LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

this very day. The Prince himself is to be there, Highness of Hessen-Darmstadt, and who not; all are impatient to drink your health!' Mentzel had a glorious dinner; still more glorious drink,—Prince Karl and the others, it is said, egging him into much wild bluster and gasconade, to season their much wine. Eminent swill of drinking, with the loud coarse talk supposable, on the part of Mentzel and consorts did go on, in this manner, all afternoon: in the evening, drunk Mentzel came out for air; went strutting and staggering about; emerging finally on the platform of some rampart, face of him huge and red as that of the foggiest rising Moon;—and stood, looking over into the Lorraine Country; belching out a storm of oaths, as to his taking it, as to his doing this and that; and was even flourishing his sword by way of accompaniment; when, lo, whistling slightly through the summer air, a rifle-ball from some sentry on the French side (writers say, it was a French drummer, grown impatient, and snatching a sentry's piece) took the brain of him, or the belly of him; and he rushed down at once, a totally collapsed monster, and mere heap of dead ruin, never to trouble mankind more." [Guerre de Boheme, iii. 165.] For which my readers and I are rather thankful. Voltaire, and perhaps other memorable persons, sometimes mention this brute (miraculous to the Plebs and Gazetteers); otherwise eternal oblivion were the best we could do with him. Trenck also, readers will be glad to understand, ends in jail and bedlam by and by.

      "Prince Karl had not the least intention of crossing by this Cowhead Island. Nevertheless he set about two other Bridges in the neighborhood, nearer Mainz (few miles below that City); kept manoeuvring his Force, in huge half-moon, round that quarter, and mysteriously up and down; alarming Coigny wholly into the Mainz region. For the space of ten days; and then, stealing off to Schrock, a little Rhine Village above Philipsburg, many miles away from Coigny and his vigilantes, he—

      "NIGHT OF 30th JUNE-1st JULY, Suddenly shot Pandour Trenck, followed by Nadasti and 6,000, across at Schrock who scattered Seckendorf's poor outposts thereabouts to the winds; 'built a bridge before morning, and next day another.' Next day Prince Karl in person appeared; and on the 3d of July, had his whole Army with its luggages across; and had seized the Lines of Lauterburg and Weissenburg (celebrated northern defence of Elsass),—much to Coigny's amazement; and remained inexpugnable there, with Elsass open to him, and to Coigny shut, for the present! [Adelung, iv. 139-141.] Coigny made bitter wail, accusation, blame of Seckendorf, blame of men and of things; even tried some fighting, Seckendorf too doing feats, to recover those Lines of Weissenburg: but could not do it. And, in fact, blazing to and fro in that excited rather than luminous condition, could not do anything; except retire into the strong posts of the background; and send express on express, swifter than the wind if you can, to a victorious King overturning the Dutch Barrier: 'Help, your Majesty, or we are lost; and France is—what shall I say!'"

      "Admirable feat of Strategy! What a General, this Prince Karl!" exclaimed mankind,—Cause-of-Liberty mankind with special enthusiasm; and took to writing LIVES of Prince Karl, [For instance, The Life of his Highness Prince Charles of &c., with &c. &c. (London, 1746); one of the most distracted Blotches ever published under the name of Book;—wakening thoughts of a public dimness very considerable indeed, to which this could offer itself as lamp!] as well as tar-burning and TE-DEUM-ing on an extensive scale. For it had sent the Cause of Liberty bounding up again to the top of things, this of crossing the Rhine, in such fashion. And, in effect, the Cause of Liberty, and Prince Karl himself, had risen hereby to their acme or culminating point in World-History; not to continue long at such height, little as they dreamt of that, among their tar-burnings. The feat itself—contrived by Nadasti, people say, and executed (what was the real difficulty) by Traun—brought Prince Karl very great renown, this Year; and is praised by Friedrich himself, now and afterwards, as masterly, as Julius Caesar's method, and the proper way of crossing rivers (when executable) in face of an enemy. And indeed Prince Karl, owing to Traun or not, is highly respectable in the way of Generalship at present; and did in these Five Months, from June onward, really considerable things. At his very acme of Life, as well as of Generalship; which, alas, soon changed, poor man; never to culminate again. He had got, at the beginning of the Year, the high Maria Theresa's one Sister, Archduchess Maria Anna, to Wife; [Age then twenty-five gone: "born 14th September, 1718; married to Prince Karl 7th January, 1744; died, of childbirth, 16th December same year" (Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, iv. erstes Baudchen, 54).] the crown of long mutual attachment; she safe now at Brussels, diligent Co-Regent, and in a promising family-way; he here walking on victorious:—need any man be happier? No man can be supremely happy long; and this General's strategic felicity and his domestic were fatally cut down almost together. The Cause of Liberty, too, now at the top of its orbit, was—But let us stick by our Excerpting:

      "DUNKIRK, 19th JULY, 1744 [Princess Ulrique's Wedding, just two days ago]. King Louis, on hearing of the Job's-news from Elsass, instantly suspended his Conquests in Flanders; detached Noailles, detached this one and that, double-quick, Division after Division (leaving Saxe, with 45,000, to his own resources, and the fatuities of Marshal Wade); and, 19th July, himself hastens off from Dunkirk (leaving much of the luggage, but not the Chateauroux behind him), to save his Country, poor soul. But could not, in the least, save it; the reverse rather. August 4th, he got to Metz, Belleisle's strong town, about 100 miles from the actual scene; his detached reinforcements, say 50,000 men or so, hanging out ahead like flame-clouds, but uncertain how to act;—Noailles being always cunctatious in time of crisis, and poor Louis himself nothing of a Cloud-Compeller;—and then,

      "METZ, AUGUST 8th, The Most Christian King fell ill; dangerously, dreadfully, just like to die. Which entirely paralyzed Noailles and Company, or reduced them to mere hysterics, and excitement of the unluminous kind. And filled France in general, Paris in particular, with terror, lamentation, prayers of forty hours; and such a paroxysm of hero-worship as was never seen for such an object before." [Espagnac, ii. 12; Adelung, iv. 180; Fastes de Louis XV., ii. 423; &c. &c.]

      For the Cause of Liberty here, we consider, was the culminating moment; Elsass, Lorraine and the Three Bishoprics lying in their quasi-moribund condition; Austrian claims of Compensation ceasing to be visions of the heated brain, and gaining some footing on the Earth as facts. Prince Karl is here actually in Elsass, master of the strong passes; elate in heart, he and his; France, again, as if fallen paralytic, into temporary distraction; offering for resistance nothing hitherto but that universal wailing of mankind, Hero-worship of a thrice-lamentable nature, and the Prayers of Forty-Hours! Most Christian Majesty, now IN EXTREMIS, centre of the basest hubbub that ever was, is dismissing Chateauroux. Noailles, Coigny and Company hang well back upon the Hill regions, and strong posts which are not yet menaced; or fly vaguely, more or less distractedly, hither and thither; not in the least like fighting Karl, much less like beating him. Karl has Germany free at his back (nay it is a German population round him here); neither haversack nor cartridge-box like to fail: before him are only a Noailles and consorts, flying vaguely about;—and there is in Karl, or under the same cloak with him at present, a talent of manoeuvring men, which even Friedrich finds masterly. If old Marshal Wade, at the other end of the line, should chance to awaken and press home on Saxe, and his remnant of French, with right vigor? In fact, there was not, that I can see, for centuries past, not even at the Siege of Lille in Marlborough's time, a more imminent peril for France.

      FRIEDRICH DECIDES TO INTERVENE

      King Friedrich, on hearing of these Rhenish emergencies and of King Louis's heroic advance to the rescue, perceived that for himself too the moment was come; and hastened to inform heroic Louis, That though the terms of their Bargain were not yet completed, Sweden, Russia and other points being still in a pendent condition, he, Friedrich,—with an eye to success of their Joint Adventure, and to the indispensability of joint action, energy, and the top of one's speed now or never,—would, by the middle of this same August, be on the field with 100,000 men. "An invasion of Bohemia, will not that astonish Prince Karl; and bring him to his Rhine-Bridges again? Over which, if your Most Christian Majesty be active, he will not get, except in a half, or wholly ruined state. Follow him close; send the rest of your force to threaten Hanover; sit well on the skirts of Prince Karl. Him as he hurries homeward, ruined or half-ruined, him, or whatever Austrian will fight, I do my best to beat. We may have Bohemia, and a beaten Austria, this very Autumn: see,—and, in one Campaign, there

Скачать книгу