Of the terrific Sham-Battles, conducted by Weissenfels on one side and Wackerbarth on the other; of the charges of cavalry, play of artillery, threatening to end in a very doomsday, round the Pavilion and the Ladies and the Royalties assembled on the balconies there (who always go to dinner safe, when victory has declared itself), I shall say nothing. Nor of that supreme "attack on the intrenchments:" blowing-up of the very Bridges;cavalry posted in the woods; host doing its very uttermost against host, with unheard-of expenditure of gunpowder and learned manoeuvre; in which "the Fleet" (of shallops on the Elbe, rigged mostly in silk) took part, and the Bucentaur with all its cannon.
Words fail on such occasions. I will mention only that assiduous King August had arranged everything like the King of Playhouse-Managers; was seen, early in the morning, "driving his own curricle" all about, in vigilant supervision and inspection;crossed the Tub-bridge, or perhaps the Float-bridge (not yet blown up), "in a WURSTWAGEN;" giving himself (what proved well founded)the assurance of success for this great day;--and finally that, on the morrow, there occurred an illumination and display of fire-works, the like of which is probably still a desideratum.
For the Bucentaur and Fleet were all hung with colored lamplets;Headquarters (HAUPT-LAGER) and Army-LAGER ditto ditto; gleaming upwards with their golden light into the silver of the Summer Twilight:--and all this is still nothing to the scene there is across the Elbe, on our southeast corner. You behold that Palace of the Genii; wings, turrets, mainbody, battlements: it is "a gigantic wooden frame, on which two hundred carpenters have been busy for above six months," ever since Christmas last.
Two hundred carpenters; and how many painters I cannot say:
but they have smeared "six thousand yards of linen canvas;" which is now nailed up; hung with lamps, begirt with fire-works, no end of rocket-serpents, catherine-wheels; with cannon and field-music, near and far, to correspond;--and is now (evening of the 24th June, 1730) shining to men and gods. Pinnacles, turrets, tablatures, tipt with various fires and emblems, all is there:
SMALL MAP IN HERE------
symbolic Painting, six hundred yards of it, glowing with inner light, and legible to the very owls! Arms now piled useless;Pax, with her Appurtenances; Mars resting (in that canvas) on trophies of laurel honorably won: and there is an Inscription, done in lamplets, every letter taller than a man, were you close upon it, "SIC FULTA MANEBIT (Thus supported it will stand),"--the it being either PAX (Peace) or DOMUS (the Genii-Palace itself), as your weak judgment may lead you to interpret delicate allusions. Every letter bigger tban a man: it may be read almost at Wittenberg, I should think; flaming as PICA written on the sky, from the steeple-tops there. THUS SUPPORTED IT WILL STAND;and pious mortals murmur, "Hope so, I am sure!"--and the cannons fire, almost without ceasing; and the field-music, guided by telegraphs, bursts over all the scene, at due moments; and the Catherine-wheels fly hissing; and the Bucentaur and silk Brigantines glide about like living flambeaus;--and in fact you must fancy such a sight. King August, tired to the bone, and seeing all successful, retired about midnight. Friedrich Wilhelm stood till the finale; Saxon Crown-Prince and he, "in a window of the highest house in Promnitz;" our young Fritz and the Margraf of Anspach, they also, in a neighboring window, [24th-25th June:
<italic> Helden-Geschichte <end italic> (above spoken of), i. 200]
stood till the finale: two in the morning, when the very Sun was not far from rising.
Or is not the ultimate closing day perhaps still notabler; a day of universal eating? Debauchee King August had a touch of genuine human good-humor in him; poor devil, and had the best of stomachs.
Eighty oxen, fat as Christmas, were slain and roasted, subsidiary viands I do not count; that all the world might have one good dinner. The soldiers, divided into proper sections, had cut trenches, raised flat mounds, laid planks; and so, by trenching and planking, had made at once table and seat, wood well secured on turf. At the end of every table rose a triglyph, two strong wooden posts with lintel; on the lintel stood spiked the ox's head, ox's hide hanging beneath it as drapery: and on the two sides of the two posts hung free the four roasted quarters of said ox; from which the common man joyfully helped himself.
Three measures of beer he had, and two of wine;--which, unless the measures were miraculously small, we may take to be abundance.
Thus they, in two long rows, 30,000 of them by the tale, dine joyfully SUB DIO. The two Majesties and two Crown-Princes rode through the ranks, as dinner went on: "King of Prussia forever!"and caps into the air;--at length they retire to their own HAUPT-QUARTIER, where, themselves dining, they can still see the soldiers dine, or at least drink their three measures and two.