HumanitiesWeb.org - History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great (Chapter VII. - At Versailles, the Most Christian Majesty Changes His Shirt, and Belleisle is Seen with Papers.) by Thomas Carlyle
History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great Chapter VII. - At Versailles, the Most Christian Majesty Changes His Shirt, and Belleisle is Seen with Papers.
by Thomas Carlyle
While Friedrich was so busy in Silesia, the world was not asleep
around him; the world never is, though it often seems to be, round
a man and what action he does in it. That Sunday morning, First Day
of the Year 1741, in those same hours while Friedrich, with energy,
with caution, was edging himself into Breslau, there went on in the
Court of Versailles an interior Phenomenon; of which, having by
chance got access to it face to face, we propose to make the reader
participant before going farther.
Readers are languidly aware that phenomena do go on round their
Friedrich; that their busy Friedrich, with his few Voltaires and
renowned persons, are not the only population of their Century, by
any means. Everybody is aware of that fact; yet, in practice,
almost everybody is as good as not aware; and the World all round
one's Hero is a darkness, a dormant vacancy. How strange when, as
here, some Waste-paper spill (so to speak) turns up, which you can
KINDLE; and, by the brief flame of it, bid a reader look with his
own eyes!--From Herr Doctor Busching, who did the GEOGRAPHY and
about a Hundred other Books,--a man of great worth, almost of
genius, could he have elaborated his Hundred Books into Ten (or
distilled, into flasks of aqua-vitae, what otherwise lies tumbling
as tanks of mash and wort, now run very sour and mal-odorous);--
it is from Herr Busching that we gain the following rough Piece,
illuminative if one can kindle it:--
The Titular-Herr Baron Anton von Geusau, a gentleman of good parts,
scholastic by profession, and of Protestant creed, was accompanying
as Travelling Tutor, in those years, a young Graf von Reuss.
Graf von Beuss is one of those indistinct Counts Reuss, who always
call themselves "Henry;" and, being now at the eightieth and
farther, with uncountable collateral Henrys intertwisted, are
become in effect anonymous, or of nomenclature inscrutable to
mankind. Nor is the young one otherwise of the least interest to
us;--except that Herr Anton, the Travelling Tutor, punctually kept
a Journal of everything. Which Journal, long afterwards, came into
the hands of Busching, also a punctual man; and was by him
abridged, and set forth in print in his Beitrage.
Offering at present a singular daguerrotype glimpse of the
then actual world, wherever Graf von Reuss and his Geusau happened
to be. Nine-tenths of it, even in Busching's Abridgment, are now
fallen useless and wearisome; but to one studying the days that
then were, even the effete commonplace of it occasionally becomes
alive again. And how interesting to catch, here and there, a
Historical Figure on these conditions; Historical Figure's very
self, in his work-day attitude; eating his victuals; writing,
receiving letters, talking to his fellow-creatures; unaware that
Posterity, miraculously through some chink of the Travelling
Tutor's producing, has got its eye upon him.
"SUNDAY, 1st JANUARY, 1741, Geusau and his young Gentleman leave
Paris, at 5 in the morning, and drive out to Versailles; intending
to see the ceremonies of New-year's day there. Very wet weather it
had been, all Wednesday, and for days before; [See in
Barbier (ii. 283 et seqq.) what terrible Noah-like
weather it had been; big houses, long in soak, tumbling down at
last into the Seine; CHASSE of St. Genevieve brought out (two days
ago), December 30th, to try it by miracle; &c. &c.] but on this
Sunday, New-year's morning, all is ice and glass; and they slid
about painfully by lamplight,--with unroughened horses, and on the
Hilly or Meudon road, having chosen that as fittest, the waters
being out;--not arriving at Court till 9. Nor finding very much to
comfort them, except on the side of curiosity, when there.
