July-Dec., 1742.

Prince Karl and the Grand-Duke, heariny of Maillebois, go to meet him (September 14th); and the Siege of Prag is raised. "September 11th, the Besieged at Prag notice that the Austrian fire slackens-that the Enemy seems to be taking away his guns. Villages and Farmsteads, far and wide all round, are going up in fire. A joyful symptom: since August 13th, Belleisle has known of Maillebois's advent; guesses that the Austrians now know it. September 14th, their Firing has quite ceased. Grand-Duke and Prince Karl are off to meet this Maillebois amid the intricate defiles: Better meet him there than here;' and on this fourth morning, Belleisle, looking out, perceives that the Siege is raised. 24

"A blessed change indeed. No enemy here-perhaps some Festititz, with his canaille of Tolpatches, still lingering about-no enemy worth mention. Parties go out freely to investigate; but as to forage? Alas! a Country burnt, Villages black and silent for ten miles round; you pick up here and there a lean steer, welcome amid boiled horseflesh you bundle a load or two of neglected grass together for what cavalry remains. The genius of Séchelles, and help from the Saxon side, will be much useful!

"Perhaps the undeniablest advantage of any is this, That Broglio, not now so proud of the situation Prag is in, or led by the rule of contraries, willingly quits Prag: Belleisle will not have to do his function by the medium of pig-driving, but in the direct manner henceforth. 'Give me 6 or 8000 foot, and what of the cavalry have horses still uneaten,' proposes Broglio; 'I will push obliquely toward Eger, which is toward Saxony withal, and opens our food-communications there; I will stretch out a hand to Maillebois across the Mountain Passes, and thus bring a victorious issue !'25 Belleisle consents: 'Well, since my Broglio will have it so!'-glad to part with my Broglio at any rate'Adieu, then, M. le Maréchal (and' sotto-voce, 'may it be long before we meet again in partnership)"' Broglio marches accordingly ('hand' beautifully held out to Maillebois, but not within grasping distance); gets northwestward some 60 miles, as far as Töplitz" (sadly oblique for Eger)-"never farther on that errand.”

The Maillebois Army of Redemption can not redeem at all; has to stagger Southward again; and becomes an "Army of Bavaria" under Broglio.

"September 19th-October 10th." Scene is the Eger-Vohenstrauss Country in and about that Bohemian Forest of seventy miles.

"For

24 Espagnac, i., 145; Campagnes, v., 348.

25 Espagnac, i., 170.

July-Dec., 1742.

three weeks Maillebois and the Comte de Saxe, trying their utmost, can not, or can not to purpose, get through that Bohemian Wood. Only Three practicable Passes in it, difficult each, and each conducting you toward mere new difficulties on the farther side, not surmountable except by the determined mind. A gloomy business; a gloomy, difficult region, solitary, hungry; nothing in it but shaggy chasms (and perhaps Tolpatchery lurking), wastes, mountain woodlands, dumb trees, damp brown leaves. Maillebois and Saxe, after survey, shoot leftward to Eger; draw food and re-enforcement from the Garrison there. They do get through the Forest at one Pass, the Pass nearest Eger, but find Prince Karl and the Grand-Duke ranked to receive them on the other side. Plunge home upon Prince Karl and the Grand-Duke; beat them, with your Broglio to help in the rear?' That possibly was Friedrich's thought as he watched" (now home at Berlin again) “the contemporaneous Theatre of War.

"But that was not the Maillebois-Broglio method; nay, it is said Maillebois was privately forbidden 'to run risks.' Broglio, with his stretched-out hand (12,000 some count him, and, indeed, it is no matter), sits quiet at Töplitz, far too oblique: 'Come, then, come, O Maillebois !' Maillebois-manœuvring Prince Karl aside, or Hunger doing it for him-did once push forward Prag-ward by the Pass of Caaden, which is very oblique to Toplitz-by the Pass of Caaden, down the Eger River, through those Mountains of the Circle of Saatz, past a Castle of Ellenbogen, key of the same; and-Could have done it' (he said always after),‘had it not been for Comte de Saxe!' Undeniable it is, Saxe, as vanguard, took that Castle of Ellenbogen, and, time being so precious, gave the Tolpatchery dismissal on parole. Undeniable, too, the Tolpatchery, careless of parole, beset Caaden Village thereupon, 4000 strong; cut off our foreposts at Caaden Village; and-In short, we had to retire from those parts, and prove an Army of Redemption that could not redeem at all!

