Friedrich's Oppeln preparations are about complete; and he intends to advance straightway. "Hold, for Heaven's sake, your Majesty!"exclaims Hyndford; getting hold of him one day (waylaying him, in fact; for it is difficult, owing to Valori); "Wait, wait; I have just been to the--to the Camp of Neipperg," silently gesticulates Hyndford: "Within a week all shall be right, and not a drop of blood shed!" Friedrich answers, by silence chiefly, to the effect, "Tush, tush;" but not quite negatively, and does in effect wait.
We had better give the snatch of Dialogue in primitive authentic form; date is, Camp of Neundorf, September 22d:--FRIEDRICH (pausing impatiently, on the way towards his tent).
"'MILORD, DE QUOI S'AGIT-IL A PRESENT (What is it now, then)?'
HYNDFORD. "'Should much desire to have some assurance from your Majesty with regard to that neutrality of Hanover you were pleased to promise.' All else is coming right; hastening towards beautiful settlement, were that settled.
FRIEDRICH. "'Have not I great reason to be dissatisfied with your Court? Britannic Majesty, as King of England and as Elector of Hanover, is wonderful! Milord, when you say a thing is white, Schweichelt, the Hanoverian Excellency, calls it black, and VICEVERSA. But I will do your King no harm; none, I say! Follow me to dinner; dinner is cold by this time; and we have made more than one person think of us. Swift! [and EXIT].'" [Hyndford's Despatch, Neisse, 4th October, 1741.]
This is a strange motion on the part of Hyndford; but Friedrich, severely silent to it, understands it very well; as readers soon will, when they hear farther. But marvellous things have happened on the sudden! In these three weeks, since the Camp of Strehlen broke up, there have been such Events; strategic, diplomatic:
a very avalanche of ruin, hurling Austria down to the Nadir;of which it is now fit that the reader have some faint conception, an adequate not being possible for him or me:--"AUGUST l5th, 1741. Robinson reappears in Presburg; and precious surely are the news he brings to an Aulic Council fallen back in its chairs, and staring with the wind struck out of it.
Their expected Seizure of Breslau gone heels over head, in that way; Friedrich imperiously resolute, gleaming like the flash of steel amid these murky imbecilities, and without the Cession of Silesia no Peace to be made with him! And all this is as nothing, to news which arrives just on the back of Robinson, from another quarter.
"AUGUST 15th-21st. French Army of 40,000 men, special Army of Belleisle, sedulously equipt and completed, visibly crosses the Rhine at Fort Louis (an Island Fortress in the Rhine, thirty miles below Strasburg; STONES of it are from the old Schloss of Hagenau);--steps over deliberately there; and on the sixth day is all on German ground. These troops, to be commanded by Belleisle, so soon as he can join them, are to be the Elector of Bavaria's troops, Kur-Baiern Generalissimo over Belleisle and them;[ Fastes de Louis XV., ii. 264.] and they are on rapid march to join that ambitious Kurfurst, in his Passau Expedition; and probably submerge Vienna itself.
"And what is this we hear farther, O Robinson, O Excellencies Hyndford, Schweichelt and Company: That another French Army, of the same strength, under Maillebois, has in the self-same days gone across the Lower Rhine (at Kaisersworth, an hour's ride below Dusseldorf)! At Kaisersworth; ostensibly for comforting and strengthening Kur-Koln (the lanky Ecclesiastical Gentleman, Kur-Baiern's Brother), their excellent ally, should anybody meddle with him. Ostensibly for this; but in reality to keep the Sea-Powers, and especially George of England quiet. It marches towards Osnabruck, this Maillebois Army; quarters itself up and down, looking over into Hanover,--able to eat Hanover, especially if joined by the Prussians and Old Leopold, at any moment.
"These things happen in this month of August, close upon the rear of that steel-shiny scene in the Tent at Strehlen, where Friedrich lifted his hat, saying, ''T is of no use, Messieurs!'--which was followed by the seizure of Breslau the wrong way. Never came such a cataract of evil news on an Aulic Council before. The poor proud people, all these months they have been sitting torpid, helpless, loftily stupid, like dumb idols; 'in flat despair,' as Robinson says once, 'only without the strength to be desperate.'