History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 18
by
Thomas Carlyle

Part 4 out of 7



by Leipzig, Torgau, Berlin-wards, with all his might. At Leipzig,
in such press of business and interest,--judge by the following
phenomenon, what a clear-going soul this is, and how completely on
a level with whatever it may be that he is marching towards:--

"LEIPZIG, 15th OCTOBER, 1757 (Interview with Gottsched).--At 11
this morning, Majesty came marching into Leipzig; multitudes of
things to settle there; things ready, things not yet ready, in view
of the great events ahead. Seeing that he would have time after
dinner, he at once sent for Professor Gottsched, a gigantic
gentleman, Reigning King of German Literature for the time being,
to come to him at 3 P.M. Reigning King at that time; since gone
wholly to the Dustbins,--'Popular Delusion,' as old Samuel defines
it, having since awakened to itself, with scornful hahas upon its
poor Gottsched, and rushed into other roads worse and better;
its poor Gottsched become a name now signifying Pedantry,
Stupidity, learned Inanity and the Worship of Colored Water, to
every German mind.

"At 3 precise, the portly old gentleman (towards sixty now, huge of
stature, with a shrieky voice, and speaks uncommonly fast) bowed
himself in; and a Colloquy ensued, on Literature and so forth, of
the kind we may conceive. Colloquy which had great fame in the
world; Gottsched himself having--such the inaccuracy of rumor and
Dutch Newspapers, on the matter--published authentic Report of it;
[Next Year, in a principal Leipzig Magazine, with name signed:
given in Helden-Geschichte, iv. 728-739 (with
multifarious commentaries and flourishings, denoting an attentive
world). Nicolai, Anekdoten, iii. 286-290.]
now one of the dullest bits of reading, and worth no man's bit of
time. Colloquy which lasted three hours, with the greatest vivacity
on both sides; King impugning, for one principal thing, the
roughness of German speech; Gottsched, in swift torrents (far too
copious in such company), ready to defend. 'Those consonants of
ours,' said the King, 'they afflict one's ear: what Names we have;
all in mere K's and P's: KNAP-, KNIP-, KLOP-, KROTZ-, KROK--;
--your own Name, for example!'"--Yes, his own Name, unmusical
GottSCHED, and signifying God's-Damage (God's-SKAITH) withal.
"Husht, don't take a Holy Name in vain; call the man SCHED
('Damage' by itself), can't we!" said a wit once. [Nicolai,
Anekdoten, iii. 287.]--"'Five consonants
together, TTSCH, TTSCH, what a tone!' continued the King. 'Hear, in
contrast, the music of this Stanza of Rousseau's [Repeats a
stanza]. Who could express that in German with such melody?' And so
on; branching through a great many provinces; King's knowledge of
all Literature, new and ancient, 'perfectly astonishing to me;'
and I myself, the swift-speaking Gottsched, rather copious than
otherwise. Catastrophe, and summary of the whole, was: Gottsched
undertook to translate the Rousseau Stanza into German of moderate
softness; and by the aid of water did so, that very night;
[Copied duly in Helden-Geschichte, iv. 726.]
sent it next day, and had 'within an hour' a gracious Royal Answer
in verse; calling one, incidentally, 'Saxon Swan, CYGNE SAXON,'
though one is such a Goose! 'Majesty to march at 7 to-morrow
morning,' said a Postscript,--no Interviewing more, at present.

"About ten days after [not to let this thing interrupt us again],
Friedrich, on his return to Leipzig, had another Interview with
Gottsched; of only one hour, this time;--but with many topics:
Reading of some Gottsched Ode (ODE, very tedious, frothy, watery,
of THANKS to Majesty for such goodness to the Saxon Swan; reading,
too, of 'some of Madam Gottsched's Pieces'). Majesty confessed
afterwards, Every hour from the very first had lowered his opinion
of the Saxon Swan, till at length Goosehood became too apparent.
Friedrich sent him a gold snuffbox by and by, but had no
farther dialoguing.

"A saying of Excellency Mitchell's to Gottsched--for Gottsched, on
that second Leipzig opportunity, went swashing about among the
King's Suite as well--is still remembered. They were talking of
Shakspeare: 'Genial, if you will,' said Gottsched, 'but the Laws of
Aristotle; Five Acts, unities strict!'--'Aristotle? What is to
hinder a man from making his Tragedy in Ten acts, if it suit him
better?' 'Impossible, your Excellency!'--'Pooh,' said his
Excellency; 'suppose Aristotle, and general Fashion too, had
ordered that the clothes of every man were to be cut from five ells
of cloth: how would the Herr Professor like [with these huge limbs
of his] if he found there were no breeches for him, on Aristotle's
account?' Adieu to Gottsched; most voluminous of men;--who wrote a
Grammar of the German Language, which, they say, did good.
I remember always his poor Wife with some pathos; who was a fine,
graceful, loyal creature, of ten times his intelligence; and did no
end of writing and translating and compiling (Addison's CATO,
Addison's SPECTATOR, thousands of things from all languages), on
order of her Gottsched, till life itself sank in such enterprises;
never doubting, tragically faithful soul, but her Gottsched was an
authentic Seneschal of Phoebus and the Nine." [Her LETTERS,
collected by a surviving Lady-Friend, "BRIEFE DER FRAU LUISE
ADELGUNDE VIKTORIE GOTTSCHED, born KULMUS (Dresden, 1771-1772,
3 vols. 8vo)," are, I should suppose, the only Gottsched Piece
which anybody would now think of reading.]--

Monday, 17th, at seven, his Majesty pushed off accordingly;
cheery he in the prospect of work, whatever his friends in the
distance be. Here, from Eilenburg, his first stage Torgau-way, are
a Pair of Letters in notable contrast.

WILHELMINA TO THE KING (on rumor of Haddick, swoln into
a Triple Invasion, Austrian, Swedish, French).

BAIREUTH, "15th October, 1757.

"MY DEAREST BROTHER,--Death and a thousand torments could not equal
the frightful state I am in. There run reports that make me
shudder. Some say you are wounded; others, dangerously ill. In vain
have I tormented myself to have news of you; I can get none. Oh, my
dear Brother, come what may, I will not survive you. If I am to
continue in this frightful uncertainty, I cannot stand it; I shall
sink under it, and then I shall be happy. I have been on the point
of sending you a courier; but [environed as we are] I durst not.
In the name of God, bid somebody write me one word.

"I know not what I have written; my heart is torn in pieces; I feel
that by dint of disquietude and alarms I am losing my wits. Oh, my
dear, adorable Brother, have pity on me. Heaven grant I be
mistaken, and that you may scold me; but the least thing that
concerns you pierces me to the heart, and alarms my affection too
much. Might I die a thousand times, provided you lived and
were happy!

"I can say no more. Grief chokes me; and I can only repeat that
your fate shall be mine; being, my dear Brother, your

"WILHELMINA."

What a shrill penetrating tone, like the wildly weeping voice of
Rachel; tragical, painful, gone quite to falsetto and above pitch;
but with a melody in its dissonance like the singing of the stars.
My poor shrill Wilhelmina!--


KING TO WILHELMINA (has not yet received the Above).

"EILENBURG, 17th October, 1757.

"MY DEAREST SISTER,--What is the good of philosophy unless one
employ it in the disagreeable moments of life? It is then, my dear
Sister, that courage and firmness avail us.

"I am now in motion; and having once got into that, you may
calculate I shall not think of sitting down again, except under
improved omens. If outrage irritates even cowards, what will it do
to hearts that have courage?

"I foresee I shall not be able to write again for perhaps six
weeks: which fails not to be a sorrow to me: but I entreat you to
be calm during these turbulent affairs, and to wait with patience
the month of December; paying no regard to the Nurnberg Newspapers
nor to those of the Reich, which are totally Austrian.

"I am tired as a dog (COMME UN CHIEN). I embrace you with my whole
heart; being with the most perfect affection (TENDRESSE), my
dearest Sister, your"-- FRIEDRICH.

... (AT SOME OTHER HOUR, SAME PLACE AND DAY.) "'No possibility of
Peace,' say your accounts [Letter lost]; 'the French won't hear my
name mentioned.' Well; from me they shall not farther. The way will
be, to speak to them by action, so that they may repent their
impertinences and pride." [ OEuvres de Frederic, italic> xxvii. i. 308, 309, 310.]'

The Haddick affair, after all the rumor about it, proved to be a
very small matter. No Swede or Richelieu had dreamt of
co-operating; Haddick, in the end, was scarce 4,000 with four
cannon; General Rochow, Commandant of Berlin, with his small
garrison, had not Haddick skilfully slidden through woods, and been
so magnified by rumor, might have marched out, and beaten a couple
of Haddicks. As it was, Haddick skilfully emerging, at the Silesian
Gate of Berlin, 16th October, about eleven in the morning, demanded
ransom of 300,000 thalers (45,000 pounds); was refused;
began shooting on the poor palisades, on the poor drawbridge there;
"at the third shot brought down the drawbridge;" rushed into the
suburb; and was not to be pushed out again by the weak party Rochow
sent to try it. Rochow, ignorant of Haddick's force, marched off
thereupon for Spandau with the Royal Family and effects; leaving
Haddick master of the suburb, and Berlin to make its own bargain
with him. Haddick, his Croats not to be quite kept from mischief,
remained master of the suburb, minatory upon Berlin, for twelve
hours or more: and after a good deal of bargaining,--ransom of
45,000 pounds, of 90,000 pounds, finally of 27,000 pounds and "two
dozen pair of gloves to the Empress Queen,"--made off about five in
the morning; wind of Moritz's advance adding wings to the speed of
Haddick. [ Helden-Geschichte, iv. 715-723
(Haddick's own Account, and the Berlin one).]

Moritz did arrive next evening (18th); but with his tired troops
there was no catching of Haddick, now three marches ahead.
Royal Family and effects returned from Spandau the day following;
but in a day or two more, removed to Magdeburg till the Capital
were safe from such affronts. Much grumbling against Rochow.
"What could I do? How could I know?" answered Rochow, whose
eyesight indeed had been none of the best. Berlin smarts to the
length of 27,000 pounds and an alarm; but asserts (not quite
mythically, thinks Retzow), that "the two dozen pair of gloves were
all gloves for the left hand,"--Berlin having wit, and a touch of
ABSINTHE in it, capable of such things! Friedrich heard the news at
Annaburg, a march beyond Torgau; and there paused, again uncertain,
for about a week coming; after which, he discovered that Leipzig
would be the place; and returned thither, appointing a general
rendezvous and concentration there.


SCENE AT REGENSBURG IN THE INTERIM.

Just while Haddick was sliding swiftly through the woods, Berlin
now nigh, there occurred a thing at Regensburg; tragic thing, but
ending in farce,--Finale of REICHS-ACHT, in short;--about which all
Regensburg was loud, wailing or haha-ing according to humor;
while Berlin was paying its ransom and left-hand gloves.
One moment's pause upon this, though our haste is great.

"Reichs Diet had got its Ban of the Reich ready for Friedrich;
CITATIO (solemn Summons) and all else complete; nothing now wanted
but to serve Citatio on him, or 'insinuate' it into him, as their
phrase is;--which latter essential point occasions some shaking of
wigs. Dangerous, serving Citatio in that quarter: and by what art
try to smuggle it into the hands of such a one? 'Insinuate it here
into his, Plotho's, hand; that is the method, and that will
suffice!' say the wigs, and choose an unfortunate Reichs Notary,
Dr. Aprill, to do it; who, in ponderous Chancery-style, gives the
following affecting report,--wonderful, but intelligible
(when abridged):--

"Citatio" to come and receive your Ban,--a very solemn-sounding
Document, commencing (or perhaps it is Aprill himself that so
commences, no matter which), "'In the Name of the Most High God,
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen,'--was given, Wednesday, 12th
October, in the Year after Christ our dear Lord and Saviour's
Birth, 1757 Years, To me Georgius Mathias Josephus Aprill, sworn
Kaiserlich Notarius Publicus; In my Lodging, first-floor fronting
south, in Jacob Virnrohr the Innkeeper's House here at Regensburg,
called the Red-Star," for insinuation into Plotho:

With which solemn Piece, Aprill proceeded next day, Thursday,
half-past 2 P.M., to Plotho's dwelling-place, described with equal
irrefragability; and, continues Aprill, "did there, by a servant of
the Herr Ambassador von Plotho's, announce myself; adding that I
had something to say to his Excellency, if he would please to admit
me. To which the Herr Ambassador by the same servant sent answer,
that he was ill with a cold, and that I might speak to his
Secretarius what I had to say. But, as I replied that my message
was to his Excellenz in person, the same servant came back with
intimation that I might call again to-morrow at noon."

To-morrow, at the stroke of noon, Friday, 14th October, Aprill
punctually appears again, with recapitulation of the pledge given
him yesterday; and is informed that he can walk up-stairs.
"I proceeded thereupon, the servant going before, up one pair of
stairs, or with the appurtenances (GEZEUGEN) rather more than one
pair, into the Herr Ambassador Freiherr von Plotho's Anteroom;
who, just as we were entering, stept in himself, through a side-
door; in his dressing-gown, and with the words, 'Speak now what you
have to say.'