"Maillebois and Saxe went sulkily down the Naab Valley (having lost say 15,000, not by fighting, but by mud and hardship), and the rapt European Public (shilling-gallery especially) says, with a sneer on its face,' Pooh! ended then!' Sulkily wending, Maillebois and Saxe (October 30th-November 7th) get across the Donau, safe on the southern bank again; march for the Iser Country and the D'Harcourt Magazines, and become 'Grand Bavarian Army,' usual refuge of the unlucky.

1 * *

Of Seckendorf in the Interim. "For Belleisle and relief of Prag, Maillebois in person had proved futile; but to Seckendorf, waiting with his Bavarians, the shadow and rumor of Maillebois had brought famous results-famous for a few weeks. Khevenhüller being called north to

July-Dec., 1742.

help in those anti-Maillebois operations, and only Bärenklau, with about 10,000 Austrians, now remaining in Baiern, Seckendorf, clearly superior (not to speak of that remnant of D'Harcourt people, with their magazines), promptly bestirred himself in the Kelheim-Ingolstadt Country; got on march, and drove the Austrians mostly out of Baiern-out mostly, and without stroke of sword, merely by marching-out for the time. München was evacuated on rumor of Seckendorf (October 4th)-a glad City to see Bärenklau march off. Much was evacuated—the Iser Valley, down partly to the Inn Valley-much was cleared by Seckendorf in these happy circumstances, who sees himself victorious for once, and has his fame in the Gazettes, if it would last. Pretty much without stroke of sword, we say, and merely by marching: in one place, having marched too close, the retreating Bärenklau people turned on him, 'took 100 prisoners' before going;26 other fighting, in this fine 'Reconquest of Bavaria,' I do not recollect. Winter come, he makes for Maillebois and the Iser Countries; cantons himself on the Upper Inn itself, well in advance of the French" (Braunau his chief strong-place, if readers care to look on the Map), "and strives to expect a combined seizure of Passau, and considerable things, were Spring come.

And of Broglio in the Interim. "As for Broglio, left alone at Töplitz, gazing after a futile Maillebois, he sends the better half of his Force back to Prag; other half he establishes at Leitmeritz-good Half-way House to Dresden. 'Will forward Saxon provender to you, M. de Belleisle' (never did, and were all taken prisoners some weeks hence); which settled, Broglio proceeded to the Saxon Court, who answered him,' Provender? Alas! Monseigneur, we are (to confess it to you!) at Peace with Austria ;27 not an ounce of provender possible; how dare we?' but were otherwise politeness itself to the great Broglio. Great Broglio, after sumptuous entertainments there, takes the road for Baiern, circling grandly (through Nürnberg with escort of 500 Horse') to Maillebois's new quarters; takes command of the 'Bavarian Army' (may it be lucky for him!), and sends Maillebois home in deep dudgeon, to the merciless criticisms of men. 'Could have done it,' persists the Vieux Petit-maître always, 'had not'-one knows what, but cares not, at this date!

Broglio's quarters in the Iser Country, I am told, are fatally too crowded, men perishing at a frightful rate per day. 28 'Things all awry here, thanks to that Maillebois and others!' and Broglio's troubles and procedures, as is every where usual to Broglio, run to a great height in

26 Espagnac, i., 166.

27 Treatying ever since "July 17th;" Treaty actually done "11th September" (Adelung, iii., a, 201, 268). 23 Espagnac, i., 182.

