the
sole condition that the regiments of Cossacks should not pass the line of
enclosure. When the regular troops withdrew, the generals had not been
able to prevent the city from being pillaged. The heroic efforts of the
King of Prussia ended merely in preserving to him a foothold in Saxony.
The Russians occupied Poland.

Marshal Broglie, on becoming general-in-chief of the French army, had
succeeded in holding his own in Hesse; he frequently made Hanover
anxious. To turn his attention elsewhither and in hopes of deciding the
French to quit Germany, the hereditary Prince of Brunswick attempted a
diversion on the Lower Rhine; he laid siege to Wesel, whilst the English
were preparing for a descent at Antwerp. Marshal Broglie detached M. de
Castries to protect the city. The French corps had just arrived; it was
bivouacking. On the night between the 15th and 16th of October,
Chevalier d'Assas, captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was sent to
reconnoitre. He had advanced some distance from his men, and happened to
stumble upon a large force of the enemy. The Prince of Brunswick was
preparing to attack. All the muskets covered the young captain. "Stir,
and thou'rt a dead man," muttered threatening voices. Without replying,
M. d'Assas collected all his strength and shouted, "Auvergne! Here are
the foe!" At the same instant he fell pierced by twenty balls.
[Accounts differ; but this is the tradition of the Assas family.] The
action thus begun was a glorious one. The hereditary prince was obliged
to abandon the siege of Wesel and to recross the Rhine. The French
divisions maintained their positions.

[Illustration: Death of Chevalier D'Assas----233]

The war went on as bloodily as monotonously and fruitlessly, but the face
of Europe had lately altered. The old King George II., who died on the
25th of September, 1760, had been succeeded on the throne of England by
his grandson, George III., aged twenty-two, the first really native
sovereign who had been called to reign over England since the fall of the
Stuarts. George I. and George II. were Germans, in their feelings and
their manners as well as their language; the politic wisdom of the
English people had put up with them, but not without effort and
ill-humor; the accession of the young king was greeted with transport.
Pitt still reigned over Parliament and over England, governing a free
country sovereign-masterlike. His haughty prejudice against France sti