"I thereupon slipt into his hand CITATIO FISCALIS, and said"--said
at first nothing, Plotho avers; merely mumbled, looked like some
poor caitiff, come with Law-papers on a trifling Suit we happen to
have in the Courts here;--and only by degrees said (let us abridge;
SCENE, Aprill and Plotho, Anteroom in Regensburg, first-floor and
rather higher):--

APTILL. "'I have to give your Excellenz this Writing,--[which
privately, could your Excellenz guess it, is] CITATIO FISCALIS from
the Reichstag, summoning his Majesty to show cause why Ban of the
Reich should not pass upon him!' His Excellenz at first took the
CITATIO and adjuncts from me; and looking into them to see what
they were, his Excellenz's face began to color, and soon after to
color a little more; and on his looking attentively at CITATIO
FISCALIS, he broke into violent anger and rage, so that he could
not stand still any longer; but with burning face, and both arms
held aloft, rushed close to me, CITATIO and adjuncts in his right
hand, and broke out in this form:--

PLOTHO. "'What; insinuate (INSINUIEREN), you scoundrel!'

APRILL. "'It is my Notarial Office; I must do it.' In spite of
which the Freiherr von Plotho fell on me with all rage; grasped me
by the front of the cloak, and said:--

PLOTHO. "'Take it back, wilt thou!' And as I resisted doing so, he
stuck it in upon me, and shoved it down with all violence between
my coat and waistcoat; and, still holding me by the cloak, called
to the two servants who had been there, 'Fling him down stairs!'--
which they, being discreet fellows, and in no flurry, did not
quite, nor needed quite to do ('Must, sir, you see, unless!'), and
so forced me out of the house; Excellenz Plotho retiring through
his Anteroom, and his Body-servant, who at first had been on the
stairs, likewise disappearing as I got under way,"--and have to
report, in such manner, to the Universe and Reichs Diet, with tears
in my eyes. [Preuss, ii. 397-401; in Helden-Geschichte,
iv. 745-749, Plotho's Account.]

What became of Reichs Ban after this, ask not. It fell dead by
Friedrich's victories now at hand; rose again into life on
Friedrich's misfortunes (August, 1758), threatening to include
George Second in it; upon which the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM made some
counter-mumblement;--and, I have heard, the French privately
advised: "Better drop it; these two Kings are capable of walking
out of you, and dangerously kicking the table over as they go!"--
Whereby it again fell dead, positively for the last time, and, in
short, is worth no mention or remembrance more.

CORPUS EVANGELICORUM had always been against Reichs Ban: a few
Dissentients, or Half-Dissentients excepted,--as Mecklenburg wholly
and with a will; foolish Anspach wholly; and the Anhalts haggling
some dissent, and retracting it (why, I never knew);--for which
Mecklenburg and the Anhalts, lying within clutch of one, had to
repent bitterly in the years coming! Enough of all that.

The Haddick invasion,,which had got its gloves, left-hand or not,
and part of its road-expenses, brought another consequence much
more important on the PER-CONTRA side. The triumphing, TE-DEUM-ing
and jubilation over it,--"His Metropolis captured; Royal Family in
flight!"--raised the Dauphiness Army, and especially Versailles,
into such enthusiasm, that Dauphiness came bodily out (on order
from Versailles); spread over the Country, plundering and insulting
beyond example; got herself reinforced by a 15,000 from the
Richelieu Army; crossed the Saale; determined on taking Leipzig,
beating Friedrich, and I know not what. Keith, in Leipzig with a
small Party, had summons from Soubise's vanguard (October 24th):
Keith answered, He would burn the suburbs;--upon which, said
vanguard, hearing of Friedrich's advent withal, took itself rapidly
away. And Soubise and it would fain have recrossed Saale, I have
understood, had not Versailles been peremptory.

In a word, Friedrioh arrived at Leipzig October 26th; Ferdinand,
Moritz and all the others coming or already come: and there is
something great just at hand. Friedrich's stay in Leipzig was only
four days. Cheering prospect of work now ahead here;--add to this,
assurance from Preussen that Apraxin is fairly going home, and
Lehwald coming to look after the Swedes. Were it not that there is
bad news from Silesia, things generally are beginning to look up.
Of the hour spent on Gottsched, in these four days, we expressly
take no notice farther; but there was another visit much less
conspicuous, and infinitely more important: that of a certain
Hanoverian Graf von Schulenburg, not in red or with plumes, like a
Major-General as he was, but "in the black suit of a Country
Parson,"--coming, in that unnoticeable guise, to inform Friedrich
officially, "That the Hanoverians and Majesty of England have
resolved to renounce the Convention of Kloster-Zeven; to bring
their poor Stade Army into the field again; and do now request him,
King Friedrich, to grant them Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick to he
General of the same." [Mauvillon, i. 256; Westphalen, i. 315:
indistinct both, and with slight variations. Mitchell Papers (in
British Museum), likewise indistinct: Additional MSS. 6815, pp. 96
and 108 ("Lord Holderness to Mitchell," doubtless on Pitt's
instigation, "10th October, 1757," is the beginning of it,--two
days before Royal Highness got home from Stade); see ib. 6806,
pp. 241-252.]

Here is an unnoticeable message, of very high moment indeed.
To which Friedrich, already prepared, gives his cheerful consent;
nominations and practicalities to follow, the instant these present
hurries are over. Who it was that had prepared all this, whose
suggestion it first was, Friedrich's, Mitchell's, George's, Pitt's,
I do not know,--I cannot help suspecting Pitt; Pitt and Friedrich
together. And certainly of all living men, Ferdinand--related to
the English and Prussian royalties, a soldier of approved
excellence, and likewise a noble-minded, prudent, patient and
invincibly valiant and steadfast man--was, beyond comparison, the
fittest for this office. Pitt is now fairly in power; and
perceives,--such Pitt's originality of view,--that an Army with a
Captain to it may differ beautifully from one without. And in fact
we may take this as the first twitch at the reins, on Pitt's part;
whose delicate strong hand, all England running to it with one
heart, will be felt at the ends of the earth before many months go.
To the great and unexpected joy of Friedrich, for one. "England has
taken long to produce a great man," he said to Mitchell; "but here
is one at last!"



BOOK XVIII (CONTINUED)


SEVEN-YEARS WAR RISES TO A HEIGHT.

1757-1759.



Chapter VIII.

BATTLE OF ROSSBACH.

Friedrich left Leipzig Sunday, October 30th; encamped, that night,
on the famous Field of Lutzen, with the vanguard, he (as usual, and
Mayer with him, who did some brisk smiting home of what French
there were); Keith and Duke Ferdinand following, with main body
and rear.

Movements on the Soubise-Hildburghausen part are all retrograde
again;--can Dauphiness Bellona do nothing, then, except shuttle
forwards and then backwards according to Friedrich's absence or
presence? The Soubise-Hildburghausen Army does immediately withdraw
on this occasion, as on the former; and makes for the safe side of
the Saale again, rapidly retreating before Friedrich, who is not
above one to two of them,--more like one to three, now that
Broglio's Detachment is come to hand. Broglio got to Merseburg
October 26th,--guess 15,000 strong;--considerably out of repair,
and glad to have done with such a march, and be within reach of
Soubise. This is the Second Son of our old Blusterous Friend; a man
who came to some mark, and to a great deal of trouble, in this War;
and ended, readers know how, at the Siege of the Bastille thirty-
two years afterwards!

So soon as rested, Broglio, by order, moves leftwards to Halle, to
guard Saale Bridge there; Soubise himself edging after him to
Merseburg, on a similar errand; and leaving Hildburghausen to take
charge of Weissenfels and the Third Saale Bridge. That is
Dauphiness's posture while Friedrich encamps at Lutzen:--let
impatient human nature fix these three places for itself, and
hasten to the catastrophe of wretched Dauphiness. Soubise, it ought
to be remembered, is not in the highest spirits; but his Officers
in over-high, "Doing this PETIT MARQUIS DE BRANDEBOURG the honor to
have a kind of War with him (DE LUI FAIRE UNE ESPECE DE GUERRE),"
as they term it. Being puffed up with general vanity, and the
newspaper rumor about Haddick's feat,--which, like the gloves it
got, is going all to left-hand in this way. Hildburghausen and the
others overrule Soubise; and indeed there is no remedy;
"Provision almost out;--how retreat to our magazines and our
fastnesses, with Friedrich once across Saale, and sticking to the
skirts of us?" Here, from eye-witnesses where possible, are the
successive steps of Dauphiness towards her doom, which is famous in
the world ever since.

"Monday, 31st October, 1757," as the Town-Syndic of Weissenfels
records, "about eight in the morning, [Muller, SCHLACHT BEI
ROSSBACH ("a Centenary Piece," Berlin, 1857,--containing several
curious Extracts), p. 44, Helden-Geschichte,
iv. 643, 651-668.] the King of Prussia, with his whole Army" (or
what seemed to us the whole, though it was but a half; Keith with
the other half being within reach to northward, marching Merseburg
way), "came before this Town." Has been here before; as Keith has,
as Soubise and others have: a town much agitated lately by transit
of troops. It was from the eastern, or high landward side, where
the so-called Castle is, that Friedrich came: Castle built
originally on some "White Crag (WEISSE FELS" not now conspicuous),
from which the town and whilom Duchy take their name.

"We have often heard of Weissenfels, while the poor old drunken
Duke lived, who used to be a Suitor of Wilhelmina's, liable to hard
usage; and have marched through it, with the Salzburgers, in
peaceable times. A solid pleasant-enough little place (6,000 souls
or so); lies leant against high ground (White Crags, or whatever it
once was) on the eastern or right bank of the Saale; a Town in part
flat, in part very steep; the streets of it, or main street and
secondaries, running off level enough from the River and Bridge;
rising by slow degrees, but at last rapidly against the high ground
or cliffs, just mentioned; a stiff acclivity of streets, till
crowned by the so-called Castle, the 'Augustus Burg' in those days,
the 'Friedrich-Wilhelm Barrack' in ours. It was on this crown of
the cliffs that his Prussian Majesty appeared.

"Saale is of good breadth here; has done perhaps two hundred miles,
since he started, in the Fichtelgebirge (PINE MOUNTAINS), on his
long course Elbe-ward; received, only ten miles ago, his last big
branch, the wide-wandering Unstrut, coming in with much drainage
from the northern parts:--in breadth, Saale may be compared to
Thames, to Tay or Beauley; his depth not fordable, though nothing
like so deep as Thames's; main cargo visible is rafts of timber:
banks green, definite, scant of wood; river of rather dark
complexion, mainly noiseless, but of useful pleasant
qualities otherwise."

From this Castle or landward side come Friedrich and his Prussians,
on Monday morning about eight. "The garrison, some 4,000 Reichs
folk and a French Battalion or two, shut the Gates, and assembled
in the Market-place,"--a big square, close at the foot of the
Heights; "on the other hand, from the top of the Heights [KLAMMERK
the particular spot], the Prussians cannonaded Town and Gates;
to speedy bursting open of the same; and rushed in over the walls
of the Castle-court, and by other openings into the Town: so that
the garrison above said had to quit, and roll with all speed across
the Saale Bridge, and set the same on fire behind them." This was
their remedy for all the Three Bridges, when attacked; but it
succeeded nowhere so well as here.

"The fire was of extreme rapidity; prepared beforehand:" Bridge all
of dry wood coated with pitch;--"fire reinforced too, in view of
such event, by all the suet, lard and oleaginous matter the
Garrison could find in Weissenfels; some hundredweights of tallow-
dips, for one item, going up on this occasion." Bridge, "worth
100,000 thalers," is instantly ablaze: some 400 finding the bridge
so flamy, and the Prussians at their skirts, were obliged to
surrender;--Feldmarschall Hildburghausen, sleeping about two miles
off, gets himself awakened in this unpleasant manner.
Flying garrison halt on the other side of the River, where the rest
of their Army is; plant cannon there against quenching of the
Bridge; and so keep firing, answered by the Prussians, with much
noise and no great mischief, till 3 P.M., when the Bridge is quite
gone (Toll-keeper's Lodge and all), and the enterprise of crossing
there had plainly become impossible.

Friedrich quickly, about a mile farther down the River, has picked
out another crossing-place, in the interim, and founded some new
adequate plank or raft bridge there; which, by diligence all night,
will be crossable to-morrow. So that, except for amusing the enemy,
the cannonading may cease at Weissenfels. A certain Duc de Crillon,
in command at this Weissenfels Bridge-burning and cannonade, has a
chivalrous Anecdote (amounting nearly to zero when well examined)
about saving or sparing Friedrich's life on this interesting
occasion: How, being now on the safe side of the River, he Crillon
with his staff taking some refection of breakfast after the furious
flurry there had been; there came to him one of his Artillery
Captains, stationed in an Island in the River, asking, "Shall I
shoot the King of Prussia, Monseigneur? He is down reconnoitring
his end of the Bridge: sha'n't I, then?" To whom Crillon gives a
glass of wine and smilingly magnanimous answer to a negative
effect. [ "Memoires militaires de Louis &c. Duc de Crillon
(Paris, 1791), p. 166;"--as cited by Preuss, ii. 88.]
Concerning which, one has to remark, Not only, FIRST, that the
Artillery Captain's power of seeing Friedrich (which is itself
uncertain) would indeed mean the power of aiming at him, but
differs immensely from that of hitting him with shot; so that this
"Shall I kill the King?" was mainly thrasonic wind from Captain
Bertin. But SECONDLY, that there is no "Island" in the River
thereabouts, for Captain Bertin to fire from! So that probably the
whole story is wind or little more: dreamlike, or at best some idle
thrasonic-theoretic question, on the part of Bertin; proper answer
thereto (consisting mainly in a glass of wine) from Monseigneur:--
all which, on retrospection, Monseigneur feels, or would fain feel,
to have been not theoretic-thrasonic but practical, and of a rather
godlike nature. Zero mainly, as we said; Friedrich thanks you for
zero, Monseigneur.

