious;--
+which, however, the poor old Reich did grasp again, and attempt to
+launch. As perhaps we shall have to notice by and by, among the
+miracles going.
+
+France too, urged by the noblest concern, feels itself called upon.
+France magnanimously intimates to the Reich's Diet, once and again,
+"That Most Christian Majesty is guarantee of the Treaty of
+Westphalia; Most Christian Majesty cannot stand such procedures;"
+and then the second time, "That Most Christian Majesty will
+interfere practically,"--by 100,000 men and odd.
+[<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iv. 340 ("26th March,
+1757").] In short, the sleeping world-whirlwinds are awakened
+against this man. General Dance of the Furies; there go they, in
+the dusky element, those Eumenides, "giant-limbed, serpent-haired,
+slow-pacing, circling, torch in hand" (according to Schiller),--
+scattering terror and madness. At least, in the Diplomatic Circles
+of mankind;--if haply the Populations will follow suit!--
+
+Friedrich, abundantly contemptuous of Reich's-thunder in the rusted
+kind, and well able to distinguish sound from substance in the
+Reich or elsewhere, recognizes in all this sufficiently portentous
+prophecies of fact withal; and understands, none better, what a
+perilous position he has got into. But he cannot mend it;--can
+only, as usual, do his own utmost in it. As readers will believe he
+does; and that his vigilance and diligence are very great.
+Continual, ubiquitous and at the top of his bent, one fancies his
+effort must have been,--though he makes no noise on the subject.
+Considerable work he has with Hanover, this Winter; with the poor
+English Government, and their "Army of Observation," which is to
+appear in the Hanover parts, VERSUS those 100,000 French, next
+Spring. To Hanover he has sent Schmettau (the Younger Schmettau,
+Elder is now dead) in regard to said Army; has made a new and
+closer Treaty with England (impossible to be fulfilled on poor
+England's part);--and laments, as Mitchell often does, the
+tragically embroiled condition of that Country, struggling so
+vehemently, to no purpose, to get out of bed, and not unlike
+strangling or smothering itself in its own blankets, at present!
+With and in regard to Saxony, his work is of course extremely
+considerable; and in regard to his own Army, and its coming
+Business, considerablest of all. Counter-Manifesto work, to state
+his case in a distinct manner, and leave it with the Populations if
+the Diplomacies are deaf: this too, is copiously proceeding;
+under Artists who probably do not require much supervision.
+In fact, no King living has such servants, in the Civil or the
+Military part, to execute his will. And no King so little wastes
+himself in noises; a King who has good command of himself, first of
+all; not to be thrown off his balance by any terror, any
+provocation even, though his temper is very sharp.
+
+Friedrich in person is mainly at Dresden, lodged in the Bruhl
+Palace;--endless wardrobes and magnificences there; three hundred
+and sixty-FOUR Pairs of Breeches hanging melancholy, in a widowed
+manner: C'EST ASSEZ DE CULOTTES; MONTREZ-MOI DES VERTUS! Bruhl is
+far away, in Poland; Madam Bruhl has still her Apartments in this
+Palace,--a frugal King needs only the necessary spaces.
+Madam Bruhl is very busy here; and not to good purpose, being well
+seen into. "She had a cask of wine sent her from Warsaw," says
+Friedrich; "orders were given to decant for her every drop of the
+wine, but to be sure and bring us the cask." Cask was found to have
+two bottoms, intermediate space filled with spy-correspondence.
+Madam Bruhl protests and pleads, Friedrich not unpolite in reply;
+his last Letter to her says, "Madam, it is better that you go and
+join your Husband."
+
+Another high Dame gets sausages from Bohemia;--some of Friedrich's
+light troops have an appetite, beyond strict law for sausages;
+break in, find Letters along with the other stuffing.
+[<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> iv. 108; Mitchell,
+"27th March, 1757" (Raumer p. 321).] Friedrich has a good deal of
+watching and coercing to do in that kind,--some arresting,
+conveyance even to Custrin for a time, though nothing crueler
+proved needful. To the poor Queen he keeps up civilities, but is
+obliged to be strict as Argus;--she made him a Gift too, the NIGHT
+of Correggio, admired NOTTE of Correggio; having heard that he sat
+before it silent for half an hour, on entering that fine Gallery,--
+which is due to our Sovereign Lord and his Bruhl, alas! On the
+other hand, Friedrich had to take from her Majesty's Royal Abode
+those Hundred Swiss of Body-guard; to discharge the same, and put
+Prussians in their stead. Nay, at one time, on loud outcry from her
+Majesty, and great private cause of complaint against her, there
+was talk of sending the poor Royal lady to Warsaw, after her
+Husband; but her objection being violent, nothing came of that:
+Winter following, her poor Majesty died, [27th November, 1757.] and
+gave nobody any farther trouble.
