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 reinstated matters. Nay reinstated even Chateauroux, some time after,—"the Devil being well again," and, as the Proverb says, quitting his monastic view. Reinstated Chateauroux: but this time, poor creature, she continued only about a day:—"Sudden fever, from excitement," said the Doctors: "Fever? Poison, you mean!" whispered others, and looked for changes in the Ministry. Enough, oh, enough!—

Old Marshal Wade did not awaken, though bawled to by his Ligoniers and others, and much shaken about, poor old gentleman. "No artillery to speak of," murmured he; "want baggage-wagons, too!" and lay still. "Here is artillery!" answered the Official people; "With my own money I will buy you baggage-wagons!" answered the high Maria Anna, in her own name and her Prince Karl's, who are Joint-Governors there. Possibly he would have awakened, had they given him time. But time, in War especially, is the thing that is never given. Once Friedrich HAD struck in, the moment was gone by. Poor old Wade! Of him also enough.

Chapter II.—FRIEDRICH MARCHES UPON PRAG, CAPTURES PRAG.

It was on Saturday, "early in the morning," 15th August, 1744, that Friedrich set out, attended by his two eldest Brothers, Prince of Prussia and Prince Henri, from Potsdam, towards this new Adventure, which proved so famous since. Sudden, swift, to the world's astonishment;—actually on march here, in three Columns (two through Saxony by various routes southeastward, one from Silesia through Glatz southwestward), to invade Bohemia: rumor says 100,000 strong, fact itself says upwards of 80,000, on their various routes, converging towards Prag. [—Helden-Geschichte,—ii. 1165. Orlich (ii. 25, 27) enumerates the various regiments.] His Columns, especially his Saxon Columns, are already on the road; he joins one Column, this night, at Wittenberg; and is bent, through Saxony, towards the frontiers of Bohemia, at the utmost military speed he has.

Through Saxony about 60,000 go: he has got the Kaiser's Order to the Government of Saxony, "Our august Ally, requiring on our Imperial business a transit through you;"—and Winterfeld, an excellent soldier and negotiator, has gone forward to present said Order. A Document which flurries the Dresden Officials beyond measure. Their King is in Warsaw; their King, if here, could do little; and indeed has been inclining to Maria Theresa this long while. And Winterfeld insists on such despatch;—and not even the Duke of Weissenfels is in Town, Dresden Officials "send off five couriers and thirteen estafettes" to the poor old Duke; [Helden-Geschichte, ii. 1163.] get him at last; and—The march is already taking effect; they may as well consent to it: what can they do but consent! In the uttermost flurry, they had set to fortifying Dresden; all hands driving palisades, picking, delving, making COUPURES (trenches, or sunk barricades) in the streets;—fatally aware that it can avail nothing. Is not this the Kaiser's Order? Prussians, to the amount of 60,000, are across our Frontiers, rapidly speeding on.

"Friedrich's Manifesto—under the modest Title, 'ANZEIGE DER URSACHEN (Advertisement of the Causes which have induced his Prussian Majesty to send the Romish Kaiser's Majesty some Auxiliary Troops)'—had appeared in the Berlin Newspapers Thursday, 13th, only two days before. An astonishment to all mankind; which gave rise to endless misconceptions of Friedrich: but which, supporting itself on proofs, on punctually excerpted foot-notes, is intrinsically a modest, quiet Piece; and, what is singular in Manifestoes, has nothing, or almost nothing, in it that is not, so far as it goes, a perfect statement of the fact. 'Auxiliary troops, that is our essential character. No war with her Hungarian Majesty, or with any other, on our own score. But her Hungarian Majesty, how has she treated the Romish Kaiser, her and our and the Reich's Sovereign Head, and to what pass reduced him; refusing him Peace on any terms, except those of self-annihilation; denying that he is a Kaiser at all;'—and enumerates the various Imperial injuries, with proof given, quiet footnotes by way of proof; and concludes in these words: 'For himself his Majesty requires nothing. The question here is not of his Majesty's own interest at all [everything his Majesty required, or requires, is by the Treaty of Berlin solemnly his, if the Reich and its Laws endure]: and he has taken up arms simply and solely in the view of restoring to the Reich its freedom, to the Kaiser his Headship of the Reich, and to all Europe the Peace which is so desirable.' [Given in Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 121-136, with date "August, 1744."]

"'Pretences, subterfuges, lies!' exclaimed the Austrian and Allied Public everywhere, or strove to exclaim; especially the English Public, which had no difficulty in so doing;—a Public comfortably blank as to German facts or non-facts; and finding with amazement only this a very certain fact, That hereby is their own Pragmatic thunder checked in mid-volley in a most surprising manner, and the triumphant Cause of Liberty brought to jeopardy again. 'Perfidious, ambitious, capricious!' exclaimed they: 'a Prince without honor, without truth, without constancy;'—and completed, for themselves, in hot rabid humor, that English Theory of Friedrich which has prevailed ever since. Perhaps the most surprising item of which is this latter, very prominent in those old times, That Friedrich has no 'constancy,' but follows his 'caprices,' and accidental whirls of impulse:—item which has dropped away in our times, though the others stand as stable as ever. A monument of several things! Friedrich's suddenness is an essential part of what fighting talent he has: if the Public, thrown into flurry, cannot judge it well, they must even misjudge it: what help is there?

"That the above were actually Friedrich's reasons for venturing into this Big Game again, is not now disputable. And as to the rumor, which rose afterwards (and was denied, and could only be denied diplomatically to the ear, if even to the ear), That Friedrich by Secret Article was 'to have for himself the Three Bohemian Circles, Konigsgratz, Bunzlau, Leitmeritz, which lie between Schlesien and Sachsen,' [Helden-Geschichte, i. 1081; Scholl, ii. 349.]—there is not a doubt but Friedrich had so bargained, 'Very well, if we can get said Circles!' and would right cheerfully have kept and held them, had the big game gone in all points completely well (game, to reinstate the Kaiser BOTH in Bohemia and Bavaria) by Friedrich's fine playing. Not a doubt of all this:—nor of what an extremely hypothetic outlook it then and always was; greatly too weak for enticing such a man."

Friedrich goes in Three Columns. One, on the south or left shore of the Elbe, coming in various branches under Friedrich himself; this alone will touch on Dresden, pass on the south side of Dresden; gather itself about Pirna (in the Saxon Switzerland so called, a notable locality); thence over the Metal Mountains into Bohmen, by Toplitz, by Lowositz, Leitmeritz, and the Highway called the Pascopol, famous in War. The Second Column, under Leopold the Young Dessauer, goes on the other or north side of the Elbe, at a fair distance; marching through the Lausitz (rendezvous or starting-point was Bautzen in the Lausitz) straight south, to meet the King at Leitmeritz, where the grand Magazine is to be; and thence, still south, straight upon Prag, in conjunction with his Majesty or parallel to him. [Helden-Geschichte, i. 1081.] These are the Two Saxon Columns. The Third Column, under Schwerin, collects itself in the interior of Silesia; is issuing, by Glatz Country, through the Giant Mountains, BOHMISCHE KAMME (Bohemian COMBS as they are called, which Tourists know), by