"The Prussians were billeted in the Town that night," says our
Syndic; "and in many a house there came to be twenty men, and even
thirty and above it, lodged. All was quiet through the night;
the French and the Reichs folk were drawn back upon the higher
grounds, about Burgwerben and on to Tagwerben; and we saw their
watch-fires burning." Friedrich's Bridge meanwhile, unmolested by
the enemy, is getting ready.

Keith, looking across to Merseburg on the morrow morning (Tuesday,
Nov. 1st), whither he had marched direct with the other Half of the
Army, finds Merseburg Bridge destroyed, or broken; and Soubise with
batteries on the farther side, intending to dispute the passage.
Keith despatches Duke Ferdinand to Halle, another twelve miles
down, who finds Halle Bridge destroyed in like manner, and Broglio
intending to dispute; which, however, on second thoughts, neither
of them I did. Friedrich's new Bridge at Herren-Muhle (LORDSHIPS'
MILL) is of course an important point to them; Friedrich's passage
now past dispute! "Let us fall back," say they, "and rank ourselves
a little; we are 50 or 60,000 strong; ill off for provisions;
but well able to retreat; and have permission to fight on this side
of the River."

The combined Army, "Dauphiness," or whatever we are to call it,
does on Wednesday morning (November 2d) gather in its cannon and
outskirts, and give up the Saale question; retire landwards to the
higher grounds some miles; and diligently get itself united, and
into order of battle better or worse, near the Village of Mucheln
(which means Kirk MICHAEL, and is still written "SANCT MICHEL" by
some on this occasion). There Dauphiness takes post, leaning on the
heights, not in a very scientific way; leaving Keith and Ferdinand
to rebuild their Bridges unmolested, and all Prussians to come
across at discretion. Which they have diligently done (2d-3d
November), by their respective Bridges; and on Thursday afternoon
are all across, encamped at Bedra, in close neighborhood to
Mucheln; which Friedrich has been out reconnoitring and finds that
he can attack next morning very early.

Next morning, accordingly, "by 2 o'clock, with a bright moon
shining," Friedrich is on horseback, his Army following. But on
examining by moonlight, the enemy have shifted their position;
turned on their axis, more or less, into new wood-patches, new
batteries and bogs; which has greatly mended their affair. No good
attacking them so, thinks Friedrich; and returns to his Camp;
slightly cannonaded, one wing of him, from some battery of the
enemy; and immoderately crowed over by them: "Dare not, you see!
Tried, and was defeated!" cry their newspapers and they,--for one
day. Friedrich lodges again in Bedra this night, others say in
Rossbach; shifts his own Camp a little; left wing of it now at
Rossbach (HOME-BROOK, or BECK, soon to be a world-famous Hamlet):
the effects of hunger on the Dauphiness, so far from her supplies,
will, he calculates, be stronger than on him, and will bring her to
better terms shortly. Dauphiness needs bread; one may have fine
clipping at the skirts of her, if she try retreat. That Dauphiness
would play the prank she did next morning, Friedrich had not
ventured to calculate.


CATASTROPHE OF DAUPHINESS (Saturday, 5th November, 1757).

Meandering Saale is on one of his big turns, as he passes
Weissenfels; turning, pretty rapidly here, from southeastward,
which he was a dozen miles ago, round to northeastward again or
northward altogether, which he gets to be at Merseburg, a dozen
farther down. Right across from Weissenfels, lapped in this crook
of the Saale, or washed by it on south side and on east, rises,
with extreme laziness, a dull circular lump of country, six or
eight miles in diameter; with Rossbach and half a dozen other
scraggy sleepy Hamlets scattered on it;--which, till the morning of
Saturday, 5th November, 1757, had not been notable to any visitor.
The topmost point or points, for there are two (not discoverable
except by tradition and guess), the country people do call Hills,
JANUS-HUGEL, POLZEN-HUGEL--Hill sensible to wagon-horses in those
bad loose tracks of sandy mud, but unimpressive on the Tourist, who
has to admit that there seldom was so flat a Hill. Rising, let us
guess, forty yards in the three or four miles it has had. Might be
called a perceptibly pot-bellied plain, with more propriety;
flat country, slightly puffed up;--in shape not steeper than the
mould of an immense tea-saucer would be. Tea-saucer 6 miles in
diameter, 100 feet in depth, and of irregular contour, which indeed
will sufficiently represent it to the reader's mind.

Saale, at four or five miles distance, bounds this scraggy lump on
the east and on the south. Westward and northward, springing about
Mucheln on each hand, and setting off to right and to left Saale-
ward, are what we take to be two brooks; at least are two hollows:
and behind these, the country rises higher; undulating still on
lazy terms, but now painted azure by the distance, not unpleasant
to behold, with its litter all lapped out of sight, and its poor
brooks tinkling forward (as we judge) into the Saale, Merseburg
way, or reverse-wise into the Unstrut, the last big branch of
Saale. Southward from our Janus Height, eight or nine miles off,
may be seen some vestige of Freiburg; steeple or gilt weathercock
faintly visible, on the Unstrut yonder;--which I take to be
Soubise's bread-basket at present. And farther off, and opposite
the MOUTH of the Unstrut, well across the Saale, lies another
namable Town (visible in clear weather, as a smoke-cloud at certain
hours, about meal-time, when the kettles are on boil), the Town of
Naumburg,--one of several German Naumburgs,--the Naumburg of Gustaf
Adolf; where his slain body lay, on the night of Lutzen Battle,
with his poor Queen and others weeping over it. Naumburg is on the
other side of Saale, not of importance to Soubise in such posture.

This is the circular block or lump of country, on the north or
northwest side of which Friedrich now lies, and which will become,
he little thinks how memorable on the morrow. Over the heights,
immediately eastward of Friedrich, there is a kind of hollow, or
scooped-out place; shallow valley of some extent, which deserves
notice against to-morrow: but in general the ground is lazily
spherical, and without noticeable hollows or valleys when fairly
away from the River. A dull blunt lump of country; made of sand and
mud,--may have been grassy once, with broom on it, in the pastoral
times; is now under poor plough-husbandry, arable or scratchable in
all parts, and looks rather miserable in winter-time. No vestige of
hedge on it, of shrub or bush; one tree, ugly but big, which may
have been alive in Friedrich's time, stands not far from Rossbach
Hamlet; one, and no more, discoverable in these areas.

Various Hamlets lie sprinkled about: very sleepy, rusty, irregular
little places; huts and cattle-stalls huddled down, as if shaken
from a bag; much straw, thick thatch and crumbly mud-brick;
but looking warm and peaceable, for the Four-footed and the Two-
footed; which latter, if you speak to them, are solid reasonable
people, with energetic German eyes and hearts, though so ill-
lodged. These Hamlets, needing shelter and spring-water, stand
generally in some slight hollow, if well up the Height, as Rorschach
is; sometimes, if near the bottom, they are nestled in a sudden
dell or gash,--work of the primeval rains, accumulating from above,
and ploughing out their way. The rains, we can see, have been busy;
but there is seldom the least stream visible, bottom being too
sandy and porous. On the western slope, there is in our time a kind
of coal, or coal-dust, dug up; in the way of quarrying, not of
mining; and one or two big chasms of this sort are confusedly busy:
the natives mix this valuable coal-dust with water, mould it into
bricks, and so use as fuel: one of the features of these hamlets is
the strange black bricks, standing on edge about the cottage-doors,
to drip, and dry in the sun. For this or for other reasons, the
westward slope appears to be the best; and has a major share of
hamlets on it: Rossbach is high up, and looks over upon Mucheln,
and its dim belfry and appurtenances, which lie safe across the
hollow, perhaps two miles off,--safe from Friedrich, if there were
eatables and lodging to be had in such a place. Friedrich's left
wing is in Rossbach. Bedra where Friedrich's right wing is;
Branderode where the Soubise right is; then Grost; Schevenroda,
Zeuchfeld, Pettstadt, Lunstadt,--especially Reichartswerben, where
Soubise's right will come to be: these the reader may take note of
in his Map. Several of them lie in ashes just then; plundered,
replundered, and at last set fire to; so busy have Soubise's hungry
people been, of late, in the Country they came to "deliver."
The Freiburg road, the Naumburg road, both towards Merseburg, cross
this Height; straight like the string, Saale by Weissenfels being
the bow.

The HERRENHAUS (Squire's Mansion) still stands in Rossbach, with
the littery Hamlet at its flank: a high, pavilion-roofed, and
though dilapidated, pretentious kind of House; some kind of court
round it, some kind of hedge or screen of brushwood and brick-wall:
terribly in need of the besom, it and its environment throughout.
King, I suppose, did lodge there overnight: certain it is the
Squire was absent; and the Squire's Man, three days afterwards,
reported to him as follows: ... "Saturday, the 5th, about 8 A.M.,
his Majesty mounted to the roof of the Herrenhaus here, some tiles
having been removed [for that end, or by accident, is not said],
and saw how the French and Reichs Army were getting in movement"--
wriggling out of their Camp leftwards, evidently aiming towards
Grost. "In about an hour, near half their Army was through Grost,
and had turned southward, rather southeastward, from Grost, out in
the Rossbach and Almsdorf region, and proceeding still towards
Pettstadt,"--towards Schevenroda more precisely, not towards
Pettstadt yet. "His Majesty looked always through the perspective:
and to me was the grace done to be ever at his side, and to name
for him the roads the French and Reichs Army was marching."
[Muller, p. 50; Rodenbeck, p. 326.]

The King had heard of this phenomenon hours before, and had sent
out Hussars and scouts upon it; but now sees it with his eyes:--
"Going for Freiburg, and their bread-cupboard," thinks the King;
who does not as yet make much of the movement; but will watch it
well, and calculates to have a stroke at the rear end of it, in due
season. With which view, the cavalry, Seidlitz and Mayer, are
ordered to saddle; foot regiments, and all else, to be in
readiness. This French-Reichs Dauphiness is not rapid in her field-
exercise; and has a great deal of wriggling and unwinding before
she can fairly pick herself out, and get forward towards
Schevenroda on the Freiburg road. In three or in two parallel
columns, artillery between them, horse ahead, horse arear;
haggling along there;--making for their bread-baskets, thinks the
King. A body of French, horse chiefly, under St. Germain, come out,
in the Schortau-Almsdorf part, with some salvoing and prancing, as
if intending to attack about Rossbach, where our left wing is:
but his Majesty sees it to be a pretence merely; and St. Germain,
motionless, and doing nothing but cannonade a little, seems to
agree that it is so. Dauphiness continues her slow movements;
King, in this Squire's Mansion of Rossbach, sits down to dinner,
dinner with Officers at the usual hour of noon,--little dreaming
what the Dauphiness has in her head.

Truth is, the Dauphiness is in exultant spirits, this morning;
intending great things against a certain "little Marquis of
Brandenburg," to whom one does so much honor. Generals looking down
yesterday on the King of Prussia's Camp, able to count every man in
it (and half the men being invisible, owing to bends of the
ground), counted him to 10,000 or so; and had said, "Pshaw, are not
we above 50,000; let us end it! Take him on his left. Round yonder,
till we get upon his left, and even upon his rear withal, St.
Germain co-operating on the other side of him: on left, on rear, on
front, at the same moment, is not that a sure game?" A very
ticklish game, answers surly sagacious Lloyd: "No general will
permit himself to be taken in flank with his eyes open; and the
King of Prussia is the unlikeliest you could try it with!"

Trying it meanwhile they are; marching along by the low grounds
here, intending to sweep gradually leftwards towards Janus-Hill
quarter; there to sweep home upon him, coil him up, left and rear
and front, in their boa-constrictor folds, and end his trifle of an
Army and him. "Why not, if we do our duty at all, annihilate his
trifle of an Army; take himself prisoner, and so end it?"
Report says, Soubise had really, in some moment of enthusiasm
lately, warned the Versailles populations to expect such a thing;
and that the Duchess of Orleans, forgetful of poor King Louis's
presence, had in HER enthusiasm, exclaimed: "TANT MIEUX, I shall at
last see a King, then!" But perhaps it is a mere French epigram,
such as the winds often generate there, and put down for fact.--
Friedrich's retreat to Weissenfels is cut off for Friedrich:
an Austrian party has been at the Herren-Muhle Bridge this morning,
has torn it up and pitched it into the river; planks far on to
Merseburg by this time. And, in fact, unless Friedrich be nimble--
But that he usually is.