+
+Friedrich's outposts, especially in the Lausitz, are a good deal
+disturbed by Austrian Tolpatcheries; and do feats, heroic in the
+small way, in smiting down that rabble. A valuable Officer or two
+is lost in such poor service, poor but indispensable; [Funeral
+Discourses (of a very curious, ponderous and serious tone), in
+<italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten, <end italic> ii. 458, 464, &c.]
+and the troops have not always the repose which is intended them.
+Lieutenant-Colonel Loudon (Scotch by kindred, and famous enough
+before long) is the soul of these Croat enterprises,--and gets his
+Colonelcy by them, in a month or two; Browne recommending.
+Loudon had arrived too late for Lobositz, but had been with Browne
+to Schandau; and, on the march homewards, did a bright feat of the
+Croat kind:--surprisal, very complete, of that Hill-Castle of
+Tetschen and considerable Hussar Party there; done in a style which
+caught the eye of Browne; and was the beginning of great things to
+poor Loudon, after his twenty years of painful eclipse under the
+Indigo Trencks, and miscellaneous Doggeries, Austrian aud Russian.
+[LA VIE DU FELDMARECHAL BARON DE LOUDON (Translation of one Pezzl's
+German: a Vienne et a Paris, 1792), i. 1-32.]
+
+Tetschen, therefore, will again need capture by the Prussians, if
+they again intend that way. And in the mean while, Friedrich, to
+counterpoise those mischievous Croat people, has bethought him of
+organizing a similar Force of his own;--Foot chiefly, for, on hint
+of former experience, he already has Hussars in quantity. And, this
+Winter, there are accordingly, in different Saxon Towns, three
+Irregular Regiments getting ready for him; three "Volunteer
+Colonels" busily enlisting each his "Free Corps," such the title
+chosen;--chief Colonel of them one Mayer, now in Zwickau
+neighborhood with 6 or 700 loose handy fellows round him, getting
+formed into strict battalion there: [Pauli (our old diffuse
+friend), <italic> Leben grosser Helden des gegenwartigen Krieges
+<end italic> (9 vols., Halle, 1759-1764), iii. 159, ? Mayr.] of
+whom, and of whose soldiering, we shall hear farther. For the plan
+was found to answer; and extended itself year after year; and the
+"Prussian Free Corps," one way and another, made considerable noise
+in the world.
+
+Outwardly Friedrich's Life is quiet; busy, none can be more so;
+but to the on-looker, placid, polite especially. He hears sermon
+once or twice in the Kreuz-Kirche (Protestant High Church);
+then next day will hear good music, devotional if you call it so,
+in the Catholic Church, where her Polish Majesty is. Daily at the
+old hour he has his own Concert, now and then assisting with his
+own flute. Makes donations to the Poor, and such like, due from
+Saxon Sovereignty while held by him; on the other hand, reduces
+salaries at a sad rate Guarini, Queen's Confessor, from near 2,000
+pounds to little more than 300 pounds, for one instance;--cuts off
+about 25,000 pounds in all under this head. [<italic> Helden-
+Geschichte, <end italic> iv. 306 ("December, 1756").] And is heavy
+with billeting, as new Prussians arrive. Billets at length in
+the very Ambassadors' Hotels,--and by way of apology to the
+Excellencies, signifies to them in a body: "Sorry for the
+necessity, your Excellencies: but ought not you to go to Warsaw
+rather? Your credentials are to his Polish Majesty. He is not here;
+nor coming hither, for some time!" Which hint, I suppose, the
+Excellencies mostly took. From his own Forests there came by the
+Elbe great rafts of firewood, to warm his soldiers in their
+quarters. Once or twice he makes excursions, of a day of two days;
+to the Lausitz, to Leipzig (through Freyberg, where he has a post
+of importance);--very gracious to the University people: "Students
+be troubled with soldiering? Far from it ye learned Gentlemen,
+servants of the Muses! Recruitment, a lamentable necessity, is to
+go on under your own Official people, and wholly by the old
+methods." [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iv. 303-313;
+UNIVERSITATSANSCHLAG ZU LEIPZIG, WEGEN DER WERBUNG
+("University-Placard about Enlisting:" in <italic> Gesammelte
+Nachrichten, <end italic> i. 811).]
