derstand it! Carteret, for this Hanau
business, had clangor enough to undergo, poor man, from Germans and from
English; which was wholly unjust. 'His trade,' say the English--(or used
to say, till they forgot their considerable Carteret altogether)--'was
that of rising in the world by feeding the mad German humors of little
George; a miserable trade.' Yes, my friends;--but it was not quite
Carteret's, if you will please to examine! And none say, Carteret did
not do his trade, whatever it was, with a certain greatness,--at least
till habits of drinking rather took him, Poor man: impatient, probably,
of such fortune long continued! For he was thrown out, next Session of
Parliament, by Noodle of Newcastle, on those strange terms; and never
could get in again, and is now forgotten; and there succeeded him still
more mournful phenomena,--said Noodle or the poor Pelhams, namely,--of
whom, as of strange minus quantities set to manage our affairs, there is
still some dreary remembrance in England. Well!"--

Carteret, though there had been no Duke of Newcastle to run athwart this
fine scheme, would have had his difficulties in making her Hungarian
Majesty comply. Her Majesty's great heart, incurably grieved about
Silesia, is bent on having, if not restoration one day, which is a hope
she never quits, at any rate some ample (cannot be too ample) equivalent
elsewhere. On the Hanau scheme, united Teutschland, with England for
soul to it, would have fallen vigorously on the throat of France, and
made France disgorge: Lorraine, Elsass, the Three Bishoprics,--not to
think of Burgundy, and earlier plunders from the Reich,--here would have
been "cut and come again" for her Hungarian Majesty and everybody!--But
Diana, in the shape of his Grace of Newcastle, intervenes; and all this
has become chimerical and worse.

It was while Carteret's courier was gone to England and not come
back, that King Louis made the above-mentioned mild, almost penitent,
Declaration to the Reich, "Good people, let us have Peace; and all be as
we were! I, for my share, wish to be out of it; I am for home!" And, in
effect, was already home; every Frenchman in arms being, by this time,
on his own side of the Rhine, as we shall presently observe.

For, the same day, July 26th, while that was going on at Frankfurt, and
Carteret's return-courier was due in five days, his Britannic Majesty at
Hanau had a splendid visit,--tending not towards Peace with France, but
qu