ghty miles off, "in the winter nights." [Kohler,
_Reichs-Historie,_ p. 453;--and more especially _Munzbelustigungen_
(Nurnberg, 1729-1750), ix. 121-129. The Year of this Volume, and of the
Number in question, is 1737; the MUNZE or Medal "recreated upon" in of
Henri II.]

It had depended upon Albert, who hung in the distance with an army of
his own, whether the Siege could even begin; but he joined the Kaiser,
being reconciled again; and the trenches opened. By the valor of Guise
and his Chivalry,--still more perhaps by the iron frosts and by the
sleety rains of Winter, and the hungers and the hardships of a hundred
thousand men, digging vainly at the ice-bound earth, or trampling
it when sleety into seas of mud, and themselves sinking in it, of
dysentery, famine, toil and despair, as they cannonaded day and
night,--Metz could not be taken. "Impossible!" said the Generals with
one voice, after trying it for a couple of months. "Try it one other ten
days," said the Kaiser with a gloomy fixity; "let us all die, or else
do it!" They tried, with double desperation, another ten days; cannon
booming through the winter midnight far and wide, four score miles
round: "Cannot be done, your Majesty! Cannot,--the winter and the mud,
and Guise and the walls; man's strength cannot do it in this season. We
must march away!" Karl listened in silence; but the tears were seen to
run down his proud face, now not so young as it once was: "Let us march,
then!" he said, in a low voice, after some pause.

Alcibiades covered the retreat to Diedenhof (THIONVILLE they now call
it): outmanoeuvred the French, retreated with success; he had already
captured a grand Due d'Aumale, a Prince of the Guises,--valuable ransom
to be looked for there. It was thought he should have made his bargain
better with the Kaiser, before starting; but he had neglected that.
Albert's course was downward thenceforth; Kaiser Karl's too. The French
keep these "Three Bishoprics (TROIS EVECHES)," and Teutschland laments
the loss of them, to this hour. Kaiser Karl, as some write, never smiled
again;--abdicated, not long after; retired into the Monastery of St.
Just, and there soon died. That is the siege of Metz, where Alcibiades
was helpful. His own bargain with the Kaiser should have been better
made beforehand.

Dissatisfied with any bargain he could now get; dissatisfied with the
Treaty of Passau, with such a finale and hushing-up of the Religious
Controversy, and in