Italian War; but hope always the reader keeps it in
mind. Big war-clouds waltzing hither and thither, occasionally
clashing into bloody conflict; Sardinian Majesty and Infant Philip both
personally in the field, fierce men both: Traun, Browne, Lobkowitz,
Lichtenstein, Austrians of mark, successively distinguishing themselves;
Spain, too, and France very diligent;--Conti off thither, then in their
turns Maillebois, Noailles:--high military figures, but remote; shadowy,
thundering INaudibly on this side and that; whom we must not mention
farther.

"The notable figure to us," says one of my Notes, "is Charles Emanuel,
second King of Sardinia; who is at the old trade of his Family, and
shifts from side to side, making the war-balance vibrate at a great
rate, now this scale now that kicking the beam. For he holds the door of
the Alps, Bully Bourbon on one side of it, Bully Hapsburg on the other;
and inquires sharply, "You, what will you give me? And you?" To Maria
Theresa's affairs he has been superlatively useful, for these Two Years
past; and truly she is not too punctual in the returns covenanted for.
It appears to Charles Emanuel that the Queen of Hungary, elated in her
high thought, under-rates his services, of late; that she practically
means to give him very little of those promised slices from the Lombard
parts; and that, in the mean while, much too big a share of the War has
fallen upon his poor hands, who should be doorholder only.

"Accordingly he grumbles, threatens: he has been listening to France,
'Bourbon, how much will you give me, then?' and the answer is such
that he informs the Queen of Hungary and the Britannic Majesty, of
his intention to close with Bourbon, since they on their side will
do nothing considerable. George and his Carteret, not to mention the
Hungarian Majesty at all, are thunder-struck at such a prospect; bend
all their energies towards this essential point of retaining Charles
Emanuel, which is more urgent even than getting Elsass. 'Madam,' they
say to her Majesty, (we cannot save Italy for you on other terms:
Vigevanesco, Finale [which is Genoa's], part of Piacenza [when once
got]: there must be some slice of the Lombard parts to this Charles
Emanuel justly angry!) Whereat the high Queen storms, and in her
high manner scolds little George, as if he were the blamable
party,--pretending friendship, and yet abetting mere highway robbery
or little better. And his cash paid Madam, and his Det