ings, retreatings,
facing, and then right-about facings,--painful manoeuvrings, on both
sides of the Rhine and of the Neckar,--without result farther to the
French, without memorability to either side. About the middle of August,
Friedrich Wilhelm went away;--health much hurt by his month under
canvas, amid Rhine inundations, and mere distressing phenomena.
Crown-Prince Friedrich and a select party escorted his Majesty to Mainz,
where was a Dinner of unusual sublimity by the Kurfurst there; [15th
August (Fassmann, p. 511.)]--Dinner done, his Majesty stept on board
"the Electoral Yacht;" and in this fine hospitable vehicle went
sweeping through the Binger Loch, rapidly down towards Wesel; and the
Crown-Prince and party returned to their Camp, which is upon the Neckar
at this time.

Camp shifts about, and Crown-Prince in it: to Heidelberg, to Waiblingen,
Weinheim; close to Mainz at one time: but it is not worth following: nor
in Friedrich's own Letters, or in other documents, is there, on the
best examination, anything considerable to be gleaned respecting his
procedures there. He hears of the ill-success in Italy, Battle of Parma
at the due date, with the natural feelings; speaks with a sorrowful
gayety, of the muddy fatigues, futilities here on the Rhine;--has the
sense, however, not to blame his superiors unreasonably. Here, from
one of his Letters to Colonel Camas, is a passage worth quoting for the
credit of the writer. With Camas, a distinguished Prussian Frenchman,
whom we mentioned elsewhere, still more with Madame Camas in time
coming, he corresponded much, often in a fine filial manner:--

"The present Campaign is a school, where profit may be reaped from
observing the confusion and disorder which reigns in this Army: it has
been a field very barren in laurels; and those who have been used, all
their life, to gather such, and on Seventeen distinguished occasions
have done so, can get none this time." Next year, we all hope to be on
the Moselle, and to find that a fruitfuler field... "I am afraid, dear
Camas, you think I am going to put on the cothurnus; to set up for a
small Eugene, and, pronouncing with a doctoral tone what each should
have done and not have done, condemn and blame to right and left. No, my
dear Camas; far from carrying my arrogance to that point, I admire
the conduct of our Chief, and do not disapprove that of his worthy
Adversary; and far from forgetting the esteem and consideration due to