in this brief
summary. Fierce fighting, fiery irresistible onslaught; but it went too
far, lost all its captured cannon again; and returned only with laurels
and a heavy account of killed and wounded,--the leader of it being
himself carried home in a very bleeding state. 'Oh, the incomparable
troops!' cried Paris;--cried Voltaire withal (as I gather), and in very
high company, in that Visit at Aachen. A sally glorious, but useless.

"The Imperial Generals were just sitting down to dinner, when it broke
out; had intended a Council of War, over their wine, in the Grand-Duke's
tent: 'What, won't they let us have our dinner!' cried Prince Karl, in
petulant humor, struggling to be mirthful. He rather likes his dinner,
this Prince Karl, I am told, and does not object to his wine: otherwise
a hearty, talky, free-and-easy Prince,--'black shallow-set eyes, face
red, and much marked with small-pox.' Clapping on his hat, faculties
sharpened by hunger and impatience, let him do his best, for several
hours to come, till the sally abate and go its ways again. Leaving
its cannon, and trophies. No sally could hope to rout 60,000 men; this
furious sally, almost equal to Sahay, had to return home again, on the
above terms. Upon which Prince Karl and the others got some snatch of
dinner; and the inexorable pressure of Siege, tightening itself closer
and closer, went on as before.

"The eyes of all Europe are turned towards Prag; a big crisis clearly
preparing itself there.... France, or aid in France, is some 500 miles
away. In D'Harcourt, merely gathering magazines, with his Khevenhuller
near, is no help; help, not the question there! The garrison of Eger,
100 miles to west of us, across the Mountains, barely mans its own
works. Other strong post, or support of any kind in these countries,
we have now none. We are 24,000; and of available resource have the
Magazines in Prag, and our own right hands.

"The flower of the young Nobility had marched in that Oriflamme;--now
standing at bay, they and it, in Prag yonder: French honor itself seems
shut up there! The thought of it agitates bitterly the days and nights
of old Fleury, who is towards ninety now, and always disliked war. The
French public too,--we can fancy what a public! The young Nobility
in Prag has its spokes-men, and spokes-women, at Versailles, whose
complaint waxes louder, shriller; the whole world, excited by rumor of
those furious sallies, is getting shrill and loud. What