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History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books I - XIV], a non-fiction book by Thomas Carlyle |
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Book 14. The Surrounding European War Does Not End. August, 1742-July, 1744 - __ Battle Of Dettingen |
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_ BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742-July, 1744 (Chapter V cont.)
"Captains and men were impatient of that long loitering, hanging idle about Frankfurt all through May; and they have at length started real business,--with more valor than discretion, it is feared. They are some 40 or 44,000 strong: English 16,000; Hanoverians the like number; and of Austrians [by theory 20,000], say, in effect, 12,000 or even 8,000: all paid by England. They have Hanau for Magazine; they have rearguard of 12,000 [the 6,000 Hessians, and 6,000 new Hanoverians], who at last are actually on march thither, near arriving there: 'Forward!' said the Captaincy [said Stair, chiefly, it was thought]: 'Shall the whole summer waste itself to no purpose?'--and are up the River thus far, not on the most considerate terms. "What this Pragmatic Army means to do? That is, and has been, a great question for all the world; especially for Noailles and the French,--not to say, for the Pragmatic itself! 'Get into Lorraine?' think the French: 'Get into Alsace, and wrest it from us, for behoof of her Hungarian Majesty,'--plundered goods, which indeed belong to the Reich and her, in a sense! ELS-SASS (Alsace, OUTER-seat), with its ROAD-Fortress (STRASburg) plundered from the Holy Romish Reich by Louis XIV., in a way no one can forget; actually plundered, as if by highway robbery, or by highway robbery and attorneyism combined, on the part of that great Sovereign. 'To Strasburg? To Lorraine perhaps? Or to the Three Bishoprics'" (Metz, Toul, Verdun:--readers recollect that Siege of Metz, which broke the great heart of Karl V.? Who raged and fired as man seldom did, with 50,000 men, against Guise and the intrusive French, for six weeks; sound of his cannon heard at Strasburg on winter nights, 300 years ago: to no purpose; for his Captains of the Siege, after trial and second trial, solemnly shook their heads; and the great Kaiser, breaking into tears, had to raise the Siege of Metz; and went his way, never to smile more in this world: and Metz, and Toul, and Verdun, remain with the French ever since):--"To the Three Bishoprics, possibly enough!" "'Or they may purpose for the Donau Countries, where Broglio is crackling off like trains of gunpowder; and lend hand to Prince Karl, thereby enclosing Broglio fires?' This, according to present aspects, is between two the likeliest. And perhaps, had provenders and arrangements been made beforehand for such a march, this had been the feasiblest: and, to my own notion, it was some wild hope of doing this without provenders or prearrangements that had brought the Pragmatic into its present quarters at Aschaffenburg, which are for the military mind a mystery to this day. "Early in the Spring, the French Government had equipped Noailles with 70,000 men, to keep watch, and patrol about, in the Rhine-Mayn Countries, and look into those points. Which he has been vigilantly doing,--posted of late on the south or left bank of the Mayn;--and is especially vigilant, since June 14th, when the Pragmatic Army got on march, across the Mayn at Hochst; and took to offering him battle, on his own south side of the River. Noailles--though his Force [still 58,000, after that Broglio Detachment of 12,000] was greatly the stronger--would not fight; preferred cutting off the Enemy's supplies, capturing his river-boats, provision-convoys from Hanau, and settling him by hunger, as the cheaper method. Impetuous Stair was thwarted, by flat protest of his German colleagues, especially by D'Ahremberg, in FORCING battle on those rash terms: 'We Austrians absolutely will not!' said D'Ahremberg at last, and withdrew, or was withdrawing, he for his part, across the River again. So that Stair also was obliged to recross the River, in indignant humor; and now lies at Aschaffenburg, suffering the sad alternative, short diet namely, which will end in famine soon, if these counsels prevail. "Stair and D'Ahremberg do not well accord in their opinions; nor, it seems, is anybody in particular absolute Chief; there are likewise heats and jealousies between the Hanoverian and the English troops ('Are not we come for all your goods?' 'Yes, damn you, and for all our chattels too!')