the shadow of
himself," had no more effect this year than last: nor, though Lacy and
Ten Thousand Russians came as allies, Poland being all settled now,
could the least good be done. Reich's Feldmarschall Karl Alexander
of Wurtemberg did "burn a Magazine" (probably of hay among better
provender) by his bomb-shells, on one occasion. Also the Prussian
Ten Thousand--Old Dessauer leading them, General Roder having fallen
ill--burnt something: an Islet in the Rhine, if I recollect, "Islet of
Larch near Bingen," where the French had a post; which and whom the
Old Dessauer burnt away. And then Seckendorf, at the head of thirty
thousand, he, after long delays, marched to Trarbach in the interior
Moselle Country; and got into some explosive sputter of battle with
Belleisle, one afternoon,--some say, rather beating Belleisle; but
a good judge says, it was a mutual flurry and terror they threw one
another into. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ i. 168.] Seckendorf meant to
try again on the morrow: but there came an estafette that night:
"Preliminaries signed (Vienna, 3d October, 1735);--try no farther!"
["Cessation is to be, 5th November for Germany, 15th for Italy;
Preliminaries" were, Vienna, "3d October," 1735 (Scholl, ii. 945).] And
this was the second Rhine-Campaign, and the end of the Kaiser's French
War. The Sea-Powers, steadily refusing money, diligently run about,
offering terms of arbitration; and the Kaiser, beaten at every point,
and reduced to his last groschen, is obliged to comply. He will have a
pretty bill to pay for his Polish-Election frolic, were the settlement
done! Fleury is pacific, full of bland candor to the Sea-Powers; the
Kaiser, after long higgling upon articles, will have to accept the bill.

The Crown-Prince, meanwhile, has a successful journey into Preussen;
sees new interesting scenes, Salzburg Emigrants, exiled Polish
Majesties; inspects the soldiering, the schooling, the tax-gathering,
the domain-farming, with a perspicacity, a dexterity and completeness
that much pleases Papa. Fractions of the Reports sent home exist for us:
let the reader take a glance of one only; the first of the series; dated
MARIENWERDER (just across the Weichsel, fairly out of Polish Preussen
and into our own), 27th September, 1735, and addressed to the "Most
All-gracious King and Father;"--abridged for the reader's behoof:--

... "In Polish Preussen, lately the Seat of War, things look hideously
waste; one sees nothing but women an