Ushers, INTRODUCTEURS, Cabinet Secretaries, were indeed assiduous
to oblige; and the King's Levee will be: but if you follow it, to
the Chapel Royal to witness high mass, you must kneel at elevation
of the host; and this, as reformed Christians, Reuss and his Tutor
cannot undertake to do. They accept a dinner invitation (12 the
hour) from some good Samaritan of Quality; and, for sights, will
content themselves with the King's Levee itself, and generally with
what the King's Antechamber and the OEil-de-Boeuf can exhibit to
them. The Most Christian King's Levee [LEVER, literally here his
Getting out of Bed] is a daily miracle of these localities, only
grander on New-year's day; and it is to the following effect:--
"Till Majesty please to awaken, you saunter in the Salle des
Ambassadeurs; whole crowds jostling one another there; gossiping
together in a diligent, insipid manner;" gossip all reported;
snatches of which have acquired a certain flavor by long keeping;--
which the reader shall imagine. "Meanwhile you keep your eye on the
Grate of the Inner Court, which as yet is only ajar, Majesty
inaccessible as yet. Behold, at last, Grate opens itself wide; sign
that Majesty is out of bed; that the privileged of mankind may
approach, and see the miracles." Geusau continues, abridged by
Busching and us:--
"The whole Assemblage passed now into the King's Anteroom; had to
wait there about half an hour more, before the King's bedroom was
opened. But then at last, lo you,--there is the King, visible to
Geusau and everybody, washing his hands.' Which effected itself in
this way: 'The King was seated; a gentleman-in-waiting knelt,
before him, and held the Ewer, a square vessel silver-gilt, firm
upon the King's breast; and another gentleman-in-waiting poured
water on the King's hands.' Merely an official washing, we
perceive; the real, it is to be hoped, had, in a much more
effectual way, been going on during the half-hour just elapsed.
After washing, the King rose for an instant; had his dressing-gown,
a grand yellow silky article with silver flowerings, pulled off,
and flung round his loins; upon which he sat down again, and,"--
observe it, ye privileged of mankind,--"the Change of Shirt took
place! 'They put the clean shirt down over his head,' says Anton,
(and plucked up the dirty one from within, so that of the naked
skin you saw little or nothing.'" Here is a miracle worth getting
out of bed to look at!
"His Majesty now quitted chair and dressing-gown; stood up before
the fire; and, after getting on the rest of his clothing, which, on
account of Czarina Anne's death [readers remember that], was of
violet or mourning color, he had the powder-mantle thrown round
him, and sat down at the Toilette to have his hair frizzled. The
Toilette, a table with white cover shoved into the middle of the
room, had on it a mirror, a powder-knife, and"--no mortal cares
what. "The King," what all mortals note, as they do the heavenly
omens, "is somewhat talky; speaks sometimes with the Dutch
Ambassador, sometimes with the Pope's Nuncio, who seems a jocose
kind of gentleman; sometimes with different French Lords, and at
last with the Cardinal Fleury also,--to whom, however, he does not
look particularly gracious,"--not particularly this time. These are
the omens; happy who can read them!--Majesty then did his morning-
prayer, assisted only by the common Almoners-in-waiting (Cardinal
took no hand, much less any other); Majesty knelt before his bed,
and finished the business 'in less than six seconds.' After which
mankind can ebb out to the Anteroom again; pay their devoir to the
Queen's Majesty, which all do; or wait for the Transit to Morning
Chapel, and see Mesdames of France and the others flitting past in
their sedans.
"Queen's Majesty was already altogether dressed," says Geusau,
almost as if with some disappointment; "all in black; a most
affable courteous Majesty; stands conversing with the Russian
Ambassador, with the Dutch ditto, with the Ladies about her, and at
last, 'in a friendly and merry tone,' with old Cardinal Fleury.
Her Ladies, when the Queen spoke with them, showed no constraint at
all; leant loosely with their arms on the fire-screens, and took
things easy. Mesdames of France"--Geusau saw Mesdames. Poor little
souls, they are the LOQUE, the COCHON (Rag, Pig, so Papa would call
them, dear Papa), who become tragically visible again in the
Revolution time:--all blooming young children as yet (Queen's
Majesty some thirty-seven gone), and little dreaming what lies
fifty years ahead! King Louis's career of extraneous gallantries,
which ended in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, is now just beginning: think of
that too; and of her Majesty's fine behavior under it; so affable,
so patient, silent, now and always!--"In a little while, their
Majesties go along the Great Gallery to Chapel;" whither the
Protestant mind cannot with comfort accompany. [Busching,
Beitrage, ii. 59-78.]