--and withal it is frightfully uncertain whether a high degree of intellect presides over these 44,000 fighting men, which may lead them to something, or a low degree, which can only lead them to nothing!--The blame is all laid on Stair; 'too rash,' they say. Possibly enough, too rash. And possibly enough withal, even to a sound military judgment, in such unutterable puddle of jarring imbecilities, 'rashness,' headlong courage, offered the one chance there was of success? Who knows, had all the 44,000 been as rash as Stair and his English, but luck, and sheer hard fighting, might have favored him, as skill could not, in those sad circumstances! Stair's plan was, 'Beat Noailles, and you have done everything: provisions, opulent new regions, and all else shall be added to you!' Stair's plan might have answered,--had Stair been the master to execute it; which he was not. D'Ahremberg's also, who protested, 'Wait till your 12,000 join, and you have your provisions,' was the orthodox plan, and might have much to say for itself. But the two plans collapsing into one,--that was the clearly fatal method! Magnanimous Stair never made the least explanation, to an undiscerning Public or Parliament; wrapt himself in strict silence, and accepted in a grand way what had come to him. [His Papers, to voluminous extent, are still in the Family Archives;--not inaccessible, I think, were the right student of them (who would be a rare article among us!) to turn up.] Clear it is, the Pragmatic Army had come across again, at Aschaffenburg, Sunday, June 16th; and was found there by his Majesty on the Wednesday following, with its two internecine plans fallen into mutual death; a Pragmatic Army in truly dangerous circumstances. "The English who were in and round Aschaffenburg itself, Hanoverians and Austrians encamping farther down, had put a battery on the Bridge of Aschaffenburg; hoping to be able to forage thereby on the other side of the Mayn. Whereupon Noailles had instantly clapt a redoubt, under due cover of a Wood, at his end of the Bridge, 'No passage this way, gentlemen, except into the cannon's throat!'--so that Marshal Stair, reconnoitring that way, 'had his hat shot off,' and rapidly drew back again. Nay, before long, Noailles, at the Village of Seligenstadt, some eight miles farther down, throws two wooden or pontoon bridges over; [Sketch of Plan at p. 257.] can bring his whole Army across at Seligenstadt; prohibits all manner of supply to us from Hanau or our Magazines by his arrangement there:"--(Notable little Seligenstadt, "City of the Blessed;" where Eginhart and Emma, ever since Charlemagne's time, lie waiting the Resurrection; that is the place of these Noailles contrivances!)--"Furthermore, we learn, Noailles has seized a post twenty miles farther up the river (Miltenberg the name of it); and will prevent supplies from coming down to us out of Branken or the Neckar Country. We had forgotten, or our COLLAPSE of plans had done it, that 'an army moves on its stomach' (as the King of Prussia says), and that we have nothing to live upon in these parts! "Such has the unfortunate fact turned out to be, when Britannic Majesty arrives; and it can now be discovered clearly, by any eyes, however flat to the head. And a terrible fact it is. Discordant Generals accuse one another; hungry soldiers cannot be kept from plundering: for the horses there is unripe rye in quantity; but what is there for the men? My poor traditionary friends, of the Grey Dragoons, were wont (I have heard) to be heart-rending on this point, in after years! Famine being urgent, discipline is not possible, nor existence itself. For a week longer, George, rather in obstinate hope than with any reasonable plan or exertion, still tries it; finds, after repeated Councils of War, that he will have to give it up, and go back to Hanau where his living is. Wednesday night, 26th June, 1743, that is the final resolution, inevitably come upon, without argument: and about one on Thursday morning, the Army (in two columns, Austrians to vanward well away from the River, English as rear-guard close on it) gets in motion to execute said resolution,--if the Army can. "If the Army can: but that is like to be a formidably difficult business; with a Noailles watching every step of you, to-day and for ten days back, in these sad circumstances. Eyes in him like a lynx, they say; and great skill in war, only too cautious. Hardly is the Army gone from Aschaffenburg, when Noailles, pushing across by the Bridge, seizes that post,--no retreat now for us thitherward. His Majesty, who marches in the rear division, has happily some artillery with him; repels the assaults from behind, which might have been more serious