Friedrich's dinner had gone on with deliberation for about two
hours, Friedrich's intentions not yet known to any, but everybody,
great and small, waiting eagerly for them, like greyhounds on the
slip,--when Adjutant Gaudi, who had been on the House-top the
while, rushes into the Dining-room faster than he ought, and, with
some tremor in his voice and eyes, reports hastily:
"At Schevenroda, at Pettstadt yonder! Enemy has turned to left.
Clearly for the left."--"Well, and if he do? No flurry needed,
Captain!" answered Friedrich,--(NOT in these precise words;
but rebuking Gaudi, with a look not of laughter wholly, and with a
certain question, as to the state of Gaudi's stomachic part, which
is still known in traditionary circles, but is not mentionable
here);--and went, with due gravity, himself to the roof, with his
Officers. "To the left, sure enough; meaning to attack us there:"
the thing Friedrich had despaired of is voluntarily coming, then;--
and it is a thing of stern qualities withal; a wager of life, with
glorious possibilities behind.

Friedrich earnestly surveys the phenomenon for some minutes;
in some minutes, Friedrich sees his way through it, at least into
it, and how he will do it. Off, eastward; march! Swift are his
orders; almost still swifter the fulfillment of them. Prussian Army
is a nimble article in comparison with Dauphiness! In half an
hour's time, all is packed and to the road; and, except Mayer and
certain Free-Corps or Light-Horse, to amuse St. Germain and his
Almsdorf people, there is not a Prussian visible in these
localities to French eyes. "At half-past two," says the Squire's
Man,--or let us take him a sentence earlier, to lose nothing of
such a Document: "At noon his Majesty took dinner; sat till about
two o'clock; then again went to the roof; and perceived that the
Enemy's Army at Pettstadt were turning about the little Wood there
northeastward, as if for Lunstadt [into the Lunstadt road];--such
cannonading too," from those Almsdorf people, "that the balls flew
over our heads,"--or I tremulously thought so. "At half-past two,
the word was given, March! And good speed they made about it, in
this Herrenhaus, and out of doors too, striking their tents, and
cording up and trimly shouldering everything with incredible
brevity," as if machinery were doing it; "and at three, on the
Prussian part, all was packed and out into the court for being
carried off; and, in fact, the Prussian Army was on march at
three." Seidlitz, with all his Horse, vanishing round the corner of
the Height; speeding along, invisible on his northern slope there,
straight for the Janus-Polzen Hill part; the Infantry following,
double-quick;--well knowing, each, what he has got to do.

But at this interesting point, the Editors--small thanks to them,
authentic but thrice-stupid mortals--cut short our Eye-witness, not
so much as telling us his name, some of them not even his date or
whereabouts; and so the curtain tumbles down (as if its string had
been cut, or suddenly eaten by unwise animals), and we are left to
gray hubbub, and our own resources at second-hand. Except only that
a French Officer--one of those cannonading from Almsdorf, no doubt
--declares that "it was like a change of scene in the Opera
(DECORATION D'OPERA)," [Letter in MULLER: p. 60. In WESTPHALEN
(ii. 128-133) is a much superior French Letter, intercepted
somewhere, and fallen to Duke Ferdinand; well worth reading, on
Rossbach and the previous Affairs.] so very rapid; and that "they
all rolled off eastward at quick time." At extremely quick time;
--and soon, in the slight hollow behind Janus Hugel, vanished from
sight of these Almsdorf French, and of the Soubise-Hildburghausen
Army in general. Which latter is agreeably surprised at the
phenomenon; and draws a highly flattering conclusion from it.
"Gone, then; off at double-quick for Merseburg; aha!" think the
Soubise-Hildburghausen people: "Double-quick you too, my pretty
men, lest they do whisk away, and we never get a stroke
at them,!"--

Seidlitz meanwhile, with his cavalry (thirty-eight squadrons, about
4,000 horse), is rapidly doing the order he has had. Seidlitz at a
sharp military trot, and the infantry at doublequick to keep up
near him, which they cannot quite do, are, as we have said, making
right across for the Polzen-Hill and Janus-Hill quarter;
their route the string, French route the bow; and are invisible to
the French, owing to the heights between. Seidlitz, when he gets to
the proper point eastward, will wheel about, front to southward,
and be our left wing; infantry, as centre and right, will appear in
like manner; and--we shall see!

The exultant Dauphiness, or Soubise-Hildburghausen Army (let us
call it, for brevity's sake, Dauphiness or French, which it mainly
was), on that rapid disappearance of the Prussians, never doubted
but the Prussians were off on flight for Merseburg, to get across
by the Bridge there. Whereat Dauphiness, doubly exultant, mended
her own pace, cavalry at a sharp trot, infantry double-quick, but
unable to keep up,--for the purpose of capturing or intercepting
the runaway Prussians. Speed, my friends,--if you would do a stroke
upon Friedrich, and show the Versailles people a King at last!
Thus they, hurrying on, in two parallel columns,--infantry, long
floods of it, coming double-quick but somewhat fallen behind;
cavalry 7,000 or so, as vanguard,--faster and faster;
sweeping forward on their southern side of the Janus-and-Polzen
slope, and now rather climbing the same.

Seidlitz has his hussar pickets on the top, to keep him informed as
to their motions, and how far they are got. Seidlitz, invisible on
the south slope of the Polzen Hugel, finds about half-past three
P.M. that he is now fairly ahead of Dauphiness; Seidlitz halts,
wheels, comes to the top, "Got the flank of them, sure enough!"--
and without waiting signal or farther orders, every instant being
precious, rapidly forms himself; and plunges down on these poor
people. "Compact as a wall, and with an incredible velocity (D'UNE
VITESSE INCROYABLE)," says one of them. Figure the astonishment of
Dauphiness; of poor Broglio, who commands the horse here. Taken in
flank, instead of taking other people; intercepted, not in the
least needing to intercept! Has no time to form, though he tried
what he could. Only the two Austrian regiments got completely
formed; the rest very incompletely; and Seidlitz, in the blaze of
rapid steel, is in upon them. The two Austrian regiments, and two
French that are named, made what debate was feasible;--courage
nowise wanting, in such sad want of captaincy; nay Soubise in
person galloped into it, if that could have helped. But from the
first, the matter was hopeless; Seidlitz slashing it at such a
rate, and plunging through it and again through it, thrice, some
say four times: so that, in the space of half an hour, this
luckless cavalry was all tumbling off the ground; plunging down-
hill, in full flight, across its own infantry or whatever obstacle,
Seidlitz on the hips of it; and galloping madly over the horizon,
towards Freiburg as it proved; and was not again heard of that day.

In about half an hour that bit of work was over; and Seidlitz, with
his ranks trimmed again, had drawn himself southward a little, into
the Hollow of Tageswerben, there to wait impending phenomena.
For Friedrich with the Infantry is now emerging over Janus Hill, in
a highly thunderous manner,--eighteen pieces of artillery going,
and "four big guns taken from the walls of Leipzig;" and there will
be events anon. It is said, Hildburghausen, at the first glimpse of
Friedrich over the hill-top, whispered to Soubise, "We are lost,
Royal Highness!"--"Courage!" Soubise would answer; and both, let us
hope, did their utmost in this extremely bad predicament they had
got into.

Friedrich's artillery goes at a murderous rate; had come in view,
over the hill-top, before Seidlitz ended,--"nothing but, the
muzzles of it visible" (and the fire-torrents from it) to us poor
French below. Friedrich's lines; or rather his one line, mere tip
of his left wing,--only seven battalions in it, five of them under
Keith from the second or reserve line; whole centre and right wing
standing "refused" in oblique rank, invisible, BEHIND the Hill,--
Friedrich's line, we say, the artillery to its right, shoots out in
mysterious Prussian rhythm, in echelons, in potences, obliquely
down the Janus-Hill side; straight, rigid, regular as iron clock-
work; and strides towards us, silent, with the lightning sleeping
in it:--Friedrich has got the flank of Dauphiness, and means to
keep it. Once and again and a third time, poor Soubise, with his
poor regiments much in an imbroglio, here heaped on one another,
there with wide gaps, halt being so sudden,--attempts to recover
the flank, and pushes out this regiment and the other, rightward,
to be even with Friedrich. But sees with despair that it cannot be;
that Friedrich with his echelons, potences and mysterious Prussian
resources, pulls himself out like the pieces of a prospect-glass,
piece after piece, hopelessly fast and seemingly no end to them;
and that the flank is lost, and that--Unhappy Generals of
Dauphiness, what a phenomenon for them! A terrible Friedrich, not
fled to Merseburg at all; but mounted there on the Janus Hill, as
on his saddle-horse, with face quite the other way;--and for
holster-pistol, has plucked out twenty-two cannon. Clad verily in
fire; Chimera-like, RIDING the Janus Hill, in that manner; left leg
(or wing) of him spurning us into the abysses, right one ready to
help at discretion!

Hildburghausen, I will hope, does his utmost; Soubise, Broglio, for
certain do. The French line is in front, next the Prussians:
poor Generals of Dauphiness are panting to retrieve themselves.
But with regiments jammed in this astonishing way, and got
collectively into the lion's throat, what can be done?
Steady, rigid as iron clock-work, the Prussian line strides
forward; at forty paces' distance delivers its first shock of
lightning, bursts into platoon fire; and so continues, steady at
the rate of five shots a minute,--hard to endure by poor masses all
in a coil. "The artillery tore down whole ranks of us," says the
Wutenberg Dragoon; [His Letter in MULLER, p. 83.] "the Prussian
musketry did terrible execution."

Things began %o waver very soon, French reeling back from the
Prussian fire, Reichs troops rocking very uneasy, torn by such
artillery; when, to crown the matter, Seidlitz, seeing all things
rock to the due extent, bursts out of Tageswerben Hollow, terribly
compact and furious, upon the rear of them. Which sets all things
into inextricable tumble; and the Battle is become a rout and a
riding into ruin, no Battle ever more. Lasted twenty-five minutes,
this second act of it, or till half-past four: after which, the
curtains rapidly descending (Night's curtain, were there no other)
cover the remainder; the only stage-direction, EXEUNT OMNES.
Which for a 50 or 60,000, ridden over by Seidlitz Horse, was not
quite an easy matter! They left, of killed and wounded, near 3,000;
of prisoners, 5,000 (Generals among them 8, Officers 300): in sum,
about 8,000; not to mention cannon, 67 or 72; with standards,
flags, kettle-drums and meaner baggages AD LIBITUM in a manner.
The Prussian loss was, 165 killed, 376 wounded;--between a
sixteenth and a fifteenth part of theirs: in number the Prussians
had been little more than one to three; 22,000 of all arms,--not
above half of whom ever came into the fire; Seidlitz and seven
battalions doing all the fighting that was needed, St. Germain
tried to cover the retreat; but "got broken," he says,--Mayer
bursting in on him,--and soon went to slush like the others.

Seldom, almost never, not even at Crecy or Poictiers, was any Army
better beaten. And truly, we must say, seldom did any better
deserve it, so far as the Chief Parties went. Yes, Messieurs, this
is the PETIT MARQUIS DE BRANDEBOURG; you will know this one, when
you meet him again! The flight, the French part of it, was towards
Freiburg Bridge; in full gallop, long after the chase had ceased;
crossing of the Unstrut there, hoarse, many-voiced, all night;
burning of the Bridge; found burnt, when Friedrich arrived next
morning. He had encamped at Obschutz, short way from the field
itself. French Army, Reichs Army, all was gone to staves, to utter
chaotic wreck. Hildburghausen went by Naumburg; crossed the Saale
there; bent homewards through the Weimar Country; one wild flood of
ruin, swift as it could go; at Erfurt "only one regiment was in
rank, and marched through with drums beating." His Army, which had
been disgustingly unhappy from the first, and was now fallen fluid
on these mad terms, flowed all away in different rills, each by the
course straightest home; and Hildburghausen arriving at Bamberg,
with hardly the ghost or mutilated skeleton of an Army, flung down
his truncheon,--"A murrain on your Reichs Armies and regimental
chaoses!"--and went indignantly home. Reichs Army had to begin at
the beginning again; and did not reappear on the scene till
late next Year, under a new Commander, and with slightly
improved conditions.

Dauphiness Proper was in no better case; and would have flowed home
in like manner, had not home been so far, and the way unknown.
Twelve thousand of them rushed straggling through the Eichsfeld;
plundering and harrying, like Cossacks or Calmucks: "Army blown
asunder, over a circle of forty miles' radius," writes St. Germain:
"had the Enemy pursued us, after I got broken [burst in upon by
Mayer and his Free-Corps people] we had been annihilated.
Never did Army behave worse; the first cannon-salvo decided our
rout and our shame." [St. Germain to Verney: different Excerpts of
Letters in the two weeks after Rossbach and before (given in
Preuss, ii. 97).]

In two days' time (November 7th), the French had got to
Langensalza, fifty-five miles from the Battle-field of Rossbach;
plundering, running, SACRE-DIEU-ing; a wild deluge of molten wreck,
filling the Eichsfeld with its waste noises, making night hideous
and day too;--in the villages Placards were stuck up, appointing
Nordhausen and Heiligenstadt for rallying place. [Muller, p. 73.]

Soubise rode, with few attendants, all night towards Nordhausen,--
eighty miles off, foot of the Bracken Country, where the Richelieu
resources are;--Soubise with few attendants, face set towards the
Brocken; himself, it is like, in a somewhat hag-ridden condition.

"The joy of poor Teutschland at large," says one of my Notes, "and
how all Germans, Prussian and Anti-Prussian alike, flung up their
caps, with unanimous LEBE-HOCH, at the news of Rossbach, has often
been remarked; and indeed is still almost touching to see.
The perhaps bravest Nation in the world, though the least braggart,
very certainly EIN TAPFERES VOLK (as their Goethe calls them);
so long insulted, snubbed and trampled on, by a luckier, not a
braver:--has not your exultant Dauphiness got a beautiful little
dose administered her; and is gone off in foul shrieks, and pangs
of the interior,--let no man ask whitherward! 'SI UN ALLEMAND PEUT
AVOIR DE L'ESPRIT (Can a German possibly have sharpness of wits)?'
Well, yes, it would seem: here is one German graduate who
understands his medicine-chest, and the quality of patients!--
Dauphiness got no pity anywhere; plenty of epigrams, and mostly
nothing but laughter even in Paris itself. Napoleon long after, who
much admires Friedrich, finds that this Victory of Rossbach was
inevitable; 'but what fills me with astonishment and shame,' adds
he, 'is that it was gained by six battalions and thirty squadrons
[seven properly, and thirty-eight] over such a multitude!'
[Montholon, MEMOIRES &C. DE NAPOLEON (Napoleon's Precis
des Guerres de Frrederic II., vii. 210).]--It is well
known, Napoleon, after Jena, as if Jena had not been enough for
him, tore down the first Monument of Rossbach, some poor ashlar
Pyramid or Pillar, raised by the neighborhood, with nothing more
afflictive inscribed on it than a date; and sent it off in carts
for Paris (where no stone of it ever arrived, the Thuringen carmen
slinking off, and leaving it scattered in different places over the
face of Thuringen in general); so that they had the trouble of a
new one lately." [Rodenbeck, Beitrage, i.
299; ib. p. 385, Lithograph of the poor extinct Monument itself.]

From Friedrich the "Army of the Circles," that is, Dauphiness and
Company,--called HOOPERS or "Coopers" (TONNELIERS), with a
desperate attempt at wit by pun,--get their Adieu in words withal.
This is the famed CONGE DE L'ARMEE DES CERCLES ET DES TONNELIERS;
a short metrical Piece; called by Editors the most profane, most
indecent, most &c.; and printed with asterisk veils thrown over the
worst passages. Who shall dare, searching and rummaging for insight
into Friedrich, and complaining that there is none, to lift any
portion of the veil; and say, "See--Faugh!" The cynicism, truly,
but also the irrepressible honest exultation, has a kind of epic
completeness, and fulness of sincerity; and, at bottom, the thing
is nothing like so wicked as careless commentators have given out.
Dare to look a little: -

"ADIEU, GRANDS ERASEURS DE ROIS," so it starts: "Adieu, grand
crushers of Kings; arrogant wind-bags, Turpin, Broglio, Soubise,--
Hildburghausen with the gray beard, foolish still as when your
beard was black in the Turk-War time:--brisk journey to you all!"
That is the first stanza; unexceptionable, had we room. The second
stanza is,--with the veils partially lifted; with probably "MOISE"
put into the first blank, and into the third something of or
belonging to "CESAR,"--

"Je vows ai vu comme ...
Dans des ronces en certain lieu
Eut l'honneur de voir ...
Ou comme au gre de sa luxure
Le bon Nicomede a l'ecart
Aiguillonnait sa flamme impure
Des ..."

Enough to say, the Author, with a wild burst of spiritual
enthusiasm, sings the charms of the rearward part of certain men;
and what a royal ecstatic felicity there sometimes is in
indisputable survey of the same. He rises to the heights of Anti-
Biblical profanity, quoting Moses on the Hill of Vision; sinks to
the bottomless of human or ultra-human depravity, quoting King
Nicomedes's experiences on Caesar (happily known only to the
learned); and, in brief, recognizes that there is, on occasion,
considerable beauty in that quarter of the human figure, when it
turns on you opportunely. A most cynical profane affair: yet, we
must say by way of parenthesis, one which gives no countenance to
Voltaire's atrocities of rumor about Friedrich himself in this
matter; the reverse rather, if well read; being altogether
theoretic, scientific; sings with gusto the glow of beauty you find
in that unexpected quarter,--while KICKING it deservedly and with
enthusiasm. "To see the"--what shall we call it: seat of honor, in
fact, "of your enemy:" has it not an undeniable charm? "I own to
you in confidence, O Soubise and Company, this fine laurel I have
got, and was so in need of, is nothing more or other than the sight
of your"--FOUR ASTERISKS. "Oblige me, whenever clandestine Fate
brings us together, by showing me that"--always that, if you would
give me pleasure when we meet. "And oh," next stanza says, "to
think what our glory is founded on,"--on view of that unmentionable
object, I declare to you!--And through other stanzas, getting
smutty enough (though in theory only), which we need not prosecute
farther. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xii. 70-73
(WRITTEN at Freiburg, 6th November, when his Majesty got thither,
and found the Bridge burnt).] A certain heartiness and epic
greatness of cynicism, life's nakedness grown almost as if innocent
again; an immense suppressed insuppressible Haha, on the part of
this King. Strange TE-DEUM indeed. Coming from the very heart,
truly, as few of them do; but not, in other points, recommendable
at all!--Here, of the night before, is something better:--


TO WILHELMINA.

"NEAR WEISSENFELS [OBSCHUTZ, in fact; does not know yet
what the Battle will be CALLED], 5th November, 1757.

"At last, my dear Sister, I can announce you a bit of good news.
You were doubtless aware that the Coopers with their circles had a
mind to take Leipzig. I ran up, and hove them beyond Saale. The Duc
de Richelieu sent them a reinforcement of twenty battalions and
fourteen squadrons [say 15,000 horse and foot]; they then called
themselves 63,000 strong. Yesterday I went to reconnoitre them;
could not attack them in the post they held. This had rendered them
rash. Today they came out with the intention of attacking me; but I
took the start of them (LES AI PREVENU). It was a Battle EN DOUCEUR
(soft to one's wish). Thanks to God I have not a hundred men
killed; the only General ill wounded is Meinecke. My Brother Henri
and General Seidlitz have slight hurts [gun-shots, not so slight,
that of Seidlitz] in the arm. We have all the Enemy's cannon, all
the ... I am in full march to drive them over the Unstrut [already
driven, your Majesty; bridge burning].

"You, my dear Sister, my good, my divine and affectionate Sister
[faithful to the bone, in good truth, poor Wilhelmina], who deign
to interest yourself in the fate of a Brother who adores you, deign
also to share in my joy. The instant I have time, I will tell you
more. I embrace you with my whole heart; Adieu. F."
[ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 310.]


ULTERIOR FATE OF DAUPHINESS; FLIES OVER THE RHINE IN BAD FASHION:
DAUPHINESS'S WAYS WITH THE SAXON POPULATION IN HER DELIVERANCE-WORK.

Friedrich had no more fighting with the French. November 9th, at
Merseburg, in all stillness, Duke Ferdinand got his Britannic
Commission, his full Powers, from Friedrich and the parties
interested; in all stillness made his arrangements, as if for
Magdeburg and his Governorship there,--Friedrich hastening off for
Silesia the while. Duke Ferdinand did stay six days in Magdeburg,
inspecting or pretending to inspect; very pleasant with his Sister
and the Royalties that, are now there; but, at midnight of day
sixth shot off silently on wider errand. And, in sum, on Thursday,
24th November, 1757, appeared in Stade, on horseback at morning
parade there; intimating, to what joy of the poor Brunswick
Grenadiers and others, That he was come to take command;
that Kloster-Zeven is abolished; that we are not an "Observation
Army," rotting here in the parish pound, any longer, but an "Allied
Army" (such now our title), intending to strike for ourselves, and
get out of pound straightway!--

"THURSDAY, 24th NOVEMBER-TUESDAY, 29th. Duke Ferdinand did
accordingly pick up the reins of this distracted Affair; and, in a
way wonderful to see, shot sanity into every fibre of it; and kept
it sane and road-worthy for the Five Years coming. With a silent
velocity, an energy, an imperturbable steadfastness and clear
insight into cause and effect; which were creditable to the school
he came from; and were a very joyful sight to Pitt and others
concerned. So that from next Tuesday, 'November 29th, before
daylight,' when Ferdinand's batteries began playing upon Harburg
(French Fortress nearest to Stade), the reign of the French ceased
in those Countries; and an astonished Richelieu and his French,
lying scattered over all the West of Germany, in readiness for
nothing but plunder, had to fall more or less distracted in their
turn; and do a number of astonishing things. To try this and that,
of futile, more or less frantic nature; be driven from post after
post; be driven across the Aller first of all;--Richelieu to go
home thereupon, and be succeeded by one still more incompetent.

"DECEMBER 13th, a fortnight after Ferdinand's appearance, Richelieu
had got to the safe side of the Aller (burning of Zelle Bridge and
Zelle Town there, his last act in Germany); Ferdinand's quarters
now wide enough; and vigorous speed of preparation going on for
farther chase, were the weather mended. FEBRUARY 17th, 1758,
Ferdinand was on foot again; Prince de Clermont, the still more
incompetent successor of Richelieu, gazing wide-eyed upon him, but
doing nothing else: and for the next six weeks there was seen a
once triumphant Richelieu-D'Estrees French Army, much in rags, much
in disorder, in terror, and here and there almost in despair,--
winging their way; like clouds of draggled poultry caught by a
mastiff in the corn. Across Weser, across Ems, finally across the
Rhine itself, every feather of them,--their long-drawn cackle, of a
shrieky type, filling all Nature in those months; the mastiff
steadily following. [Mauvillon, i. 252-284 ("9th November, 1757-1st
April, 1758"); Westphalen, i. 316-503 (abundantly explicit,
authentic and even entertaining,--with the ample Correspondences,
ib. ii. 147-350); Schaper, Vie militaire du Marechal
Prince Ferdinand (2 tomes, 8vo, Magdebourg, 1796,
1799), i. 7-100 (a careful Book; of an official exactitude, like
Westphalen's,--and appears to be left incomplete like his).] To the
astonishment of Pitt and mankind. Can this be the same Army that
Royal Highness led to the Sea and the Parish Pound? The same
identically, wasted to about two-thirds by Royal Highness; not a
drum in it changed otherwise, only One Man different,--and he is
the important one!

"Pitt, when the news of Rossbach came, awakening the bonfires and
steeple-bells of England to such a pitch, had resolved on an
emphatic measure: that of sending English Troops to reinforce our
Allied Army, and its new General;--such an Ally as that Rossbach
one being rare in the eyes of Pitt. 'Postpone the meeting of
Parliament, yet a few days, your Majesty,' said Pitt, 'till I get
the estimates ready!' [Thackeray, i. 310.] To which Majesty
assented, and all England with him: 'England's own Cause,' thinks
Pitt, with confidence: 'our way of Conquering America,--and, in the
circumstances, our one way!' English did land, accordingly; first
instalment of them, a 12,000 (in August next), increased gradually
to 20,000; with no end of furnishings to them and everybody;
with results again satisfactory to Pitt; and very famous in the
England that then was, dim as they are now grown."

The effect of all which was, that Pitt, with his Ferdinands and
reinforcements, found work for the French ever onwards from
Rossbach; French also turning as if exclusively upon perfidious
Albion: and the thing became, in Teutschland, as elsewhere, a duel
of life and death between these natural enemies,--Teutschland the
centre of it,--Teutschland and the accessible French Sea-Towns,--
but the circumference of it going round from Manilla and Madras to
Havana and Quebec again. Wide-spread furious duel; prize, America
and life. By land and sea; handsomely done by Pitt on both
elements. Land part, we say, was always mainly in Germany, under
Ferdinand,--in Hessen and the Westphalian Countries, as far west as
Minden, as far east as Frankfurt-on-Mayn, generally well north of
Rhine, well south of Elbe: that was, for five years coming, the
cockpit or place of deadly fence between France and England.
Friedrich's arena lies eastward of that, occasionally playing into
it a little, and played into by it, and always in lively sympathy
and consultation with it: but, except the French subsidizings,
diplomatizings. and great diligenae against him in foreign Courts,
Friedrich is, in practical respects, free of the French; and ever
after Rossbach, Ferdinand and the English keep them in full work,--
growing yearly too full. A heavy Business for England and
Ferdinand; which is happily kept extraneous to Friedrich
thenceforth; to him and us; which is not on the stage of his
affairs and ours, but is to be conceived always as vigorously
proceeding alongside of it, close beyond the scenes, and liable at
any time to make tragic entry on him again:--of which we shall have
to notice the louder occurrences and cardinal phases, but, for the
future, nothing more.

Soubise, who had crept into the skirts of the Richelieu Army in
Hanover or Hessen Country, had of course to take wing in that
general fright before the mastiff. Soubise did not cross the Rhine
with it; Soubise made off eastward; [Westphalen, i. 501 ("end of
March, 1758"].]--found new roost in Hanau-Frankfurt Country;
and had thoughts of joining the Austrians in Bohemia next Campaign;
but got new order,--such the pinches of a winged Clermont with a
mastiff Ferdinand at his poor draggled tail;--and came back to the
Ferdinand scene, to help there; and never saw Friedrich again.
Both Broglio and he had a good deal of fighting (mostly beating)
from Ferdinand; and a great deal of trouble and sorrow in the
course of this War; but after Rossbach it is not Friedrich or we,
it is Ferdinand and the Destinies that have to do with them.
Poor Soubise, except that he was the creature of Generalissima
Pompadour, which had something radically absurd in it, did not
deserve all the laughter he got: a man of some chivalry, some
qualities. As for Broglio, I remember always, not without human
emotion, the two extreme points of his career as a soldier:
Rossbach and the Fall of the Bastille. He was towards forty,
when Friedrich bestrode the Janus Hill in that fiery manner;
he was turned of seventy when, from the pavements of Paris, the
Chimera of Democracy rose on him, in fire of a still more
horrible description.

