nz, instantly went into Conti
(now again in those Frankfurt parts); clutched at Conti, Briareus-like,
in a multiform alarming manner: so that Conti lost head; took to mere
retreating, rushing about, burning bridges;--and in fine, July 19th, had
flung himself bodily across the Rhine (clouds of Tolpatches sticking to
him), and left old Traun and his Grand-Duke supreme lord in those parts.
Who did NOT invade Elsass, as was now expected; but lay at Heidelberg,
intending to play pacifically a surer card. All French are out of
Teutschland again; and the game given up. In what a premature and
shameful manner! thinks Friedrich.

"Nominally it was the Grand-Duke that flung Conti over the Rhine; and
delivered Teutschland from its plagues. After which fine feat, salvatory
to the Cause of Liberty, and destructive to French influence, what is
to prevent his election to the Kaisership? Friedrich complains aloud:
'Conti has given it up; you drafted 15,000 from him (for imaginary uses
in the Netherlands),--you have given it up, then! Was that our bargain?'
'We have given it up,' answers D'Argenson the War-minister, writing to
Valori; 'but,'--And supplies, instead of performance according to the
laws of fact, eloquent logic; very superfluous to Friedrich and the said
laws!--Valori, and the French Minister at Dresden, had again been trying
to stir up the Polish Majesty to stand for Kaiser; but of course that
enterprise, eager as the Polish Majesty might be for such a dignity, had
now to collapse, and become totally hopeless. A new offer of
Friedrich's to co-operate had been refused by Bruhl, with a brevity, a
decisiveness--'Thinks me finished (AUX ABOIS),' says Friedrich; 'and not
worth giving terms to, on surrendering!' The foolish little creature;
insolent in the wrong quarter!" [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 128.]

'The German Burden, then,--which surely was mutual, at lowest, and
lately was French altogether,--the French have thrown it off; the French
have dropped their end of the BEARING-POLES (so to speak), and left
Friedrich by himself, to stand or stagger, under the beweltered broken
harness-gear and intolerable weight! That is one's payment for cutting
the rope from their neck last year!--Long since, while the present
Campaign was being prepared for, under such financial pressures,
Friedrich had bethought him, "The French might, at least give me money,
if they can nothing else?"--and he had one day penned a Letter with that
obje