The HERRENHAUS (Squire's Mansion) still stands in Rossbach, with the littery Hamlet at its flank: a high, pavilion-roofed, and though dilapidated, pretentious kind of House; some kind of court round it, some kind of hedge or screen of brushwood and brick-wall: terribly in need of the besom, it and its environment throughout. King, I suppose, did lodge there overnight: certain it is the Squire was absent; and the Squire's Man, three days afterwards, reported to him as follows:... "Saturday, the 5th, about 8 A.M., his Majesty mounted to the roof of the Herrenhaus here, some tiles having been removed [for that end, or by accident, is not said], and saw how the French and Reichs Army were getting in movement"—wriggling out of their Camp leftwards, evidently aiming towards Grost. "In about an hour, near half their Army was through Grost, and had turned southward, rather southeastward, from Grost, out in the Rossbach and Almsdorf region, and proceeding still towards Pettstadt,"—towards Schevenroda more precisely, not towards Pettstadt yet. "His Majesty looked always through the perspective: and to me was the grace done to be ever at his side, and to name for him the roads the French and Reichs Army was marching." [Muller, p. 50; Rodenbeck, p. 326.]
The King had heard of this phenomenon hours before, and had sent out Hussars and scouts upon it; but now sees it with his eyes:—"Going for Freiburg, and their bread-cupboard," thinks the King; who does not as yet make much of the movement; but will watch it well, and calculates to have a stroke at the rear end of it, in due season. With which view, the cavalry, Seidlitz and Mayer, are ordered to saddle; foot regiments, and all else, to be in readiness. This French-Reichs Dauphiness is not rapid in her field-exercise; and has a great deal of wriggling and unwinding before she can fairly pick herself out, and get forward towards Schevenroda on the Freiburg road. In three or in two parallel columns, artillery between them, horse ahead, horse arear; haggling along there;—making for their bread-baskets, thinks the King. A body of French, horse chiefly, under St. Germain, come out, in the Schortau-Almsdorf part, with some salvoing and prancing, as if intending to attack about Rossbach, where our left wing is: but his Majesty sees it to be a pretence merely; and St. Germain, motionless, and doing nothing but cannonade a little, seems to agree that it is so. Dauphiness continues her slow movements; King, in this Squire's Mansion of Rossbach, sits down to dinner, dinner with Officers at the usual hour of noon,—little dreaming what the Dauphiness has in her head.
Truth is, the Dauphiness is in exultant spirits, this morning; intending great things against a certain "little Marquis of Brandenburg," to whom one does so much honor. Generals looking down yesterday on the King of Prussia's Camp, able to count every man in it (and half the men being invisible, owing to bends of the ground), counted him to 10,000 or so; and had said, "Pshaw, are not we above 50,000; let us end it! Take him on his left. Round yonder, till we get upon his left, and even upon his rear withal, St. Germain co-operating on the other side of him: on left, on rear, on front, at the same moment, is not that a sure game?" A very ticklish game, answers surly sagacious Lloyd: "No general will permit himself to be taken in flank with his eyes open; and the King of Prussia is the unlikeliest you could try it with!"
Trying it meanwhile they are; marching along by the low grounds here, intending to sweep gradually leftwards towards Janus-Hill quarter; there to sweep home upon him, coil him up, left and rear and front, in their boa-constrictor folds, and end his trifle of an Army and him. "Why not, if we do our duty at all, annihilate his trifle of an Army; take himself prisoner, and so end it?" Report says, Soubise had really, in some moment of enthusiasm lately, warned the Versailles populations to expect such a thing; and that the Duchess of Orleans, forgetful of poor King Louis's presence, had in HER enthusiasm, exclaimed: "TANT MIEUX, I shall at last see a King, then!" But perhaps it is a mere French epigram, such as the winds often generate there, and put down for fact.—Friedrich's retreat to Weissenfels is cut off for Friedrich: an Austrian party has been at the Herren-Muhle Bridge this morning, has torn it up and pitched it into the river; planks far on to Merseburg by this time. And, in fact, unless Friedrich be nimble—But that he usually is.
Friedrich's dinner had gone on with deliberation for about two hours, Friedrich's intentions not yet known to any, but everybody, great and small, waiting eagerly for them, like greyhounds on the slip,—when Adjutant Gaudi, who had been on the House-top the while, rushes into the Dining-room faster than he ought, and, with some tremor in his voice and eyes, reports hastily: "At Schevenroda, at Pettstadt yonder! Enemy has turned to left. Clearly for the left."—"Well, and if he do? No flurry needed, Captain!" answered Friedrich,—(NOT in these precise words; but rebuking Gaudi, with a look not of laughter wholly, and with a certain question, as to the state of Gaudi's stomachic part, which is still known in traditionary circles, but is not mentionable here);—and went, with due gravity, himself to the roof, with his Officers. "To the left, sure enough; meaning to attack us there:" the thing Friedrich had despaired of is voluntarily coming, then;—and it is a thing of stern qualities withal; a wager of life, with glorious possibilities behind.
