A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume VI Part 10

A striking incident signalized the commencement of hostilities. Rather a man of pleasure and a courtier than an able soldier, Marshal Richelieu had, nevertheless, the good fortune to connect his name with the only successful event of the Seven Years' War that was destined to remain impressed upon the mind of posterity. Under his orders, a body of twelve thousand men, on board of a squadron, commanded by M. de la Galissonniere, left Toulon on the 10th of April, 1756, at the moment when England was excited by expectation of a coming descent upon her coasts.

On the 17th, the French attacked the Island of Minorca, an important point whence the English threatened Toulon, and commanded the western basin of the Mediterranean. Some few days later, the English troops, driven out of Ciudadela and Mahon, had taken refuge in Fort St. Philip, and the French cannon were battering the ramparts of the vast citadel.

On the 10th of May an English fleet, commanded by Admiral Byng, appeared in the waters of Port Mahon; it at once attacked M. de la Galissonniere.

The latter succeeded in preventing the English from approaching land.

After an obstinate struggle, Admiral Byng, afraid of losing his fleet, fell back on Gibraltar. The garrison of Fort St. Philip waited in vain for the return of the squadron; left to its own devices, it nevertheless held out; the fortifications seemed to be impregnable; the siege-works proceeded slowly; the soldiers were disgusted, and began to indulge to excess in the wine of Spain. "No one who gets drunk shall have the honor of mounting the breach," said Richelieu's general order. Before long he resolved to attempt the a.s.sault.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Attack on Fort St. Philip----218]

Fort St. Philip towered up proudly on an enormous ma.s.s of rock; the French regiments flung themselves into the fosses, setting against the ramparts ladders that were too short; the soldiers mounted upon one another's shoulders, digging their bayonets into the interstices between the stones; the boldest were already at the top of the bastions. On the 28th of June, at daybreak, three of the forts were in possession of the French; the same day the English commandant decided upon capitulation.

The Duke of Fronsac, Marshal Richelieu's son, hurried to Versailles to announce the good news. There was great joy at court and amongst the French nation; the French army and navy considered themselves avenged of England's insults. In London Admiral Byng was brought to trial; he was held responsible for the reverse, and was shot, notwithstanding the protests of Voltaire and of Richelieu himself. At the same time the king's troops were occupying Corsica in the name of the city of Genoa, the time-honored ally of France. Mistress of half the Mediterranean, and secure of the neutrality of Holland, France could have concentrated her efforts upon the sea, and have maintained a glorious struggle with England, on the sole condition of keeping peace on the Continent. The policy was simple, and the national interest palpable; King Louis XV.

and some of his ministers understood this; but they allowed themselves to drift into forgetfulness of it.

For a long time past, under the influence of Count Kaunitz, a young diplomat equally bold and shrewd, "frivolous in his tastes and profound in his views," Maria Theresa was inclining to change the whole system of her alliances in Europe; she had made advances to France. Count Kaunitz had found means of pleasing Madame de Pompadour; the empress put the crowning touch to the conquest by writing herself to the favorite, whom she called "My cousin." The Great Frederick, on the contrary, all the time that he was seeking to renew with the king his former offensive and defensive relations, could not manage to restrain the flow of his bitter irony. Louis XV. had felt hurt, on his own account and on his favorite's; he still sought to hold the balance steady between the two great German sovereigns, but he was already beginning to lean towards the empress. A proposal was made to Maria Theresa for a treaty of guarantee between France, Austria, and Prussia; the existing war between England and France was excepted from the defensive pact; France reserved to herself the right of invading Hanover. The same conditions had been offered to the King of Prussia; he was not contented with them. Whilst Maria Theresa was insisting at Paris upon obtaining an offensive as well as defensive alliance, Frederick II. was signing with England an engagement not to permit the entrance into Germany of any foreign troops.

"I only wish to preserve Germany from war," wrote the King of Prussia to Louis XV. On the 1st of May, 1756, at Versailles, Louis XV. replied to the Anglo-Prussian treaty by his alliance with the Empress Maria Theresa.

The house of Bourbon was holding out the hand to the house of Austria; the work of Henry IV. and of Richelieu, already weakened by an inconsistent and capricious policy, was completely crumbling to pieces, involving in its ruin the military fortunes of France.

The prudent moderation of Abbe de Bernis, then in great favor with Madame de Pompadour, and managing the negotiations with Austria, had removed from the treaty of Versailles the most alarming clauses. The empress and the King of France mutually guaranteed to one another their possessions in Europe, "each of the contracting parties promising the other, in case of need, the a.s.sistance of twenty-four thousand men." Russia and Saxony were soon enlisted in the same alliance; the King of Prussia's pleasantries, at one time coa.r.s.e and at another biting, had offended the Czarina Elizabeth and the Elector of Saxony as well as Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour. The weakest of the allies was the first to experience the miseries of that war so frivolously and gratuitously entered upon, from covetousness, rancor, or weakness, those fertile sources of the bitterest sorrows to humanity.

"It is said that the King of Prussia's troops are on the march," wrote the Duke of Luynes in his journal (September 3, 1756); "it is not said whither." Frederick II. was indeed on the march with his usual prompt.i.tude; a few days later, Saxony was invaded, Dresden occupied, and the Elector-king of Poland invested in the camp of Pirna. General Braun, hurrying up with the Austrians to the Saxons' aid, was attacked by Frederick on the 1st of October, near Lowositz; without being decisive, the battle was, nevertheless, sufficient to hinder the allies from effecting their junction. The Saxons attempted to cut their way through; they were hemmed in and obliged to lay down their arms; the King of Prussia established himself at Dresden, levying upon Saxony enormous military contributions and otherwise treating it as a conquered country.

The unlucky elector had taken refuge in Poland.

The empress had not waited for this serious reverse to claim from France the promised aid. By this time it was understood how insufficient would be a body of twenty-four thousand men for a distant and hazardous war.

Recently called to the council by King Louis XV., Marshal Belle-Isle, still full of daring in spite of his age, loudly declared that, "since war had come, it must be made on a large scale if it were to be made to any purpose, and speedily." Some weeks later, preparations were commenced for sending an army of a hundred thousand men to the Lower Rhine. The king undertook, besides, to pay four thousand Bavarians and six thousand Wurtemburgers, who were to serve in the Austrian army.

Marshal d'Estrees, grandson of Louvois, was placed at the head of the army already formed. He was not one of the favorite's particular friends. a Marshal d'Estrees," she wrote to Count Clermont, "is one of my acquaintances in society; I have never been in a position to make him an intimate friend, but were he as much so as M. de Soubise, I should not take upon myself to procure his appointment, for fear of having to reproach myself with the results." Madame de Pompadour did not continue to be always so reserved, and M. de Soubise was destined before long to have his turn. M. de Belle-Isle had insisted strongly on the choice of Marshal d'Estrees; he was called "the Temporizer," and was equally brave and prudent. "I am accustomed," said the king, "to hear from him all he thinks." The army was already on the march.

Whilst hostilities were thus beginning throughout Europe, whilst negotiations were still going on with Vienna touching the second treaty of Versailles, King Louis XV., as he was descending the staircase of the marble court at Versailles on the 5th of January, 1757, received a stab in the side from a knife. Withdrawing full of blood the hand he had clapped to his wound, the king exclaimed, "There is the man who wounded me, with his hat-on; arrest him, but let no harm be done him!" The guards were already upon the murderer and were torturing him pending the legal question. The king had been carried away, slightly wounded by a deep puncture from a penknife. In the soul of Louis XV. apprehension had succeeded to the first instinctive and kingly impulse of courage; he feared the weapon might be poisoned, and hastily sent for a confessor.

The crowd of courtiers was already thronging to the dauphin's. To him the king had at once given up the direction of affairs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: a.s.sa.s.sination of Louis XV. by Damiens----221]

Justice, meanwhile, had taken the wretched murderer in hand. Robert Damiens was a lackey out of place, a native of Artois, of weak mind, and sometimes appearing to be deranged. In his vague and frequently incoherent depositions, he appeared animated by a desire to avenge the wrongs of the Parliament; he burst out against the Archbishop of Paris, Christopher de Beaumont, a virtuous prelate of narrow mind and austere character. "The Archbishop of Paris," he said, "is the cause of all this trouble through ordering refusal of the sacraments." No investigation could discover any conspiracy or accomplices; with less coolness and fanatical resolution than Ravaillac, Damiens, like the a.s.sa.s.sin of Henry IV., was an isolated criminal, prompted to murder by the derangement of his own mind; he died, like Ravaillac, amidst fearful tortures which were no longer in accord with public sentiment and caused more horror than awe. France had ceased to tremble for the life of King Louis XV.

For one instant the power of Madame de Pompadour had appeared to be shaken; the king, in his terror, would not see her; M. de Machault, but lately her protege, had even brought her orders to quit the palace.

Together with the salutary terrors of death, Louis XV.'s repentance soon disappeared; the queen and the dauphin went back again to the modest and pious retirement in which they pa.s.sed their life; the marchioness returned in triumph to Versailles. MM. de Machault and D'Argenson were exiled; the latter, who had always been hostile to the favorite, was dismissed with extreme harshness. The king had himself written the sealed letter "Your services are no longer required. I command you to send me your resignation of the secretaryship of state for war, and of all that appertains to the posts connected therewith, and to retire to your estate of Ormes." Madame de Pompadour was avenged.

The war, meanwhile, continued; the King of Prussia, who had at first won a splendid victory over the Austrians in front of Prague, had been beaten at Kolin, and forced to fall back on Saxony. Marshal d'Estrees, slowly occupying Westphalia, had got the Duke of c.u.mberland into a corner on the Weser.

On the morning of July 23, 1757, the marshal summoned all his lieutenant-generals. "Gentlemen," he said to them, "I do not a.s.semble you to-day to ask whether we should attack M. de c.u.mberland and invest Hameln. The honor of the king's arms, his wishes, his express orders, the interest of the common cause, all call for the strongest measures. I only seek, therefore, to profit by your lights, and to combine with your a.s.sistance the means most proper for attacking with advantage." A day or two after, July 26, the Duke of c.u.mberland, who had fallen back on the village of Hastenbeck, had his intrenchments forced; he succeeded in beating a retreat without being pursued; an able movement of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, and a perhaps intentional mistake on the part of M. de Maillebois had caused a momentary confusion in the French army.

Marshal d'Estrees, however, was not destined to enjoy for long the pleasure of his victory. Even before he had given battle the Duke of Richelieu had set out from Versailles to supersede him in his command.

The conquest of Port Mahon had thrown around Richelieu a halo of glory; in Germany, he reaped the fruits of Marshal d'Estrees' successes; the Electorate of Hanover was entirely occupied; all the towns opened their gates; Hesse Ca.s.sel, Brunswick, the duchies of Verden and of Bremen met with the same fate. The marshal levied on all the conquered countries heavy contributions, of which he pocketed a considerable portion. His soldiers called him "Father La Maraude." The pavilion of Hanover at Paris was built out of the spoils of Germany. Meanwhile, the Duke of c.u.mberland, who had taken refuge in the marshes at the mouth of the Elbe, under the protection of English vessels, was demanding to capitulate; his offers were lightly accepted. On the 8th of September, through the agency of Count Lynar, minister of the King of Denmark, the Duke of c.u.mberland and the marshal signed at the advanced posts of the French army the famous convention of Closter-Severn. The king's troops kept all the conquered country; those of Hesse, Brunswick, and Saxe-Gotha returned to their homes; the Hanoverians were to be cantoned in the neighborhood of Stade. The marshal had not taken the precaution of disarming them.

Incomplete as the convention was, it nevertheless excited great emotion in Europe. The Duke of c.u.mberland had lost the military reputation acquired at Fontenoy; the King of Prussia remained alone on the Continent, exposed to all the efforts of the allies; every day fresh reverses came down upon him; the Russian army had invaded the Prussian provinces and beaten Marshal Schwald near Memel; twenty-five thousand Swedes had just landed in Pomerania. Desertion prevailed amongst the troops of Frederick, recruited as they often were from amongst the vanquished; it was in vain that the king, in his despair, shouted out on the battle-field of Kolin, "D'ye expect to live forever, pray?" Many Saxon or Silesian soldiers secretly left the army. One day Frederick himself kept his eye on a grenadier whom he had seen skulking to the rear of the camp. "Whither goest thou?" he cried. "Faith, sir," was the answer, "I am deserting; I'm getting tired of being always beaten." "

Stay once more," replied the king, without showing the slightest anger; "I promise that, if we are beaten, we will both desert together." In the ensuing battle the grenadier got himself killed.

For a moment, indeed, Frederick had conceived the idea of deserting simultaneously from the field of battle and from life. "My dear sister,"

he wrote to the Margravine of Baireuth, "there is no port or asylum for me any more save in the arms of death." A letter in verse to the Marquis of Argens pointed clearly to the notion of suicide. A firmer purpose, before long, animated that soul, that strange mixture of heroism and corruption. The King of Prussia wrote to Voltaire,--

"Threatened with shipwreck though I be, I, facing storms that frown on me, Must king-like think, and live, and die."

Fortune, moreover, seemed to be relaxing her severities. Under the influence of the hereditary grand-duke, a pa.s.sionate admirer of Frederick II., the Russians had omitted to profit by their victories; they were by this time wintering in Poland, which was abandoned to all their exactions. The Swedes had been repulsed in the Island of Rugen, Marshal Richelieu received from Versailles orders to remain at Halberstadt, and to send re-enforcements to the army of the Prince of Soubise; it was for this latter that Madame de Pompadour was reserving the honor of crushing the Great Frederick. More occupied in pillage than in vigorously pushing forward the war, the marshal tolerated a fatal license amongst his troops. "Brigandage is more prevalent in the hearts of the superior officers than in the conduct of the private soldier, who is full of good will to go and get shot, but not at all to submit to discipline. I'm afraid that they do not see at court the alarming state of things to their full extent," says a letter from Paris-Duverney to the Marquis of Cremille, "but I have heard so much of it, and perhaps seen so much since I have been within eyeshot of this army, that I cannot give a glance at the future without being transfixed with grief and dread. I dare to say that I am not scared more than another at sight of abuses and disorder, but it is time to apply to an evil which is at its height other remedies than palliatives, which, for the most part, merely aggravate it and render it incurable as long as war lasts. I have not seen and do not see here anything but what overwhelms me, and I feel still more wretched for having been the witness of it."

Whilst the plunder of Hanover was serving the purpose of feeding the insensate extravagance of Richelieu and of the army, Frederick II. had entered Saxony, hurling back into Thuringia the troops of Soubise and of the Prince of Hildburghausen. By this time the allies had endured several reverses; the boldness of the King of Prussia's movements bewildered and disquieted officers as well as soldiers. "Might I ask your Highness what you think of his Prussian majesty's manoeuvring?"

says a letter to Count Clermont, from an officer serving in the army of Germany; "this prince, with eighteen or twenty thousand men at most, marches upon an army of fifty thousand men, forces it to recross a river, cuts off its rear guard, crosses this same river before its very eyes, offers battle, retires, encamps leisurely, and loses not a man. What calculation, what audacity in this fashion of covering a country!" On the 3d of November the Prussian army was all in order of battle on the left bank of the Saale, near Rosbach.

Soubise hesitated to attack; being a man of honesty and sense, he took into account the disposition of his army, as well as the bad composition of the allied forces, very superior in number to the French contingent.

The command belonged to the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen, who had no doubt of success. Orders were given to turn the little Prussian army, so as to cut off its retreat. All at once, as the allied troops were effecting their movement to scale the heights, the King of Prussia, suddenly changing front by one of those rapid evolutions to which he had accustomed his men, unexpectedly attacked the French in flank, without giving them time to form in order of battle. The batteries placed on the hills were at the same time unmasked, and mowed down the infantry. The German troops at once broke up. Soubise sought to restore the battle by cavalry charges, but he was crushed in his turn. The rout became general; the French did not rally till they reached Erfurt; they had left eight thousand prisoners and three thousand dead on the field.

The news of the defeat at Rosbach came bursting on France like a clap of thunder; the wrath, which first of all blazed out against Soubise, at whose expense all the rhymesters were busy, was reflected upon the king and Madame de Pompadour.

"With lamp in hand, Soubise is heard to say 'Why, where the devil can my army be?

I saw it hereabouts but yesterday: Has it been taken? has it strayed from me?

I'm always losing-head and all, I know: But wait till daylight, twelve o'clock or so!

What do I see? O, heavens, my heart's aglow: Prodigious luck ! Why, there it is, it is!

Eh! _ventrebleu,_ what in the world is this?

I must have been mistaken--it's the foe.'"

Frederick II. had renovated affairs and spirits in Germany; the day after Rosbach, he led his troops into Silesia against Prince Charles of Lorraine, who had just beaten the Duke of Bevern; the King of Prussia's lieutenants were displeased and disquieted at such audacity. He a.s.sembled a council of war, and then, when he had expounded his plans, "Farewell, gentlemen," said be; "we shall soon have beaten the enemy, or we shall have looked on one another for the last time." On the 3d of December the Austrians were beaten at Lissa, as the French had been at Rosbach, and Frederick II. became the national hero of Germany; the Protestant powers, but lately engaged, to their sorrow, against him, made up to the conqueror; admiration for him permeated even the French army.

"At Paris," wrote D'Alembert to Voltaire, "everybody's head is turned about the King of Prussia; five months ago he was trailed in the mire."

"Cabinet-generals," says Duclos, "greedy of money, inexperienced and presumptuous; ignorant, jealous, or ill-disposed ministers; subalterns lavish of their blood on the battle-field and crawling at court before the distributors of favors--such are the instruments we employed. The small number of those who had not approved of the treaty of Versailles declared loudly against it; after the campaign of 1757, those who had regarded it as a masterpiece of policy, forgot or disavowed their eulogies, and the bulk of the public, who cannot be decided by anything but the event, looked upon it as the source of all our woes." The counsels of Abbe de Bernis had for some time past been pacific; from a court-abbe, elegant and glib, he had become, on the 25th of June, minister of foreign affairs. But Madame de Pompadour remained faithful to the empress. In the month of January, 1758, Count Clermont was appointed general-in-chief of the army of Germany. In disregard of the convention of Closter-Severn, the Hanoverian troops had just taken the field again under the orders of the Grand-Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick; he had already recovered possession of the districts of Luneberg, Zell, a part of Brunswick and of Bremen. In England, Mr. Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, had again come into office; the King of Prussia could henceforth rely upon the firmest support from Great Britain.

He had need of it. A fresh invasion of Russians, aided by the savage hordes of the Zaporoguian Cossacks, was devastating Prussia; the sanguinary battle of Zorndorf, forcing them to fall back on Poland, permitted Frederick to hurry into Saxony, which was attacked by the Austrians. General Daun surprised and defeated him at Hochkirch; in spite of his inflexible resolution, the King of Prussia was obliged to abandon Saxony. His ally and rival, Ferdinand of Brunswick, had just beaten Count Clermont at Crevelt.

The new commander-in-chief of the king's armies, prince of the blood, brother of the late Monsieur le Duc, abbot commendatory of St. Germain- des-Pres, "general of the Benedictines,", as the soldiers said, had brought into Germany, together with the favor of Madame de Pompadour, upright intentions, a sincere desire to restore discipline, and some great illusions about himself. "I am very impatient, I do a.s.sure you, to be on the other side of the Rhine," wrote Count Clermont to Marshal Belle-Isle; "all the country about here is infested by runaway soldiers, convalescents, camp-followers, all sorts of understrappers, who commit fearful crimes. Not a single officer does his duty; they are the first to pillage; all the army ought to be put under escort and in detachments, and then there would have to be escorts for those escorts. I hang, I imprison; but, as we march by cantonments and the regimental (particuliers) officers are the first to show a bad example, the punishments are neither sufficiently known nor sufficiently seen.

Everything smacks of indiscipline, of disgust at the king's service, and of asperity towards one's self. I see with pain that it will be indispensable to put in practice the most violent and the harshest measures." The king's army, meanwhile, was continuing to fall back; a general outcry arose at Paris against the general's supineness. On the 23d of June he was surprised by Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in the strong position of Crevelt, which he had occupied for two days past; the reserves did not advance in time, orders to retreat were given too soon, the battle was lost without disaster and without any rout; the general was lost as well as the battle. "It is certain," says the Marquis of Vogel, in his narrative of the affair, "that Count Clermont was at table in his headquarters of Weschelen at one o'clock, that he had lost the battle before six, arrived at Reuss at half past ten, and went to bed at midnight; that is doing a great deal in a short time." The Count of Gisors, son of Marshal Belle-Isle, a young officer of the greatest promise, had been killed at Crevelt; Count Clermont was superseded by the Marquis of Contades. The army murmured; they had no confidence in their leaders. At Versailles, Abbe de Bernis, who had lately become a cardinal, paid by his disgrace for the persistency he had shown in advising peace. He was chatting with M. de Stahrenberg, the Austrian amba.s.sador, when he received a letter from the king, sending him off to his abbey of St. Medard de Soissons. He continued the conversation without changing countenance, and then, breaking off the conversation just as the amba.s.sador was beginning to speak of business. "It is no longer to me, sir," he said, "that you must explain yourself on these great topics; I have just received my dismissal from his Majesty." With the same coolness he quitted the court and returned, pending his emba.s.sy to Rome, to those elegant intellectual pleasures which suited him better than the crushing weight of a ministry in disastrous times, under an indolent and vain-minded monarch, who was governed by a woman as headstrong as she was frivolous and depraved.

Madame de Pompadour had just procured for herself a support in her obstinate bellicosity. Cardinal Bernis was superseded in the ministry of foreign affairs by Count Stainville, who was created Duke of Choiseul.

After the death of Marshal Belle-Isle he exchanged the office for that of minister of war; with it he combined the ministry of the marine. The foreign affairs were intrusted to the Duke of Praslin, his cousin. The power rested almost entirely in the hands of the Duke of Choiseul. Of high birth, clever, bold, ambitious, he had but lately aspired to couple the splendor of successes in the fashionable world with the serious preoccupations of politics; his marriage with Mdlle. Crozat, a wealthy heiress, amiable and very much smitten with him, had strengthened his position. Elevated to the ministry by Madame de Pompadour, and as yet promoting her views, he nevertheless gave signs of an independent spirit and a proud character, capable of exercising authority firmly in the presence and the teeth of all obstacles. France hoped to find once more in M. de Choiseul a great minister; nor were her hopes destined to be completely deceived.

A new and secret treaty had just riveted the alliance between France and Austria. M. de Choiseul was at the same time dreaming of attacking England in her own very home, thus dealing her the most formidable of blows. The preparations were considerable. M. de Soubise was recalled from Germany to direct the army of invasion. He was to be seconded in his command by the Duke of Aiguillon, to whom, rightly or wrongly, was attributed the honor of having repulsed in the preceding year an attempt of the English at a descent upon the coasts of Brittany. The expedition was ready, there was nothing to wait for save the moment to go out of port, but Admiral Hawke was cruising before Brest; it was only in the month of November, 1759, that the marquis of Conflans, who commanded the fleet, could put to sea with twenty-one vessels. Finding himself at once pursued by the English squadron, he sought shelter in the difficult channels at the mouth of the Vilaine. The English dashed in after him.

A partial engagement, which ensued, was unfavorable; and the commander of the French rear-guard, M. St. Andre du Verger, allowed himself to be knocked to pieces by the enemy's guns in order to cover the retreat. The admiral ran ash.o.r.e in the Bay of Le Croisic and burned his own vessel; seven ships remained blockaded in the Vilaine. M. de Conflans' job, as the sailors called it at the time, was equivalent to a battle lost without the chances and the honor of the struggle. The English navy was triumphant on every sea, and even in French waters.

The commencement of the campaign of 1759 had been brilliant in Germany; the Duke of Broglie had successfully repulsed the attack made by Ferdinand of Brunswick on his positions at Bergen; the prince had been obliged to retire. The two armies, united under M. de Contades, invaded Hesse and moved upon the Weser; they were occupying Minden when Duke Ferdinand threw himself upon them on the 1st of August. The action of the two French generals was badly combined, and the rout was complete.

It was the moment of Canada's last efforts, and the echo of that glorious death-rattle reached even to Versailles. The Duke of Choiseul had, on the 19th of February, replied to a desperate appeal from Montcalm, "I am very sorry to have to send you word that you must not expect any re-enforcements. To say nothing of their increasing the dearth of provisions of which you have had only too much experience hitherto, there would be great fear of their being intercepted by the English on the pa.s.sage, and, as the king could never send you aid proportionate to the forces which the English are in a position to oppose to you, the efforts made here to procure it for you would have no other effect than to rouse the ministry in London to make still more considerable ones in order to preserve the superiority it has acquired in that part of the continent."

The necessity for peace was, beginning to be admitted even, in Madame de Pompadour's little cabinets.

Maria Theresa, however, was in no hurry to enter into negotiations; her enemy seemed to be bending at last beneath the weight of the double Austrian and Russian attack. At one time Frederick had thought that he saw all Germany rallying round him; now, beaten and cantoned in Saxony, with the Austrians in front of him, during the winter of 1760, he was everywhere seeking alliances and finding himself everywhere rejected.

"I have but two allies left," he would say, "valor and perseverance."

Repeated victories, gained at the sword's point, by dint of boldness and in the extremity of peril, could not even protect Berlin. The capital of Prussia found itself constrained to open its gates to the enemy, on the sole condition that the regiments of Cossacks should not pa.s.s the line of enclosure. When the regular troops withdrew, the generals had not been able to prevent the city from being pillaged. The heroic efforts of the King of Prussia ended merely in preserving to him a foothold in Saxony.

The Russians occupied Poland.

Marshal Broglie, on becoming general-in-chief of the French army, had succeeded in holding his own in Hesse; he frequently made Hanover anxious. To turn his attention elsewhither and in hopes of deciding the French to quit Germany, the hereditary Prince of Brunswick attempted a diversion on the Lower Rhine; he laid siege to Wesel, whilst the English were preparing for a descent at Antwerp. Marshal Broglie detached M. de Castries to protect the city. The French corps had just arrived; it was bivouacking. On the night between the 15th and 16th of October, Chevalier d'a.s.sas, captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was sent to reconnoitre. He had advanced some distance from his men, and happened to stumble upon a large force of the enemy. The Prince of Brunswick was preparing to attack. All the muskets covered the young captain. "Stir, and thou'rt a dead man," muttered threatening voices. Without replying, M. d'a.s.sas collected all his strength and shouted, "Auvergne! Here are the foe!" At the same instant he fell pierced by twenty b.a.l.l.s.

[Accounts differ; but this is the tradition of the a.s.sas family.] The action thus begun was a glorious one. The hereditary prince was obliged to abandon the siege of Wesel and to recross the Rhine. The French divisions maintained their positions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death of Chevalier D'a.s.sas----233]

The war went on as bloodily as monotonously and fruitlessly, but the face of Europe had lately altered. The old King George II., who died on the 25th of September, 1760, had been succeeded on the throne of England by his grandson, George III., aged twenty-two, the first really native sovereign who had been called to reign over England since the fall of the Stuarts. George I. and George II. were Germans, in their feelings and their manners as well as their language; the politic wisdom of the English people had put up with them, but not without effort and ill-humor; the accession of the young king was greeted with transport.