+
+Once, and once only, he made a run to Berlin, January 4th-18th,
+1757: the last for six years and more. Came with great despatch,
+Brother Henri with him, whole journey in one day; got, "to his
+Mother's about 11 at night." [Ib. iv. 308.] A joyful meeting, for
+the kindred: cheerful light-gleam in the dark time, so suddenly
+eclipsed to them and others by those hurricanes that have risen.
+His Majesty seems to be in perfect health; and wears no look of
+gloom. At Berlin is no Carnival this year; all are grave, sunk in
+sad contemplations of the future. Of his businesses in this
+interval, which were many, I will say nothing; only of one little
+Act he did, the day before his departure: the writing of this
+SECRET LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS to Graf Finck von Finkenstein, his
+chief Home Minister, one of his old boy-comrades, as readers may
+recollect. The Letter was read by Count Finck with profound
+attention, 11th January, 1757, and conned over till he knew every
+point of it; after which he sealed it up, inscribing on the Cover:
+"HOCHSTEIGENHANDIGE UND GANX GEHEIME"--that is, "Highest-
+Autographic and altogether Secret Instructions, by the King, which,
+with the Appendixes, were delivered to me, Graf von Finkenstein,
+the 12th of January, 1757." In this docketing it lay, sealed for
+many years (none knows how many), then unsealed, still in strict
+keeping, in the Private Royal Archives" [Preuss, i. 449.]--till on
+Friedrich's Birthday, 24th January, 1854, it was, with some
+solemnity, lithographed at Berlin, and distributed to a select
+public,--as readers shall see.
+
+
+"SECRET INSTRUCTION FOR THE GRAF VON FINCK.
+
+"BERLIN, 10th January, 1757. 
+
+"In the critical situation our affairs are in, I ought to give you
+my orders, so that in all the disastrous cases which are in the
+possibility of events, you be authorized for taking the
+necessary steps.
+
+"1. If it chanced (which Heaven forbid) that one of my Armies in
+Saxony were totally beaten; or that the French should drive the
+Hanoverians from their Country [which they failed not to do], and
+establish themselves there, and threaten us with an invasion into
+the Altmark; or that the Russians should get through by the
+Neumark,--you are to save the Royal Family, the principal
+DICASTERIA [Land-Schedules, Lists of Tax-dues], the Ministries and
+the Directorium [which is the central Ministry of all]. If it is in
+Saxony on the Leipzig side that we are beaten, the fittest place
+for the removal of the Royal Family, and of the Treasure, is to
+Custrin: in such case the Royal Family and all above named must go,
+escorted by the whole Garrison" of Berlin, "to Custrin. If the
+Russians entered by the Neumark, or if a misfortune befell us in
+the Lausitz, it would be to Magdeburg that all would have to go:
+in fine, the last refuge is Stettin,--but you must not go till the
+last extremity. The Garrison, the Royal Family and the Treasure are
+inseparable, and go always together: to this must be added the
+Crown Diamonds, the Silver Plate in the Grand Apartments,--which,
+in such case, as well as the Gold Plate, must be at once coined
+into money.
+
+"If it happened that I were killed, the Public Affairs must go on
+without the smallest alteration, or its being noticeable that they
+are in other hands: and, in this case, you must hasten forward the
+Oaths and Homagings, as well here as in Preussen; and, above all,
+in Silesia. If I should have the fatality to be taken prisoner by
+the Enemy, I prohibit all of you from paying the least regard to my
+person, or taking the least heed of what I might write from my
+place of detention. Should such misfortune happen me, I wish to
+sacrifice myself for the State; and you must obey my Brother,--who,
+as well as all my Ministers and Generals, shall answer to me with
+their heads, Not to offer any Province or any Ransom for me, but to
+continue the War, pushing their advantages, as if I never had
+existed in the world.
+
+"I hope, and have ground to believe, that you, Count Finck, will
+not need to make use of this Instruction: but in case of
+misfortune, I authorize you to employ it; and, as mark that it is,
+after a mature and sound deliberation, my firm and constant will, I
+sign it with my Hand and confirm it with my Seal."
