Lobkowitz heard of it, in spite of the shut gates; for all Prag is against Belleisle, and does spy-work for Lobkowitz. 'Let him forage,' thought Lobkowitz; 'he will not grow rich by what he gathers;' and sat still, leaving his pontoons high and dry. So that Belleisle, on the afternoon of December 16th,--between 12 and 14,000 men, near 4,000 of them cavalry, with cannon, with provision-wagons, baggage-wagons, goods and chattels in mass,--has issued through the two Southwestern Gates; and finds himself fairly out of Prag. On the Pilsen road; about nightfall of the short winter day: earth all snow and 'VERGLAS,' iron glazed; huge olive-colored curtains of the Dusk going down upon the Mountains ahead of him; shutting in a scene wholly grim for Belleisle.
Brigadier Chevert, a distinguished and determined man, with some 4,000 sick, convalescent and half able, is left in Prag to man the works; the Marechal has taken hostages, twenty Notabilities of Prag; and neglected no precaution. He means towards Eger; has, at least, got one march ahead; and will do what is in him, he and every soul of those 14,000. The officers have given their horses for the baggage-wagons, made every sacrifice; the word Homewards kindles a strange fire in all hearts; and the troops, say my French authorities, are unsurpassable. The Marechal himself, victim of rheumatisms, cannot ride at all; but has his light sledge always harnessed; and, at a moment's notice, is present everywhere.
Sleep, during these ten days and nights, he has little.
"Eger is 100 miles off, by the shortest Highway: there are two bad Highways, one by Pilsen southerly, one by Karlsbad northerly,--with their bridges all broken, infested by Hussars:--we strike into a middle combination of country roads, intricate parish lanes;and march zigzag across these frozen wildernesses: we must dodge these Festititz Hussar swarms; and cross the rivers near their springs. Forward! Perhaps some readers, for the high Belleisle's sake, will look out these localities subjoined in the Note, and reduced to spelling. [Tachlowitz, Lischon (near Rakonitz); Jechnitz (as if you were for the Pilsen road; then turn as if for the Karlsbad one); Steben (not discoverable, but a DESPATCH from it,--<italic> Campagnes, <end italic> v. 280), Chisch, Luditz, Theysing (hereabouts you break off into smaller columns, separate parties and patches, cavalry all ahead, among the Hills): Schonthal AND Landeck (Belleisle passes Christmas-day at Landeck,--<italic>
Campagnes, <end italic> vii. 10); Einsiedel (AND by Petschau), Lauterbach, Konigswart, AND likewise by Topl, Sandau, Treunitz (that is, into Eger from two sides).] Resting-places in this grim wilderness of his: poor snow-clad Hamlets,--with their little hood of human smoke rising through the snow; silent all of them, except for the sound of here and there a flail, or crowing cock;--but have been awakened from their torpor by this transit of Belleisle.
Happily the bogs themselves are iron; deepest bog will bear.
"Festititz tries us twice,--very anxious to get Belleisle's Army-chest, or money; we give him torrents of sharp shot instead.
Festititz, these two chief times, we pepper rapidly into the Hills again; he is reduced to hang prancing on our flanks and rear.
Men bivouac over fires of turf, amid snow, amid frost; tear down, how greedily, any wood-work for fire. Leave a trumpet to beg quarter for the frozen and speechless;--which is little respected:
they are lugged in carts, stript by the savageries, and cruelly used. There were first extensive plains, then boggy passes, intricate mouutains; bog and rock; snow and VERGLAS.--On the 26th, after indescribable endeavors, we got into Eger;--some 1,300 (about one in ten) left frozen in the wilderness; and half the Army falling ill at Eger, of swollen limbs, sore-throats, and other fataler diseases, fatal then, or soon after. Chevert, at Prag, refused summons from Prince Lobkowitz: 'No, MON PRINCE; not by any means! We will die, every man of us, first; and we will burn Prag withal!'--So that Lobkowitz had to consent to everything;and escort Chevert to Eger, with bag and baggage, Lobkowitz furnishing the wagons.
"Comparable to the Retreat of Xenophon! cry many. Every Retreat is compared to that. A valiant feat, after all exaggerations. A thing well done, say military men;--'nothing to object, except that the troops were so ruined;'--and the most unmilitary may see, it is the work of a high and gallant kind of man. One of the coldest expeditions ever known. There have been three expeditions or retreats of this kind which were very cold: that of those Swedes in the Great Elector's time (not to mention that of Karl XII.'s Army out of Norway, after poor Karl XII. got shot); that of Napoleon from Moscow; this of Belleisle, which is the only one brilliantly conducted, and not ending in rout and annihilation.
"The troops rest in Eger for a week or two; then homeward through the Ober-Pfalz:--'go all across the Rhine at Speyer' (5th February next); the Bohemian Section of the Oriflamme ****** exit in this manner. Not quite the eighth man of them left; five-eighths are dead: and there are about 12,000 prisoners, gone to Hungary,--who ran mostly to the Turks, such treatment had they, and were not heard of again." [<italic> Guerre de Boheme, <end italic> ii. 221(for this last fact). IB. 204, and Espagnac, i. 176 (for particulars of the Retreat); and still better, Belleisle's own Despatch and Private Letter (Eger, 2d January and 5th January, 1743), in <italic> Campagnes, <end italic> vii. 1-21.]--Ah, Belleisle, Belleisle!