otherwise. As it is, there play cannon across the River upon him:--Why not bend to right, and get out of range, asks the reader? The Spessart Hills rise, high and woody, on the right; and there is in many places no marching except within range. Noailles has Five effective Batteries, at the various good points, on his side of the River:--and that is nothing to what he has got ready for us, were we once at Dettingen, within wind of his Two Bridges a little beyond! Noailles has us in a perfect mouse-trap, SOURICIERE as he felinely calls it; and calculates on having annihilation ready for us at Dettingen. "Dettingen, short way above those Pontoons at Seligenstadt, is near eight miles westward [NORTHwestward, but let us use the briefer term] from Aschaffenburg: Dettingen is a poor peasant Village, of some size, close on the Mayn, and on our side of it. A Brook, coming down from the Spessart Mountains, falls into the Mayn there; having formed for itself, there and upwards, a considerable dell or hollow way; chiefly on the western or right bank of which stands the Village with its barnyards and piggeries: on both sides of the great High-road, which here crosses the Brook, and will lead you to Hanau twenty miles off,--or back to Aschaffenburg, and even to Nurnberg and the Donau Countries, if you persevere. Except that of the high-road, Dettingen Brook has no bridge. Above the Village, after coming from the Mountains, the banks of it are boggy; especially the western bank, which spreads out into a scrubby waste of moor, for some good space. In which scrubby moor, as elsewhere in this dell or hollow way itself, where the Village hangs, with its hedges, piggeries, colegarths,--there is like to be bad enough marching for a column of men! Noailles, as we said, has Two Bridges thrown across the Mayn, just below; and the last of his Five Batteries, from the other side, will command Dettingen. His plan of operation is this:-- "By these Bridges he has passed 24,000 horse and foot across the River, under his Nephew the chivalrous Duke of Grammont: these, with due artillery and equipment, are to occupy the Village; and to rank themselves in battle-order to leftward of it, on the moor just mentioned,--well behind that hollow way, with its brook and bogs;--and, one thing they must note well, Not to stir from that position, till the English columns have got fairly into said hollow way and brook of Dettingen, and are plunging more or less distractedly across the entanglements there. With cannon on their left flank, and such a gullet to pass through, one may hope they will be in rather an attackable condition. Across that gullet it is our intention they shall never get. How can they, if Grammont do his duty? "This is Noailles's plan; one of the prettiest imaginable, say military men,--had the execution but corresponded. Noailles had seized Aschaffenburg, so soon as the English were out of it; Noailles, from his batteries beyond the River, salutes the English march with continuous shot and thunder, which is very discomposing: he sees confidently a really fair likelihood of capturing the Britannic Majesty and his Pragmatic Army, unless they prefer to die on the ground. Seldom, since that of the Caudine Forks, did any Army, by ill-luck and ill-guidance, get into such a pinfold,--death or flat surrender seemingly their one alternative. "Thus march these English, that dewy morning, Thursday, June 27th, 1743, with cannon playing on their left flank; and such a fate ahead of them, had they known it;--very short of breakfast, too, for most part. But they have one fine quality, and Britannic George, like all his Welf race from Henry the Lion down to these days, has it in an eminent degree: they are not easily put into flurry, into fear. In all Welf Sovereigns, and generally in Teuton Populations, on that side of the Channel or on this, there is the requisite unconscious substratum of taciturn inexpugnability, with depths of potential rage almost unquenchable, to be found when you apply for it. Which quality will much stead them on the present occasion: and, indeed, it is perhaps strengthened by their 'stupidity' itself, what neighbors call their 'stupidity;'--want of idle imagining, idle flurrying, nay want even of knowing, is not one of the worst qualities just now! They tramp on, paying a minimum of attention to the cannon; ignorant of what is ahead; hoping only it may be breakfast, in some form, before the day quite terminate. The day is still young, hardly 8 o'clock, when their advanced parties find Dettingen beset; find a whole French Army drawn up, on the scrubby moor there; and come galloping back with this