At Prag he renews acquaintance with his old maladroit Strasburg friend, Marechal de Broglio, not with increase of admiration, as would seem; declines the demonstrations and civilities of Broglio, business being urgent: finds M. de Sechelles to be in truth the supreme of living Commissaries (ready, in words which Friedrich calls golden, "to make the impossible possible"): "Only march, then, noble Saxons: swift!"—and dashes off again, next morning, to northeastward, through Leopold's Bohemian cantonments, Glatz-ward by degrees, to be ready with his own share of the affair; no delay in him, for one. January 24th, after Konigsgratz and other Prussian posts,—January 24th, which is elsewhere so notable a day,—his route goes northeast, to Glatz, a hundred miles away, among the intricacies of the Giant Mountains, hither side of the Silesian Highlands; wild route for winter season, if the young King feared any route. From Berlin, hither and farther, he may have gone well-nigh his seven hundred miles within the week; rushing on continually (starts, at say four in the winter morning); doing endless business, of the ordering sort, as he speeds along.
Glatz, a southwestern mountainous Appendage to Silesia, abutting on Moravia and Bohemia, is a small strong Country; upon which, ever since the first Friedrich times, we have seen him fixed; claiming it too, as expenses from the Austrians, since they will not bargain. For he rises Sibyl-like: a year ago, you might have had him with his 100,000 to boot, for the one Duchy of Glogau; and now—! At Glatz or in these adjacent Bohemian parts, the Young Dessauer has been on duty, busy enough, ever since the late Siege of Neisse: Glatz Town the Young Dessauer soon got, when ordered; Town, Population, Territory, all is his,—all but the high mountain Fortress (centre of the Town of Glatzj), with its stiff-necked Austrian Garrison shut up there, which he is wearing out by hunger. We remember the little Note from Valori's waistcoat-pocket, "Don't give him Glatz, if you can possibly help it!" In his latest treaties with the French and their Allies, Friedrich has very expressly bargained for the Country (will even pay money for it); [OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 85.] and is determined to have it, when the Austrians next take to bargaining. Of Glatz Fortress, now getting hungered out by Leopold's Prussian Detachment, I will say farther, though Friedrich heeds these circumstances little at present, that it stands on a scarped rock, girt by the grim intricate Hills; and that in the Arsenal, in dusty fabulous condition, lies a certain Drum, which readers may have heard of. Drum is not a fable, but an antique reality fallen flaccid; made, by express bequest, as is mythically said, from the skin of Zisca, above 300 years ago: altogether mythic that latter clause. Drum, Fortress, Town, Villages and Territory, all shall be Friedrich's, had hunger done its work. [Town already, after short scuffle, 14th January, 1742; Fortress, by hunger (no firing nor being fired on, in the interim), 25th April following,—when the once 2,000 of garrison, worn to about 200, pale as shadows, marched away to Brunn; "only ten of them able for duty on arriving." (Orlich, i. 174.)]
Friedrich, while at Glatz this time, gave a new Dress to the Virgin, say all the Biographers; of which the story is this. Holy Virgin stood in the main Convent of Glatz, in rather a threadbare condition, when the Prussians first approached; the Jesuits, and ardently Orthodox of both sexes, flagitating Heaven and her with their prayers, that she would vouchsafe to keep the Prussians out. In which case pious Madame Something, wife of the Austrian Commandant, vowed her a new suit of clothes. Holy Virgin did not vouchsafe; on the Contrary, here the Prussians are, and Starvation with them. "Courage, nevertheless, my new friends!" intimates Friedrich: "The Prussians are not bugaboos, as you imagined: Holy Virgin shall have a new coat, all the same!" and was at the expense of the bit of broadcloth with trimmings. He was in the way of making such investments, in his light sceptical humor; and found them answer to him. At Glatz, and through those Bohemian and Silesian Cantonments, he sets his people in motion for the Moravian Expedition; rapidly stirs up the due Prussian detachments from their Christmas rest among the Mountains; and has work enough in these regions, now here now there. Schwerin is already in Olmutz, for a month past; and towards him, or his neighborhood, the march is to be.
January 26th, Friedrich, now with considerable retinue about him, gets from Glatz to Landskron, some fifty miles Olmutz-ward; such a march as General Stille never saw,—"through the ice and through the snow, which covered that dreadful Chain of Mountains between Bohmen and Mahren: we did not arrive till very late; many of our carriages broken down, and others overturned more than once." [Stille (Anonymous, Friedrich's Old-Tutor Stille), Campagnes du Roi de Prusse (English Translation, 12mo, London, 1763), p. 5. An intelligent, desirable little Volume,—many misprints in the English form of it.] At Landskron next day, Friedrich, as appointed, met the Chevalier de Saxe (CHEVALIER, by no means Comte, but a younger Bastard, General of the Saxon Horse); and endeavored to concert everything: Prussian rendezvous to be at Wischau, on the 5th next; thence straightway to meet the Saxons at Trebitsch (convenient for that Iglau),—if only the Saxons will keep bargain.