This is the daily miracle done at Versailles to the believing
multitude; only that on New-year's day, and certain supreme
occasions, the shirt is handed by a Prince of the Blood, and the
towel for drying the royal hands by a ditto, with other
improvements; and the thing comes out in its highest power of
effulgence,--especially if you could see high mass withal. In the
Antechamber and (OEil-de-Boeuf, Geusau, among hundreds of phenomena
fallen dead to us, saw the Four following, which have still
some life:--
1. Many Knights of the Holy Ghost (CHEVALIERS DU SAINT ESPRIT) are
about; magnificently piebald people, indistinct to us, and fallen
dead to us: but there, among the company, do not we indisputably
see, "in full Cardinal's costume," Fleury the ancient Prime
Minister talking to her Majesty? Blandly smiling; soft as milk, yet
with a flavor of alcoholic wit in him here and there. That is a man
worth looking at, had they painted him at all. Red hat, red
stockings; a serenely definite old gentleman, with something of
prudent wisdom, and a touch of imperceptible jocosity at times;
mildly inexpugnable in manner: this King, whose Tutor he was twenty
years ago, still looks to him as his father; Fleury is the real
King of France at present. His age is eighty-seven gone; the King's
is thirty (seven years younger than his Queen): and the Cardinal
has red stockings and red hat; veritably there, successively in
both Antechambers, seen by Geusau, January 1st, 1741: that is all
I know.
2. The Prince de Clermont, a Prince of the Blood, "handed the
shirt," TESTE Geusau. Some other Prince, notable to Geusau, and to
us nameless, had the honor of the "towel:" but this Prince de
Clermont, a dissolute fellow of wasted parts, kind of Priest, kind
of Soldier too, is seen visibly handing the shirt there;--whom the
reader and I, if we cared about it, shall again see, getting beaten
by Prince Ferdinand, at Crefeld, within twenty years hence.
These are points first and second, slightly noticeable, slightly if
at all.
Of the actual transit to high mass, transit very visible in the
Great Gallery or OEil-de-Boeuf, why should a human being now say
anything? Queen, poor Stanislaus's Daughter, and her Ladies, in
their sublime sedans, one flood of jewels, sail first; next sails
King Louis, shirt warm on his back, with "thirty-four Chevaliers of
the Holy Ghost" escorting; next "the Dauphin" (Boy of eleven, Louis
XVI.'s. Father), and "Mesdames of France, with"--but even Geusau
stops short. Protestants cannot enter that Chapel, without peril of
idolatry; wherefore Geusau and Pupil kept strolling in the general
(OEil-de-Boeuf,--and "the Dutch Ambassador approved of it," he for
one. And here now is another point, slightly noticeable:--
3. High mass over, his Majesty sails back from Chapel, in the same
magnificently piebald manner; and vanishes into the interior;
leaving his Knights of the Holy Ghost, and other Courtier
multitude, to simmer about, and ebb away as they found good.
Geusau and his young Reuss had now the honor of being introduced to
various people; among others "to the Prince de Soubise." Prince de
Soubise: frivolous, insignificant being; of whom I have no portrait
that is not nearly blank, and content to be so;--though Herr von
Geusau would have one, with features and costume to it, when he
heard of the Beating at Rossbach, long after! Prince de Soubise is
pretty much a blank to everybody:--and no sooner are we loose of
him, than (what every reader will do well to note) 4. Our Herren
Travellers are introduced to a real Notability: Monseigneur, soon
to be Marechal, the Comte de Belleisle; whom my readers and I are
to be much concerned with, in time coming. "A tall lean man (LANGER
HAGERER MANN), without much air of quality," thinks Geusau;
but with much swift intellect and energy, and a distinguished
character, whatever Geusau might think. "Comte de Belleisle was
very civil; but apologized, in a courtly and kind way, for the
hurry he was in; regretting the impossibility of doing the honors
to the Comte de Reuss in this Country,--his, Belleisle's, Journey
into Germany, which was close at hand, overwhelming him with
occupations and engagements at present. And indeed, even while he
spoke to us," says Geusau, "all manner of Papers were put into his
hand." [Busching, ii. 79; see Barbier, ii. 282, 287.]
"Journey to Germany, Papers put into his hand:" there is perhaps no
Human Figure in the world, this Sunday (except the one Figure now
in those same moments over at Breslau, gently pressing upon the
locked Gates there), who is so momentous for our Silesian
Operations; and indeed he will kindle all Europe into delirium; and
produce mere thunder and lightning, for seven years to come,-- with
almost no result in it, except Silesia! A tall lean man; there
stands he, age now fifty-six, just about setting out on such
errand. Whom one is thankful to have seen for a moment, even in
that slight manner.
