29th Oct. 4th Nov. 1762.

"good many Officers who have distinguished themselves and "behaved with courage, for whom I shall present similar re"quests. You will permit me to pay those who have taken cannons and flags" (100 ducats per cannon, 50 per flag, or whatever the tariff was:-"By all manner of means!" his Majesty would answer).

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"The Enemy is retiring towards Dresden and Dippoldis"walda. I am sending at his heels this night, and shall hear "the result. My Aide-de-Camp is acquainted with all, and will "be able to render you account of everything you may wish to "know in regard to our present circumstances. General Wied, "I believe, will cross Elbe tomorrow" (General Wied, with 10,000 to help us,-for whom it was too dangerous to wait, or perhaps there was a spur on one's own mind?); "his arrival "would be" (not would have been:' cela viendrait, not even viendra) "very opportune for me. I am, with all attachment, "my dearest Brother,-your most devoted Servant and Bro"ther,-HENRI."19

Tomorrow, in cipher, goes the following Despatch:

'Freyberg, 30th October 1762. "General Wied" (not yet come to hand, or even got across Elbe) "informs me, That Prince Albert of Saxony" (pushing hither with reinforcement, sent by Daun) "must have crossed “Elbe yesterday at Pirna" (did not show face here, with his large reinforcements to them, or what would have become of us!);" and that for this reason he, Wied, must himself cross; "which he will tomorrow. The same day I am to be joined by

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some battalions from General Hülsen; and the day after to"morrow, when General Wied" (coming by Meissen Bridge, it appears) "shall have reached the Katzenhäuser, the whole of "General Hülsen's troops will join me. Directly thereupon I "shall "20 Or no more of that second Despatch; Friedrich's Letter in Response is better worth giving:

"Löwenberg, 2d November 1762. "My dear Brother, The arrival of Kalkreuter" (so he persists in calling him), "and of your Letter, my dear Brother, has

19 Schöning, iii. 491, 492.

20 Ibid. p. 493.

29th Oct.-4th Nov. 1762.

"made me twenty" (not to say forty) "years younger: yesterday I was sixty, today hardly eighteen. I bless Heaven for "preserving you in health (bonne santé," so we term escape of lesion in fight); "and that things have passed so happily! You "took the good step of attacking those who meant to attack you; "and, by your good and solid measures (dispositions), you have "overcome all the difficulties of a strong Post and a vigorous re"sistance. It is a service so important rendered by you to the "State, that I cannot enough express my gratitude, and will wait "to do it in person.

*

"Kalkreuter will explain what motions I”— * "If For"tune favour our views on Dresden" (which it cannot in the least, at this late season), "we shall indubitably have Peace this "Winter or next Spring, and get honourably out of a difficult "and perilous conjuncture, where we have often seen ourselves "within two steps of total destruction. And, by this which you "have now done, to you alone will belong the honour of having given the final stroke to Austrian Obstinacy, and laid the foun"dations of the Public Happiness, which will be the consequence "of Peace.-F."21

Two days after this, November 4th, Friedrich is in Meissen; November 9th, he comes across to Freyberg; has a pleasant day,-pleasant survey of the Battlefield, Henri and Seidlitz escorting as guides. Henri, in furtherance of the Dresden project, has Kleist out on the Bohemian Magazines,-"That is the one way to clear Dresden neighbourhood of Enemies!" thinks Henri always. Kleist burns the considerable magazine of Saatz; finds the grand one of Leitmeritz too well guarded for him :-upon which, in such snowdrifts and sleety deluges, is not Dresden plainly impossible, your Majesty? Impossible, Friedrich admits,—the rather as he now sees Peace to be coming without that. Freyberg has at last broken the back of Austrian Obstinacy. "Go in upon the Reich," Friedrich now orders Kleist, the instant Schöning, iii. 495, 496.

21

24th Nov. 1762.

Kleist is home from his Bohemian inroad: "In upon the Reich, with 6,000, in your old style! That will dispose the Reichs Principalities to Peace."

