29th Oct.-4th Nov. 1762. Or no more of that second Despatch; Friedrich's Letter in Response is better worth giving:

"Löwenberg, 2d November 1762.

"My dear Brother, -The arrival of Kalkreuter" (so he persists in calling him), "and of your Letter, my dear Brother, has made me "twenty" (not to say forty) " years younger: yesterday I was sixty, "today hardly eighteen. I bless Heaven for preserving you in health "(bonne santé," so we term escape of lesion in fight); “and that things "have passed so happily! You took the good step of attacking those "who meant to attack you; and, by your good and solid measures (dispositions), you have overcome all the difficulties of a strong Post "and a vigorous resistance. It is a service so important rendered by 'you to the State, that I cannot enough express my gratitude, and "will wait to do it in person.

* *

"Kalkreuter will explain what motions I”— "If Fortune "favour our views on Dresden" (which it cannot in the least, at this late season), "we shall indubitably have Peace this Winter or next "Spring,—and get honourably out of a difficult and perilous conjunc"ture, where we have often seen ourselves within two steps of total "destruction. And, by this which you have now done, to you alone "will belong the honour of having given the final stroke to Austrian Obstinacy, and laid the foundations of the Public Happiness, which "will be the consequence of Peace.-F. "21

Two days after this, November 4th, Friedrich is in Meissen; November 9th, he comes across to Freyberg; has a pleasant day,—pleasant survey of the Battlefield, Henri and Seidlitz escorting as guides. Henri, in furtherance of the Dresden project, has Kleist out on the Bohemian Magazines,"That is the one way to clear Dresden neighbourhood of Enemies!" thinks Henri always. Kleist burns the considerable magazine of Saatz; finds the grand one of Leitmeritz too well guarded for him :-upon which, in such snowdrifts and sleety deluges, is not Dresden plainly impossible, your Majesty? Impossible, Friedrich admits,-the rather as he now sees Peace to be coming without that. Freyberg has at last broken the back of Austrian Obstinacy. "Go in upon the Reich," Friedrich now orders Kleist, the instant Kleist is home from his Bohemian inroad: "In upon the Reich, with 6,000, in your old style! That will dispose the Reichs Principalities to Peace."

Kleist marched November 3d; kept the Reich in paroxysm till December 13th ;-Plotho, meanwhile, proclaiming in the Reichs Diet: "Such Reichs Princes as wish for Peace with

a Schöning, iii. 495, 496.

3d Dec. 1762.

my King can have it; those that prefer War, they too can have it!" Kleist, dividing himself in the due artistic way, flew over the Voigtland, on to Bamberg, on to Nürnberg itself (which he took, by sounding rams'-horns, as it were, having no gun heavier than a carbine, and held for a week);2-fluttering the Reichs Diet not a little, and disposing everybody for Peace. The Austrians saw it with pleasure, "We solemnly engaged to save these poor people harmless, on their joining us ;—and, behold, it has become thrice and four times impossible. Let them fall off into Peace, like ripe pears, of themselves; we can then turn round and say, 'Save you harmless? Yes; if you hadn't

fallen off!"

November 24th, all Austrians make truce with Friedrich, Truce till March 1st;-all Austrians, and what is singular, with no mention of the Reich whatever. The Reich is defenceless, at the feet of Kleist and his 6,000. Stollberg is still in Prussian neighbourhood; and may be picked up any day! Stollberg hastens off to defend the Reich; finds the Reich quite empty of enemies before his arrival;—and at least saves his own skin. A month or two more, and Stollberg will lay-down his Command, and the last Reichs-Execution Army, playing Farce-Tragedy so long, make its exit from the Theatre of this World.

CHAPTER XIII.

PEACE OF HUBERTSBURG.

-a

THE Prussian troops took Winter-quarters in the MeissenFreyberg region, the old Saxon ground, familiar to them for the last three years: room enough this Winter,-'from Plauen and Zwickau, round by Langensalza again;' Truce with everybody, and nothing of disturbance till March 1st at soonest. The usual recruiting went on, or was preparing to go on,part of which took immediate effect, as we shall see. Recruiting, refitting, "Be ready for a new Campaign, in any case: the readier we are, the less our chance of having one!" Friedrich's headquarter is Leipzig; but till December 5th he does not get thither. "More business on me than ever!" complains he.

At Leipzig he had his Nephews, his D'Argens ;

22 Helden-Geschichte, vii. 186-194.

6th Dec. 1762.

for a week or two his Brother Henri; finally, his Berlin Ministers, especially Herzberg, when actual Peace came to be the matter in hand. Henri, before that, had gone home: "Peace being now the likelihood;-Home; and recruit one's poor health, at Berlin, among friends!"

Before getting to Leipzig, the King paid a flying Visit at Gotha ;-probably now the one fraction of these manifold Winter movements and employments, in which readers could take interest. Of this, as there happens to be some record left of it, here is what will suffice. From Meissen, Friedrich writes

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to his bright Grand-Duchess, always a bright, high and noble creature in his eyes: "Authorised by your approval" (has politely inquired beforehand), I shall have the infinite satis"faction of paying my duties on December 3d" (four days hence), "and of reiterating to you, Madam, my liveliest and "sincerest assurances of esteem and friendship." **Some ⚫ of my Commissariat people have been misbehaving? Strict inquiry shall be had,'1—and we soon find was. But the Visit is our first thing.

