History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 15 | Page 7

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 is Peace ready for us!" This is Friedrich's scheme of action; success certain, thinks he, if only there be energy, activity, on your side, as there shall be on mine; --and has sent Count Schmettau, filled with fiery speed and determination, to keep the French full of the like, and concert mutual operations. "Magnanimous!" exclaim Noailles and the paralyzed French Gentlemen (King Louis, I think, now past speech, for Schmettau only came August 9th): "Most sublime behavior, on his Prussian Majesty's part!" own they. And truly it is a fine manful indifference (by no means so common as it should be) to all interests, to all considerations, but that of a Joint Enterprise one has engaged in. And truly, furthermore, it was immediate salvation to the paralyzed French Gentlemen, in that alarming crisis; though they did not much recognize it afterwards as such: and indeed were conspicuously forgetful of all parts of it, when their own danger was over. Maria Theresa's feelings may be conceived; George II's feelings; and what the Cause of Liberty in general felt, and furiously said and complained, when--suddenly as a DEUS EX MACHINA, or Supernal Genie in the Minor Theatres--Friedrich stept in. Precisely in this supreme crisis, 7th August, 1744, Friedrich's Minister, Graf von Dohna, at Vienna, has given notice of the Frankfurt Union, and solemn Engagement entered into: "Obliged in honor and conscience; will and must now step forth to right an injured Kaiser; cannot stand these high procedures against an Imperial Majesty chosen by all the Princes of the Reich, this unheard-of protest that the Kaiser is no Kaiser, as if all Germany were but Austria and the Queen of Hungary's. Prussian Majesty has not the least quarrel of his own with the Queen of Hungary, stands true, and will stand, by the Treaty of Berlin and Breslau;--only, with certain other German Princes, has done what all German Princes and peoples not Austrian are bound to do, on behalf of their down-trodden Kaiser, formed a Union of Frankfurt; and will, with armed hand if indispensable, endeavor to see right done in that matter." [In Adelung, iv. 155, 156, the Declaration itself (Audience, "7th August, 1744." Dohna off homeward "on the second day after").] This is the astonishing fact for the Cause of Liberty; and no clamor and execration will avail anything. This man is prompt, too; does not linger in getting out his Sword, when he has talked of it. Prince Karl's Operation is likely to be marred amazingly. If this swift King (comparable to the old Serpent for devices) were to burst forth from his Silesian strengths; tread sharply on the TAIL of Prince Karl's Operation, and bring back the formidably fanged head of IT out of Alsace, five hundred miles all at once,--there would be a business! We will now quit the Rhine Operations, which indeed are not now of moment; Friedrich being suddenly the key of events again. I add only, what readers are vaguely aware of, that King Louis did not die; that he lay at death's door for precisely one week (8th-15th August), symptoms mending on the 15th. In the interim,--Grand- Almoner Fitz-James (Uncle of our Conte di Spinelli) insisting that a certain Cardinal, who had got the Sacraments in hand, should insist; and endless ministerial intrigue being busy,--moribund Louis had, when it came to the Sacramental point, been obliged to dismiss his Chateauroux. Poor Chateauroux; an unfortunate female; yet, one almost thinks, the best man among them: dismissed at Metz here, and like to be mobbed! That was the one issue of King Louis's death-sickness. Sublime sickness; during which all Paris wept aloud, in terror and sorrow, like a child that has lost its mother and sees a mastiff coming; wept sublimely, and did the Prayers of Forty-Hours; and called King Louis Le BIEN-AIME (The Well- beloved):--merely some obstruction in the royal bowels, it turned out;--a good cathartic, and the Prayers of Forty-Hours, quite