fortune be equal to your virtues! I am with the
highest consideration, Madam, your Highness's faithful Cousin,--F."
[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvii. 166.]

To Wilhelmina he says of it, next day, still gratified, though sad news
have come in the interim;--death of Winterfeld, for one black item:--

... "The day before yesterday I was in Gotha. It was a touching scene
to see the partners of one's misfortunes, with like griefs and like
complaints. The Duchess is a woman of real merit, whose firmness puts
many a man to shame. Madam de Buchwald appears to me a very estimable
person, and one who would suit you much: intelligent, accomplished,
without pretensions, and good-humored. My Brother Henri is gone to see
them to-day. I am so oppressed with grief, that I would rather keep my
sadness to myself. I have reason to congratulate myself much on account
of my Brother Henri; he has behaved like an angel, as a soldier, and
well towards me as a Brother. I cannot, unfortunately, say the same
of the elder. He sulks at me (IL ME BODE), and has sulkily retired to
Torgau, from whence, I hear, he is gone to Wittenberg. I shall leave him
to his caprices and to his bad conduct; and I prophesy nothing good for
the future, unless the younger guide him." ["Kirschleben, near Erfurt,
17th September, 1757" (_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvii. i. 306).]...

This is part of a long sad Letter to Wilhelmina; parts of which we may
recur to, as otherwise illustrative. But before going into that tragic
budget of bad news, let us give the finale of Gotha, which occurred the
next day,--tragi-comic in part,--and is the last bit of action in those
dreary four weeks.

GOTHA, 18th SEPTEMBER. "Since Thursday 15th, Major-General Seidlitz,"
youngest Major-General of the Army, but a rapidly rising man, "has
been Commandant in Gotha, under flourishing circumstances; popular and
supreme, though only with a force of 1,500, dragoons and hussars.
Monday morning early, Seidlitz's scouts bring word that the
Soubise-Hildburghausen people are in motion hitherward; French
hussars and Austrian, Turpin's, Loudon's, all that are; grenadiers
in mass;--total, say, 8,000 horse and foot, with abundance of
artillery;--have been on march all night, to retake Gotha; with all the
Chief Generals and Dignitaries of the Army following in their carriages,
for some hours past, to see it done. Seidlitz, ascertaining these
things, has but one course left,--that of clearing himself out, which