The Visit took place accordingly; Seidlitz, a man known in Gotha ever since his fine scenic-military procedures there in 1757, accompanied the King. Of the lucent individualities invited to meet him, all are now lost to me, except one Putter, a really learned Göttingen Professor (deep in Reichs-History and the like), whom the Duchess has summoned over. By the dim lucency of Putter, faint to most of us as a rushlight in the act of going out, the available part of our imagination must try to figure, in a kind of Obliterated-Rembrandt way, this glorious Evening; for there was but one,—December 3d4th,—Friedrich having to leave early on the 4th. Here is Putter's record, given in the third person:

During dinner, Putter, honourably present among the spectators of this high business, was beckoned by the Duchess to step near the King' (right hand or left, Putter does not say); but the King graciously turned round, and conversed ' with Putter.' The King said:

King. "In German History much is still buried; many important "Documents lie hidden in Monasteries." Putter answered 'schicklich --fitly;' that is all we know of Putter's answer.

To the Grand-Duchess, 'Meissen, 29th November' (Euvres de Frédéric, xviii

6th Dec. 1762.

King (thereupon). "Of Books on Reichs-History I know only the

"Père Barri."2

Putter. "Foreigners have for most part known only, in re"gard to our History, a Latin work written by Struve at Jena. "3 King. "Struv, Struvius; him I don't know."

Putter. "It is a pity Barri had not known German."

King. "Barri was a Lorrainer; Barri must have known German!" ―Then turning to the Duchess, on this hint about the German Language, he told her, 'in a ringing merry tone, How, at Leipzig once, he had talked with Gottsched' (talk known to us) 'on that subject, ' and had said to him, That the French had many advantages; among ' others, that a word could often be used in a complex signification, for ' which you had in German to scrape together several different expres'sions. Upon which Gottsched had said, "We will have that mended ' (Das wollen wir noch machen) !" These words the King repeated twice or thrice, with such a tone that you could well see how the man's ' conceit had struck him ;'—and in short, as we know already, what a gigantic entity, consisting of wind mainly, he took this elevated Gottsched to be.

Upon which, Putter retires into the honorary ranks again; silent, at least to us, and invisible; as the rest of this Royal Evening at Gotha is. Here, however, is the Letter following on it two days after :

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Friedrich to the Duchess of Sachsen-Gotha.

"Leipzig, 6th December 1762. "Madam,-I should never have done, my adorable Duchess, if I "rendered you account of all the impressions which the friendship you "lavished on me has made on my heart. I could wish to answer it by entering into everything that can be agreeable to you" (conduct of my Recruiters or Commissariat people first of all). "I take the liberty of forwarding the Answers which have come in to the Two "Mémoires you sent me. I am mortified, Madam, if I have not been " able to fulfil completely your desires: but if you knew the situation "I am in, I flatter myself you would have some consideration for it.

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"I have found myself here" (in Leipzig, as elsewhere) over"whelmed with business, and even to a degree I had not expected. Meanwhile, if I ever can manage again to run over and pay you in person the homage of a heart which is more attached to you than that "of your near relations, assuredly I will not neglect the first oppor"tunity that shall present itself.

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2 Barri de Beaumarchais, 10 voll. 4to, Paris, 1748: I believe, an extremely feeble Pillar of Will-o'-Wisps by Night-as I can expressly testify Pfeffel to be (Pfeffel, Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne, 2 voll. 4to. Paris, 1776), who has succeeded Barri as Patent Guide through that vast Sylva Sylvarum and its pathless intricacies, for the inquiring French and English.

3 Burkhard Gotthelf Struve, Syntagma Historia Germanica (1730, 2 voll. folio).

4Putter's Selbstbiographie (Autobiography), p. 406 :' cited in Preuss, ii. 277 n.

24th Nov. 1762.

"Messieurs the English" (Bute, Bedford and Company, with their Preliminaries signed, and all my Westphalian Provinces left in a condition we shall hear of) "continue to betray. Poor M. Mitchell has "had a stroke of apoplexy on hearing it. It is a hideous thing (chose "affreuse); but I will speak of it no more. May you, Madam, enjoy all "the prosperities that I wish for you, and not forget a Friend, who "will be till his death, with sentiments of the highest esteem and the "most perfect consideration,-Madam, your Highness's most faithful "Cousin and Servant,-FRIEDRICH.""

For a fortnight past, Friedrich has had no doubt that general Peace is now actually at hand. November 25th, ten days before this visit, a Saxon Privy-Councillor, Baron von Fritsch, who, by Order from his Court, had privately been at Vienna on the errand, came privately next, with all speed, to Friedrich (Meissen, November 25th):6 "Austria willing for Treaty; is your Majesty willing?” Thrice-willing, I; my terms well known!" Friedrich would answer,—gladdest of mankind to see general Pacification coming to this vexed Earth again. The Dance of the Furies, waltzing itself off, home out of this upper sunlight: the mad Bellona steeds plunging down, down, towards their Abysses again, for a season !—

This was a result which Friedrich had foreseen as nearly certain ever since the French and English signed their Preliminaries. And there was only one thing which gave him anxiety; that of his Rhine Provinces and Strong Places, especially Wesel, which have been in French hands for six years past, ever since Spring 1757. Bute stipulates That those places and countries shall be evacuated by his Choiseul, as soon as weather and possibility permit; but Bute, astonishing to say, has not made the least stipulation as to whom they are to be delivered to, allies or enemies, it is all one to Bute. Truly rather a shameful omission, Pitt might indignantly think,and call the whole business steadily, as he persisted to do, "a shameful Peace," had there been no other article in it but this; —as Friedrich, with at least equal emphasis, thought and felt. And, in fact, it had thrown him into very great embarrassment, on the first emergence of it.

For her Imperial Majesty began straightway to draw troops into those neighbourhoods: "We will take delivery, our Allies playing into our hand!" And Friedrich, who had no disposable troops, had to devise some rapid expedient; and did. 5 Euvres de Frédéric, xviii. 201. 6 Rödenbeck, ii. 193.