+
+Or, in Friedrich's own spelling &c., so far as our possibilities
+permit:--
+
+"INSTRUCTION SECRETE POUR LE CONTE DE FINE.
+
+"BERLIN, ce 10 de Janv. 1757. 
+
+"Dans La Situation Critique ou se trouvent nos affaires je dois
+Vous donner mes Ordres pour que dans tout Les Cas Malheureux qui
+sont dans la possibilite des Evenemens vous Soyez autorisse aux
+partis quil faut prendre. 1)[Yes; but there follows no "2)"
+anywhere, such the haste!] Sil arivoit (de quoi le Ciel preserve)
+qu'une de mes Armees en Saxse fut totallement battue, oubien que
+Les francais chassassent Les Hanovryeins de Leur pais et si
+etablissent et nous menassassent d'un Invassion dans la Vieille
+Marche, ou que les Russes penetrassent par La Nouvelle Marche, il
+faut Sauver la famille Royale, les principeaux Dicasteres les
+Ministres et le Directoire. Si nous somes battus en Saxse du Cote
+de leipssic Le Lieu Le plus propre pour Le transport de La famille
+et du Tressor est a Custrin, il faut en ce Cas que la famille
+Royalle et touts cidesus nomez aillent esCortez de toute La
+Guarnisson a Custrin. Si les Russes entroient par la Nouvele Marche
+ou quil nous arivat un Malheur en Lusace, il faudroit que tout Se
+transportat a Magdebourg, enfin Le Derni& refuge est a Stetein,
+mais il ne hut y all&r qu'a La Derniere exstremite La Guarnisson la
+famille Royalle et le Tressort sent Inseparables et vont toujours
+ensemble il faut y ajouter les Diamans de la Couronne, et
+L'argenterie des Grands Apartements qui en pareil cas ainsi que la
+Veselle d'or doit etre incontinant Monoyee. Sil arivoit que je fus
+tue, il faut que Les affaires Continuent Leur train sans la Moindre
+allteration et Sans qu'on s'apersoive qu'elles sont en d'autre
+Mains, et en ce Cas il faut hater Sermens et homages tant ici qu'en
+prusse et surtout en Silesie. Si j'avois la fatalite d'etre pris
+prissonier par L'Enemy, je Defend qu'on Aye le Moindre egard pour
+ma perssonne ni qu'on fasse La Moindre reflextion sur ce que je
+pourois ecrire de Ma Detention, Si pareil Malheur m'arivoit je Veux
+me Sacriffier pour L'Etat et il faut qu'on obeisse a Mon frere le
+quel ainsi que tout Mes Ministres et Generaux me reponderont de
+leur Tette qu'on offrira ni province ni ransson pour moy et que lon
+Continuera la Guerre en poussant Ses avantages tout Come si je
+n'avais jamais exsiste dans le Monde. J'espere et je dois Croire
+que Vous Conte finc n'aurez pas bessoin de faire usage de Cette
+Instruction mais en cas de Malheur je Vous autorisse a L'Employer,
+et Marque que C'est apres Une Mure et saine Deliberation Ma ferme
+et Constante Volonte je le Signe de Ma Main et la Muni de
+mon Cachet                        "FEDERIC R." 
+[Fac simile of Autograph (Berlin, 24th January, 1854), where is
+some indistinct History of the Document. Printed also in <italic>
+OEuvres, <end italic> xxv. 319-323.]
+
+These, privately made law in this manner, are Friedrich's fixed
+feelings and resolutions;--how fixed is now farther apparent by a
+fact which was then still more private, guessable long afterwards
+only by one or two, and never clearly known so long as Friedrich
+lived: the fact that he had (now most probably, though the date is
+not known) provided poison for himself, and constantly wore it
+about his person through this War. "Five or six small pills, in a
+small glass tube, with a bit of ribbon to it:" that stern relic
+lay, in a worn condition, in some drawer of Friedrich's, after
+Friedrich was gone. [Preuss, ii. 175, 315 n.] For the Facts are
+peremptory; and a man that will deal with them must be equally so.
+
+Two days after this Finck missive, Friday, 12th, Friedrich took
+farewell at Berlin, drove to Potsdam that night with his Brother,
+to Dresden next day. Adieu, Madam; Adieu, O Mother! said the King,
+in royal terms, but with a heart altogether human. "May God above
+bless you, my Son!" the old Lady would reply:--and the Two had seen
+one another for the last time; Mother and Son were to meet no more
+in this world.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Etext History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 17
+
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