12th April, 1741. -to Brittany (not to Prussia), till times calmed for ingrafting the Sciences.20 On Wednesday Friedrich writes this Note to his Sister, the first utterance we have from him since those wild roamings about Oppeln and Hilbersdorf Mill: King to Wilhelmina (at Baireuth, two days after Mollwitz). My dearest Sister,-I have the satisfaction to inform you that we have yesterday" (day before yesterday; but some of us have only had one sleep!) "totally beaten the Austrians. They have lost more than 5000 men, killed, wounded, and prisoners. We have lost Prince Friedrich, Brother of Margraf Karl; General Schulenburg, Wartensleben of the Carabineers, and many other Officers. Our troops did miracles, and the result shows as much. It was one of the rudest Battles fought within memory of man. “I am sure you will take part in this happiness; and that you will not doubt of the tenderness with which I am, my dearest Sister," yours wholly, FEDERIC.21 And on the same day there comes from Breslau Jordan's Answer to the late anxious little Note from Pogarell; anxieties now gone, and smoky misery changed into splendor of flame : Jordan to the King (finds him at Ohlau). "Breslau, 11th April, 1741. Sire,—Yesterday I was in terrible alarms. The sound of the cannon heard, the smoke of powder visible from the steeple-tops here, all led us to suspect that there was a Battle going on. Glorious confirmation of it this morning! Nothing but rejoicing among all the Protestant inhabitants, who had begun to be in apprehension from the rumors which the other party took pleasure in spreading. Persons who were in the Battle can not enough celebrate the coolness and bravery of your Majesty. For myself, I am at the overflowing point. I have run about all day, announcing this glorious news to the Berliners who are here. In my life I have never felt a more perfect satisfaction. "M. de Camas is here, very ill for the last two days; attack of fever: the Doctor hopes to bring him through," which proved beyond the Doctor: the good Camas died here three days hence (age sixty-three); an 20 Helden-Geschichte, i., 902; Robinson's Dispatch (Vienna, 22d April, 1741, N.S.); Voltaire, ubi suprà, 21 (Euvres, XXVII., i., 101. 12th April, 1741. excellent German Frenchman, of much sense, dignity, and honesty; familiar to Friedrich from infancy onward, and no doubt regretted by him as deserved. The Widow Camas, a fine old Lady, German by birth, will again come in view. Jordan continues: "One finds at the corner of every street an orator of the Plebs celebrating the warlike feats of your Majesty's troops. I have often, in my idleness, assisted at these discourses; not artistic eloquence, it must be owned, but spurting rude from the heart." * * Jordan adds in his next Note: "This morning (14th) I quitted M. de Camas, who, it is thought, can not last the day. I have hardly left him during his illness; "22 and so let that scene close. Neipperg, meanwhile, had fallen back on Neisse; taken up a strong encampment in that neighborhood; he lies thereabouts all summer, stretched out, as it were, in a kind of vigilant dogsleep on the threshold, keeping watch over Neisse, and tries fighting no more at this time, or indeed ever after, to speak of; and always, I think, with disadvantage, when he does try a little. He had been Grand-Duke Franz's Tutor in War-matters; had got into trouble at Belgrad once before, and was almost hanged by the Turks. George II. had occasionally the benefit of him in coming years. Be not too severe on the poor man, as the Vienna public was: he had some faculty, though not enough. "Governor of Luxemburg" before long: there, for most part, let him peacefully drill, and spend the remainder of his poor life. Friedrich says, neither Neipperg nor himself, at this time, knew the least of War, and that it would be hard to settle which of them made the more blunders in their Silesian tussle. Friedrich, in about three weeks hence, was fully ready for opening trenches upon Brieg; did open trenches accordingly, by moonlight, in a grand nocturnal manner (as readers shall see anon), and, by vigorous cannonading-Maréchal de Belleisle having come, by this time, to enjoy the fine spectacle-soon got possession of Brieg, and held it thenceforth. Neisse now alone remained, with Neipperg vigilantly stretched upon the threshold of it. But the Maréchal de Belleisle, we say, had come; that was the weighty circumstance; and before Neisse can be thought of, there is a whole Europe bickering aloft into conflict, embattling itself from end to end in sequel of Mollwitz Battle, and 22 Euvres de Frédéric, xvii., 99. April-May, 1741. such a preliminary sea of negotiating, diplomatic finessing, pulsefeeling, projecting, and palavering, with Friedrich for centre all summer, as as I wish readers could imagine without my speaking of it farther! But they can not. CHAPTER XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. THE Battle of Mollwitz went off like a signal-shot among the Nations, intimating that they were, one and all, to go battling, which they did with a witness, making a terrible thing of it, over all the world, for about seven years to come. Foolish Nations, doomed to settle their jarring accounts in that terrible manner! Nay, the fewest of them had any accounts, except imaginary ones, to settle there at all, and they went into the adventure gratis, spurred on by spectralities of the sick brain, by phantasms of hope, phantasms of terror, and had, strictly speaking, no actual business in it whatever. Not that Mollwitz kindled Europe; Europe was already kindled for some two years past, especially