"You will know the news of the day; and I am persuaded you take part in it. All you say to me betokens the conspiracy there is for the destruction of our Country. If that is determined in the Book of Fate, we cannot escape it.
"Had my advice been asked, a year ago, I should have voted to preserve the Alliance [with YOU] which we had been used to for sixteen years [strictly for twelve, though in substance ever since 1740], and which was by nature advantageous to us. But if my advice were asked just now, I should answer, That the said method being now impossible, we are in the case of a ship's captain who defends himself the best he can, and when all resources are exhausted, has, rather than surrender on shameful conditions, to fire the powder-magazine, and blow up his ship. You remember that of your Francois I."—FORS L'HONNEUR; ah yes, very well!—"Perhaps it will be my poor Children who will be the victims of these past errors,"—for such I still think them, I for my part.
"The Gazettes enumerate the French troops that are to besiege Wesel, Geldern [Wesel they will get gratis, poor Geldern will almost break their heart first], and take possession of Ost-Friesland; the Russian Declaration [Manifesto not worth reading] tells us Russia's intentions for the next year [most truculent intentions]: we will defend ourselves to the last drop of our blood, and perish with honor. If you have any counsel farther, I pray you give it me.
MAP GOES HERE—BETWEEN P. 350 AND 351 Chap VII book 17
"Remain always my friend; and believe that in all situations I will remain yours; and trying to do what my duty is, will not forfeit the sentiments on your part which have been so precious to me. Your servant, GUILLAUME." [Valori, ii. 204-206.]
"Pity this good Prince contemplating the downfall of his House," suggests Valori: "He deserved a better fate! He would be in despair to think I had sent this Letter to your Excellency; but I thought perhaps you would show it to the King,"—and that it might do good one day. [Valori (to the French Minister, "12th October, 1756"), ii. 204.] The Prussians lay in their "Camp of Lobositz," posted up and down in that neighborhood, for a couple of weeks more; waiting whether Browne would attempt anything farther in the fighting way; and, in fine, whether the solution of the crisis would fall out hereabouts, or on the other side of the Hills.
Chapter VII.—THE SAXONS GET OUT OF PIRNA ON DISMAL TERMS.
The disaster of October 1st—for which they were trying to sing TE-DEUMS at Vienna—fell heavier on the poor Saxons, in their cage at Pirna: "Alas, where is our deliverance now?" Friedrich's people, in their lines here, gave them such a "joy-firing" for Lobositz as Retzow has seldom heard; huge volleyings, salvoings, running-fires, starting out, artistically timed and stationed, thunderous, high; and borne by the echoes, gloomily reverberative, into every dell and labyrinth of the Pirna Country;—intended to strike a deeper damp into them, thinks he. [Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty was mindful, too; and straightway sent Browne positive order, "Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!" And in the course of not quite a week from Lobositz, there arrives a confidential Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I will try it another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the 11th stand to your tools, and it shall be done."
Browne is to take a succinct Detachment, 8,000 picked men, horse and foot; to make a wider sweep with these, well eastward by the foot of Lausitz Hills, and far enough from all Prussian parties and scouts; to march, with all speed and silence, "through Bohm-Leipa, Kamnitz, Rumburg, Schluckenau; and come in upon the Schandau region, quite from the northeast side; say, at Lichtenhayn; an eligible Village, which is but seven miles or so from the Konigstein, with the chasmy country and the river intervening. Monday, October 11th, Browne will arrive at Lichtenhayn (sixty miles of circling march from Budin); privately post himself near Lichtenhayn; Prussian posts, of no great strength, lying ahead of him there. You, indignant extenuated Saxons, are to get yourselves across,—near the Konigstein it will have to be, under cover of the Konigstein's cannon,—on the front or riverward side of those same Prussian posts: crossing-place (Browne's Messenger settles) can be Thurmsdorf Hamlet, opposite the Lilienstein, opposite the Hamlets of Ebenheit and Halbstadt there. Konigstein fire will cover your bridge and your building of it.