interesting bit of news! Pause hereupon; much consulting; in fact, endless hithering and thithering, the affair being knotty: 'Fight, YES, now at last! But how?' Impetuous Stair was not wanting to himself; Neipperg too, they say, was useful with advice; D'Ahremberg, I should imagine, good for little. "Some six hours followed of thrice-intricate deploying, planting of field-pieces, counter-batteries; ranking, re-ranking, shuffling hither and then thither of horse and foot; Noailles's cannonade proceeding all the while; the English, still considerably exposed to it, and standing it like stones; chivalrous Grammont, and with better reason the English, much wishing these preliminaries were done. A difficult business, that of deploying here. The Pragmatic had no room, jammed so against the Spessart Hills, and obliged to lean FROM the River and Noailles's cannon; had to rank itself in six, some say in eight lines; horse behind foot, as well as on flank; unsatisfactory to the military mind: and I think had not done shuffling and re-shuffling at 2 P.M.,--when the Enemy came bursting on, with a peremptory finish to it, 'Enough of that, MESSIEUR'S LES ANGLAIS!' 'Too much of it, a great deal!' thought Messieurs grimly, in response. And there ensued a really furious clash of host against host; French chivalry (MAISON DU ROI, Black Mousquetaires, the Flower of their Horse regiments) dashing, in right Gallic frenzy, on their natural enemies,--on the English, that is; who, I find, were mainly on the left wing there, horse and foot; and had mainly (the Austrians and they, very mainly) the work to do;--and did, with an effort, and luck helping, manage to do it. "'Grammont breaks orders! Thrice-blamable Grammont!' exclaim Noailles and others, sorrowfully wringing their hands. Even so! Grammont had waited seven mortal hours; one's courage burning all the while, courage perhaps rather burning down,--and not the least use coming of if. Grammont had, in natural impatience, gradually edged forward; and, in the end, was being cannonaded and pricked into by the Enemy;--and did at last, with his MAISON-DU-ROI, dash across that essential Hollow Way, and plunge in upon them on their own side of it. And 'the, English foot gave their volley too soon;' ad Grammont did, in effect, partly repulse and disorder the front ranks of them; and, blazing up uncontrollable, at sight of those first ranks in disorder, did press home upon them more and more; get wholly into the affair, bringing on his Infantry as well: 'Let us finish it wholly, now that our hand is in!'--and took one cannon from the Enemy; and did other feats. "So furious was that first charge of his; 'MAISON-DU-ROI covering itself with glory,'--for a short while. MAISON-DU-ROI broke three lines of the Enemy [three, not "Five"]; did in some places actually break through; in others 'could not, but galloped along the front.' Three of their lines: but the fourth line would not break; much the contrary, it advanced (Austrians and English) with steady fire, hotter and hotter: upon this fourth line MAISON-DU-ROI had, itself, to break, pretty much altogether, and rush home again, in ruinous condition. 'Our front lines made lanes for them; terribly maltreating them with musketry on right and left, as they galloped through.' And this was the end of Grammont's successes, this charge of horse; for his infantry had no luck anywhere; and the essential crisis of the Battle had been here. It continued still a good while; plenty of cannonading, fusillading, but in sporadic detached form; a confused series of small shocks and knocks; which were mostly, or all, unfortunate for Grammont; and which at length knocked him quite off the field. 'He was now interlaced with the English,' moans Noailles; 'so that my cannon, not to shoot Grammont as well as the English, had to cease firing!' Well, yes, that is true, M. le Marechal; but that is not so important as you would have it. The English had stood nine hours in this fire of yours; by degrees, leaning well away from it; answering it with counter-batteries;--and were not yet ruined by it, when the Grammont crisis came! Noailles should have dashed fresh troops across his Bridges, and tried to handle them well. Noailles did not do that; or do anything but wring his hands. "The Fight lasted four hours; ever hotter on the English part, ever less hot on the French [fire of anthracite-coal VERSUS flame of dry wood, which latter at last sinks ASHY!]