Kleist marched, November 3d; kept the Reich in paroxysm, till December 13th;-Plotho, meanwhile, proclaiming in the Reichs Diet: "Such Reichs Princes as wish for Peace with my King can have it; those that prefer War, they too can have it!" Kleist, dividing himself in the due artistic way, flew over the Voigtland, on to Bamberg, on to Nürnberg itself (which he took, by sounding ram's-horns, as it were, having no gun heavier than a carbine, and held for a week);22-fluttering the Reichs Diet not a little, and disposing everybody for Peace. The Austrians saw it with pleasure, "We solemnly engaged to save these poor people harmless, on their joining us; and, behold, it has become thrice and four times impossible. Let them fall off into Peace, like ripe pears, of themselves; we can then turn round and say, 'Save you harmless? Yes; if you hadn't fallen

off!" "

November 24th, all Austrians make Truce with Friedrich, Truce till March 1st;-all Austrians, and what is singular, with no mention of the Reich whatever. The Reich is defenceless, at the feet of Kleist and his 6,000. Stollberg is still in Prussian neighbourhood; and may be picked up any day! Stollberg hastens off to defend the Reich; finds the Reich quite empty of enemies before his arrival;—and at least saves his own skin. A month or two more, and Stollberg will lay down his Command, and the last Reichs-Execution Army, playing Farce-Tragedy so long, make its exit from the Theatre of this World.

CHAPTER XIII.

PEACE OF HUBERTSBURG.

THE Prussian troops took Winter-quarters in the Meissen-Freyberg region, the old Saxon ground, familiar to them for the last three years: room enough this Winter, from Plauen and Zwickau, round by Langensalza again;' Truce with everybody, and nothing of disturbance till March 1st at soonest. The usual recruiting went on, or was preparing to go on,-a part of which took immediate effect, as we shall see. Recruiting, refitting, "Be ready for a new Campaign, in any case: the readier we are, the less our chance of having one!" Friedrich's headquarter is Leipzig; but till December 5th, he does not get thither. "More business on me than ever!" complains he. At Leipzig he had his Nephews, his D'Argens; for a week or two his Brother Henri; finally, his Berlin Ministers, especially Herzberg, when actual Peace came to be the matter in hand. Henri, before that, had gone home: "Peace being now the likelihood; Home; and recruit one's poor health, at Berlin, among friends!"

Before getting to Leipzig, the King paid a flying Visit at Gotha;-probably now the one fraction of these manifold Winter movements and employments, in which readers could take interest. Of this, as there happens

3d Dec. 1762.

to be some record left of it, here is what will suffice. From Meissen, Friedrich writes to his bright GrandDuchess, always a bright, high and noble creature in his eyes: "Authorised by your approval" (has politely inquired beforehand), "I shall have the infinite satisfac"tion of paying my duties on December 3d" (four days hence), "and of reiterating to you, Madame, my live"liest and sincerest assurances of esteem and friendship." 'Some of my Commissariat people have 'been misbehaving? Strict inquiry shall be had,"—and we soon find, was. But the Visit is our first thing.

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The Visit took place accordingly; Seidlitz, a man known in Gotha ever since his fine scenic-military procedures there in 1757, accompanied the King. Of the lucent individualities invited to meet him, all are now lost to me, except one Putter, a really learned Göttingen Professor (deep in Reichs-History and the like), whom the Duchess has summoned over. By the dim lucency of Putter, faint to most of us as a rushlight in the act of going out, the available part of our imagination must try to figure, in a kind of Obliterated-Rembrandt way, this glorious Evening; for there was but one,-December 3d-4th,-Friedrich having to leave early on the 4th. Here is Putter's record, given in the third person:

'During dinner, Putter, honourably present among the spectators of this high business, was beckoned by 'the Duchess to step near the King' (right hand or left, Putter does not say); but 'the King graciously turned 'round, and conversed with Putter.' The King said:

King. "In German History much is still buried; many im"portant Documents lie hidden in Monasteries." Putter answered "schicklich-fitly;' that is all we know of Putter's answer.

1 To the Grand-Duchess, 'Meissen, 29th November' (Euvres de Frédéric, xviii. 199).