: it is long since the French have known
this state of matters; and been in the habit of break-
ing in upon it, fomenting internal discontents, getting
up unjust Wars, -- with or without advantage to
France, but with endless disadvantage to Germany.
this state of matters; and been in the habit of break-
ing in upon it, fomenting internal discontents, getting
up unjust Wars, -- with or without advantage to
France, but with endless disadvantage to Germany.
Thomas Carlyle
Foolish Nations; doomed
to settle their jarring accounts in that terrible manner!
Nay, the fewest of them had any accounts, except
imaginary ones, to settle there at all; and they wjnt
into the adventure gratis, spurred on by specialities of
the sick brain, by phantasms of hope, phantasms of
terror; and had, strictly speaking, no actual business
in it whatever.
Not that Mollwitz kindled Europe; Europe was al-
ready kindled for some two years past; -- especially
since the late Kaiser died, and his Pragmatic Sanction
was superadded to the other troubles afoot. But ever
since that Image of Jenkins's Ear had at last blazed up
in the slow English brain, like a fiery constellation or
Sign in the Heavens, symbolic of such injustices and
unendurabilities, and had lighted the Spanish-English
War, Europe was slowly but pretty surely taking fire.
France "could not see Spain humbled," she said: Eng-
land (in its own dim feeling, and also in the fact of
things) could not do at all without considerably
humbling Spain. France, endlessly interested in that
Spanish-English matter, was already sending out fleets,
firing shots, -- almost, or altogether; putting forth her
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 345
April--May 1741.
hand in it. "In which case, will not, must not, Austria
help us? " thought England, -- and was asking, daily,
at Vienna (with intense earnestness, but without the
least result), through Excellency Robinson there, when
the late Kaiser died. Died, poor gentleman; -- and
left his big Austrian Heritages lying, as it were, in the
open market-place; elaborately tied by diplomatic
pack-thread and Pragmatic Sanction; but not otherwise
protected against the assembled cupidities of mankind!
Independently of Mollwitz, or of Silesia altogether, it
,was next to impossible that Europe could long avoid
blazing out; especially unless the Spanish-English
quarrel got quenched, of which there was no likeli-
hood.
But, if not as cause, then as signal, or as signal
and cause together (which it properly was), the Battle
of Mollwitz gave the finishing stroke, and set all in
motion. This was "the little stone broken loose from
the mountain;" this, rather than the late Kaiser's Death,
which Friedrich defined in that manner. Or at least,
this was the first leap it took; hitting other stones big
and little, which again hit others with their leaping
and rolling, -- till the whole mountain-side was in mo-
tion under law of gravity, and you behold one wide
stone-torrent thundering towards the valleys; shivering
woods, farms, habitations clean away with it: fatal to
any Image of composite Clay and Brass which it may
meet!
There is, accordingly, from this point, a change in
Friedrich's Silesian Adventure; which becomes infinitely
more complicated for him, -- and for those that write
of him, no less! Friedrich's business henceforth is not
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? 346 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xn.
[April--May 1741.
to be done by direct fighting, but rather by waiting to
see how, and on what side, others will fight: nor can
we describe or understand Friedrich's business, except
as in connexion with the immense, obsolete, and indeed
delirious Phenomenon called Austrian-Succession 'War,
upon which it is difficult to say any human word. If
History, driven upon Dismal Swamp with its horrors
and perils, can get across unsunk, she will be lucky!
For, directly on the back of Mollwitz, there ensued,
first, an explosion of Diplomatic activity such as was
never seen before; Excellencies from the four winds
taking wing towards Friedrich; and talking and in-
sinuating, and fencing and fugling, after their sort, in
that Silesian Camp of his, the centre being there. A
universal rookery of Diplomatists; -- whose loud cackle
and cawing is now as if gone mad to us; their work
wholly fallen putrescent and avoidable, dead to all
creatures. And secondly, in the train of that, there
ensued a universal European War, the French and the
English being chief parties in it; which abounds in
battles and feats of arms, spirited but delirious, and
cannot be got stilled fof seven or eight years to come;
and in which Friedrich and his War swim only as an
intermittent Episode henceforth. What to do with such
a War; how extricate the Episode, and leave the War
lying? The War was at first a good deal mad; and is
now, to men's imagination, fallen wholly so; who in-
deed have managed mostly to forget it; only the Epi-
sode (reduced thereby to an unintelligible state) retain-
ing still some claims on them.
It is singular into what oblivion the huge Pheno-
menon called Austrian-Succession War has fallen;
which, within a hundred years ago or little more, filled
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 347
April--May 1741.
all mortal hearts! The English were principals on one
side; did themselves fight in it, with their customary
fire, and their customary guidance ("courageous Wooden
Pole with Cocked Hat," as our friend called it); and
paid all the expenses, which were extremely consider-
able, and are felt in men's pockets to this day: but the
English have more completely forgotten it than any
other People. "Battle of Dettingen, Battle ofFontenoy,
-- what, in the Devil's name, were we ever doing
there? " the impatient Englishman asks; and can give
no answer, except the general one: "Fit of insanity;
Delirium Tremens, perhaps Furens; -- don't think of
it! " Of Philippi and Arbela educated Englishmen can
render account; and I am told young gentlenien enter-
ing the Army are pointedly required to say who com-
manded at Aigos-Potamos and wrecked the Pelopon-
nesian 'War: but of Dettingen and Fontenoy, where is
the living Englishman that has the least notion, or
seeks for any? The Austrian-Succession War did
veritably rage for eight years, at a terrific rate, de-
forming the face of Earth and Heaven; the English
paying the piper always, and founding their National
Debt thereby: -- but not even that could prove
mnemonic to them; and they have dropped the
Austrian-Succession War, with one accord, into the
general dust-bin, and are content it should lie there.
They have not, in their language, the least approach
to an intelligible account of it: How it went on,
whitherward, whence; why it was there at all, ? -- are
points dark to the English, and on which they do not
wish to be informed. They have quitted the matter,
as an unintelligible huge English-and-Foreign Delirium
(which in good part it was); Delirium unintelligible to
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? 348 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xn.
April--May 1741
them; tedious, not to say in parts, as those of the
Austrian Subsidies, hideous and disgusting to them; --
happily now fallen extinct; and capable of being
skipped, in one's inquiries into the wonders of this
England and this World. Which, in fact, is a practical
conclusion not so unwise as it looks.
"Wars are not memorable," says Sauerteig, "however big
"they may have been, whatever rages and miseries they may
"have occasioned, or however many hundreds of thousands
"they may have been the death of, -- except, when they have
"something of World-History in them withal. If they are
"found to have been the travail-throes of great or consider-
"able changes, which continue permanent in the world, men
'' of some curiosity cannot but inquire into them, keep memory
"of them. But if they were travail-throes that had no birth,
"who of mortals would remember them? Unless perhaps the
"feats of prowess, virtue, valour and endurance, they might
"accidentally give rise to, were very great indeed. Much
"greater than the most were, which came out in that Austrian-
"Succession case! Wars otherwise are mere futile transitory
"dust-whirlwinds stilled in blood; extensive fits of human in-
"sanity, such as we know are too apt to break out; -- such as
"it rather beseems a faithful Son of the House of Adam not to
"speak about again; as in houses where the grandfather was
"hanged, the topic of ropes is fitly avoided.