--and ended in total defeat of the French. The French Infantry by no means behaved as their Cavalry had done. The GARDES FRANCAISES [fire burning ashy, after seven hours of flaming], when Grammont ordered them up to take the English in flank, would hardly come on at all, or stand one push. They threw away their arms, and plunged into the River, like a drove of swimmers; getting drowned in great numbers. So that their comrades nicknamed them 'CANARDS DU MEIN (Ducks of the Mayn):' and in English mess-rooms, there went afterwards a saying: 'The French had, in reality, Three Bridges; one of them NOT wooden, and carpeted with blue cloth!' Such the wit of military mankind. "... The English, it appears, did something by mere shouting. Partial huzzas and counter-huzzas between the Infantries were going on at one time, when Stair happened to gallop up: 'Stop that,' said Stair; 'let us do it right. Silence; then, One and all, when I give you signal!' And Stair, at the right moment, lifting his hat, there burst out such a thunder-growl, edged with melodious ire in alt, as quite seemed to strike a damp into the French, says my authority, 'and they never shouted more.... Our ground in many parts was under rye,' hedgeless fields of rye, chief grain-crop of that sandy country. 'We had already wasted above 120,000 acres of it,' still in the unripe state, so hungry were we, man and horse, 'since crossing to Aschaffenburg;'--fighting for your Cause of Liberty, ye benighted ones! "King Friedrich's private accounts, deformed by ridicule, are, That the Britannic Majesty, his respectable old Uncle, finding the French there barring his way to breakfast, understood simply that there must and should be fighting, of the toughest; but had no plan or counsel farther: that he did at first ride up, to see what was what with his own eyes; but that his horse ran away with him, frightened at the cannon; upon which he hastily got down; drew sword; put himself at the head of his Hanoverian Infantry [on the right wing], and stood,--left foot drawn back, sword pushed out, in the form of a fencing-master doing lunge,--steadily in that defensive attitude, inexpugnable like the rocks, till all was over, and victory gained. This is defaced by the spirit of ridicule, and not quite correct. Britannic Majesty's horse [one of those 500 fine animals] did, it is certain, at last dangerously run away with him; upon which he took to his feet and his Hanoverians. But he had been repeatedly on horseback, in the earlier stages; galloping about, to look with his own eyes, could they have availed him; and was heard encouraging his people, and speaking even in the English language, 'Steady, my boys; fire, my brave boys, give them fire; they will soon run!' [OEuvres de Frederic, (iii. 14): compare Anonymous, Life of the Duke of Cumberland (p. 64 n.); Henderson's LIFE of ditto; &c.] Latterly, there can be no doubt, he stands [and to our imagination, he may fitly stand throughout] in the above attitude of lunge; no fear in him, and no plan; 'SANS PEUR ET SANS AVIS,' as me might term it. Like a real Hanoverian Sovereign of England; like England itself, and its ways in those German Wars. A typical epitome of long sections of English History, that attitude of lunge!-- "The English Officers also, it is evident, behaved in their usual way:--without knowledge of war, without fear of death, or regard to utmost peril or difficulty; cheering their men, and keeping them steady upon the throats of the French, so far as might be. And always, after that first stumble with the French Horse was mended, they kept gaining ground, thrusting back the Enemy, not over the Dettingen Brook and Moor-ground only, but, knock after knock, out of his woody or other coverts, back and ever back, towards Welzheim, Kahl, and those Two Bridges of his. The flamy French [ligneous fire burning lower and lower, VERSUS anthracitic glowing brighter and brighter] found that they had a bad time of it;--found, in fact, that they could not stand it; and tumbled finally, in great torrents, across their Bridges on the Mayn, many leaping into the River, the English sitting dreadfully on the skirts of them. So that had the English had their Cavalry in readiness to pursue, Noailles's Army, in the humor it had sunk to, was ruined, and the Victory would have been conspicuously great. But they had, as too common, nothing ready. Impetuous Stair strove to get ready; "pushed out the Grey Dragoons" for one item. But the Authorities refused Stair's counsel, as rash again; and made no effectual pursuit at all;--too glad that they had brushed their Battle-field triumphantly clear, and got out of that fatal pinfold in an honorable manner. MAP: BOOK XIV, Chap V, page 257 GOES HERE-------------------------- "They stayed on the ground till 10 at night; settling, or trying to settle, many things. The Surgeons were busy as bees, but able for Officers only;--'Dress HIM first!' said the glorious Duke of Cumberland, pointing to a young Frenchman [Excellency Fenelon's Son, grand-nephew of TELEMAQUE] who was worse wounded than his Highness. Quite in the Philip-Sydney fashion; which was much taken notice of. 