2d-9th Sept., 1742.

this Bavarian Command. And poor Seckendorf, in neighborhood of such a Broglio, has his adoes; eyes sparkling, face blushing slate-color, at times nearly driven out of his wits, but strives to consume his own smoke, and to have hopes on Passau notwithstanding." And of Belleisle in Prag, and his meditations on the Oriflamme-Patience, reader.

Meantime, what a relief to Kaiser Karl, in such wreck of Bohemian Kingdoms and Castles in Spain, to have got his own München and Country in hand again, with the prospect of quitting furnished-lodgings, and seeing the color of real money! April next he actually goes to München, where we catch a glimpse of him.29 This same October, the Reich, after endless debatings on the question, "Help our Kaiser, or not help ?"30 has voted him fifty Römer-monate ("Romish-months," still so termed, though there is not now any marching of the Kaiser to Rome on business), meaning fifty of the known quotas, due from all and sundry in such case, which would amount to about £300,000 (could it, or the half of it, be collected from so wide a Parish), and would prove a sensible relief to the poor man.

Voltaire has been on Visit at Aachen in the interim-his Third Visit to King Friedrich.

King Friedrich had come to the Baths of Aachen August 25th, the Maillebois Army of Redemption being then, to the last man of it, five days across the Rhine on its high errand, which has since proved futile. Friedrich left Aachen, taking leave of his Voltaire, who had been lodging with him for a week by special invitation, September 9th, and witnessed the later struggles and final inability of Maillebois to redeem, not at Aix, but at Berlin, We promamid the ordinary course of his employments there. ised something of Voltaire's new visit, his Third to Friedrich. Here is what little we have, if the lively reader will exert his fancy on it.

Voltaire and his Du Châtelet had been to Cirey, and thence been at Paris through this Spring and Summer, 1742, engaged

29 17th April, 1743," Montijos, &c., accompanying (Adelung, iii., 30 Ibid., iii., a, 289. 119, 120).

b,

2d-9th Sept., 1742.

in what to Voltaire and Paris was a great thing, though a pacific one-the getting of Mahomet brought upon the boards. August 9th, precisely while the first vanguard of the Army of Redemption got across the Rhine at Düsseldorf, Voltaire's Tragedy of Mahomet came on the stage.

August 9th, 11th, 13th, Paris City was in transports of various kinds; never were such crowds of Audience, lifting a man to the immortal gods, though a part too, majority by count of heads, were dragging him to Tartarus again. "Exquisite, unparalleled!" exclaimed good judges (as Fleury himself had anticipated, on examining the Piece): "Infamous, irreligious, accursed!" vociferously exclaimed the bad judges, Reverend Desfontaines (of Sodom, so Voltaire persists to define him), Reverend Desfontaines and others giving cue; hugely vociferous, these latter, hugely in majority by count of heads. And there was such a bellowing and such a shrieking, judicious Fleury, or Maurepas under him, had to suggest, "Let an actor fall sick; let M. de Voltaire volunteer to withdraw his Piece; otherwise-" And so it had to be: Actor fell sick on the 14th (Playbills sorry to retract their Mahomet on the 14th); and-in fact, it was not for nine years coming, and after Dedication to the Pope, and other exquisite manœuvres and unexpected turns of fate, that Mahomet could be acted a fourth time in Paris, and thereafter ad libitum down to this day.31

Such a tempest in a teapot is not unexampled, nay, rather is very frequent in that Anarchic Republic called of Letters. Confess, reader, that you too would have needed some patience in M. de Voltaire's place, with such a Heaven's own Inspiration of a Mahomet in your hands, and such a terrestrial Doggery at your heels. Suppose the bitterest of your barking curs were a Reverend Desfontaines of Sodom, whom you yourself had saved from the gibbet once, and again and again from starving? It is positively a great Anarchy, and Fountain of Anarchies, all that, if you will consider; and it will have results under the sun. You can not help it, say you; there is no shutting up of a Reverend Desfontaines, which would be so salutary to himself and to us all? No; and when human reverence (daily going, in such 31 (Euvres de Voltaire, ii., 137, n. ; &c., &c.