tion. To a degree truly
wonderful.

It was moonlight, clear as day that night, 23d August, when Prince Karl
had to recross the Rhine, close in their neighborhood; [_Guerre de
Boheme,_ iii. 196.]--and instead of harassing Prince Karl "to half or to
whole ruin," as the bargain was, their distinguished conduct consisted
in going quietly to their beds (old Marechal de Noailles even calling
back some of his too forward subalterns), and joyfully leaving Prince
Karl, then and afterwards, to cross the Rhine, and march for Bohmen, at
his own perfect convenience.

"Seckendorf will sit on Karl's skirts," they said: "too late for US,
this season; next season, you shall see!" Such was their theory,
after Louis got that cathartic, and rose from bed. Schmettau, with his
importunities, which at last irritated everybody, could make nothing
more of it. "Let the King of France crown his glories by the Siege of
Freyburg, the conquest of Brisgau:--for behoof of the poor Kaiser, don't
you observe? Hither Austria is the Kaiser's;--and furthermore, were
Freyburg gone, there will be no invading of Elsass again" (which is
another privately very interesting point)!

And there, at Freyburg, the Most Christian King now is, and his Army up
to the knees in mud, conquering Hither Austria; besieging Freyburg, with
much difficulty owing to the wet,--besieging there with what energy;
a spectacle to the world! And has, for the present, but one wife, no
mistress either! With rapturous eyes France looks on; with admiration
too big for words. Voltaire, I have heard, made pilgrimage to Freyburg,
with rhymed Panegyric in his pocket; saw those miraculous operations
of a Most Christian King miraculously awakened; and had the honor to
present said Panegyric; and be seen, for the first time, by the royal
eyes,--which did not seem to relish him much. [The Panegyric (EPITRE AU
ROI DEVANT FRIBOURG) is in _OEuvres de Voltaire,_ xvii. 184.] Since the
first days of October, Freyburg had been under constant assault; "amid
rains, amid frosts; a siege long and murderous" (to the besieging
party);--and was not got till November 5th; not quite entirely, the
Citadels of it, till November 25th; Majesty gone home to Paris, to
illuminations and triumphal arches, in the interim. [Adelung, iv. 266;
Barbier, ii. 414 (13th November, &c.), for the illuminations, grand in
the extreme, in spite of wild rains and winds.] It had been a difficult
and bloody conquest to him, this of Fre