History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XVIII Part 12

"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 pa.s.sage. 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 (LORDs.h.i.+PS' MILL) is of course an important point to them; Friedrich's pa.s.sage 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 s.h.i.+ning,"

Friedrich is on horseback, his Army following. But on examining by moonlight, the enemy have s.h.i.+fted 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; s.h.i.+fts 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 (Sat.u.r.day, 5th November, 1757).

Meandering Saale is on one of his big turns, as he pa.s.ses 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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, Ja.n.u.s-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 Ja.n.u.s Height, eight or nine miles off, may be seen some vestige of Freiburg; steeple or gilt weatherc.o.c.k 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 gra.s.sy 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, acc.u.mulating 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:...

"Sat.u.r.day, 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 Ja.n.u.s-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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 Doc.u.ment: "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 b.a.l.l.s 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, vanis.h.i.+ng round the corner of the Height; speeding along, invisible on his northern slope there, straight for the Ja.n.u.s-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 Ja.n.u.s 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 Ja.n.u.s-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 Ja.n.u.s-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 slas.h.i.+ng it at such a rate, and plunging through it and again through it, thrice, some say four times: so that, in the s.p.a.ce 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 Ja.n.u.s 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 Ja.n.u.s-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-gla.s.s, 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 Ja.n.u.s 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 Ja.n.u.s 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.ses 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 PEt.i.t 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, hoa.r.s.e, 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 mult.i.tude!' [Montholon, MEMOIRES &C. DE NAPOLEON (Napoleon's _Precis des Guerres de Frederic 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 pa.s.sages. 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 s.m.u.tty 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 G.o.d 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.]