ministers; subalterns
lavish of their blood on the battle-field and crawling at court before
the distributors of favors--such are the instruments we employed. The
small number of those who had not approved of the treaty of Versailles
declared loudly against it; after the campaign of 1757, those who had
regarded it as a masterpiece of policy, forgot or disavowed their
eulogies, and the bulk of the public, who cannot be decided by anything
but the event, looked upon it as the source of all our woes." The
counsels of Abbe de Bernis had for some time past been pacific; from a
court-abbe, elegant and glib, he had become, on the 25th of June,
minister of foreign affairs. But Madame de Pompadour remained faithful
to the empress. In the month of January, 1758, Count Clermont was
appointed general-in-chief of the army of Germany. In disregard of the
convention of Closter-Severn, the Hanoverian troops had just taken the
field again under the orders of the Grand-Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick; he
had already recovered possession of the districts of Luneberg, Zell, a
part of Brunswick and of Bremen. In England, Mr. Pitt, afterwards Lord
Chatham, had again come into office; the King of Prussia could henceforth
rely upon the firmest support from Great Britain.

He had need of it. A fresh invasion of Russians, aided by the savage
hordes of the Zaporoguian Cossacks, was devastating Prussia; the
sanguinary battle of Zorndorf, forcing them to fall back on Poland,
permitted Frederick to hurry into Saxony, which was attacked by the
Austrians. General Daun surprised and defeated him at Hochkirch; in
spite of his inflexible resolution, the King of Prussia was obliged to
abandon Saxony. His ally and rival, Ferdinand of Brunswick, had just
beaten Count Clermont at Crevelt.

The new commander-in-chief of the king's armies, prince of the blood,
brother of the late Monsieur le Duc, abbot commendatory of St. Germain-
des-Pres, "general of the Benedictines,", as the soldiers said, had
brought into Germany, together with the favor of Madame de Pompadour,
upright intentions, a sincere desire to restore discipline, and some
great illusions about himself. "I am very impatient, I do assure you,
to be on the other side of the Rhine," wrote Count Clermont to Marshal
Belle-Isle; "all the country about here is infested by runaway soldiers,
convalescents, camp-followers, all sorts of understrappers, who commit
fearful crimes. Not a single officer do