Dauphiness-Bellona, in her special and in her widest sense, has
made exit, then. Gone, like clouds of draggled poultry home across
the Rhine. She was the most marauding Army lately seen, also the
most gasconading, and had the least capacity for fighting:
three worse qualities no army could have. How she fought, we have
seen sufficiently. Before taking leave of her forever, readers, as
she is a paragon in her kind, would perhaps take a glance or two at
her marauding qualities,--by a good opportunity that offers.
Plotho at Regensburg, that a supreme Reichs Diet may know what a
"deliverance of Saxony" this has been, submits one day the
following irrefragable Documents, "which have happened," not
without good industry of my own, "to fall into my [Plotho's]
hands." They are Documents partly of epistolary, partly of a
Petitionary form, presented to Polish Majesty, out of that Saxon
Country; and have an AFFIDAVIT quality about them, one and all.

1. BIG DAUPHINESS (that is, D'Estrees) IN THE WESEL COUNTRIES, AT
AN EARLY STAGE,--WHILE STILL ENDEAVORING WHAT SHE COULD TO BEHAVE
WELL, HANGING 1,000 MARAUDERS AND THE LIKE (A private Letter):--

"COUNTY MARK, 20th JUNE, 1757. The French troops are going on here
in a way to utterly ruin us. Schmidt, their President of Justice,
whom they set up in Cleve, has got orders to change all the
Magistracies of the Country [Protestant by nature], so as that half
the members shall be Catholic. Bielefeld was openly plundered by
the French for three hours long. You cannot by possibility
represent to yourself what the actual state of misery in these
Countries is. A SCHEFFEL of rye costs three thalers sixteen
groschen [who knows how many times its natural price!]. And now we
are to be forced to eat the spoiled meal those French troops
brought with them; which is gone to such a state no animal would
have it. This poisoned meal we are to buy from them, ready money,
at the price they fix; and that famine may induce us, they are
about to stop the mills, and forcibly take away what little bread-
corn we have left. God have pity on us, and deliver us soon!
Next week we are to have a transit of 6,000 Pfalzers [Kur-Pfalz,
foolish idle fellow, and Kur-Baiern too, are both in subsidy of
France, as usual; 6,000 Pfalzers just due here]; these, I suppose,
will sweep us clean bare." [ Helden-Geschichte, italic> iv. 399.]:

Wesel Fortress, Gate of the Rhine, could not be defended by
Friedrich: and the Hanover Incapables, and England still all in
St. Vitus, would not hear of undertaking it; left it wide open for
the French; never could recover it, or get the Rhine-Gate barred
again, during the whole War. One hopes they repented;--but perhaps
it was only Pitt and Duke Ferdinand that did so, instead! The Wesel
Countries were at once occupied by the French; "a conquest of her
Imperial Majesty's;" continued to be administered in Imperial
Majesty's name,--and are thriving as above.

2. DAUPHINESS PROPER (that is, Soubise) IN THURINGEN, AT A LATE STAGE:--

"LETTER FROM FREIBURG, SHORTLY AFTER ROSSBACH.--It was on the 23d
October, a Sunday, that we of Freiburg had our first billeting of
French; a body of Cavalry from different regiments [going to take
Leipzig, take Torgau, what not]: and from that day Freiburg never
emptied of French, who kept marching through it in extraordinary
quantities. The marching lasted fourteen days, namely, till the 6th
November [day AFTER Rossbach; when they burnt our poor Bridge, and
marched for the last time]; and often the billeting was so heavy,
that in a single house there were forty or fifty men. Who at all
times had to be lodged and dieted gratis; nay many householders,
over and above the ordinary meal, were obliged to give them money
too; and many poor people, who can scarcely get their own bit of
bread, had to run and bring at once their sixteen or eighteen
groschen [pence] worth of wine, not to speak of coffee and sugar.
And a great increase of the mischief it was always, that the
soldiers and common people did not understand one another's
language."--Heavy billeting; but what was that? ... "Vast, nearly
impossible, quantities of forage and provision," were wrung from
us, as from all the other Towns and Villages about, "under
continual threatening to burn and raze us from the earth. Often did
our French Colonel threaten, 'He would have the cannon opened on
Freiburg straightway.' Nay, had it stood by foraging, we might have
reckoned ourselves lucky. But our straits increased day by day;
and sheer plundering became more and more excessive.

"The robbing and torturing of travellers, the plundering and
burning of Saxon Villages ... Almost all the Towns and Villages
hereabouts are so plundered out, that many a one now has nothing
but what he carries on his body. Plundering was universal: and no
sooner was one party away, than another came, and still another;
and often the same house was three or four times plundered.
Branderode, a Village two leagues from this [stands on the Field of
Rossbach, if we look], is so ruined out, that nobody almost has
anything left: Chief Inspector Baron von Bose's Schloss there, with
its splendid appointments, they ruined utterly; took all money,
victuals, valuables, furniture, clothes, linen and beds, all they
could carry; what could not be carried away, they cut, hewed and
smashed to pieces; broke the wine-casks; and even tore up the
documents and letters they found lying in the place.
Branderode Dorf was twice set fire to by them; and was, at last,
with Zeuchfeld, which is an Amtsdorf,--after both had been
plundered,--reduced to ashes. The Churches of Branderode and
Zeuchfeld, with several other Churches, were plundered; the altars
broken, the altar-cloths and other vestures cut to pieces, and the
sacred vessels and cups carried away,--except [for we have a
notarial exactness, and will exaggerate nothing] that in the case
of Branderode they sent the cup back. Of the pollution of the
altars, and of the blasphemous songs these people sang in the
churches, one cannot think without horror.

"And it was merely our pretended Allies and Protectors that have
desecrated our divine service, utterly wasted our Country, reduced
the inhabitants to want and desperation, and, in short, have so
behaved that you would not know this region again. Truly these
troops have realized for us most of the infamies we heard reported
of the Cossacks, and their ravagings in Preussen lately.

"It is one of their smallest doings that they robbed a Saxon
Clergyman [name and circumstances can be given if required), three
times over, on the public Highway; shot at him, tied him to a
horse's tail and dragged him along with them; so that he is now
lying ill, in danger of his life. On the whole, it is our beloved
Pastors, Clergymen most of all, that have been plundered of
everything they had.

"Balgart and Zschieplitz, both Villages half a league from this,
have likewise been heavily plundered; they have even left the
Parson nothing but what he wore on his back. Grost," another
Rossbach place, "which belongs to the Kammerjunker Heldorf, has
likewise" ... OHE, SATIS!--"All this happened between the 23d and
3lst October; consequently before the Battle. ... In many Villages
you see the trees and fields sprinkled with feathers from the beds
that have been slit up.

"In several Villages belonging to the Royal Electoral privy
Councillor von Bruhl [who is properly the fountain of all this and
of much other misery to us, if we knew it!] the plundering likewise
had begun; and a quantity of about a hundred swine [so ho!] had
been cut in pieces: but in the midst of their work, the Allies
heard that these were Bruhl estates, and ceased their havoc of
them. These accordingly are the only lands in all this region whose
fate has been tolerable.

"The appellation, every moment renewed, of 'Heretic!' was the
courteous address from these people to our fellow-Christians;
'heretic dogs (KETZERISCHE HUNDE)' was a PRADICAT always in
their mouth.

"In Weischutz," a mile or two from us, up the Unstrut, "a French
Colonel who wanted to ride out upon the works, made the there
Pastor, Magister Schren, stoop down by way of horse-block, and
mounted into the saddle from his back. [Messieurs, you will kindle
the wrath of mankind some day, and get a terrible plucking, with
those high ways of yours!]

"Churches are all smashed; obscene songs were sung, in form of
litany, from the pulpits and altars; what was done with the
communion-vessels, when they were not worth stealing,"--is hideous
to the religious sense, and shall not be mentioned in human speech.

3. THE BROGLIO REINFORCEMENT COMING ACROSS TO JOIN SOUBISE, AND
PERFORM AT ROSSBACH (Humble Petition from the Magistrates of
Sangerhausen, To the King of Poland's Majesty):--

SANGERHAUSEN, 23d OCTOBER, 1757.--"Scarcely had we, with profound
submission (ALLERUNTERTHANIGST), under date of the 13th current,
represented to your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency how
heavily we were pressed down by the forage requisitions and
transits of troops, and the consequent, expenditure in food,
drinking, in oats and hay, which no one pays,--when directly
thereafter, on the 14th of October, a new French party, of the
Fischer Corps,"--Fischer is a mighty Hussar, scarcely inferior to
Turpin;, and stands in astonishing authority with Richelieu, and an
Army whose object is plunder, [Ferdinand's Correspondente, SOEPIUS
( Westphalen, i. 40-127); &c. &c.]--"new party
of the Fischer Corps, of some sixty men and horse, arrived in the
Town; demanded meat, drink, oats aud hay, and all things necessary;
which they received from us;--and not only paid not one farthing
for all this, but furthermore some of them, instead of thanks to
their Landlord, Rossold, forcibly broke up his press, drank his
brandy, and carried off a TOUTE (gather-all) with money in it.
From a Tanner, Lindauer by name, they bargained for a buckskin;
and having taken, would not pay it. In the RATHSKELLER (Town
Public-house) they drank much wine, and gave nothing for it: nay on
marching off,--because no mounted guide (REITENDER BOTE) was at
hand, and though they had before expressly said none such would be
needed,--they rushed about like distracted persons (WIE RASENDE
LEUTE) in the market-place and in the streets; beat the people,
tumbled them about, and lugged them along, in a violent manner;
using abusive language to a frightful extent, and threatening
every misfortune.

"Hardly were we rid of this confusion and astonishment when, on
October 21st, a whole swarm of horses, men, women, children and
wagons, which likewise all belonged to the Fischer Corps, and were
commanded by First-Lieutenant Schmidt, came into our Town.
This troop consisted of 80 men, part infantry, part cavalry;
with some 80 work-horses, 10 baggage-wagons, and about 100 persons,
women, sick people and the like. They stayed the whole night here;
made meat, drink, corn, hay and whatever they needed be brought
them; and went off next day without paying anything.

"Our Inns were now almost quite exhausted of forage in corn or hay;
and we knew not how we were to pay what had been spent,--when the
thirty French Light Cavalry, of whom we, with profound submission,
on the 13th HUJUS gave your Royal Majesty and Electoral
Translucency account, renewed their visit upon us; came, under the
command of Rittmeister de Mocu, on the 22d of October [while the
baggage-wagons, work-horses, women, sick, and so forth, were hardly
gone], towards evening, into the Town; consumed in meat and drink,
oats and hay, and the like, what they could lay hold of; and next
morning early marched away, paying, as their custom is, nothing.

"Not enough that,--besides the great forage-contribution
(LIEFERUNG), which we already, with profound submission, notified
to your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency as having been
laid upon us; and that, by order of the Duc de Broglio, a new
requisition is now laid on us, and we have had to engage for sixty-
four more sacks of wheat, and thirty-two of rye (as is noted under
head A, in the enclosed copy),--there has farther come on us, on
the part of the Reichs Army, from Kreis-Commissarius Heldorf [whose
Schloss of Grost, we perceive, they have since burnt, by way of
thanks to him [Supra, No. 2.]], the simultaneous Order for instant
delivery of Forage (as under head B, here enclosed)! Thus are we,
at the appointed places, all at once to furnish such quantities,
more than we can raise; and know not when or where we shall, either
for what has been already furnished, or for what is still to be,
receive one penny of money: nay, over and above, we are to sustain
the many marchings of troops, and provide to the same what meat,
drink, oats, hay and so on, they require, without the least return
of payment!

"So unendurable, and, taken all together, so hard (SIC) begins the
conduct of these troops, that profess being come as friends and
helpers, to appear to us. And Heaven alone knows how long, under a
continuance of such things, the subjects (whom the Hail-storm of
last year had at any rate impoverished) shall be able to support
the same. We would, were a reasonable delivery of forage laid upon
us even at a low price, and the board and billet of the marching
troops paid to us even in part, lay out our whole strength in
helping to bear the burdens of the Fatherland; but if such things
go on, which will soon leave us only bare life and empty huts, we
can look forward to nothing but our ruin and destruction. But, as
it is not your Royal Majesty's and Electoral Translucency's most
gracious will that we, your Most Supreme Self's most faithful
subjects, should entirely perish, therefore we repeat our former
most submissive prayer once again with hot (SIC) sorrow of mind to
Highest-the-Same; and sob most submissively for that help which
your Most Supreme Self, through most gracious mediation with the
Duc de Richelieu, with the Reichs Army or wherever else, might
perhaps most graciously procure for us. Who, in deepest longing
thitherwards, with the most deepest devotion, remain--" [
Helden-Geschichte, iv. 688-691.] (NAMES,
unfortunately, not given).