'All this while, we had next to nothing to eat' (says one informant).--Ten P.M.: after which, leaving a polite Letter to Noailles, 'That he would take care of our Wounded, and bury our Slain as well as his own,' we march [through a pour of rain] to Hanau, where our victuals are, and 12,000 new Hessians and Hanoverians by this time. "Noailles politely bandaged the Wounded, buried the Dead. Noailles, gathering his scattered battalions, found that he had lost 2,659 men; no ruinous loss to him,--the Enemy's being at least equal, and all his Wounded fallen Prisoners of War. No ruinous loss to Noailles, had it not been the loss of Victory,--which was a sore blow to French feeling; and, adding itself to those Broglio disgraces, a new discouragement to Most Christian Majesty. Victory indisputably lost:--but is it not Grammont's blame altogether? Grammont bears it, as we saw; and it is heavily laid on him. But my own conjecture is, forty thousand enraged people, of English and other Platt-Teutsch type, would have been very difficult to pin up, into captivity or death instead of breakfast, in that manner: and it is possible if poor Grammont had not mistaken, some other would have done so, and the hungry Baresarks (their blood fairly up, as is evident) would have ended in getting through." [Espagnac, i. 193; Guerre de Boheme, i. 231.]--Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xiii. (for 1743), pp. 328-481;--containing Carteret's Despatch from the field; followed by many other Letters and indistinct Narrations from Officers present (p. 434, "Plan of the Battle," blotchy, indecipherable in parts, but essentially rather true),--is worth examining. See likewise Anonymous, Memoirs of the late Duke of Cumberland (Lond. 1767; the Author an ignorant, much-adoring military-man, who has made some study, and is not so stupid as he looks), pp. 56-78; and Henderson (ignorant he too, much-adoring, and not military), Life of the Duke of Cumberland (Lond. 1766), pp. 32-48. Noailles's Official Account (ingenuously at a loss what to say), in Campagnes, ii. B, 242-253, 306-310. OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 11-14 (incorrect in many of the DETAILS). This was all the Fighting that King George got of his Pragmatic Army; the gain from conquest made by it was, That it victoriously struggled back to its bread-cupboard. Stair, about two months hence, in the mere loitering and higgling that there was, quitted the Pragmatic; magnanimously silent on his many wrongs and disgusts, desirous only of "returning to the plough," as he expressed himself. The lofty man; wanted several requisites for being a Marlborough; wanted a Sarah Jennings, as the preliminary of all!--We will not attend the lazy movements and procedures of the Pragmatic Army farther; which were of altogether futile character, even in the temporary Gazetteer estimate; and are to be valued at zero, and left charitably in oblivion by a pious posterity. Stair, the one brightish-looking man in it, being gone, there remain Majesty with his D'Ahrembergs, Neippergs, and the Martial Boy; Generals Cope, Hawley, Wade, and many of leaden character, remain:--let the leaden be wrapped in lead. It was not a successful Army, this Pragmatic. Dettingen itself, in spite of the rumoring of Gazetteers and temporary persons, had no result,--except the extremely bad one, That it inflated to an alarming height the pride and belligerent humor of his Britannic, especially of her Hungarian Majesty; and made Peace more difficult than ever. That of getting Ostein, with his Austrian leanings, chosen Kur-Mainz,--that too turned out ill: and perhaps, in the course of the next few months, we shall judge that, had Ostein leant AGAINST Austria, it had been better for Austria and Ostein. Of the Pragmatic Army, silence henceforth, rather than speech!-- One thing we have to mark, his Britannic Majesty, commander of such an Army,--and of such a Purse, which is still more stupendous,--has risen, in the Gazetteer estimate and his own, to a high pitch of importance. To be Supreme Jove of Teutschland, in a manner; and acts, for the present Summer, in that sublime capacity. Two Diplomatic feats of his,--one a Treaty done and tumbled down again, the other a Treaty done and let stand ("Treaty of Worms," and "Conferences," or NON-Treaty "of Hanau"),--are of moment in this History and that of the then World. Of these two Transactions, due both of them to such an Army and such a Purse, we shall have to take some notice by and by; the rest shall belong to Night and her leaden sceptre--much good may they do her! Some ten days after Dettingen, Broglio (who was crackling off from Donauwurth, in view of the Lines of Schellenberg, that very 27th of June) ended his retreat to the Rhine Countries; "glorious," though rather swift, and eaten into by the Tolpatcheries of Prince Karl. "July 8th, at Wimpfen" (in the Neckar Region, some way South of Dettingen), Broglio delivers his troops to Marechal de Noailles's care; and, next morning, rushes off towards Strasburg, and quiet Official life, as Governor there. "The day after his arrival," says Friedrich, "he gave a grand ball in Strasburg:" [OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 10.] "Behold your conquering hero safe again, my friends!" An ungrateful Court judged otherwise of the hero. Took his Strasburg Government from him, gave it to Marechal de Coigny; ordered the hero to his Estates in the Country, Normandy, if I remember;--where he soon died of apoplexy, poor man; and will trouble none of us again. "A man born for surprises," said Friedrich long since, in the Strasburg Doggerel. Lost his indispensable garnitures, at the Ford of Secchia once; and now, in these last twelve months, is considered to have done a series of blustery explosions, derogatory to the glory of France, and ruinous to that sublime Belleisle Enterprise for oue thing. A ruined Enterprise that, at any rate; seldom was Enterprise better ruined. Here, under Broglio, amid the titterings of mankind, has the tail of the Oriflamme gone the same bad road as its head did;--into zero and outer darkness; leaving the expenses to pay. Like a mad tavern-brawl of one's own raising, the biggest that ever was. Has cost already, I should guess, some 80,000 French drilled Men, paid down, on the nail, to the inexorable Fates: and of coined Millions,--how many? In subsidies, in equipments, in waste, in loss and wreck: Dryasdust could not have told me, had he tried. And then the breakages, damages still chargeable; the probable afterclap? For you cannot quite gratuitously tweak people by the nose, in your wanton humor, over your wine!--One willing man, or Most Christian Majesty, can at any time begin a quarrel; but there need always two or more to end it again. Most Christian Majesty is not so sensible of this fact as he afterwards became; but what with Broglio and the extinct Oriflamme, what with Dettingen and the incipient Pragmatic, he is heartily disgusted and discouraged; and wishes he had not thought of cutting Germany in Four. July 26th, Most Christian Majesty applies to the German Diet; signifying "That he did indeed undertake to help the Kaiser, according to treaties; but was the farthest in the world from meaning to invade Germany, on his own score. That he had and has no quarrel, except with Austria as Kaiser's enemy; and is ready to be friends even with Austria. And now indeed intends to withdraw his troops wholly from the German territory. And can therefore hope that all unpleasantness will cease, between the German Nation and him; and that perhaps the Kaiser will be able to make peace with her Majesty of Hungary on softer terms than at one time seemed likely. If only the animosities of sovereign persons would assuage themselves, and each of us would look without passion at the issue really desirable for him!" [Espagnac, i. 200. Adelung, iii. B, 199 (26th July); Ib. 201 (the Answer to it, 16th August).] That is now, 26th July, 1743, King Louis's story for himself to the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, Teutsch by Nation, sitting at Frankfurt in rather disconsolate circumstances. The Diet naturally answered, "JA WOHL, JA WOHL," in intricate official language,--nobody need know what the Diet answered. But what the Hungarian Majesty answered, strong and high in such Britannic backing,--this was of such unexpected tone, that it fixed everybody's attention; and will very specially require to be noted by us, in the course of a week or two. We said, her Hungarian Majesty was getting crowned in Bohemia, getting personally homaged in Upper Austria, about to get vice-homaged in Bavaria itself,--nothing but glorious pomp, but loyalty loudly vocal, in Prag, in Linz and the once-afflicted Countries; at her return to Vienna, she has met the news of Dettingen; and is ready to strike the stars with her sublime head. "My little Paladin become Supreme Jove, too: aha!" _ |
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