Friedrich earnestly surveys the phenomenon for some minutes; in some minutes, Friedrich sees his way through it, at least into it, and how he will do it. Off, eastward; march! Swift are his orders; almost still swifter the fulfillment of them. Prussian Army is a nimble article in comparison with Dauphiness! In half an hour's time, all is packed and to the road; and, except Mayer and certain Free-Corps or Light-Horse, to amuse St. Germain and his Almsdorf people, there is not a Prussian visible in these localities to French eyes. "At half-past two," says the Squire's Man,—or let us take him a sentence earlier, to lose nothing of such a Document: "At noon his Majesty took dinner; sat till about two o'clock; then again went to the roof; and perceived that the Enemy's Army at Pettstadt were turning about the little Wood there northeastward, as if for Lunstadt [into the Lunstadt road];—such cannonading too," from those Almsdorf people, "that the balls flew over our heads,"—or I tremulously thought so. "At half-past two, the word was given, March! And good speed they made about it, in this Herrenhaus, and out of doors too, striking their tents, and cording up and trimly shouldering everything with incredible brevity," as if machinery were doing it; "and at three, on the Prussian part, all was packed and out into the court for being carried off; and, in fact, the Prussian Army was on march at three." Seidlitz, with all his Horse, vanishing round the corner of the Height; speeding along, invisible on his northern slope there, straight for the Janus-Polzen Hill part; the Infantry following, double-quick;—well knowing, each, what he has got to do.
But at this interesting point, the Editors—small thanks to them, authentic but thrice-stupid mortals—cut short our Eye-witness, not so much as telling us his name, some of them not even his date or whereabouts; and so the curtain tumbles down (as if its string had been cut, or suddenly eaten by unwise animals), and we are left to gray hubbub, and our own resources at second-hand. Except only that a French Officer—one of those cannonading from Almsdorf, no doubt—declares that "it was like a change of scene in the Opera (DECORATION D'OPERA)," [Letter in MULLER: p. 60. In WESTPHALEN (ii. 128-133) is a much superior French Letter, intercepted somewhere, and fallen to Duke Ferdinand; well worth reading, on Rossbach and the previous Affairs.] so very rapid; and that "they all rolled off eastward at quick time." At extremely quick time;—and soon, in the slight hollow behind Janus Hugel, vanished from sight of these Almsdorf French, and of the Soubise-Hildburghausen Army in general. Which latter is agreeably surprised at the phenomenon; and draws a highly flattering conclusion from it. "Gone, then; off at double-quick for Merseburg; aha!" think the Soubise-Hildburghausen people: "Double-quick you too, my pretty men, lest they do whisk away, and we never get a stroke at them,!"—
Seidlitz meanwhile, with his cavalry (thirty-eight squadrons, about 4,000 horse), is rapidly doing the order he has had. Seidlitz at a sharp military trot, and the infantry at doublequick to keep up near him, which they cannot quite do, are, as we have said, making right across for the Polzen-Hill and Janus-Hill quarter; their route the string, French route the bow; and are invisible to the French, owing to the heights between. Seidlitz, when he gets to the proper point eastward, will wheel about, front to southward, and be our left wing; infantry, as centre and right, will appear in like manner; and—we shall see!
The exultant Dauphiness, or Soubise-Hildburghausen Army (let us call it, for brevity's sake, Dauphiness or French, which it mainly was), on that rapid disappearance of the Prussians, never doubted but the Prussians were off on flight for Merseburg, to get across by the Bridge there. Whereat Dauphiness, doubly exultant, mended her own pace, cavalry at a sharp trot, infantry double-quick, but unable to keep up,—for the purpose of capturing or intercepting the runaway Prussians. Speed, my friends,—if you would do a stroke upon Friedrich, and show the Versailles people a King at last! Thus they, hurrying on, in two parallel columns,—infantry, long floods of it, coming double-quick but somewhat fallen behind; cavalry 7,000 or so, as vanguard,—faster and faster; sweeping forward on their southern side of the Janus-and-Polzen slope, and now rather climbing the same.
Seidlitz has his hussar pickets on the top, to keep him informed as to their motions, and how far they are got. Seidlitz, invisible on the south slope of the Polzen Hugel, finds about half-past three P.M. that he is now fairly ahead of Dauphiness; Seidlitz halts, wheels, comes to the top, "Got the flank of them, sure enough!"—and without waiting signal or farther orders, every instant being precious, rapidly forms himself; and plunges down on these poor people. "Compact as a wall, and with an incredible velocity (D'UNE VITESSE INCROYABLE)," says one of them. Figure the astonishment of Dauphiness; of poor Broglio, who commands the horse here. Taken in flank, instead of taking other people; intercepted, not in the least needing to intercept! Has no time to form, though he tried what he could. Only the two Austrian regiments got completely formed; the rest very incompletely; and Seidlitz, in the blaze of rapid steel, is in upon them. The two Austrian regiments, and two French that are named, made what debate was feasible;—courage nowise wanting, in such sad want of captaincy; nay Soubise in person galloped into it, if that could have helped. But from the first, the matter was hopeless; Seidlitz slashing it at such a rate, and plunging through it and again through it, thrice, some say four times: so that, in the space of half an hour, this luckless cavalry was all tumbling off the ground; plunging down-hill, in full flight, across its own infantry or whatever obstacle, Seidlitz on the hips of it; and galloping madly over the horizon, towards Freiburg as it proved; and was not again heard of that day.