since the late Kaiser died, and his Pragmatic Sanction was superadded to the other troubles afoot. But ever since that Image of Jenkins's Ear had at last blazed up in the slow English brain like a fiery constellation or Sign in the Heavens, symbolic of such injustices and unendurabilities, and had lighted the Spanish-English War, Europe was slowly but pretty surely taking fire. France "could not see Spain humbled," she said; England (in its own dim feeling, and also in the fact of things) could not do at all without considerably humbling Spain. France, endlessly interested in that Spanish-English matter, was already sending out fleets, firing shots, almost, or altogether, putting forth her hand in it. "In which case, will not, must not Austria, help us?" thought England, and was asking, daily, at Vienna (with intense earnestness, but without the least result), through Excellency Robinson there, when the late Kaiser died. Died, poor gentleman, and left his big Austrian Heritages lying, as it were, in the open April-May, 1741. market-place, elaborately tied by diplomatic pack-thread and Pragmatic Sanction, but not otherwise protected against the assembled cupidities of mankind! Independently of Mollwitz, or of Silesia altogether, it was next to impossible that Europe could long avoid blazing out, especially unless the Spanish-English quarrel got quenched, of which there was no likelihood. But, if not as cause, then as signal, or as signal and cause together (which it properly was), the Battle of Mollwitz gave the finishing stroke, and set all in motion. This was 66 the little stone broken loose from the mountain ;" this, rather than the late Kaiser's Death, which Friedrich defined in that manner. Or, at least, this was the first leap it took, hitting other stones big and little, which again hit others with their leaping and rolling, till the whole mountain-side was in motion under law of gravity, and you behold one wide stone-torrent thundering toward the valleys, shivering woods, farms, habitations clean away with it, fatal to any Image of composite Clay and Brass which it may meet! There is, accordingly, from this point, a change in Friedrich's Silesian Adventure, which becomes infinitely more complicated for him, and for those that write of him no less! Friedrich's business henceforth is not to be done by direct fighting, but rather by waiting to see how, and on what side, others will fight; nor can we describe or understand Friedrich's business except as in connection with the immense, obsolete, and indeed delirious Phenomenon called Austrian-Succession War, upon which it is difficult to say any human word. If History, driven upon Dismal Swamp with its horrors and perils, can get across unsunk, she will be lucky! For, directly on the back of Mollwitz, there ensued, first, an explosion of Diplomatic activity such as was never seen before; Excellencies from the four winds taking wing toward Friedrich, and talking and insinuating, and fencing and fugling, after their sort, in that Silesian Camp of his, the centre being there-a universal rookery of Diplomatists, whose loud cackle and cawing is now as if gone mad to us, their work wholly fallen putrescent and avoidable, dead to all creatures. And, secondly, in the train April-May, 1741. of that, there ensued a universal European War, the French and the English being chief parties in it, which abounds in battles and feats of arms, spirited but delirious, and can not be got stilled for seven or eight years to come, and in which Friedrich and his War swim only as an intermittent Episode henceforth. What to do with such a War; how extricate the Episode, and leave the War lying? The War was at first a good deal mad, and is now, to men's imagination, fallen wholly so, who indeed have managed mostly to forget it, only the Episode (reduced thereby to an unintelligible state) retaining still some claims on them. It is singular into what oblivion the huge Phenomenon called Austrian-Succession War has fallen, which, within a hundred years ago or little more, filled all mortal hearts! The English were principals on one side; did themselves fight in it, with their customary fire and their customary guidance (“courageous Wooden Pole with Cocked Hat," as our friend called it), and paid all the expenses, which were extremely considerable, and are felt in men's pockets to this day; but the English have more completely forgotten it than any other People. "Battle of Dettingen, Battle of Fontenoy-what, in the Devil's name, were we ever doing there?" the impatient Englishman asks; and can give no answer except the general one: "Fit of insanity; Delirium Tremens, perhaps Furens; don't think of it!" Of Philippi and Arbela educated Englishmen can render account; and I am told young gentlemen entering the Army are pointedly required to say who commanded at Aigos-Potamos and wrecked the Peloponnesian War; but of Dettingen and Fontenoy where is the living Englishman that has the least notion, or seeks for any? The Austrian-Succession War did veritably rage for eight years at a terrific rate, deforming the face of Earth and Heaven, the English paying the piper always, and founding their National Debt thereby; but not even that could prove mnemonic to them; and they have dropped the Austrian-Succession War, with one accord, into the general dust-bin, and are content it should lie there. They have not; in their language, the least approach to an intelligible account of it: How it went on, whitherward, whence why it was there at all, are points dark to the English, and on which they do not wish to be informed. They have |