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By Root 2892 0

could not do anything; except retire into the strong posts of the background; and send express on express, swifter than the wind if you can, to a victorious King overturning the Dutch Barrier: 'Help, your Majesty, or we are lost; and France is--what shall I say!'"

"Admirable feat of Strategy! What a General, this Prince Karl!" exclaimed mankind,--Cause-of-Liberty mankind with special enthusiasm; and took to writing LIVES of Prince Karl, [For instance, The Life of his Highness Prince Charles of &c., with &c. &c. (London, 1746); one of the most distracted Blotches ever published under the name of Book;-- wakening thoughts of a public dimness very considerable indeed, to which this could offer itself as lamp!] as well as tar-burning and TE-DEUM-ing on an extensive scale. For it had sent the Cause of Liberty bounding up again to the top of things, this of crossing the Rhine, in such fashion. And, in effect, the Cause of Liberty, and Prince Karl himself, had risen hereby to their acme or culminating point in World-History; not to continue long at such height, little as they dreamt of that, among their tar-burnings. The feat itself--contrived by Nadasti, people say, and executed (what was the real difficulty) by Traun--brought Prince Karl very great renown, this Year; and is praised by Friedrich himself, now and afterwards, as masterly, as Julius Caesar's method, and the proper way of crossing rivers (when executable) in face of an enemy. And indeed Prince Karl, owing to Traun or not, is highly respectable in the way of Generalship at present; and did in these Five Months, from June onward, really considerable things. At his very acme of Life, as well as of Generalship; which, alas, soon changed, poor man; never to culminate again. He had got, at the beginning of the Year, the high Maria Theresa's one Sister, Archduchess Maria Anna, to Wife; [Age then twenty-five gone: "born 14th September, 1718; married to Prince Karl 7th January, 1744; died, of childbirth, 16th December same year" (Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, iv. erstes Baudchen, 54).] the crown of long mutual attachment; she safe now at Brussels, diligent Co-Regent, and in a promising family-way; he here walking on victorious:--need any man be happier? No man can be supremely happy long; and this General's strategic felicity and his domestic were fatally cut down almost together. The Cause of Liberty, too, now at the top of its orbit, was--But let us stick by our Excerpting:

"DUNKIRK, 19th JULY, 1744 [Princess Ulrique's Wedding, just two days ago]. King Louis, on hearing of the Job's-news from Elsass, instantly suspended his Conquests in Flanders; detached Noailles, detached this one and that, double-quick, Division after Division (leaving Saxe, with 45,000, to his own resources, and the fatuities of Marshal Wade); and, 19th July, himself hastens off from Dunkirk (leaving much of the luggage, but not the Chateauroux behind him), to save his Country, poor soul. But could not, in the least, save it; the reverse rather. August 4th, he got to Metz, Belleisle's strong town, about 100 miles from the actual scene; his detached reinforcements, say 50,000 men or so, hanging out ahead like flame- clouds, but uncertain how to act;--Noailles being always cunctatious in time of crisis, and poor Louis himself nothing of a Cloud-Compeller;--and then,

"METZ, AUGUST 8th, The Most Christian King fell ill; dangerously, dreadfully, just like to die. Which entirely paralyzed Noailles and Company, or reduced them to mere hysterics, and excitement of the unluminous kind. And filled France in general, Paris in particular, with terror, lamentation, prayers of forty hours; and such a paroxysm of hero-worship as was never seen for such an object before." [Espagnac, ii. 12; Adelung, iv. 180; Fastes de Louis XV., ii. 423; &c. &c.]

For the Cause of Liberty here, we consider, was the culminating moment; Elsass, Lorraine and the Three Bishoprics lying in their quasi-moribund condition; Austrian claims of Compensation ceasing