OF BELLEISLE AND HIS PLANS.
Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, Comte de Belleisle, is Grandson of
that Intendant Fouquet, sumptuous Financier, whom Louis XIV. at
last threw out, and locked into the Fortress of Pignerol, amid the
Savoy Alps, there to meditate for life, which lasted thirty years
longer. It was never understood that the sumptuous Fouquet had
altogether stolen public moneys, nor indeed rightly what he had
done to merit Pignerol; and always, though fallen somehow into such
dire disfavor, he was pitied and respected by a good portion of the
public. "Has angered Colbert," said the public; "dangerous rivalry
to Colbert; that is what has brought Pignerol upon him." Out of
Pignerol that Fouquet never came; but his Family bloomed up into
light again; had its adventures, sometimes its troubles, in the
Regency time, but was always in a rising way:--and here, in this
tall lean man getting papers put into his hand, it has risen very
high indeed. Going as Ambassador Extraordinary to the Germanic
Diet, "to assist good neighbors, as a neighbor and Most Christian
Majesty should, in choosing their new Kaiser to the best
advantage:" that is the official color his mission is to have.
Surely a proud mission;--and Belleisle intends to execute it in a
way that will surprise the Germanic Diet and mankind. Privately,
Belleisle intends that he, by his own industries, shall himself
choose the right Kaiser, such Kaiser as will suit the Most
Christian Majesty and him; he intends to make a new French thing of
Germany in general; and carries in his head plans of an amazing
nature! He and a Brother he has, called the Chevalier de Belleisle,
who is also a distinguished man, and seconds M. le Comte with
eloquent fire and zeal in all things, are grandsons of that old
Fouquet, and the most shining men in France at present.
France little dreams how much better it perhaps were, had they also
been kept safe in Pignerol!--
The Count, lean and growing old, is not healthy; is ever and anon
tormented, and laid up for weeks, with rheumatisms, gouts and
ailments: but otherwise he is still a swift ardent elastic spirit;
with grand schemes, with fiery notions and convictions, which
captivate and hurry off men's minds more than eloquence could, so
intensely true are they to the Count himself;--and then his Brother
the Chevalier is always there to put them into the due language and
logic, where needed. [Voltaire, xxviii. 74; xxix. 392; &c.]
A magnanimous high-flown spirit; thought to be of supreme skill
both in War and in Diplomacy; fit for many things; and is still
full of ambition to distinguish himself, and tell the world at all
moments, "ME VOILA; World, I too am here!"--His plans, just now,
which are dim even to himself, except on the hither skirt of them,
stretch out immeasurable, and lie piled up high as the skies.
The hither skirt of them, which will suffice the reader at
present, is:--
That your Grand-Duke Franz, Maria Theresa's Husband, shall in no
wise, as the world and Duke Franz expect, be the Kaiser chosen.
Not he, but another who will suit France better: "Kur-Sachsen
perhaps, the so-called King of Poland? Or say it were Karl Albert
Kur-Baiern, the hereditary friend and dependent of France? We are
not tied to a man: only, at any and at all rates, not Grand-Duke
Franz." This is the grand, essential and indispensable point, alpha
and omega of points; very clear this one to Belleisle,--and towards
this the first steps, if as yet only the first, are also clear to
him. Namely that "the 27th of February next",--which is the time
set by Kur-Mainz and the native Officials for the actual meeting of
their Reichstag to begin Election Business, will be too early a
time; and must be got postponed. [Adelung, ii. 185 ("27th February-
1st March, 1741, at Frankfurt-on-Mayn," appointed by Kur-Mainz
"Arch-Chancellor of the REICH," under date November 3d, 1740);--
ib. 236 ("Delay for a month or two," suggests Kur-Pfalz, on January
12th, seconded by others in the French interest);-- upon which the
appointment, after some arguing, collapsed into the vague, and
there ensued delay enough; actual Election not till January 24th,
1742.] Postponed; which will be possible, perhaps for long; one
knows not for how long: that is a first step definitely clear to
Belleisle. Towards which, as preliminary to it and to all the
others in a dimmer state, there is a second thing clear, and has
even been officially settled (all but the day): That, in the mean
while, and surely the sooner the better, he, Belleisle, Most
Christian Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary to the Reichstag
coming,--do, in his most dazzling and persuasive manner, make a
Tour among German Courts. Let us visit, in our highest and yet in
our softest splendor, the accessible German Courts, especially the
likely or well-disposed: Mainz, Koln, Trier, these, the three
called Spiritual, lie on our very route; then Pfalz, Baiern,
Sachsen:--we will tour diligently up and down; try whether, by
optic machinery and art-magic of the mind, one cannot bring
them round.