How many Saxons and Germans generally--alas, how many men
universally--cry towards celestial luminaries of the governing kind
with the most deepest devotion, in their extreme need, under their
unsufferable injuries; and are truly like dogs in the backyard
barking at the Moon. The Moon won't come down to them, and be eaten
as green cheese; the Moon can't!

4. DAUPHINESS AFTER ROSSBACH. "Excise-Inspector Neitsche, at Bebra,
near Weissenfels [Bebra is well ahead from Freiburg and the burnt
Bridge, and a good twenty-five miles west of Weissenfels], writes
To the King of Poland's Majesty, 9th NOVEMBER, 1757:--

"May it please your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency, out
of your highest grace, to take knowledge, from the accompanying
Registers SUB SIGNO MARTIS [sign unknown to readers here], of the
things which, in the name of this Township of Bebra, the
Burgermeister Johann Adam, with the Raths and others concerned,
have laid before the Excise-Inspection here. As follows:--

"It will be already well known to the Excise-Inspection that on the
7th of November (A. C.) of the current year [day before yesterday,
in fact!], the French Army so handled this place as to have not
only taken from the inhabitants, by open force, all bread and
articles of food, but likewise all clothes, beds, linens (WASCHE),
and other portable goods; that it has broken, split to pieces, and
emptied out, all chests, boxes, presses, drawers; has shot dead, in
the backyards and on the thatch-roofs, all manner of feathered-
stock, as hens, geese, pigeons; also carried forth with it all
swine, cow, sheep and horse cattle; laid violent hands on the
inhabitants, clapped guns, swords, pistols to their breast, and
threatened to kill them unless they showed and brought out whatever
goods they had; or else has hunted them wholly out of their houses,
shooting at them, cutting, sticking and at last driving them away,
thereby to have the freer room to rob and plunder: flung out hay
and other harvest-stock from the barns into the mud and dung, and
had it trampled to ruin under the horses, feet; nay, in fact, has
dealt with this place in so unpermitted a way as even to the most
hard-hearted man must seem compassionable."--Poor fellows: CETERA
DESUNT; but that is enough! What can a Polish Majesty and Electoral
Translucency do? Here too is a sorrowful howling to the Moon.
[ Helden-Geschichte, iv. 692.]

... "For a hundred miles round," writes St. Germain, "the Country
is plundered and harried as if fire from Heaven had fallen on it;
scarcely have our plunderers and marauders left the houses
standing. ... I lead a band of robbers, of assassins, fit for
breaking on the wheel; they would turn tail at the first gunshot,
and are always ready to mutiny. If the Government (LA COUR," with
its Pompadour presiding, very unlikely for such an enterprise!)
"cannot lay the knife to the root of all this, we may give up the
notion of War." [St. Germain, after Rossbach and before (in Preuss,
UBI SUPRA).] ...

Such a pitch have French Armies sunk to. When was there seen such a
Bellona as Dauphiness before? Nay, in fact, she is the same devil-
serving Army that Marechal de Saxe commanded with such triumph,--
Marechal de Saxe in better luck for opponents; Army then in a
younger stage of its development. Foaming then as sweet must, as
new wine, in the hands of a skilful vintner, poisonous but brisk;
not run, as now, to the vinegar state, intolerable to all mortals.
She can now announce from her camp-theatres the reverse of the
Roucoux program, "To-morrow, Messieurs, you are going to fight;
our Manager foresees"--you will be beaten; and we cannot say what
or where the next Piece will be! Impious, licentious, high-flaring
efflorescence of all the Vices is not to be redeemed by the one
Quasi-Virtue of readiness to be shot;--sweet of that kind, and sour
of this, are the same substance, if you only wait. How kind was the
Devil to his Saxe; and flew away with him in rose-pink, while it
was still time!



Chapter IX.

FRIEDRICH MARCHES FOR SILESIA.

The fame of Friedrich is high enough again in the Gazetteer world;
all people, and the French themselves, laughing at their
grandiloquent Dauphiness-Bellona, and writing epigrams on Soubise.
But Friedrich's difficulties are still enormous. One enemy coming
with open mouth, you plunge in upon, and ruin, on this hand; and it
only gives you room to attempt upon another bigger one on that.
Soubise he has finished handsomely, for this season; but now he
must try conclusions with Prince Karl. Quick, towards Silesia,
after this glorious Victory which the Gazetteers are celebrating.

The news out of Silesia are ominously doubtful, bad at the best.
Duke Bevern, once Winterfeld was gone, had, as we observed, felt
himself free to act; unchecked, but also unsupported, by counsel of
the due heroism; and had acted unwisely. Made direct for Silesia,
namely, where are meal-magazines and strong places. Prince Karl,
they say, was also unwise; took no thought beforehand, or he might
have gained marches, disputed rivers, Bober, Queiss, with Bevern,
and as good as hindered him from ever getting to Silesia. So say
critics, Retzow and others; perhaps looking too fixedly on one side
of the question. Certain it is, Bevern marched in peace to Silesia;
found it by no means the better place it had promised to be.

Prince Karl--Daun there as second, but Karl now the dominant hand--
was on the heels of Bevern, march after march. Prince Karl cut
athwart him by one cunning march, in Liegnitz Country; barring him
from Schweidnitz, the chief stronghold of Silesia, and to
appearance from Breslau, the chief city, too. Bevern, who did not
want for soldiership, when reduced to his shifts, now made a
beautiful manoeuvre, say the critics; struck out leftwards, namely,
and crossed the Oder, as if making for Glogau, quite beyond Prince
Karl's sphere of possibility,--but turned to right, not to left,
when across, and got in upon Breslau from the other or east side of
the River. Cunning manoeuvre, if you will, and followed by cunning
manoeuvres: but the result is, Prince Karl has got Schweidnitz to
rear, stands between Breslau and it; can besiege Schweidnitz when
he likes, and no relief to it possible that will not cost a battle.
A battle, thinks Friedrich, is what Bevern ought to have tried at
first; a well-fought battle might have settled everything, and
there was no other good likelihood in such an expedition: but now,
by detaching reinforcements to this garrison and that, he has
weakened himself beyond right power of fighting. [ OEuvres
de Frederic, iv. 141, 159.] Schweidnitz is liable to
siege; Breslau, with its poor walls and multitudinous population,
can stand no siege worth mentioning; the Silesian strong places,
not to speak of meal-magazines, are like to go a bad road.
Quite dominant, this Prince Karl; placarding and proclaiming in all
places, according to the new "Imperial Patent," [In
Helden-Geschichte, (iv. 832, 833), Copy of it:
"Absolved from all prior Treaties by Prussian Majesty's attack on
us, We" &c. &c. ("21st Sept. 1757").] That Silesia is her Imperial
Majesty's again! Which seems to be fast becoming the fact;--unless
contradicted better. Quick!

Bevern has now, October 1st, no manoeuvre left but to draw out of
Breslau; post himself on the southern side of it, in a safe angle
there, marshy Lohe in front, broad Oder to rear, Breslau at his
right-hand with bread; and there intrenching himself by the best
methods, wait slowly, in a sitting posture, events which are
extensively on the gallop at present. One fancies, Had Winterfeld
been still there! It is as brave an Army, 30,000, or more, as ever
wore steel. Surely something could have been done with it;--
something better than sit watching the events on full gallop all
round! Bevern was a loyal, considerably skilful and valiant man;
in the Battle of Lobositz, and elsewhere, we have seen him brave as
a lion: but perhaps in the other kind of bravery wanted here, he--
Well, his case was horribly difficult; full of intricacy. And he
sat, no doubt in a very wretched state, consulting the oracles,
with events (which are themselves oracular) going at such a pace.

Schweidnitz was besieged October 26th. Nadasti, with 20,000, was
set to do it; Prince Karl, with 60,000, ready to protect him;
Prince Bevern asking the oracles:--what a bit of news for
Friedrich; breaking suddenly the effulgency of Rossbach with a bar
of ominous black! Friedrich, still in the thick of pure Saxon
business, makes instant arrangement for Silesia as well: Prince
Henri, with such and such corps, to maintain the Saale, and guard
Saxony; Marshal Keith, with such and such, to step over into
Bohemia, and raise contributions at least, and tread on the tail of
the big Silesian snake: all this Friedrich settles within a week;
takes certain corps of his own, effective about 13,000; and on
November 13th marches from Leipzig. Round by Torgau, by Muhlberg,
Grossenhayn; by Bautzen, Weissenberg, across the Queiss, across the
Bober; and so, with long marches, strides continually forward, all
hearts willing, and all limbs, though in this sad winter weather,
towards relief of Schweidnitz.

At Grossenhayn, fifth day of the march, Friedrich learns that
Schweidnitz is gone. November 12th-14th, Schweidnitz went by
capitulation; contrary to everybody's hope or fear; certainly a
very short defence for such a fortress. Fault of the Commandant,
was everybody's first thought. Not probably the best of
Commandants, said others gradually; but his garrison had Saxons in
it;--one day "180 of them in a lump threw down their arms, in the
trenches, and went over to the Enemy." Owing to whatsoever, the
place is gone. Such towers, such curtains, star-ramparts; such an
opulence of cannons, stores, munitions, a 30,000 pounds of hard
cash, one item. All is gone, after a fortnight's siege. What a
piece of news, as heard by Friedrich, coming at his utmost towards
the scene itself! As seen by Bevern, too, in his questioning mood,
it was an event of very oracular nature.

On Monday, 14th, Schweidnitz fell; Karl, with Nadasti reunited to
him, was now 80,000 odd; and lost no time. On Tuesday next,
NOVEMBER 22d, 1757, "at three in the morning," long hours before
daybreak, Karl, with his 60,000, all learnedly arranged, comes
rolling over upon hapless Bevern: with no end of cannonading and
storm of war: BATTLE OF BRESLAU, they call it; ruinous to Bevern.
Of which we shall attempt no description: except to say, that Karl
had five bridges on the Lohe, came across the Lohe by five Bridges;
and that Bevern stood to his arms, steady as the rocks, to prevent
his getting over, and to entertain him when over; that there were
five principal attacks, renewed and re-renewed as long as needful,
with torrents of shot, of death and tumult; over six or eight miles
of country, for the space of fifteen hours. Battle comparable only
to Malplaquet, said the Austrians; such a hurricane of artillery,
strongly intrenched enemy and loud doomsday of war. Did not end
till nine at night; Austrians victorious, more or less, in four of
their attacks or separate enterprises: that is to say, masters of
the Lohe, and of the outmost Prussian villages and posts in front
of the Prussian centre and right wing; victorious in that northern
part;--but plainly unvictorious in the southeast or Prussian left
wing,--farthest off from Breslau, and under Ziethen's command,--
where they were driven across the Lohe again, and lost prisoners
and cannons, or a cannon. [In Seyfarth, Three Accounts;
Beylagan, ii. 198, 221, 234 et seq.]

Some of Bevern's people, grounding on this latter circumstance, and
that they still held the Battle-field, or most part of it, wrote
themselves victorious;--though in a dim brief manner, as if
conscious of the contrary. Which indeed was the fact. At the
council of war, which he summoned that evening, there were
proposals of night-attack, and other fierce measures; but Bevern,
rejecting the plan for a night attack on the Austrian camp as too
dubious, did, in the dark hours, through the silent streets of
Breslau, withdraw himself across the Oder, instead; leaving 80
cannon, and 5,000 killed and wounded; an evidently beaten man and
Army. And indeed did straightway disappear personally altogether,
as no longer equal to events. Rode out, namely, to reconnoitre in
the gray of his second sad morning, on this new Bank of the Oder;
saw little except gray mist; but rode into a Croat outpost, only
one poor groom attending him; and was there made prisoner:--
intentionally, thought mankind; intentionally, thinks Friedrich, who was very angry with the poor man. [Preuss, ii. 102. More exact in Kutzen, DER TAG VON LEUTHEN (Breslau, 1857,--an excellent exact little Compilation, from manifold sources well studied),
pp. 166-169, date "24th November."]

The poor man was carried to Vienna, if readers care to know;
but being a near Cousin there (second-cousin, no less, to the late
Empress-Mother), was by the high now-reigning Empress-Queen
received in a charmingly gracious manner, and sent home again
without ransom. "To Stettin!" beckoned Friedrich sternly from the
distance, and would not see him at all: "To Stettin, I say, your
official post in time of peace! Command me the invalid Garrison
there; you are fit for nothing better!"--I will add one other
thing, which unhappily will seem strange to readers: that there
came no whisper of complaint from Bevern; mere silence, and loyal
industry with his poor means, from Bevern; and that he proved
heroically useful in Stettin two years hence, against the Swedes,
against the Russians in the Siege-of-Colberg time; and gained
Friedrich's favor again, with other good results. Which I observe
was a common method with Prussian Generals and soldiers, when,
unjustly or justly, they fell into trouble of this kind; and a much
better one than that of complaining in the Newspapers, and
demanding Commissions of Inquiry, presided over by Chaos and the
Fourth-Estate, now is.

Bevern being with the Croats, the Prussian Army falls to General
Kyau, as next in rank; who (directly in the teeth of fierce orders
that are speeding hither for Bevern and him) marches away, leaving
Breslau to its fate; and making towards Glogau, as the one sure
point in this wreck of things. And Prince Karl, that same day, goes
upon Breslau; which is in no case to resist and be bombarded:
so that poor old General Lestwitz, the Prussian Commandant,--always
thought to be a valiant old gentleman, but who had been wounded in
the late Action, and was blamably discouraged,--took the terms
offered, and surrendered without firing a gun. Garrison and he to
march out, in "Free Withdrawal;" these are the terms: Garrison was
4,000 and odd, mostly Silesian recruits; but there marched hardly
500 out with poor Lestwitz; the Silesian recruits--persuaded by
conceivable methods, that they were to be prisoners of war, and
that, in short, Austria was now come to be King again, and might
make inquiry into men's conduct--found it safer to take service
with Austria, to vanish into holes in Breslau or where they could;
and, for instance, one regiment (or battalion, let us hide the name
of it), on marching through the Gate, consisted only of nine chief
officers and four men. [Muller, SCHLACHT BEI LEUTHEN (Berlin,
1857,--professedly a mere abridgment and shadow of Kutzen:
unindexed like it), p. 12 (with name and particulars).]

There were lost 98 pieces of cannon; endless magazines and stores
of war. A Breslau scandalously gone;--a Breslau preaching day after
next (27th, which was Sunday), in certain of its churches,
especially Cardinal Schaffgotsch in the Dom Insel doing it,
Thanksgiving Sermons, as per order, with unction real or official,
"That our ancient sovereigns are restored to us:" which Sermons--
except in the Schaffgotsch case, Prince Karl and the high Catholic
world all there in gala--were "sparsely attended," say my authors.
The Austrians are at the top of their pride; and consider full
surely that Silesia is theirs, though Friedrich were here twice
over. "What is Friedrich? We beat him at Kolin. His Prussians at
Zittau, at Moys, at Breslau in the new Malplaquet, were we beaten
by them? Hnh!"--and snort (in the Austrian mess-rooms), and snap
their fingers at Friedrich and his coming.

It was at Gorlitz (scene of poor Winterfeld's death) that
Friedrich, "on November 23d, the tenth day of his march," first got
rumor of the Breslau Malplaquet: "endless cannonading heard
thereabouts all yesterday!" said rumor from the east,--more and
more steadily, as Friedrich hastened forward;--and that it was "a
victory for Bevern." Till, at Naumburg on the Queiss, he gets the
actual tidings: Bevern gone to the Croats, Breslau going, Kyau
marching vague; and what kind of victory it was.

Ever from Grossenhayn onwards there had been message on message,
more and more rigorous, precise and indignant, "Do this, do that;
your Dilection shall answer it with your head!"--not one message of
which reached his Dilection, till Dilection and Fate (such the
gallop of events) had done the contrary: and now Dilection and his
head have made a finish of it. "No," answers Friedrich to himself;
"not till we are all finished!"--and pushes on, he too, like a kind
of Fate. "What does or can he mean, then?" say the Austrians, with
scornful astonishment, and think his head must be turning: "Will he
beat us out of Silesia with his Potsdam Guard-Parade then?"
"POTSDAMSCHE WACHT-PARADE:"--so they denominate his small Army;
and are very mirthful in their mess-rooms. "I will attack them, if
they stood on the Zobtenberg, if they stood on the steeples of
Breslau!" said Friedrich; and tramped diligently forward. Day after
day, as the real tidings arrive, his outlook in Silesia is becoming
darker and darker: a sternly dark march this altogether.
Prince Karl has thrown a garrison into Liegnitz on Friedrich's
road; Prince Karl lies encamped with Breslau at his back; has above
80,000 when fully gathered; and reigns supreme in those parts.
Darker march there seldom was: all black save a light that burns in
one heart, refusing to be quenched till death.

Friedrich sends orders that Kyau shall be put in arrest;
that Ziethen shall be general of the Bevern wreck, shall bring it
round by Glogau, and rendezvous with Friedrich at a place and day,
--Parchwitz, 2d of December coming;--and be steady, my old Ziethen.
Friedrich brushes past the Liegnitz Garrison, leaves Liegnitz and
it a trifle to the right; arrives at Parchwitz November 28th; and
there rests, or at least his weary troops do, till Ziethen come up;
the King not very restful, with so many things to prearrange;
a life or death crisis now nigh. Well, it is but death; and death
has been fronted before now! We who are after the event, on the
safe sunny side of it, can form small image of the horrors and the
inward dubieties to him who is passing through it;--and how Hope is
needed to shine heroically eternal in some hearts. Fire of Hope,
that does not issue in mere blazings, mad audacities and chaotic
despair, but advances with its eyes open, measuredly, counting its
steps, to the wrestling-place,--this is a godlike thing;
much available to mankind in all the battles they have;
battles with steel, or of whatever sort.

Friedrich, at Parchwitz, assembled his Captains, and spoke to them;
it was the night after Ziethen came in, night of December 3d, 1757;
and Ziethen, no doubt, was there: for it is an authentic meeting,
this at Parchwitz, and the words were taken down.


FRIEDRICH'S SPEECH TO HIS GENERALS (Parchwitz,
3d December, 1757).
[From RETZOW, i. 240-242 (slightly abridged).]

"It is not unknown to you, MEINE HERREN, what disasters have
befallen here, while we were busy with the French and Reichs Army.
Schweidnitz is gone; Duke of Bevern beaten; Breslau gone, and all
our war-stores there; good part of Silesia gone: and, in fact, my
embarrassments would be at the insuperable pitch, had not I
boundless trust in you, and your qualities, which have been so
often manifested, as soldiers and sons of your Country. Hardly one
among you but has distinguished himself by some nobly memorable
action: all these services to the State and me I know well, and
will never forget.

"I flatter myself, therefore, that in this case too nothing will be
wanting which the State has a right to expect of your valor.
The hour is at hand. I should think I had done nothing, if I left
the Austrians in possession of Silesia. Let me apprise you, then:
I intend, in spite of the Rules of Art, to attack Prince Karl's
Army, which is nearly thrice our strength, wherever I find it.
The question is not of his numbers, or the strength of his
position: all this, by courage, by the skill of our methods, we
will try to make good. This step I must risk, or everything is
lost. We must beat the enemy, or perish all of us before his
batteries. So I read the case; so I will act in it.

"Make this my determination known to all Officers of the Army;
prepare the men for what work is now to ensue, and say that I hold
myself entitled to demand exact fulfilment of orders. For you, when
I reflect that you are Prussians, can I think that you will act
unworthily? But if there should be one or another who dreads to
share all dangers with me, he,"--continued his Majesty, with an
interrogative look, and then pausing for answer,--"can have his
Discharge this evening, and shall not suffer the least reproach
from me."--Modest strong bass murmur; meaning "No, by the Eternal!"
if you looked into the eyes and faces of the group. Never will
Retzow Junior forget that scene, and how effulgently eloquent the
veteran physiognomies were.

"Hah, I knew it," said the King, with his most radiant smile, "none
of you would desert me! I depend on your help, then; and on victory
as sure."--The speech winds up with a specific passage:
"The Cavalry regiment that does not on the instant, on order given,
dash full plunge into the enemy, I will, directly after the Battle,
unhorse, and make it a Garrison regiment. The Infantry battalion
which, meet with what it may, shows the least sign of hesitating,
loses its colors and its sabres, and I cut the trimmings from its
uniform! Now good-night, Gentlemen: shortly we have either beaten
the Enemy, or we never see one another again."

An excellent temper in this Army; a rough vein of heroism in it,
steady to the death;--and plenty of hope in it too, hope in Vater
Fritz. "Never mind," the soldiers used to say, in John Duke of
Marlborough's time, "Corporal John will get us through it!"--That
same evening Friedrich rode into the Camp, where the regiments he
had were now all gathered, out of their cantonments, to march on
the morrow. First regiment he came upon was the Life-Guard
Cuirassiers: the men, in their accustomed way, gave him good-
evening, which he cheerily returned. Some of the more veteran sort
asked, ruggedly confidential, as well as loyal: "What is thy news,
then, so late?" "Good news, children (KINDER): to-morrow you will
beat the Austrians tightly!" "That we will, by--!" answered they.--
"But think only where they stand yonder, and how they have
intrenched themselves?" said Friedrich. "And if they had the Devil
in front and all round them, we will knock them out; only thou lead
us on!"--"Well, I will see what you can do: now lay you down, and
sleep sound; and good sleep to you!" "Good-night, Fritz!" answer
all; [Muller, p. 21 (from Kaltenhorn, of whom INFRA); Preuss, &c.
&c.] as Fritz ambles on to the next regiment, to which, as to every
one, he will have some word.

Was it the famous Pommern regiment, this that he next spoke to,--
who answered Loudon's summons to them once (as shall be noticed by
and by) in a way ineffable, though unforgettable? Manteuffel of
Foot; yes, no other! [Archenholtz, ii. 61; and Kutzen, p. 35.]
They have their own opinion of their capacities against an enemy,
and do not want for a good conceit of themselves. "Well, children,
how think you it will be to-morrow? They are twice as strong as
we." "Never thou mind that; there are no Pommerners among them;
thou knowest what the Pommerners can do!"--FRIEDRICH: "Yea, truly,
that do I; otherwise I durst not risk the battle. Now good sleep to
you! to-morrow, then, we shall either have beaten the Enemy or else
be all dead." "Yea," answered the whole regiment; "dead, or else
the Enemy beaten:" and so went to deep sleep, preface to a deeper
for many of them,--as beseems brave men. In this world it much
beseems the brave man, uncertain about so many things, to be
certain of himself for one thing.

These snatches of Camp Dialogue, much more the Speech preserved to
us by Retzow Junior, appear to be true; though as to the dates, the
circumstances, there has been debating. [Kutzen, pp. 175-181.]
Other Anecdotes, dubious or more, still float about in quantity;--
of which let us give only one; that of the Deserter (which has
merit as a myth). "What made thee desert, then?" "Hm, alas, your
Majesty, we were got so down in the world, and had such a time of
it!"--"Well, try it one day more; and if we cannot mend matters,
thou and I will both desert."

A learned Doctor, one of the most recent on these matters, is
astonished why the Histories of Friedrich should be such dreary
reading, and Friedrich himself so prosaic, barren an object;
and lays the blame upon the Age, insensible to real greatness;
led away by clap-trap Napoleonisms, regardless of expense.
Upon which Smelfungus takes him up, with a twitch:--

"To my sad mind, Herr Doctor, it seems ascribable rather to the
Dryasdust of these Ages, especially to the Prussian Dryasdust,
sitting comfortable in his Academies, waving sublimely his long
ears as he tramples human Heroisms into unintelligible pipe-clay
and dreary continents of sand and cinders, with the Doctors
all applauding.

"Had the sacred Poet, or man of real Human Genius, been at his
work, for the thousand years last past, instead of idly fiddling
far away from his work,--which surely is definable as being very
mainly, That of INTERPRETING human Heroisms; of painfully
extricating, and extorting from the circumambient chaos of muddy
babble, rumor and mendacity, some not inconceivable human and
divine Image of them, more and more clear, complete and credible
for mankind (poor mankind dumbly looking up to him for guidance, as
to what it shall think of God and of Men in this Scene of Things),
--I calculate, we should by this time have had a different
Friedrich of it; O Heavens, a different world of it, in so
many respects!

"My esteemed Herr Doctor, it is too painful a subject.
Godlike fabulous Achilles, and the old Greek Kings of men, one
perceives, after study, to be dim enough Grazier Sovereigns,
'living among infinite dung,' till their sacred Poet extricated
them. And our UNsacred all-desecrating Dryasdust,--Herr Doctor, I
must say, it fills me with despair! Authentic human Heroisms, not
fabulous a whit, but true to the bone, and by all appearance very
much nobler than those of godlike Achilles and pious AEneas ever
could have been,--left in this manner, trodden under foot of man
and beast; man and beast alike insensible that there is anything
but common mud under foot, and grateful to anybody that will assure
them there is nothing. Oh, Doctor, oh, Doctor! And the results of
it--You need not go exclusively 'to France' to look at them.
They are too visible in the so-called 'Social Hierarchies,' and
sublime gilt Doggeries, sltcred and secular, of all Modern
Countries! Let us be silent, my friend."--

"Prussian Dryasdust," he says elsewhere, "does make a terrible job
of it; especially when he attempts to weep through his pipe-clay,
or rise with his long ears into the moral sublime. As to the German
People, I find that they dimly have not wanted sensibility to
Friedrich; that their multitudes of Anecdotes, still circulating
among them in print and VIVA VOCE, are proof of this. Thereby they
have at least made a MYTH of Friedrich's History, and given some
rhythmus, life and cheerful human substantiality to his work and
him. Accept these Anecdotes as the Epic THEY could not write of
him, but were longing to hear from somebody who could. Who has not
yet appeared among mankind, nor will for some time. Alas, my
friend, on piercing through the bewildering nimbus of babble,
malignity, mendacity, which veils seven-fold the Face of Friedrich
from us, and getting to see some glimpses of the Face itself, one
is sorrowfully struck dumb once more. What a suicidal set of
creatures; commanding as with one voice, That there shall be no
Heroism more among them; that all shall be Doggery and Common-
place henceforth. 'ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER, you don't know that


 


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