January 28th, past midnight, after another sore march, Friedrich arrived at Olmutz; a pretty Town,—with an excellent old Bishop, "a Graf von Lichtenstein, a little gouty man about fifty-two years of age, with a countenance open and full of candor; [Stille, p. 8.] in whose fine Palace, most courteously welcomed, the King lodged till near the day of rendezvousing. We will leave him there, and look westward a little; before going farther into the Moravian Expedition. Friedrich himself is evidently much bent on this Expedition; has set his heart on paying the Austrians for their trickery at Klein-Schnellendorf, in this handsome way, and still picking up the chance against them which Karl Albert squandered. If only the French and Saxons would go well abreast with Friedrich, and thrust home! But will they? Here is a surprising bit of news; not of good omen, when it reaches one at Olmutz!
"LINZ, 24th JANUARY, 1742 [day otherwise remarkable]. After the much barricading, and considerable defiance and bravadoing, by Comte de Segur and his 10,000, he has lost this City in a scandalous manner [not quite scandalous, but reckoned so by outside observers]; and Linz City is not now Segur's, but Khevenhuller's. To Khevenhuller's first summons M. de Segur had answered, 'I will hang on the highest gallows the next man that comes to propose such a thing!'—and within a week [Khevenhuller having seized the Donau River to rear of Linz, and blasted off the Bavarian party there], M. de Segur did himself propose it ('Free withdrawal: Not serve against you for a year'); and is this day beginning to march out of Linz." [Campagnes des Trois Marechaux, iii. 280, &c.; Adelung, iii. A, p. 12, and p. 15 (a Paris street-song on it).] Here is an example of defending Key-Positions! If Segur's be the pattern followed, those Conquests on the Donau are like to go a fine road!—There came to Friedrich, in all privacy, during his stay in Olmutz at this Bishop's, a Diplomatic emissary from Vienna, one Pfitzner; charged with apologies, with important offers probably;—important; but not important enough. Friedrich blames himself for being too abrupt on the man; might perhaps have learned something from him by softer treatment. [OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 109.] After three days, Pfitzner had to go his ways again, having accomplished nothing of change upon Friedrich.
Chapter IX. — WILHELMINA GOES TO SEE THE GAYETIES AT FRANKFURT.
On the day when Friedrich, overhung by the grim winter Mountains, was approaching Glatz, same day when Segur was evacuating Linz on those sad terms, that is, on the 24th day of January, 1742,—two Gentlemen were galloping their best in the Frankfurt-Mannheim regions; bearing what they reckoned glad tidings towards Mannheim and Karl Albert; who is there "on a visit" (for good reasons), after his triumphs at Prag and elsewhere. The hindmost of the two Gentlemen is an Official of rank (little conscious that he is preceded by a rival in message-bearing); Official Gentleman, despatched by the Diet of Frankfurt to inform Karl Albert, That he now is actually Kaiser of the Holy Romish Empire; votes, by aid of Heaven and Belleisle, having all fallen in his favor. Gallop, therefore, my Official Gentleman:—alas, another Gentleman, Non-official, knowing how it would turn, already sat booted and saddled, a good space beyond the walls of Frankfurt, waiting till the cannon should fire; at the first burst of cannon, he (cunning dog) gives his horse the spur; and is miles ahead of the toiling Official Gentleman, all the way. [Adelung, iii. A, 52.]
In the dreary mass of long-winded ceremonial nothingnesses, and intricate Belleisle cobwebberies, we seize this one poor speck of human foolery in the native state, as almost the memorablest in that stupendous business. Stupendous indeed; with which all Germany has been in travail these sixteen months, on such terms! And in verity has got the thing called "German Kaiser" constituted, better or worse. Heavens, was a Nation ever so bespun by gossamer; enchanted into paralysis, by mountains of extinct tradition, and the want of power to annihilate rubbish! There are glittering threads of the finest Belleisle diplomacy, which seem to go beyond the Dog-star, and to be radiant, and irradiative, like paths of the gods: and they are, seem what they might, poor threads of idle gossamer, sunk already to dusty cobweb, unpleasant to poor human nature; poor human nature concerned only to get them well swept into the fire. The quantities of which sad litter, in this Universe, are very great!—