In all these preliminary steps and points, and even in that alpha
and omega of excluding Grand-Duke Franz, and getting a Kaiser of
his own, Belleisle succeeded. With painful results to himself and
to millions of his fellow-creatures, to readers of this History,
among others. And became in consequence the most famous of mankind;
and filled the whole world with rumor of Belleisle, in those
years.--A man of such intrinsic distinction as Belleisle, whom
Friedrich afterwards deliberately called a great Captain, and the
only Frenchman with a genius for war; and who, for some time,
played in Europe at large a part like that of Warwick the
Kingmaker: how has he fallen into such oblivion? Many of my readers
never heard of him before; nor, in writing or otherwise, is there
symptom that any living memory now harbors him, or has the least
approach to an image of him! "For the times are babbly," says
Goethe," And then again the times are dumb:--
Denn geschwatzig sind die Zeiten,
Und sie sind auch wieder stumm."
Alas, if a man sow only chaff, in never so sublime a manner, with
the whole Earth and the long-eared populations looking on, and
chorally singing approval, rendering night hideous,--it will avail
him nothing. And that, to a lamentable extent, was Belleisle's
case. His scheme of action was in most felicitously just accordance
with the national sense of France, but by no means so with the Laws
of Nature and of Fact; his aim, grandiose, patriotic, what you
will, was unluckily false and not true. How could "the times"
continue talking of him? They found they had already talked too
much. Not to say that the French Revolution has since come; and has
blown all that into the air, miles aloft,--where even the solid
part of it, which must be recovered one day, much more the gaseous,
which we trust is forever irrecoverable, now wanders and whirls;
and many things are abolished, for the present, of more value
than Belleisle!--
For my own share, being, as it were, forced accidentally to look at
him again, I find in Belleisle a really notable man; far superior
to the vulgar of noted men, in his time or ours. Sad destiny for
such a man! But when the general Life-element becomes so
unspeakably phantasmal as under Louis XV., it is difficult for any
man to be real; to be other than a play-actor, more or less
eminent,and artistically dressed. Sad enough, surely, when the
truth of your relation to the Universe, and the tragically earnest
meaning of your Life, is quite lied out of you, by a world sunk in
lies; and you can, with effort, attain to nothing but to be a more
or less splendid lie along with it! Your very existence all become
a vesture, a hypocrisy, and hearsay; nothing left of you but this
sad faculty of sowing chaff in the fashionable manner!
After Friedrich and Voltaire, in both of whom, under the given
circumstances, one finds a perennial reality, more or less,--
Belleisle is next; none FAILS to escape the mournful common lot by
a nearer miss than Belleisle.
Beyond doubt, there are in this man the biggest projects any French
head has carried, since Louis XIV. with his sublime periwig first
took to striking the stars. How the indolent Louis XV. and the
pacific Fleury have been got into this sublimely adventurous mood?
By Belleisle chiefly, men say;--and by King Louis's first
Mistresses, blown upon by Belleisle; poor Louis having now, at
length, left his poor Queen to her reflections, and taken into that
sad line, in which by degrees he carried it so far. There are three
of them, it seems;--the first female souls that could ever manage
to kindle, into flame or into smoke: in this or any other kind,
that poor torpid male soul: those Mailly Sisters, three in number
(I am shocked to hear), successive, nay in part simultaneous!
They are proud women, especially the two younger; with ambition in
them, with a bravura magnanimity, of the theatrical or operatic
kind; of whom Louis is very fond. "To raise France to its place,
your Majesty; the top of the Universe, namely!" "Well; if it could
be done,--and quite without trouble?" thinks Louis.
Bravura magnanimity, blown upon by Belleisle, prevails among these
high Improper Females, and generally in the Younger Circles of the
Court; so that poor old Fleury has had no choice but to obey it or
retire. And so Belleisle stalks across the OEil-de-Boeuf in that
important manner, visibly to Geusau; and is the shining object in
Paris, and much the topic there at present.
A few weeks hence, he is farther--a little out of the common turn,
but not beyond his military merits or capabilities--made Marechal
de France; [ Fastes de Louis XV., i. 356 (12th
February, 1741).] by way of giving him a new splendor in the German
Political World, and assisting in his operations there, which
depend much upon the laws of vision. French epigrams circulate in
consequence, and there are witty criticisms; to which Belleisle,
such a dusky world of Possibility lying ahead, is grandly
indifferent. Marechal de France;--and Geusau hears (what is a fact)
that there are to be "thirty young French Lords in his suite;" his
very "Livery," or mere plush retinue, "to consist of 110 persons;"
such an outfit for magnificence as was never seen before. And in
this equipment, "early in March" (exact day not given),
magnificence of outside corresponding to grandiosity of faculty and
idea, Belleisle, we shall find, does practically set off towards
Germany;--like a kind of French Belus, or God of the Sun; capable to
dazzle weak German Courts, by optical machinery, and to set much
rotten thatch on fire!--
"There are curious daguerrotype glimpses of old Paris to be found
in that Notebook of Geusau's", says another Excerpt; "which come
strangely home to us, like reality at first-hand;--and a rather
unexpected Paris it is, to most readers; many things then alive
there, which are now deep underground. Much Jansenist Theology
afloat; grand French Ladies piously eager to convert a young
Protestant Nobleman like Reuss; sublime Dorcases, who do not rouge,
or dress high, but eschew the evil world, and are thrifty for the
Poor's sake, redeeming the time. There is a Cardinal de Polignac,
venerable sage and ex-political person, of astonishing erudition,
collector of Antiques (with whom we dined); there is the Chevalier
Ramsay, theological Scotch Jacobite, late Tutor of the young
Turenne. So many shining persons, now fallen indistinct again.
And then, besides gossip, which is of mild quality and in fair
proportion,--what talk, casuistic and other, about the Moral
Duties, the still feasible Pieties, the Constitution Unigenitus!
All this alive, resonant at dinner-tables of Conservative stamp;
the Miracles of Abbe Paris much a topic there:--and not a whisper
of Infidel Philosophies; the very name of Voltaire not once
mentioned in the Reuss section of Parisian things.
"There is rumor now and then of a 'Comte de Rothenbourg,'
conspicuous in the Parisian circles; a shining military man, but
seemingly in want of employment; who has lost in gambling, within
the last four years, upwards of 50,000 pounds (1,300,000 livres,
the exact cipher given). This is the Graf von Rothenburg whom
Friedrich made acquaintance with, in the Rhine Campaign six years
ago, and has ever since had in his eye;--whom, in a few weeks
hence, Friedrich beckons over to him into the Prussian States:
'Hither, and you shall have work!' Which Rothenburg accepts; with
manifold advantage to both parties:--one of Friedrich's most
distinguished friends for the rest of his life.
"Of Cardinal Polignac there is much said, and several dinners with
him are transacted, dialogue partly given: a pious wise old
gentleman really, in his kind (age now eighty-four); looking mildly
forth upon a world just about to overset itself and go topsy-turvy,
as he sees it will. His ANTI-LUCRETIUS was once such a Poem!--but
we mention him here because his fine Cabinet of Antiques came to
Berlin on his death, Friedrich purchasing; and one often hears of
it (if one cared to hear) from the Prussian Dryasdust in subsequent
years. [Came to Charlottenburg, August, 1742 (old Polignac had died
November last, ten months after those Geusau times): cost of the
Polignac Cabinet was 40,000 thalers (6,000 pounds) say some, 90,000
livres (under 4,000 pounds) say others; cheap at either price;--
and, by chance, came opportunely, "a fire having just burnt down
the Academy Edifice," and destroyed much ware of that kind.
Rodenbeck, i. 73; Seyfarth (Anonymous), Geschichte
Friedrichs des Andern, i. 236.]
"Of Friedrich's unexpected Invasion of Silesia there are also
talkings and surmisings, but in a mild indifferent tone, and much
in the vague. And in the best-informed circles it is thought
Belleisle will manage to HAVE Grand-Duke Franz, the Queen of
Hungary's Husband, chosen Kaiser, and, in some mild good way, put
an end to all that;"--which is far indeed from Belleisle's
intention!
