Enough that the Treaty is getting made, and rapidly,--though military offences do not quite cease; clouds of Austrian Pandours hovering about everywhere in Prince Karl's rear; pouncing down upon Prussian outposts, convoys, mostly to little purpose; hoping (what proves quite futile) they may even burn a Prussian magazine here or there. Contemptible to the Prussian soldier, though very troublesome to him. Friedrich regards the Pandour sort, with their jingling savagery, as a kind of military vermin; not conceivable a Prussian formed corps should yield to any odds of Pandour Tolpatch tagraggery. Nor does the Prussian soldier yield; though sometimes, like the mastiff galled by inroad of distracted weasels in too great quantity, he may have his own difficulties. Witness Colonel Retzow and the Magazine at Pardubitz ("daybreak, May 24th") VERSUSthe infinitude of sudden Tolpatchery, bursting from the woods;rabid enough for many hours, but ineffectual, upon Pardubitz and Retzow. A distinguished Colonel this; of whom we shall hear again.
Whose style of Narrative (modest, clear, grave, brief), much more, whose vigilant inexpugnable procedure on the occasion, is much to be commended to the military man. [Given in Seyfarth, <italic>
Beylage, <end italic> i. 548 et seqq.] Friedrich, the better to cover his Magazines, and be out of such annoyances, fell back a little; gradually to Kuttenberg again (Tolpatchery vanishing, of its owm accord); and lay encamped there, head-quarters in the Schloss of Maleschau near by,--till the Breslau Negotiations completed themselves.
Prince Karl, fringed with Tolpatchery in this manner, but with much desertion, much dispiritment, in his main body,--the HOOPS upon him all loose, so to speak,--staggers zigzag back towards Budweis, and the Lobkowitz Party there; intending nothing more upon the Prussians;--capable now, think some NON-Prussians, of being well swept out of Budweis, and over the horizon altogether. If only his Prussian Majesty will co-operate! thinks Belleisle. "Your King of Prussia will not, M. le Marechal!" answers Broglio:--No, indeed; he has tried that trade already, M. le Marechal! think Broglio and we.
The suspicions that Friedrich, so quiescent after his Chotusitz, is making Peace, are rife everywhere; especially in Broglio's head and old Fleury's; though Belleisle persists with emphasis, officially and privately, in the opposite opinion, "Husht, Messieurs!" Better go and see, however.
Belleisle does go; starts for Kuttenberg, for Dresden; his beautiful Budweis project now ready, French reinforcements streaming towards us, heart high again,--if only Friedrich and the Saxons will co-operate. Belleisle, the Two Belleisles, with Valori and Company, arrived June 2d at Kuttenberg, at the Schloss of Maleschau;--"spoke little of Chotusitz," says Stille; "and were none of them at the pains to ride to the ground." Marechal Belleisle, for the next three days, had otherwise speech of Friedrich; especially, on June 5th, a remarkable Dialogue.
"Won't your Majesty co-operate?" "Alas, Monseigneur de Belleisle--"How gladly would we give this last Dialogue of Friedrich's and Belleisle's, one of the most ticklish conceivable: but there is not anywhere the least record of it that can be called authentic;--and we learn only that Friedrich, with considerable distinctness, gave him to know, "clearly" (say all the Books, except Friedrich's own), that co-operation was henceforth a thing of the preter-pluperfect tense. "All that I ever wanted, more than I ever demanded, Austria now offers; can any one blame me that I close such a business as ours has all along been, on such terms as these now offered me are?"It is said, and is likely enough, the Pallandt-Fleury Letter came up; as probably the MORAVIAN FORAY, and various Broglio passages, would, in the train of said Letter. To all which, and to the inexorable painful corollary, Belleisle, in his high lean way, would listen with a stern grandiose composure. But the rumors add, On coming out into the Anteroom, dialogue and sentence now done, Monseigneur de Belleisle tore the peruke from his head; and stamping on it, was heard to say volcanically, "That cursed parson,--CE MAUDIT CALOTTE [old Fleury],--has ruined everything!"Perhaps it is not true? If true,--the prompt valets would quickly replace Monseigneur's wig; chasing his long strides; and silence, in so dignified a man, would cloak whatever emotions there were.
[Adelung, iii. A, 154; &c. &c. <italic> Guerre de Boheme, <end italic> (silent about the wig) admits, as all Books do, the perfect clearness;--compare, however, <italic> OEuvres de Frederic; <end italic> and also Broglio's strange darkness, twelve days later, and Belleisle now beside him again (<italic> Campagnes des Trois Marechaux, <end italic> v. 190, 191, of date 17th June);--darkness due perhaps to the strange humor Broglio was then in?] He rolled off, he and his, straightway to Dresden, there to invite co-operation in the Budweis Project; there also in vain.--"CO-operation," M. le Marechal? Alas, it has already come to operation, if you knew it! Aud your Broglio is-- Better hurry back to Prag, where you will find phenomena!