ed up with general vanity, and the
newspaper rumor about Haddick's feat,--which, like the gloves it got,
is going all to left-hand in this way. Hildburghausen and the others
overrule Soubise; and indeed there is no remedy; "Provision almost
out;--how retreat to our magazines and our fastnesses, with Friedrich
once across Saale, and sticking to the skirts of us?" Here, from
eye-witnesses where possible, are the successive steps of Dauphiness
towards her doom, which is famous in the world ever since.

"Monday, 31st October, 1757," as the Town-Syndic of Weissenfels
records, "about eight in the morning, [Muller, SCHLACHT BEI ROSSBACH ("a
Centenary Piece," Berlin, 1857,--containing several curious Extracts),
p. 44, _Helden-Geschichte,_ iv. 643, 651-668.] the King of Prussia, with
his whole Army" (or what seemed to us the whole, though it was but
a half; Keith with the other half being within reach to northward,
marching Merseburg way), "came before this Town." Has been here before;
as Keith has, as Soubise and others have: a town much agitated lately by
transit of troops. It was from the eastern, or high landward side, where
the so-called Castle is, that Friedrich came: Castle built originally on
some "White Crag (WEISSE FELS" not now conspicuous), from which the town
and whilom Duchy take their name.

"We have often heard of Weissenfels, while the poor old drunken Duke
lived, who used to be a Suitor of Wilhelmina's, liable to hard usage;
and have marched through it, with the Salzburgers, in peaceable times.
A solid pleasant-enough little place (6,000 souls or so); lies leant
against high ground (White Crags, or whatever it once was) on the
eastern or right bank of the Saale; a Town in part flat, in part very
steep; the streets of it, or main street and secondaries, running off
level enough from the River and Bridge; rising by slow degrees, but at
last rapidly against the high ground or cliffs, just mentioned; a
stiff acclivity of streets, till crowned by the so-called Castle, the
'Augustus Burg' in those days, the 'Friedrich-Wilhelm Barrack' in ours.
It was on this crown of the cliffs that his Prussian Majesty appeared.

"Saale is of good breadth here; has done perhaps two hundred miles,
since he started, in the Fichtelgebirge (PINE MOUNTAINS), on his long
course Elbe-ward; received, only ten miles ago, his last big branch, the
wide-wandering Unstrut, coming in with much drainage from the northern
parts:--in breadth, Saal