History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 13 [67]
of Iglau is the foundation-stone of our affairs. And if we would have Iglau WITH the Magazines and not without, surely there is not a moment to be wasted!" In vain; the Saxon Bastard Princes feel themselves very comfortable. It was Sunday the 11th of February, when our junction with them was completed: and, instead of next morning early, it is Wednesday afternoon before Prince Dietrich of Anhalt-Dessau, with the Saxon and French party roused to join his Prussians and him, can at last take the road for Iglau. Prince Dietrich makes now the reverse of delay; marches all night, "bivouacs in woods near Iglau," warming himself at stick-fires till the day break; takes Iglau by merely marching into it and scattering 2,000 Pandours, so soon as day has broken; but finds the Magazines not there. Lobkowitz carted off what he could, then burnt "Seventeen Barns yesterday;" and is himself off towards Budweis Head-quarters and the Bohemian bogs again. This comes of lodging Saxon royal gentlemen too well.
THE SAXONS THINK IGLAU ENOUGH; THE FRENCH GO HOME.
Nay, Iglau taken, the affair grows worse than ever. Our Saxons now declare that they understand their orders to be completed; that their Court did not mean them to march farther, but only to hold by Iglau, a solid footing in Moravia, which will suffice for the present. Fancy Friedrich; fancy Valori, and the cracks he will have to fill! Friedrich, in astonishment and indignation, sends a messenger to Dresden: "Would the Polish Majesty BE 'King of Moravia,' then, or not be?" Remonstrances at Budischau rise higher and higher; Valori, to prevent total explosion, flies over once, in the dead of the night, to deal with Rutowsky and Brothers. Rutowsky himself seems partly persuadable, though dreadfully ill of rheumatism. They rouse Comte Maurice; and Valori, by this Comte's caprices, is driven out of patience. "He talked with a flippant sophistry, almost with an insolence" says Valori; "nay, at last, he made me a gesture in speaking,"--what gesture, thumb to nose, or what, the shuddering imagination dare not guess! But Valori, nettled to the quick, "repeated it," and otherwise gave him as good as he brought. "He ended by a gesture which displeased me"--"and went to bed." [Valori, i. 148, 149.] This is the night of February 18th; third night after Iglau was had, and the Magazines in it gone to ashes. Which the Saxons think is conquest enough.
Poor Polish Majesty, poor Karl Albert, above all, now "Kaiser Karl VII.," with nothing but those French for breath to his nostrils! With his fine French Army of the Oriflamme, Karl Albert should have pushed along last Autumn; and not merely "read the Paper" which Friedrich sent him to that effect, "and then laid it aside." They will never have another chance, his French and he,--unless we call this again a chance; which they are again squandering! Linz went by capitulation; January 24th, the very day of one's "Election" as they called it: and ever since that day of Linz, the series of disasters has continued rapid and uniform in those parts. Linz gone, the rest of the French posts did not even wait to capitulate; but crackled all off, they and our Conquests on the Donau, like a train of gunpowder, and left the ground bare. And General von Barenklau (BEAR'S-CLAW), with the hideous fellow called Mentzel, Colonel of Pandours, they have broken through into Bavaria itself, from the Tyrol; climbing by Berchtesgaden and the wild Salzburg Mountains, regardless of Winter, and of poor Bavarian militia-folk;--and have taken Munchen, one's very Capital, one's very House and Home!--Poor Karl Albert,--and, what is again remarkable, it was the very day while he was getting "crowned" at Frankfurt, "with Oriental pomp," that Mentzel was about entering Munchen with his Pandours. [Coronation was February 12th; Capitulation to Mentzel, "Munchen, February 13th," is in Guerre de Boheme, ii. 56-59.] And this poor Archduke of the Austrian, King of Bohemia, Kaiser of the Holy Romish Reich Teutsch by Nation, is becoming Titular merely, and owns next
THE SAXONS THINK IGLAU ENOUGH; THE FRENCH GO HOME.
Nay, Iglau taken, the affair grows worse than ever. Our Saxons now declare that they understand their orders to be completed; that their Court did not mean them to march farther, but only to hold by Iglau, a solid footing in Moravia, which will suffice for the present. Fancy Friedrich; fancy Valori, and the cracks he will have to fill! Friedrich, in astonishment and indignation, sends a messenger to Dresden: "Would the Polish Majesty BE 'King of Moravia,' then, or not be?" Remonstrances at Budischau rise higher and higher; Valori, to prevent total explosion, flies over once, in the dead of the night, to deal with Rutowsky and Brothers. Rutowsky himself seems partly persuadable, though dreadfully ill of rheumatism. They rouse Comte Maurice; and Valori, by this Comte's caprices, is driven out of patience. "He talked with a flippant sophistry, almost with an insolence" says Valori; "nay, at last, he made me a gesture in speaking,"--what gesture, thumb to nose, or what, the shuddering imagination dare not guess! But Valori, nettled to the quick, "repeated it," and otherwise gave him as good as he brought. "He ended by a gesture which displeased me"--"and went to bed." [Valori, i. 148, 149.] This is the night of February 18th; third night after Iglau was had, and the Magazines in it gone to ashes. Which the Saxons think is conquest enough.
Poor Polish Majesty, poor Karl Albert, above all, now "Kaiser Karl VII.," with nothing but those French for breath to his nostrils! With his fine French Army of the Oriflamme, Karl Albert should have pushed along last Autumn; and not merely "read the Paper" which Friedrich sent him to that effect, "and then laid it aside." They will never have another chance, his French and he,--unless we call this again a chance; which they are again squandering! Linz went by capitulation; January 24th, the very day of one's "Election" as they called it: and ever since that day of Linz, the series of disasters has continued rapid and uniform in those parts. Linz gone, the rest of the French posts did not even wait to capitulate; but crackled all off, they and our Conquests on the Donau, like a train of gunpowder, and left the ground bare. And General von Barenklau (BEAR'S-CLAW), with the hideous fellow called Mentzel, Colonel of Pandours, they have broken through into Bavaria itself, from the Tyrol; climbing by Berchtesgaden and the wild Salzburg Mountains, regardless of Winter, and of poor Bavarian militia-folk;--and have taken Munchen, one's very Capital, one's very House and Home!--Poor Karl Albert,--and, what is again remarkable, it was the very day while he was getting "crowned" at Frankfurt, "with Oriental pomp," that Mentzel was about entering Munchen with his Pandours. [Coronation was February 12th; Capitulation to Mentzel, "Munchen, February 13th," is in