arschall Flemming) doubtless there might be, who presented him a
flute; but as to HIS FIRST flute--? "That same charming young Countess
Flemming is still here, age now thirty-one; charming, more than ever,
though now under a changed name; having wedded a Von Racknitz (Supreme
Gentleman-Usher, or some such thing) a few years ago, and brought him
children and the usual felicities. How much is changed! August the
Strong, where is he; and his famous Three Hundred and Fifty-four,
Enchantress Orzelska and the others, where are they? Enchantress
Orzelska wedded, quarrelled, and is in a convent: her charming destiny
concluded. Rutowski is not now in the Prussian Army: he got beaten,
Wednesday last, at Kesselsdorf, fighting against that Army. And the
Chevalier de Saxe, he too was beaten there;--clambering now across the
Metal Mountains, ask not of him. And the Marechal de Saxe, he takes
Cities, fights Battles of Fontenoy, 'mumbling a lead bullet all day;'
being dropsical, nearly dead of debaucheries; the most dissolute (or
probably so) of all the Sons of Adam in his day. August the Physically
Strong is dead. August the Spiritually Weak is fled to Prag with his
Bruhl. And we do not come, this time, to get a flute; but to settle
the account of Victories, and give Peace to Nations. Strange, here as
always, to look back,--to look round or forward,--in the mad huge whirl
of that loud-roaring Loom of Time!--One of Countess Racknitz's
Sons happened to leave MANUSCRIPT DIARIES [rather feeble, not too
exact-looking], and gives us, from Mamma's reminiscences"... Not a word
more. [Rodenbeck, _Beitrage,_ i. 440, et seq.]

The Peace, we said, was signed on Christmas-day. Next day, Sunday,
Friedrich attended Sermon in the Kreuzkirche (Protestant High-Church of
Dresden), attended Opera withal; and on Monday morning had vanished
out of Dresden, as all his people had done, or were diligently doing.
Tuesday, he dined briefly at Wusterhausen (a place we once knew well),
with the Prince of Prussia, whose it now is; got into his open carriage
again, with the said Prince and his other Brother Ferdinand; and drove
swiftly homeward. Berlin, drunk with joy, was all out on the streets,
waiting. On the Heath of Britz, four or five miles hitherward of Berlin,
a body of young gentlemen ("Merchants mostly, who had ridden out so
far") saluted him with "VIVAT FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE (Long live Friedrich
THE GREAT)!" thrice over;--as did, in a less articulate manne