"Never again will that War, with its deliriums, mad out-
"lays of blood, treasure, and of hope and terror, and far-
"spread human destruction, rise into visual life in any imagi-
'' nation of living man. In vain shall Dryasdust strive: things
"mad, chaotic and without ascertainable purpose or result,
"cannot be fixed into human memories. Fix them there by
"never so many Documentary Histories, elaborate long-eared
"Pedantries, and cunning threads, the poor human memory
"has an alchemy against such ill usage; -- it forgets them
"again; grows to know them as a mere torpor, a stupidity
"and horror, and instinctively flies from Dryasdust and
"them. "
Alive to any considerable degree, in the poor
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 349
April--May 1741.
human imagination, this Editor does not expect or
even wish the Austrian-Succession War to be. Enough
for him if it could be understood sufficiently to render
his poor History of Friedrich intelligible. For it en-
wraps Friedrich like a world-vortex henceforth; modi-
fies every step of his existence henceforth; and apart
from it, there is no understanding of his business or
him. "So much as sticks to Friedrich:" that was our
original bargain! Assist loyally, 0 reader, and we
will try to make the indispensable a minimum for
you.
Who was to blame for the Austrian-Succession War?
The first point to be noted is, Where did it
originate? To which the answer mainly is, With that
lean Gentleman whom we saw with Papers, in the
(Eil-de-Bceuf on New-year's day last. With Monseigneur
the Marechal deBelleisle principally; with the ambitious
cupidities and baseless vanities of the French Court
and Nation, as represented by Belleisle. George II. 's
Spanish War, if you will examine, had a real necessity
in it. Jenkins's Ear was the ridiculous outside figure
this matter had: Jenkins's Ear was one final item of
it; but the poor English People, in their wrath and
bellowings about that small item, were intrinsically
meaning: "Settle the account; let us have that account
cleared up and liquidated: it has lain too long! " And
seldom were a People more in the right, as readers
shall yet see.
The English-Spanish War had a basis to stand on
in this Universe. The like had the Prussian-Austrian
one; so all men now admit. If Friedrich had not
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? 350 . FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [bOOk XII.
Ai. ril--May 1741.
business there, what man ever had in an enterprise he
ventured on? Friedrich, after such trial and proof as
has seldom been, got his claims on Schlesien allowed
by the Destinies. His claims on Schlesien; --- and on
infinitely higher things; which were found to be his
and his Nation's, though he had not been consciously
thinking of them in making that adventure. For, as
my poor Friend insists, there are Laws valid in Earth
and in Heaven; and the great soul of the world is just.
Friedrich had business in this War; and Maria Theresa
versus Friedrich had likewise cause to appear in court,
and do her utmost pleading against him.
But if we ask, What Belleisle, or France and Louis
XV. had to do there? the answer is rigorously, Nothing.
Their own windy vanities, ambitions, sanctioned not by
fact and the Almighty Powers, but by phantasm and
the babble of Versailles; transcendent self-conceit, in-
trinsically insane; pretensions over their fellow-creatures
which were without basis anywhere in Nature, except
in the French brain alone: it was this that brought
Belleisle and France into a German War. And Belleisle
and France having gone into an Anti-Pragmatic War,
the unlucky George and his England were dragged
into a Pragmatic one, -- quitting their own business,
on the Spanish Main, and hurrying to Germany, -- in
terror as at Doomsday, and zeal to save the Keystone
of Nature there. That is the notable point in regard
to this War: That France is to be called the author of
it, who, alone of all the parties, had no business there
whatever. And the wages due to France for such a
piece of industry, -- the reader will yet see what
wages France and the other parties got, at the tail of
the affair. For that too is apparent in our day.
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 351
April--May 1741.
We have often said, the Spanish-English War was
itself likely to have kindled Europe; and again Fried-
rich's Silesian War was itself likely, -- France being
nearly sure to interfere. But if both these Wars were
necessary ones, and if France interfered in either of
them on the wrong side, the blame will be to France,
not to the necessary Wars. France could, in no way,
have interfered in a more barefacedly unjust and gra-
tuitous manner, than she now did; nor, on any terms,
have so palpably made herself the author of the con-
flagration of deliriums that ensued for above Seven
years henceforth. Nay for above Twenty years, --
the settlement of this Silesian Pragmatic-Antipragmatic
matter (and of Jenkins's Ear, incidentally, along with
this! ) not having fairly completed itself till 1763.
How Belleisle made Visit to Teutschlancl; and there ivas
no fit Henry the Fowler to welcome him.
It is very wrong to keep Enchanted Wiggeries sit-
ting in this world, as if they were things still alive!
By a species of "conservatism," which gets praised in
our Time, but which is only a slothful cowardice, base
indifference to truth, and hatred to trouble in compa-
rison with lies that sit quiet, men now extensively
practise this method of procedure; -- little dreaming
how bad and fatal it at all times is. When the brains
are out, things really ought to die; -- no matter what
lovely things they were, and still affect to be, the brains
being out, they actually ought in all cases to die, and
with their best speed get buried. Men had noses, at
one time; and smelt the horror of a deceased reality
fallen putrid, of a once dear verity become mendacious,
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? 352 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book XII.
. April--May 1741.
phantasmal; but they have, to an immense degree, lost
that organ since, and are now living comfortably cheek-
by-jowl with lies. Lies of that sad "conservative"
kind, -- and indeed of all kinds whatsoever: for that
kind is a general mother; and breeds, with a fecundity
that is appalling, did you heed it much! --
It was pity that the "Holy Romish Reich, Teutsch
by Nation," had not got itself buried some ages before.
Once it had brains and life, but now they were out.
Under the sway of Barbarossa, under our old Anti-
chaotic friend Henry the Fowler, how different had it
been! No field for a Belleisle, to come and sow tares;
no rotten thatch for a French Sungod to go sailing
about in the middle of, and set fire to! Henry, when
the Hungarian Pan-Slavonic Savagery came upon him,
had got ready in the interim; and a mangy dog was
the "tribute" he gave them; followed by the due extent
of broken crowns, since they would not be content with
that. That was the due of Belleisle too, -- had there
been a Henry to meet him with it, on his crossing the
marches, in Trier Country, in Spring 1741: "There,
you anarchic Upholstery-Belus, fancying yourself God
of the Sun; there is what Teutschland owes you. Go
home with that; and mind your own business, which I
am told is plentiful, if you had eye for it! "
But the sad truth is, for above Four Centuries now
-- and especially for Three, since little Kaiser Karl IV.
"gave away all the moneys of it," in his pressing oc-
casions, -- this Holy Romish Reich, Teutsch by Na-
tion, has been more and ever more becoming an ima-
ginary quantity; the Kaisership of it not capable of
being worn by anybody, except a Hapsburger who had
resources otherwise his own. The fact is palpable. And
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? CHAP. BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 353
April--May 1741.
Austria, an Anti-Reformation Entity, "conservative"
in that bad sense, of slothfully abhorring trouble in
comparison with lies, had not found the poison more
malodorous in this particular than in many others. And
had cherished its "Holy Romish Reich" grown w>iholy,
phantasmal, like so much else in Austrian things; and
had held firm grip of it, these Three Hundred years;
and found it a furthersome and suitable thing, though
sensible it was more and more becoming an Enchanted
Wiggery pure and simple. Nor have the consequences
failed; they never do. Belleisle, LouisXIV. , HenriII. ,
Francois I.
: it is long since the French have known
this state of matters; and been in the habit of break-
ing in upon it, fomenting internal discontents, getting
up unjust Wars, -- with or without advantage to
France, but with endless disadvantage to Germany.
Schmalkaldic War; Thirty-Years War; Louis XIV. 's
Wars, which brought Alsace and the other fine cuttings;
late Polish-Election War, and its Lorraine; Austrian-
Succession War: many are the wars kindled on poor
Teutschland, by neighbour France; and large is the
sum of woes to Europe and to it, chargeable to that
score. Which appears even yet not to be completed?
-- Perhaps not, even yet. For it is the penalty of
being loyal to Enchanted Wiggeries; of living cheek-
by-jowl with lies of a peaceable quality, and stuffing
your nostrils, and searing your soul, against the ac-
cursed odour they all have! -- For I can assure you,
the curse of Heaven does dwell in one and all of them;
and the son of Adam cannot too soon get quit of their
bad partnership, cost him what it may.
Belleisle's Journey as Sungod began in March, --
Carlyle, Frederick lite Great. VI. 23
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? 354 , TIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xn.
April--May 1741.
"end of March 1741," no date of a day to be had for
that memorable thing: -- and he went gyrating about
through the German Courts, for almost a year after-
wards; his course rather erratic, but always in a splendour
as of Belus, with those Hundred-and-thirty French
Lords and Valets, and the glory of Most Christian King
irradiating him. Very diligent for the first six months,
till September or October next, which we may call his
seed-time; and by no means resting, after nine or twelve
months, while the harrowing and hoeing went on. In
January 1742, he had the great satisfaction to see a
Bavarian Kaiser got, instead of an Austrian; and every-
where the fruit of his diligent husbandry begin to beard
fairly above ground, into a crop of facts (like armed
men from dragon's teeth), and "the pleasure of the''
-- whom was it the pleasure of! -- "prosper in his
hands. " Belleisle was a pretty man; but I doubt it
was not "the Lord" he was doing the pleasure of, on
this occasion, but a very Different Personage, disguised
to resemble him in poor Belleisle's eyes! --
Austria was not dangerous to France in late times,
and now least of all; how far from it, -- humbled by
the loss of Lorraine; and now as it were bankrupt, it-
self in danger from all the world. And France, so far
as express Treaties could bind a Nation, was bound to
maintain Austria in its present possessions. The bitter
loss of Lorraine had been sweetened to the late Kaiser
by that solitary drop of consolation; -- as his Failure
of a Life had been, poor man; "Failure the most of
me has been; but I have got Pragmatic Sanction, thanks
to Heaven, and even France has signed it! " Loss of
Lorraine, loss of Elsass, loss of the Three Bishopricks;
since Karl V. 's times, not to speak of earlier, there has
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 355
April--May 1741.
been mere loss on loss: -- and now is the time to con-
summate it, think Belleisle and France, in spite of
Treaties.
Towards humbling or extinguishing Austria, Belle-
isle has two preliminary things to do: First, Break the
Pragmatic Sanction, and get everybody to break it;
second. Guide the Kaiserwahl (Election of a Kaiser), so
that it issue, not in Grand-Duke Franz, Maria Theresa's
Husband, as all expect it will, but in another party
friendly to France: -- say, in Karl Albert of Bavaria,
whose Family have long been good clients of ours, de-
pendent on us for a living in the Political World.
Belleisle, there is little doubt, had from the first cast
his eye on this unlucky Karl Albert for Kaiser; but is
uncertain as to carrying him. Belleisle will take an-
other, if he must; Kur-Sachsen, for example; -- any
other, and all others, only not the Grand-Duke: that is
a point already fixed with Belleisle, though he keeps v
it well in the background, and is careful not to hint it
till the time come.
In regard to Pragmatic Sanction, Belleisle and France
found no difficulty, -- or the difficulty only (which we
hope must have been considerable) of eating their own
Covenant in behalf of Pragmatic Sanction; and de-
claring, which they did without visible blush, That it
was a Covenant including, if not expressly, then ta-
citly, as all human covenants do, this clause, "Salvo
jure tertii (Saving the rights of Third Parties)," --
that is, of Electors of Bavaria, and others who may ob-
ject against it! 0 soul of honour, 0 first Nation of
the Universe, was there ever such a subterfuge? Here
is a field of flowering corn, the biggest in the world,
begirt with elaborate ring-fence, many miles of firm
23*
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? 356 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xn.
April--May 1141.
oak-paling pitched and buttressed; -- the poor gentle-
man now dead gave you his Lorraine, and almost his
life, for swearing to keep up said paling. And you do
keep it up, -- all except six yards; through which the
biggest team on the highway can drive freely, and the
paltriest cadger's ass can step in for a bellyful!
It appears, the first Nation of the Universe had, at
an early period of their consultations, hit upon this of
Salvo jure tertii, as the method of eating their Cove-
nant, before an enlightened public* And they per-
sisted in it, there being no other for them. An en-
lightened public grinned sardonically, and was not taken
in; but, as so many others were eating their Covenants,
under equally poor substerfuges, the enlightened public
could not grin long on any individual, -- could only
gape mutely, with astonishment, on all. A glorious
example of veracity and human nobleness, set by the
gods of this lower world to their gazing populations,
who could read in the Gazettes! What is truth, falsity,
human Kingship, human Swindlership? Are the Ten
Commandments only a figure of speech, then? And it
was some beggarly Attorney-Z>ew'Z that built this sublu-
nary world and us? Questions might rise; had long
been rising; -- but now there was about enough, and
the response to them was falling due; and Belleisle him-
self, what is very notable, had been appointed, to get
ready the response. Belleisle (little as Belleisle dreamt
of it, in these high Enterprises) was ushering in, by
way of response, a Magnardk, or Twilight of the Gods,
* 20th January 1741, in their Note of Ceremony, recognising Maria
Theresa as Queen of Hungary, Note which had been due so very long
(Adelun'j, ii. 206)1, there is ominous silence on Pragmatic Sanction; u be-
ginning of March," there is virtual avowal of Salvo jure (ib. 279); -- open
avowal on Belleisle's advent (ib. 305).
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 357
April--May 1741.
which, as "French Revolution, or Apotheosis of Sans-
culottism" is now well known; -- and that is something
to consider of!
Downbreak of Pragmatic Sanction; Manner of the chief
Artists in handling their Covenants.
The operation once accomplished on its own Prag-
matic Covenant, France found no difficulty with the
others. Everybody was disposed to eat his Covenant
who could see advantage in so doing, after that admir-
able example. The difficulty of France and Belleisle
rather was, to keep the hungry parties back: "Don't
eat your Covenant till the proper time; patience, we
say! " A most sad Miscellany of Royalties, coming all
to the point, "Will you eat your Covenant, Will you
keep it? " -- and eating, nearly all; in fact, wholly all
that needed to eat.
