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 to be visions of the heated brain, and gaining some footing on the Earth as facts. Prince Karl is here actually in Elsass, master of the strong passes; elate in heart, he and his; France, again, as if fallen paralytic, into temporary distraction; offering for resistance nothing hitherto but that universal wailing of mankind, Hero-worship of a thrice-lamentable nature, and the Prayers of Forty-Hours! Most Christian Majesty, now IN EXTREMIS, centre of the basest hubbub that ever was, is dismissing Chateauroux. Noailles, Coigny and Company hang well back upon the Hill regions, and strong posts which are not yet menaced; or fly vaguely, more or less distractedly, hither and thither; not in the least like fighting Karl, much less like beating him. Karl has Germany free at his back (nay it is a German population round him here); neither haversack nor cartridge-box like to fail: before him are only a Noailles and consorts, flying vaguely about;—and there is in Karl, or under the same cloak with him at present, a talent of manoeuvring men, which even Friedrich finds masterly. If old Marshal Wade, at the other end of the line, should chance to awaken and press home on Saxe, and his remnant of French, with right vigor? In fact, there was not, that I can see, for centuries past, not even at the Siege of Lille in Marlborough's time, a more imminent peril for France.

FRIEDRICH DECIDES TO INTERVENE.

King Friedrich, on hearing of these Rhenish emergencies and of King Louis's heroic advance to the rescue, perceived that for himself too the moment was come; and hastened to inform heroic Louis, That though the terms of their Bargain were not yet completed, Sweden, Russia and other points being 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