persons who, scarred with wounds, have by years and long service gained
a consummate experience, I shall hear them more willingly than ever as
my teachers, and try to learn from them how to arrive at honor, and
what is the shortest road into the secret of this Profession." ["Camp at
Heidelberg, 11th September, 1734" (_OEuvres,_ xvi. 131).]

This other, to Lieutenant Groben, three weeks earlier in date, shows
us a different aspect; which is at least equally authentic; and may
be worth taking with us. Groben is Lieutenant,--I suppose still of the
Regiment Goltz, though he is left there behind;--at any rate, he is much
a familiar with the Prince at Ruppin; was ringleader, it is thought,
in those midnight pranks upon parsons, and the other escapades there;
[Busching, v. 20.] a merry man, eight years older than the Prince,--with
whom it is clear enough he stands on a very free footing. Philipsburg
was lost a month ago; French are busy repairing it; and manoeuvring,
with no effect, to get into the interior of Germany a little. Weinheim
is a little Town on the north side of the Neckar, a dozen miles or so
from Mannheim;--out of which, and into which, the Prussian Corps goes
shifting from time to time, as Prince Eugene and the French manoeuvre to
no purpose in that Rhine-Neckar Country. "HERDEK TEREMTETEM" it appears,
is a bit of Hungarian swearing; should be ORDEK TEREMTETE; and means
"The Devil made you!"

[MAP GOES HERE------missing]

"WEINHEIM, 17th August, 1734.

"HERDEK TEREMTETE! 'Went with them, got hanged with them,'
[_"Mitgegangen mitgehangen:"_ Letter is in German.] said the Bielefeld
Innkeeper! So will it be with me, poor devil; for I go dawdling about
with this Army here; and the French will have the better of us. We want
to be over the Neckar again [to the South or Philipsburg side], and the
rogues won't let us. What most provokes me in the matter is, that
while we are here in such a wilderness of trouble, doing our utmost, by
military labors and endurances, to make ourselves heroic, thou sittest,
thou devil, at home!

"Duc de Bouillon has lost his equipage; our Hussars took it at Landau
[other side the Rhine, a while ago]. Here we stand in mud to the ears;
fifteen of the Regiment Alt-Baden have sunk altogether in the mud. Mud
comes of a water-spout, or sudden cataract of rain, there was in these
Heidelberg Countries; two villages, Fuhrenheim and Sandhausen, it swam
away, every stick of them (GANZ UND GAR