"FULDA, FRIDAY, 30th NOVEMBER, 1759. Serene Highness is lying here for a week past; abundantly strong for the task on hand,--has his own 12,000, supplemented by 1,000 French Light Horse;--but is widely scattered withal, posted in a kind of triangular form;his main posts being Fulda itself, and a couple of others, each thirty miles from Fulda, and five miles from one another,--with 'patrols to connect them,' better or worse. Abundantly strong for the task, and in perfect security; and indeed intends this day to 'fire VICTORIA' for the Catastrophe at Maxen, and in the evening will give a Ball in farther honor of so salutary an event:--when, about 9 A.M., news arrives at the gallop, 'Brunswickers in full march; are within an hour of the Town-Bridge!' Figure to what flurry of Serene Highness; of the victoria-shooting apparatus;of busy man-milliner people, and the Beauty and Fashion of Fulda in general!
"The night before, a rumor of the French Post being driven in by somebody had reached Serene Highness; who gave some vague order, not thinking it of consequence. Here, however, is the Fact come to hand in a most urgent and undeniable manner! Serene Highness gets on horseback; but what can that help? One cannon (has nothing but light cannon) he does plant on the Bridge; but see, here come premonitory bomb-shells one and another, terrifying to the mind;--and a single Hessian dragoon, plunging forward on the one unready cannon, and in the air ****** horrid circles,--the gunners leave said cannon to him, take to their heels; and the Bridge is open.
The rest of the affair can be imagined. Retreat at our swiftest, 'running fight,' we would fain call it, by various roads; lost two flags, two cannon; prisoners were above 1,200, many of them Officers. 'A merciful Providence saved the Duke's Serene Person from hurt,' say the Stuttgard Gazetteers: which was true,--Serene Highness having been inspired to gallop instantly to rearward and landward, leaving an order to somebody, 'Do the best you can!'
"So that the Ball is up; dress-pumps and millineries getting all locked into their drawers again,--with abundance of te-hee-ing (I hope, mostly in a light vein) from the fair creatures disappointed of their dance for this time. Next day Serene Highness drew farther back, and next day again farther,--towards Frankenland and home, as the surest place;--and was no more heard of in those localities." [Buchholz, ii. 332; Mauvillon, ii. 80; <italic>
Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> v. 1184-1193; Old Newspapers, in <italic> Gentleman's Magazine, <end italic> xxix. 603.]
Making his first exit, not yet quite his final, from the War-Theatre, amid such tempests of haha-ing and te-hee-ing. With what thoughts in his own lofty opaque mind;--like a crowned mule, of such pace and carriage, who had unexpectedly stepped upon galvanic wires!--As to those poor Wurtembergers, and their notion of the "Protestant Hero," I remark farther, that there is a something of real truth in it. Friedrich's Creed, or Theory of the Universe, differed extremely, in many important points, from that of Dr. Martin Luther: but in the vital all-essential point, what we may call the heart's core of all Creeds which are human, human and not simious or diabolic, the King and the Doctor were with their whole heart at one: That it is not allowable, that it is dangerous and abominable, to attempt believing what is not true. In that sense, Friedrich, by nature and position, was a Protestant, and even the chief Protestant in the world. What kind of "Hero," in this big War of his, we are gradually learning;--in which too, if you investigate, there is not wanting something of "PROTESTANT Heroism," even in the narrow sense. For it does appear,--Maria Theresa having a real fear of God, and poor Louis a real fear of the Devil, whom he may well feel to be getting dangerous purchase over him,--some hope-gleams of acting upon Schism, and so meriting Heaven, did mingle with their high terrestrial combinations, on this unique opportunity, more than are now supposed in careless History-Books.
WHAT IS PERPETUAL PRESIDENT MAUPERTUIS DOING, ALL THIS WHILE?
IS HE STILL IN BERLIN; OR WHERE IN THE UNIVERSE IS HE?
ALAS, POOR MAUPERTUIS!
In the heat of this Campaign, "July 27th,"- some four days after the Battle of Zullichau, just while Friedrich was hurrying off for that Intersection at Sagan, and breathless Hunt of Loudon and Haddick,--poor Maupertuis had quitted this world. July 27th, 1759;at Basel, on the Swiss Borders, in his friend Bernouilli's house, after long months of sickness painfully spent there. And our poor Perpetual President, at rest now from all his Akakia burns, and pains and labors in flattening the Earth and otherwise, is gone.
Many beautifuler men have gone within the Year, of whom we can say nothing. But this is one whose grandly silent, and then occasionally fulminant procedures, Akakia controversies, Olympian solemnities and flamy pirouettings under the contradiction of sinners, we once saw; and think with a kind of human pathos that we shall see no more. From his goose of an adorer, La Beaumelle, Ihave riddled out the following particulars, chiefly chronological, --and offer them to susceptible readers. La Beaumelle is, in a sort, to be considered the speaker; or La Beaumelle and this Editor in concert.
FINAL PILGRIMAGE OF THE PERPETUAL PRESIDENT. "Maupertuis had quitted Berlin soon after Voltaire. That threat of visiting Voltaire with pistols,--to be met by 'my syringe and vessel of dishonor' on Voltaire's part,--was his last memorability in Berlin.
His last at that time; or indeed altogether, for he saw little of Berlin farther.
"End of April, 1753, he got leave of absence; set out homewards, for recovery of health. Was at Paris through summer and autumn: