ntricate mountains; bog and rock; snow and VERGLAS.--On the 26th, after
indescribable endeavors, we got into Eger;--some 1,300 (about one in
ten) left frozen in the wilderness; and half the Army falling ill at
Eger, of swollen limbs, sore-throats, and other fataler diseases, fatal
then, or soon after. Chevert, at Prag, refused summons from Prince
Lobkowitz: 'No, MON PRINCE; not by any means! We will die, every man
of us, first; and we will burn Prag withal!'--So that Lobkowitz had to
consent to everything; and escort Chevert to Eger, with bag and baggage,
Lobkowitz furnishing the wagons.

"Comparable to the Retreat of Xenophon! cry many. Every Retreat is
compared to that. A valiant feat, after all exaggerations. A thing well
done, say military men;--'nothing to object, except that the troops were
so ruined;'--and the most unmilitary may see, it is the work of a high
and gallant kind of man. One of the coldest expeditions ever known.
There have been three expeditions or retreats of this kind which were
very cold: that of those Swedes in the Great Elector's time (not to
mention that of Karl XII.'s Army out of Norway, after poor Karl XII.
got shot); that of Napoleon from Moscow; this of Belleisle, which is the
only one brilliantly conducted, and not ending in rout and annihilation.

"The troops rest in Eger for a week or two; then homeward through the
Ober-Pfalz:--'go all across the Rhine at Speyer' (5th February next);
the Bohemian Section of the Oriflamme making exit in this manner. Not
quite the eighth man of them left; five-eighths are dead: and there are
about 12,000 prisoners, gone to Hungary,--who ran mostly to the Turks,
such treatment had they, and were not heard of again." [_Guerre de
Boheme,_ ii. 221 (for this last fact). IB. 204, and Espagnac, i. 176
(for particulars of the Retreat); and still better, Belleisle's own
Despatch and Private Letter (Eger, 2d January and 5th January, 1743), in
_Campagnes,_ vii. 1-21.]--Ah, Belleisle, Belleisle!

The Army of the Oriflamme gets home in this sad manner; Germany not
cut in Four at all. "Implacable Austrian badgers," as we call them,
"gloomily indignant bears," how have they served this fine French
hunting-pack; and from hunted are become hunters, very dangerous to
contemplate! At Frankfurt, Belleisle, for his own part, pauses; cannot,
in this entirely down-broken state of body, serve his Majesty farther in
the military business; will do some needful diplomatics with th