will sweep us clean bare."
[_Helden-Geschichte,_ iv. 399.]:

Wesel Fortress, Gate of the Rhine, could not be defended by Friedrich:
and the Hanover Incapables, and England still all in St. Vitus, would
not hear of undertaking it; left it wide open for the French; never
could recover it, or get the Rhine-Gate barred again, during the whole
War. One hopes they repented;--but perhaps it was only Pitt and Duke
Ferdinand that did so, instead! The Wesel Countries were at once
occupied by the French; "a conquest of her Imperial Majesty's;"
continued to be administered in Imperial Majesty's name,--and are
thriving as above.

2. DAUPHINESS PROPER (that is, Soubise) IN THURINGEN, AT A LATE STAGE:--

"LETTER FROM FREIBURG, SHORTLY AFTER ROSSBACH.--It was on the 23d
October, a Sunday, that we of Freiburg had our first billeting of
French; a body of Cavalry from different regiments [going to take
Leipzig, take Torgau, what not]: and from that day Freiburg never
emptied of French, who kept marching through it in extraordinary
quantities. The marching lasted fourteen days, namely, till the 6th
November [day AFTER Rossbach; when they burnt our poor Bridge, and
marched for the last time]; and often the billeting was so heavy, that
in a single house there were forty or fifty men. Who at all times had to
be lodged and dieted gratis; nay many householders, over and above
the ordinary meal, were obliged to give them money too; and many poor
people, who can scarcely get their own bit of bread, had to run and
bring at once their sixteen or eighteen groschen [pence] worth of wine,
not to speak of coffee and sugar. And a great increase of the mischief
it was always, that the soldiers and common people did not understand
one another's language."--Heavy billeting; but what was that?... "Vast,
nearly impossible, quantities of forage and provision," were wrung from
us, as from all the other Towns and Villages about, "under continual
threatening to burn and raze us from the earth. Often did our French
Colonel threaten, 'He would have the cannon opened on Freiburg
straightway.' Nay, had it stood by foraging, we might have reckoned
ourselves lucky. But our straits increased day by day; and sheer
plundering became more and more excessive.

"The robbing and torturing of travellers, the plundering and burning of
Saxon Villages... Almost all the Towns and Villages hereabouts are so
plundered out, that many a one now has nothing but what he carries on