On the first Invasion of Silesia, Maria Theresa had
indignantly complained in every Court; and pointing
to Pragmatic Sanction, had demanded that such Law
of Nature be complied with, according to covenant.
What Maria Theresa got by this circuit of the Courts,
everybody still knows. Except England, which was
willing, and Holland, which was unwilling, all Courts
had answered, more or less uneasily: "Law of Nature,
-- humph: yes! " -- and, far from doing anything, not
one of them would with certainty promise to do any-
thing. From England alone and her little King (to
whom Pragmatic Sanction is the Palladium of Human
Freedoms and the Keystone of Nature) could she get
the least help. The rest hung back; would not open
heart or pocket; waited till they saw. They do now
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? 358 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book 111.
April--M>>y I'M.
see; now that Belleisle has done his feat of Covenant-
eating! --
Eleven great Powers, some count Thirteen, some
Twelve,* -- but no two agree, and hardly one agrees
with himself; -- enough, the Powers of Europe, from
Naples and Madrid to Russia and Sweden, have all
signed it, let us say a Dozen or Baker's-Dozen of them.
And except our little English Paladin alone, whoa'
interest and indeed salvation seemed -to him to lie that
way, and who needed no Pragmatic Covenant to guide
him, nobody whatever distinguished himself by keeping
it. Between December 1740, when Maria Theresa set
up her cries in all Courts, on to April 1741, England,
painfully dragging Holland with her, had alone of the
Baker's-Dozen spoken word of disapproval; much less
done act of hindrance. Two especially (France and
Bavaria, not to mention Spain) had done the reverse,
and disowned, and declared against, Pragmatic Sanc-
tion. And after the Battle of Mollwitz, when the "little
stone" took its first leap, and set all thundering, then
came, like the inrush of a fashion, throughout that high
Miscellany or Baker's-Dozen, the general eating of
Covenants (which was again quickened in August, for
a reason we shall see): and before November of that
Year, there was no Covenant left to eat. Of the
Baker's-Dozen nobody remained but little George the
Paladin, dragging Holland painfully along with him;
-- and Pragmatic Sanction had gone to water, like ice
in a June day, and its beautiful crystalline qualities
and prismatic colours were forever vanished from the
world. Will the reader note a point or two, a per
sonage or two, in this sordid process, -- not for the
* Scholl, ii. 286; Adelung, list, ii. 127.
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 359
April--May 1741.
process's sake, which is very sordid and smells badly,
but for his own sake, to elucidate his own course a
little, in the intricacies now coming or come upon him
and me?
1? . Elector of Bavaria. -- Karl Albert of Baiern is
by some counted as a Signer of the Pragmatic Sanction,
and by others not; which occasions that discrepancy of
sum-total in the Books. And he did once, in a sense,
sign it, he and his Brother of Koln; but, before the
late Kaiser's death, he had openly drawn back from it
again: and counted himself a Non-signer. Signer or
not, he, for his part, lost no moment |(but rather the con-
trary) in openly protesting against it, and signifying
that he never would acknowledge it. Of this the reader
saw something, at the time of her Hungarian Majesty's
Accession. Date and circumstances of it, which de-
serve remembering, are more precisely these: October
20th, 1740, Karl Albert's Ambassador, Perusa by name,
wrote, to Karl from Vienna, announcing that the Kaiser
was just dead. From Munchen, on the 21st, Karl
Albert, anticipating such an event, but not yet knowing
it, orders Perusa, in case of the Kaiser's decease, which
was considered probable at Miinchen, to demand instant j
audience of the proper party (Kanzler Sinzendorf), and
there openly lodge his Protest. Which Perusa did,
punctually in all points, -- no moment lost, but rather
the contrary, as we said! Let poor Karl Albert have
what benefit there is in that fact. He was, of all the
Anti-Pragmatic Covenant-Breakers (if he ever fairly
were such), the only one that proceeded honourably,
openly and at once, in the matter; and he was, of them
all, by far the most unfortunate.
This is the poor gentleman whom Belleisle had
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? 360 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xa.
April--May 1741.
settled on for being Kaiser. And Kaiser he became;
to his frightful sorrow, as it proved: his crown like a
crown of burning iron, or little better! There is little
of him in the Books, nor does one desire much: a tall
aquiline type of man; much the gentleman in aspect;
and in reality, of decorous serious deportment, and the
wish to be high ahd dignified. He had a kind of right,
too, in the Anti-Pragmatic sense; and was come of
Imperial kindred, -- Kaiser Ludwig the Bavarian, and
Kaiser Rupert of the Pfalz, called Rupert Klemm, or
Rupert Smith's-vice, if any reader now remember him,
were both of his ancestors. He might fairly pretend to
Kaisership and to Austrian ownership, -- had he other-
wise been equal to such enterprises. But, in all am-
bitions and attempts, howsoever grounded otherwise,
there is this strict question on the threshold: "Are you
of weight for the adventure; are not you far too light
for it? " Ambitious persons often slur this question;
and get squelched to pieces, by bringing the Twelve
Labours of Hercules on Unherculean backs! Not every
one is so lucky as our Friedrich in that particular, --
whose back, though with difficulty, held out. Which
poor Karl Albert's never had much likelihood to do.
Few mortals in any age have offered such an example
of the tragedies which Ambition has in store for her
votaries; and what a matter Hope Fulfilled may be to
the unreflecting Son of Adam.
We said, he had a kind of right to Austria, withal.
He descended by the female line from Kaiser Ferdi-
nand I. (as did Kur-Sachsen, though by a younger
Daughter than Karl Albert's Ancestress); and he ap-
pealed to Kaiser Ferdinand's Settlement of the Succes-
sion, as a higher than any subsequent Pragmatic could
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 361
April--May 1741.
be. Upon which there hangs an incident; still famous
to German readers. Karl Albert, getting into Public
Argument in this way, naturally instructed Perusa to
demand sight of Kaiser Ferdinand's Last Will, the
tenor of which was known by authentic Copy in Mtin-
chen, if not elsewhere among the kindred. After some
delay, Perusa (4th November 1740), summoning the
other Excellencies to witness, got sight of the Will: to
his horror, there stood, in the cardinal passage, instead
of "mdnnliche" (male descendants), "eheliche" (lawfully-
begotten descendants), -- fatal to Karl Albert's claim!
Nor could he prove that the Parchment had been
scraped or altered, though he kept trying and ex-
amining for some days. He withdrew thereupon, by
order, straightway from Vienna; testifying in dumb-
show what he thought. "It is your Copy that is false,"
cried the Vienna people: "it has been foisted on you,
with this wrong word in it; done by somebody (your
friend, the Excellency Herr von Hartmann,' shall we
guess? ), wishing to curry favour with ambitious foolish
persons! " Such was the Austrian story. Perhaps in
Miinchen itself their Copyist was not known; -- for
aught I learn, the Copy was made long since, and the
Copyist dead. Hartmann, named as Copyist by the
Vienna people, made emphatic public answer, "Never
did I copy it, or see it! " And there rose great argu-
ment, which is not yet quite ended, as to the question,
"Original falsified, or Copy falsified? " -- and the
modern vote, I believe, rather clearly is, That the
Austrian Officials had done it -- in a case of neces-
sity. * Possible? "But you will lose your soul! " said
* Adelung, ii. 150-154 (14th-20th November 1740), gives the public facts,
without commentary. Hormayr (. Im'monen aus dem Tagebnch eines alien
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to settle their jarring accounts in that terrible manner!
Nay, the fewest of them had any accounts, except
imaginary ones, to settle there at all; and they wjnt
into the adventure gratis, spurred on by specialities of
the sick brain, by phantasms of hope, phantasms of
terror; and had, strictly speaking, no actual business
in it whatever.
Not that Mollwitz kindled Europe; Europe was al-
ready kindled for some two years past; -- especially
since the late Kaiser died, and his Pragmatic Sanction
was superadded to the other troubles afoot. But ever
since that Image of Jenkins's Ear had at last blazed up
in the slow English brain, like a fiery constellation or
Sign in the Heavens, symbolic of such injustices and
unendurabilities, and had lighted the Spanish-English
War, Europe was slowly but pretty surely taking fire.
France "could not see Spain humbled," she said: Eng-
land (in its own dim feeling, and also in the fact of
things) could not do at all without considerably
humbling Spain. France, endlessly interested in that
Spanish-English matter, was already sending out fleets,
firing shots, -- almost, or altogether; putting forth her
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 345
April--May 1741.
hand in it. "In which case, will not, must not, Austria
help us? " thought England, -- and was asking, daily,
at Vienna (with intense earnestness, but without the
least result), through Excellency Robinson there, when
the late Kaiser died. Died, poor gentleman; -- and
left his big Austrian Heritages lying, as it were, in the
open market-place; elaborately tied by diplomatic
pack-thread and Pragmatic Sanction; but not otherwise
protected against the assembled cupidities of mankind!
Independently of Mollwitz, or of Silesia altogether, it
,was next to impossible that Europe could long avoid
blazing out; especially unless the Spanish-English
quarrel got quenched, of which there was no likeli-
hood.
But, if not as cause, then as signal, or as signal
and cause together (which it properly was), the Battle
of Mollwitz gave the finishing stroke, and set all in
motion. This was "the little stone broken loose from
the mountain;" this, rather than the late Kaiser's Death,
which Friedrich defined in that manner. Or at least,
this was the first leap it took; hitting other stones big
and little, which again hit others with their leaping
and rolling, -- till the whole mountain-side was in mo-
tion under law of gravity, and you behold one wide
stone-torrent thundering towards the valleys; shivering
woods, farms, habitations clean away with it: fatal to
any Image of composite Clay and Brass which it may
meet!
There is, accordingly, from this point, a change in
Friedrich's Silesian Adventure; which becomes infinitely
more complicated for him, -- and for those that write
of him, no less! Friedrich's business henceforth is not
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? 346 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xn.
[April--May 1741.
to be done by direct fighting, but rather by waiting to
see how, and on what side, others will fight: nor can
we describe or understand Friedrich's business, except
as in connexion with the immense, obsolete, and indeed
delirious Phenomenon called Austrian-Succession 'War,
upon which it is difficult to say any human word. If
History, driven upon Dismal Swamp with its horrors
and perils, can get across unsunk, she will be lucky!
For, directly on the back of Mollwitz, there ensued,
first, an explosion of Diplomatic activity such as was
never seen before; Excellencies from the four winds
taking wing towards Friedrich; and talking and in-
sinuating, and fencing and fugling, after their sort, in
that Silesian Camp of his, the centre being there. A
universal rookery of Diplomatists; -- whose loud cackle
and cawing is now as if gone mad to us; their work
wholly fallen putrescent and avoidable, dead to all
creatures. And secondly, in the train of that, there
ensued a universal European War, the French and the
English being chief parties in it; which abounds in
battles and feats of arms, spirited but delirious, and
cannot be got stilled fof seven or eight years to come;
and in which Friedrich and his War swim only as an
intermittent Episode henceforth. What to do with such
a War; how extricate the Episode, and leave the War
lying? The War was at first a good deal mad; and is
now, to men's imagination, fallen wholly so; who in-
deed have managed mostly to forget it; only the Epi-
sode (reduced thereby to an unintelligible state) retain-
ing still some claims on them.
It is singular into what oblivion the huge Pheno-
menon called Austrian-Succession War has fallen;
which, within a hundred years ago or little more, filled
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 347
April--May 1741.
all mortal hearts! The English were principals on one
side; did themselves fight in it, with their customary
fire, and their customary guidance ("courageous Wooden
Pole with Cocked Hat," as our friend called it); and
paid all the expenses, which were extremely consider-
able, and are felt in men's pockets to this day: but the
English have more completely forgotten it than any
other People. "Battle of Dettingen, Battle ofFontenoy,
-- what, in the Devil's name, were we ever doing
there? " the impatient Englishman asks; and can give
no answer, except the general one: "Fit of insanity;
Delirium Tremens, perhaps Furens; -- don't think of
it! " Of Philippi and Arbela educated Englishmen can
render account; and I am told young gentlenien enter-
ing the Army are pointedly required to say who com-
manded at Aigos-Potamos and wrecked the Pelopon-
nesian 'War: but of Dettingen and Fontenoy, where is
the living Englishman that has the least notion, or
seeks for any? The Austrian-Succession War did
veritably rage for eight years, at a terrific rate, de-
forming the face of Earth and Heaven; the English
paying the piper always, and founding their National
Debt thereby: -- but not even that could prove
mnemonic to them; and they have dropped the
Austrian-Succession War, with one accord, into the
general dust-bin, and are content it should lie there.
They have not, in their language, the least approach
to an intelligible account of it: How it went on,
whitherward, whence; why it was there at all, ? -- are
points dark to the English, and on which they do not
wish to be informed. They have quitted the matter,
as an unintelligible huge English-and-Foreign Delirium
(which in good part it was); Delirium unintelligible to
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? 348 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xn.
April--May 1741
them; tedious, not to say in parts, as those of the
Austrian Subsidies, hideous and disgusting to them; --
happily now fallen extinct; and capable of being
skipped, in one's inquiries into the wonders of this
England and this World. Which, in fact, is a practical
conclusion not so unwise as it looks.
"Wars are not memorable," says Sauerteig, "however big
"they may have been, whatever rages and miseries they may
"have occasioned, or however many hundreds of thousands
"they may have been the death of, -- except, when they have
"something of World-History in them withal. If they are
"found to have been the travail-throes of great or consider-
"able changes, which continue permanent in the world, men
'' of some curiosity cannot but inquire into them, keep memory
"of them. But if they were travail-throes that had no birth,
"who of mortals would remember them? Unless perhaps the
"feats of prowess, virtue, valour and endurance, they might
"accidentally give rise to, were very great indeed. Much
"greater than the most were, which came out in that Austrian-
"Succession case! Wars otherwise are mere futile transitory
"dust-whirlwinds stilled in blood; extensive fits of human in-
"sanity, such as we know are too apt to break out; -- such as
"it rather beseems a faithful Son of the House of Adam not to
"speak about again; as in houses where the grandfather was
"hanged, the topic of ropes is fitly avoided.
"Never again will that War, with its deliriums, mad out-
"lays of blood, treasure, and of hope and terror, and far-
"spread human destruction, rise into visual life in any imagi-
'' nation of living man. In vain shall Dryasdust strive: things
"mad, chaotic and without ascertainable purpose or result,
"cannot be fixed into human memories. Fix them there by
"never so many Documentary Histories, elaborate long-eared
"Pedantries, and cunning threads, the poor human memory
"has an alchemy against such ill usage; -- it forgets them
"again; grows to know them as a mere torpor, a stupidity
"and horror, and instinctively flies from Dryasdust and
"them. "
Alive to any considerable degree, in the poor
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 349
April--May 1741.
human imagination, this Editor does not expect or
even wish the Austrian-Succession War to be. Enough
for him if it could be understood sufficiently to render
his poor History of Friedrich intelligible. For it en-
wraps Friedrich like a world-vortex henceforth; modi-
fies every step of his existence henceforth; and apart
from it, there is no understanding of his business or
him. "So much as sticks to Friedrich:" that was our
original bargain! Assist loyally, 0 reader, and we
will try to make the indispensable a minimum for
you.
Who was to blame for the Austrian-Succession War?
The first point to be noted is, Where did it
originate? To which the answer mainly is, With that
lean Gentleman whom we saw with Papers, in the
(Eil-de-Bceuf on New-year's day last. With Monseigneur
the Marechal deBelleisle principally; with the ambitious
cupidities and baseless vanities of the French Court
and Nation, as represented by Belleisle. George II. 's
Spanish War, if you will examine, had a real necessity
in it. Jenkins's Ear was the ridiculous outside figure
this matter had: Jenkins's Ear was one final item of
it; but the poor English People, in their wrath and
bellowings about that small item, were intrinsically
meaning: "Settle the account; let us have that account
cleared up and liquidated: it has lain too long! " And
seldom were a People more in the right, as readers
shall yet see.
The English-Spanish War had a basis to stand on
in this Universe. The like had the Prussian-Austrian
one; so all men now admit. If Friedrich had not
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? 350 . FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [bOOk XII.
Ai. ril--May 1741.
business there, what man ever had in an enterprise he
ventured on? Friedrich, after such trial and proof as
has seldom been, got his claims on Schlesien allowed
by the Destinies. His claims on Schlesien; --- and on
infinitely higher things; which were found to be his
and his Nation's, though he had not been consciously
thinking of them in making that adventure. For, as
my poor Friend insists, there are Laws valid in Earth
and in Heaven; and the great soul of the world is just.
Friedrich had business in this War; and Maria Theresa
versus Friedrich had likewise cause to appear in court,
and do her utmost pleading against him.
But if we ask, What Belleisle, or France and Louis
XV. had to do there? the answer is rigorously, Nothing.
Their own windy vanities, ambitions, sanctioned not by
fact and the Almighty Powers, but by phantasm and
the babble of Versailles; transcendent self-conceit, in-
trinsically insane; pretensions over their fellow-creatures
which were without basis anywhere in Nature, except
in the French brain alone: it was this that brought
Belleisle and France into a German War. And Belleisle
and France having gone into an Anti-Pragmatic War,
the unlucky George and his England were dragged
into a Pragmatic one, -- quitting their own business,
on the Spanish Main, and hurrying to Germany, -- in
terror as at Doomsday, and zeal to save the Keystone
of Nature there. That is the notable point in regard
to this War: That France is to be called the author of
it, who, alone of all the parties, had no business there
whatever. And the wages due to France for such a
piece of industry, -- the reader will yet see what
wages France and the other parties got, at the tail of
the affair. For that too is apparent in our day.
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 351
April--May 1741.
We have often said, the Spanish-English War was
itself likely to have kindled Europe; and again Fried-
rich's Silesian War was itself likely, -- France being
nearly sure to interfere. But if both these Wars were
necessary ones, and if France interfered in either of
them on the wrong side, the blame will be to France,
not to the necessary Wars. France could, in no way,
have interfered in a more barefacedly unjust and gra-
tuitous manner, than she now did; nor, on any terms,
have so palpably made herself the author of the con-
flagration of deliriums that ensued for above Seven
years henceforth. Nay for above Twenty years, --
the settlement of this Silesian Pragmatic-Antipragmatic
matter (and of Jenkins's Ear, incidentally, along with
this! ) not having fairly completed itself till 1763.
How Belleisle made Visit to Teutschlancl; and there ivas
no fit Henry the Fowler to welcome him.
It is very wrong to keep Enchanted Wiggeries sit-
ting in this world, as if they were things still alive!
By a species of "conservatism," which gets praised in
our Time, but which is only a slothful cowardice, base
indifference to truth, and hatred to trouble in compa-
rison with lies that sit quiet, men now extensively
practise this method of procedure; -- little dreaming
how bad and fatal it at all times is. When the brains
are out, things really ought to die; -- no matter what
lovely things they were, and still affect to be, the brains
being out, they actually ought in all cases to die, and
with their best speed get buried. Men had noses, at
one time; and smelt the horror of a deceased reality
fallen putrid, of a once dear verity become mendacious,
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? 352 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book XII.
. April--May 1741.
phantasmal; but they have, to an immense degree, lost
that organ since, and are now living comfortably cheek-
by-jowl with lies. Lies of that sad "conservative"
kind, -- and indeed of all kinds whatsoever: for that
kind is a general mother; and breeds, with a fecundity
that is appalling, did you heed it much! --
It was pity that the "Holy Romish Reich, Teutsch
by Nation," had not got itself buried some ages before.
Once it had brains and life, but now they were out.
Under the sway of Barbarossa, under our old Anti-
chaotic friend Henry the Fowler, how different had it
been! No field for a Belleisle, to come and sow tares;
no rotten thatch for a French Sungod to go sailing
about in the middle of, and set fire to! Henry, when
the Hungarian Pan-Slavonic Savagery came upon him,
had got ready in the interim; and a mangy dog was
the "tribute" he gave them; followed by the due extent
of broken crowns, since they would not be content with
that. That was the due of Belleisle too, -- had there
been a Henry to meet him with it, on his crossing the
marches, in Trier Country, in Spring 1741: "There,
you anarchic Upholstery-Belus, fancying yourself God
of the Sun; there is what Teutschland owes you. Go
home with that; and mind your own business, which I
am told is plentiful, if you had eye for it! "
But the sad truth is, for above Four Centuries now
-- and especially for Three, since little Kaiser Karl IV.
"gave away all the moneys of it," in his pressing oc-
casions, -- this Holy Romish Reich, Teutsch by Na-
tion, has been more and ever more becoming an ima-
ginary quantity; the Kaisership of it not capable of
being worn by anybody, except a Hapsburger who had
resources otherwise his own. The fact is palpable. And
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? CHAP. BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 353
April--May 1741.
Austria, an Anti-Reformation Entity, "conservative"
in that bad sense, of slothfully abhorring trouble in
comparison with lies, had not found the poison more
malodorous in this particular than in many others. And
had cherished its "Holy Romish Reich" grown w>iholy,
phantasmal, like so much else in Austrian things; and
had held firm grip of it, these Three Hundred years;
and found it a furthersome and suitable thing, though
sensible it was more and more becoming an Enchanted
Wiggery pure and simple. Nor have the consequences
failed; they never do. Belleisle, LouisXIV. , HenriII. ,
Francois I.
: it is long since the French have known
this state of matters; and been in the habit of break-
ing in upon it, fomenting internal discontents, getting
up unjust Wars, -- with or without advantage to
France, but with endless disadvantage to Germany.
Schmalkaldic War; Thirty-Years War; Louis XIV. 's
Wars, which brought Alsace and the other fine cuttings;
late Polish-Election War, and its Lorraine; Austrian-
Succession War: many are the wars kindled on poor
Teutschland, by neighbour France; and large is the
sum of woes to Europe and to it, chargeable to that
score. Which appears even yet not to be completed?
-- Perhaps not, even yet. For it is the penalty of
being loyal to Enchanted Wiggeries; of living cheek-
by-jowl with lies of a peaceable quality, and stuffing
your nostrils, and searing your soul, against the ac-
cursed odour they all have! -- For I can assure you,
the curse of Heaven does dwell in one and all of them;
and the son of Adam cannot too soon get quit of their
bad partnership, cost him what it may.
Belleisle's Journey as Sungod began in March, --
Carlyle, Frederick lite Great. VI. 23
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? 354 , TIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xn.
April--May 1741.
"end of March 1741," no date of a day to be had for
that memorable thing: -- and he went gyrating about
through the German Courts, for almost a year after-
wards; his course rather erratic, but always in a splendour
as of Belus, with those Hundred-and-thirty French
Lords and Valets, and the glory of Most Christian King
irradiating him. Very diligent for the first six months,
till September or October next, which we may call his
seed-time; and by no means resting, after nine or twelve
months, while the harrowing and hoeing went on. In
January 1742, he had the great satisfaction to see a
Bavarian Kaiser got, instead of an Austrian; and every-
where the fruit of his diligent husbandry begin to beard
fairly above ground, into a crop of facts (like armed
men from dragon's teeth), and "the pleasure of the''
-- whom was it the pleasure of! -- "prosper in his
hands. " Belleisle was a pretty man; but I doubt it
was not "the Lord" he was doing the pleasure of, on
this occasion, but a very Different Personage, disguised
to resemble him in poor Belleisle's eyes! --
Austria was not dangerous to France in late times,
and now least of all; how far from it, -- humbled by
the loss of Lorraine; and now as it were bankrupt, it-
self in danger from all the world. And France, so far
as express Treaties could bind a Nation, was bound to
maintain Austria in its present possessions. The bitter
loss of Lorraine had been sweetened to the late Kaiser
by that solitary drop of consolation; -- as his Failure
of a Life had been, poor man; "Failure the most of
me has been; but I have got Pragmatic Sanction, thanks
to Heaven, and even France has signed it! " Loss of
Lorraine, loss of Elsass, loss of the Three Bishopricks;
since Karl V. 's times, not to speak of earlier, there has
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 355
April--May 1741.
been mere loss on loss: -- and now is the time to con-
summate it, think Belleisle and France, in spite of
Treaties.
Towards humbling or extinguishing Austria, Belle-
isle has two preliminary things to do: First, Break the
Pragmatic Sanction, and get everybody to break it;
second. Guide the Kaiserwahl (Election of a Kaiser), so
that it issue, not in Grand-Duke Franz, Maria Theresa's
Husband, as all expect it will, but in another party
friendly to France: -- say, in Karl Albert of Bavaria,
whose Family have long been good clients of ours, de-
pendent on us for a living in the Political World.
Belleisle, there is little doubt, had from the first cast
his eye on this unlucky Karl Albert for Kaiser; but is
uncertain as to carrying him. Belleisle will take an-
other, if he must; Kur-Sachsen, for example; -- any
other, and all others, only not the Grand-Duke: that is
a point already fixed with Belleisle, though he keeps v
it well in the background, and is careful not to hint it
till the time come.
In regard to Pragmatic Sanction, Belleisle and France
found no difficulty, -- or the difficulty only (which we
hope must have been considerable) of eating their own
Covenant in behalf of Pragmatic Sanction; and de-
claring, which they did without visible blush, That it
was a Covenant including, if not expressly, then ta-
citly, as all human covenants do, this clause, "Salvo
jure tertii (Saving the rights of Third Parties)," --
that is, of Electors of Bavaria, and others who may ob-
ject against it! 0 soul of honour, 0 first Nation of
the Universe, was there ever such a subterfuge? Here
is a field of flowering corn, the biggest in the world,
begirt with elaborate ring-fence, many miles of firm
23*
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? 356 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xn.
April--May 1141.
oak-paling pitched and buttressed; -- the poor gentle-
man now dead gave you his Lorraine, and almost his
life, for swearing to keep up said paling. And you do
keep it up, -- all except six yards; through which the
biggest team on the highway can drive freely, and the
paltriest cadger's ass can step in for a bellyful!
It appears, the first Nation of the Universe had, at
an early period of their consultations, hit upon this of
Salvo jure tertii, as the method of eating their Cove-
nant, before an enlightened public* And they per-
sisted in it, there being no other for them. An en-
lightened public grinned sardonically, and was not taken
in; but, as so many others were eating their Covenants,
under equally poor substerfuges, the enlightened public
could not grin long on any individual, -- could only
gape mutely, with astonishment, on all. A glorious
example of veracity and human nobleness, set by the
gods of this lower world to their gazing populations,
who could read in the Gazettes! What is truth, falsity,
human Kingship, human Swindlership? Are the Ten
Commandments only a figure of speech, then? And it
was some beggarly Attorney-Z>ew'Z that built this sublu-
nary world and us? Questions might rise; had long
been rising; -- but now there was about enough, and
the response to them was falling due; and Belleisle him-
self, what is very notable, had been appointed, to get
ready the response. Belleisle (little as Belleisle dreamt
of it, in these high Enterprises) was ushering in, by
way of response, a Magnardk, or Twilight of the Gods,
* 20th January 1741, in their Note of Ceremony, recognising Maria
Theresa as Queen of Hungary, Note which had been due so very long
(Adelun'j, ii. 206)1, there is ominous silence on Pragmatic Sanction; u be-
ginning of March," there is virtual avowal of Salvo jure (ib. 279); -- open
avowal on Belleisle's advent (ib. 305).
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 357
April--May 1741.
which, as "French Revolution, or Apotheosis of Sans-
culottism" is now well known; -- and that is something
to consider of!
Downbreak of Pragmatic Sanction; Manner of the chief
Artists in handling their Covenants.
The operation once accomplished on its own Prag-
matic Covenant, France found no difficulty with the
others. Everybody was disposed to eat his Covenant
who could see advantage in so doing, after that admir-
able example. The difficulty of France and Belleisle
rather was, to keep the hungry parties back: "Don't
eat your Covenant till the proper time; patience, we
say! " A most sad Miscellany of Royalties, coming all
to the point, "Will you eat your Covenant, Will you
keep it? " -- and eating, nearly all; in fact, wholly all
that needed to eat.
On the first Invasion of Silesia, Maria Theresa had
indignantly complained in every Court; and pointing
to Pragmatic Sanction, had demanded that such Law
of Nature be complied with, according to covenant.
What Maria Theresa got by this circuit of the Courts,
everybody still knows. Except England, which was
willing, and Holland, which was unwilling, all Courts
had answered, more or less uneasily: "Law of Nature,
-- humph: yes! " -- and, far from doing anything, not
one of them would with certainty promise to do any-
thing. From England alone and her little King (to
whom Pragmatic Sanction is the Palladium of Human
Freedoms and the Keystone of Nature) could she get
the least help. The rest hung back; would not open
heart or pocket; waited till they saw. They do now
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? 358 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book 111.
April--M>>y I'M.
see; now that Belleisle has done his feat of Covenant-
eating! --
Eleven great Powers, some count Thirteen, some
Twelve,* -- but no two agree, and hardly one agrees
with himself; -- enough, the Powers of Europe, from
Naples and Madrid to Russia and Sweden, have all
signed it, let us say a Dozen or Baker's-Dozen of them.
And except our little English Paladin alone, whoa'
interest and indeed salvation seemed -to him to lie that
way, and who needed no Pragmatic Covenant to guide
him, nobody whatever distinguished himself by keeping
it. Between December 1740, when Maria Theresa set
up her cries in all Courts, on to April 1741, England,
painfully dragging Holland with her, had alone of the
Baker's-Dozen spoken word of disapproval; much less
done act of hindrance. Two especially (France and
Bavaria, not to mention Spain) had done the reverse,
and disowned, and declared against, Pragmatic Sanc-
tion. And after the Battle of Mollwitz, when the "little
stone" took its first leap, and set all thundering, then
came, like the inrush of a fashion, throughout that high
Miscellany or Baker's-Dozen, the general eating of
Covenants (which was again quickened in August, for
a reason we shall see): and before November of that
Year, there was no Covenant left to eat. Of the
Baker's-Dozen nobody remained but little George the
Paladin, dragging Holland painfully along with him;
-- and Pragmatic Sanction had gone to water, like ice
in a June day, and its beautiful crystalline qualities
and prismatic colours were forever vanished from the
world. Will the reader note a point or two, a per
sonage or two, in this sordid process, -- not for the
* Scholl, ii. 286; Adelung, list, ii. 127.
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 359
April--May 1741.
process's sake, which is very sordid and smells badly,
but for his own sake, to elucidate his own course a
little, in the intricacies now coming or come upon him
and me?
1? . Elector of Bavaria. -- Karl Albert of Baiern is
by some counted as a Signer of the Pragmatic Sanction,
and by others not; which occasions that discrepancy of
sum-total in the Books. And he did once, in a sense,
sign it, he and his Brother of Koln; but, before the
late Kaiser's death, he had openly drawn back from it
again: and counted himself a Non-signer. Signer or
not, he, for his part, lost no moment |(but rather the con-
trary) in openly protesting against it, and signifying
that he never would acknowledge it. Of this the reader
saw something, at the time of her Hungarian Majesty's
Accession. Date and circumstances of it, which de-
serve remembering, are more precisely these: October
20th, 1740, Karl Albert's Ambassador, Perusa by name,
wrote, to Karl from Vienna, announcing that the Kaiser
was just dead. From Munchen, on the 21st, Karl
Albert, anticipating such an event, but not yet knowing
it, orders Perusa, in case of the Kaiser's decease, which
was considered probable at Miinchen, to demand instant j
audience of the proper party (Kanzler Sinzendorf), and
there openly lodge his Protest. Which Perusa did,
punctually in all points, -- no moment lost, but rather
the contrary, as we said! Let poor Karl Albert have
what benefit there is in that fact. He was, of all the
Anti-Pragmatic Covenant-Breakers (if he ever fairly
were such), the only one that proceeded honourably,
openly and at once, in the matter; and he was, of them
all, by far the most unfortunate.
This is the poor gentleman whom Belleisle had
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? 360 FIRST SILESIAN WAR. [book xa.
April--May 1741.
settled on for being Kaiser. And Kaiser he became;
to his frightful sorrow, as it proved: his crown like a
crown of burning iron, or little better! There is little
of him in the Books, nor does one desire much: a tall
aquiline type of man; much the gentleman in aspect;
and in reality, of decorous serious deportment, and the
wish to be high ahd dignified. He had a kind of right,
too, in the Anti-Pragmatic sense; and was come of
Imperial kindred, -- Kaiser Ludwig the Bavarian, and
Kaiser Rupert of the Pfalz, called Rupert Klemm, or
Rupert Smith's-vice, if any reader now remember him,
were both of his ancestors. He might fairly pretend to
Kaisership and to Austrian ownership, -- had he other-
wise been equal to such enterprises. But, in all am-
bitions and attempts, howsoever grounded otherwise,
there is this strict question on the threshold: "Are you
of weight for the adventure; are not you far too light
for it? " Ambitious persons often slur this question;
and get squelched to pieces, by bringing the Twelve
Labours of Hercules on Unherculean backs! Not every
one is so lucky as our Friedrich in that particular, --
whose back, though with difficulty, held out. Which
poor Karl Albert's never had much likelihood to do.
Few mortals in any age have offered such an example
of the tragedies which Ambition has in store for her
votaries; and what a matter Hope Fulfilled may be to
the unreflecting Son of Adam.
We said, he had a kind of right to Austria, withal.
He descended by the female line from Kaiser Ferdi-
nand I. (as did Kur-Sachsen, though by a younger
Daughter than Karl Albert's Ancestress); and he ap-
pealed to Kaiser Ferdinand's Settlement of the Succes-
sion, as a higher than any subsequent Pragmatic could
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? CHAP. XI. ] BELLEISLE AND THE COVENANT-BREAKERS. 361
April--May 1741.
be. Upon which there hangs an incident; still famous
to German readers. Karl Albert, getting into Public
Argument in this way, naturally instructed Perusa to
demand sight of Kaiser Ferdinand's Last Will, the
tenor of which was known by authentic Copy in Mtin-
chen, if not elsewhere among the kindred. After some
delay, Perusa (4th November 1740), summoning the
other Excellencies to witness, got sight of the Will: to
his horror, there stood, in the cardinal passage, instead
of "mdnnliche" (male descendants), "eheliche" (lawfully-
begotten descendants), -- fatal to Karl Albert's claim!
Nor could he prove that the Parchment had been
scraped or altered, though he kept trying and ex-
amining for some days. He withdrew thereupon, by
order, straightway from Vienna; testifying in dumb-
show what he thought. "It is your Copy that is false,"
cried the Vienna people: "it has been foisted on you,
with this wrong word in it; done by somebody (your
friend, the Excellency Herr von Hartmann,' shall we
guess? ), wishing to curry favour with ambitious foolish
persons! " Such was the Austrian story. Perhaps in
Miinchen itself their Copyist was not known; -- for
aught I learn, the Copy was made long since, and the
Copyist dead. Hartmann, named as Copyist by the
Vienna people, made emphatic public answer, "Never
did I copy it, or see it! " And there rose great argu-
ment, which is not yet quite ended, as to the question,
"Original falsified, or Copy falsified? " -- and the
modern vote, I believe, rather clearly is, That the
Austrian Officials had done it -- in a case of neces-
sity. * Possible? "But you will lose your soul! " said
* Adelung, ii. 150-154 (14th-20th November 1740), gives the public facts,
without commentary. Hormayr (. Im'monen aus dem Tagebnch eines alien
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