"Which unheard-of procedure, be pleased, your Excellencies, to report to your respective Courts." [<italic> Gesammelte Nachrichten, <end italic> i. 222 (or "No. 26" of that Collection);<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> iv. 83.]
Poor old Lady, what a situation! And I believe she never saw her poor old Husband again. The day he went to Pirna (morning of yesterday, September 9th, Friedrich entering in the evening), these poor Spouses had, little dreaming of it, taken leave of one another forevermore. Such profit lies in your Bruhl. Kings and Queens that will be governed by a Jesuit Guarini, and a Bruhl of the Twelve Tailors, sometimes pay dear for it. They, or their representatives, are sure to do so. Kings and Queens,--yes, and if that were all:
but their poor Countries too? Their Countries;--well, their Countries did not hate Beelzebub, in his various shapes, ENOUGH.
Their Countries should have been in watch against Beelzebub in the shape of Bruhls;--watching, and also "praying" in a heroic manner, now fallen obsolete in these impious times!
Chapter V.
FRIEDRICH BLOCKADES THE SAXONS IN PIRNA COUNTRY.
Friedrich reckons himself to have 65,000 men in Saxony. Schwerin is issuing from Silesia, through the Glatz Mountains, for Bohemia, at the head of 40,000. The Austrian force is inferior in quantity, and far from ready:--Two "Camps" in Bohemia they have; the chief one under Browne (looking, or intending, this Saxon way), and a smaller under Piccolomini, in the Konigshof-Kolin region:--if well run into from front and rear, both Browne and Piccolomini might be beautifully handled; and a gash be cut in Austria, which might incline her to be at peace again! Nothing hinders but this paltry Camp of the Saxons; itself only 18,000 strong, but in a Country of such strength. And this does hinder, effectually while it continues: "How march to Bohemia, and leave the road blocked in our rear?"The Saxon Camp did continue,--unmanageable by any method, for five weeks to come; the season of war-operations gone, by that time:--and Friedrich's First Campaign, rendered mostly fruitless in this manner, will by no means check the Austrian truculencies, as by his velocity he hoped to do. No; but, on the contrary, will rouse the Austrians, French and all Enemies, to a tenfold pitch of temper.
And bring upon himself, from an astonished and misunderstanding Public, such tempests and world-tornadoes of loud-roaring obloquy, as even he, Friedrich, had never endured before.
To readers of a touring habit this Saxon Country is perhaps well known. For the last half-century it has been growing more and more famous, under the name of "Saxon Switzerland (SACHSISCHESCHWEITZ)," instead of "Misnian Highlands (MEISSNISCHE HOCHLAND),"which it used to be called. A beautiful enough and extremely rugged Country; interesting to the picturesque mind. Begins rising, in soft Hills, on both sides of the Elbe, a few miles east of Dresden, as you ascend the River; till it rises into Hills of wild character, getting ever wilder, and riven into wondrous chasms and precipices. Extends, say almost twenty miles up the River, to Tetschen and beyond, in this eastern direction; and with perhaps ten miles of breadth on each side of the River: area of the Rock-region, therefore, is perhaps some four hundred square miles.
The Falkenberg (what we should call HAWKSCRAG) northeastward in the Lausitz, the Schneeberg (SNOW MOUNTAIN), southeastward on the Bohemian border, are about thirty-five miles apart: these two are both reckoned to be in it,--its last outposts on that eastern side.
But the limits of it are fixed by custom only, and depend on no natural condition.
We might define it as the Sandstone NECK of the Metal Mountains: a rather lower block, of Sandstone, intercalated into the Metal-Mountain range, which otherwise, on both hands, is higher, and of harder rocks. Southward (as SHOULDER to this sandstone NECK) lies, continuous, broad and high, the "Metal-Mountain range" specially so called: northward and northeastward there rise, beyond that Falkenberg, many mountains, solitary or in groups,--"the Metal Mountains" fading out here into "the Lausitz Hills," still in fine picturesque fashion, which are Northern Border to the great Bohemian "Basin of the Elba," after you emerge from this Sandstone Country.
Saxon Switzerland is not very high anywhere; 2,000 feet is a notable degree of height: but it is torn and tumbled into stone labyrinths, chasms and winding rock-walls, as few regions are.
Grows pinewood, to the topmost height; pine-trees far aloft look quietly down upon you, over sheer precipices, on your intricate path. On the slopes of the Hills is grass enough; in the intervals are Villages and husbandries, are corn and milk for the laborious natives,--who depend mainly on quarrying, and pine-forest work: