mon Farmer (GARTNER)," no
complaints were made. In one Schloss, where the owners had fled, and no
human response was to be had by the wayworn-soldiery, there did occur
some breakages and impatient kickings about; which it grieved his
Majesty to hear of, next morning;--in one, not in more.
Official persons, we perceive, study to be absolutely passive. This was
the Burgermeister's course at Grunberg to-night; Grunberg, first Town
on the Frontier, sets an example of passivity which cannot be surpassed.
Prussian troops being at the Gate of Grunberg, Burgermeister and
adjuncts sitting in a tacit expectant condition in their Town-hall,
there arrives a Prussian Lieutenant requiring of the Burgermeister the
Key of said Gate. "To deliver such Key? Would to God I durst, Mein Herr
Lieutenant; but how dare I! There is the Key lying: but to GIVE
it--You are not the Queen of Hungary's Officer, I doubt?"--The Prussian
Lieutenant has to put out hand, and take the Key; which he readily does.
And on the morrow, in returning it, when the march recommences, there
are the same phenomena: Burgermeister or assistants dare not for the
life of them touch that Key: It lay on the table; and may again, in the
course of Providence, come to lie!--The Prussian Lieutenant lays it down
accordingly, and hurries out, with a grin on his face. There was much
small laughter over this transaction; Majesty himself laughing well at
it. Higher perfection of passivity no Burgermeister could show.
The march, as readers understand, is towards Glogau; a strongish
Garrison Town, now some 40 miles ahead; the key of Northern Schlesien.
Grunberg (where my readers once slept for the night, in the late King's
time, though they have forgotten it) is the first and only considerable
Town on the hither side of Glogau. On to Glogau, I rather perceive, the
Army is in good part provisioned before starting: after Glogau,--we must
see. Bread-wagons, Baggage-wagons, Ammunition-and-Artillery wagons, all
is in order; Army artistically portioned out. That is the form of march;
with Glogau ahead. King, as we said above, dines with his Baron von
Hocke, at the Schloss of Deutsch-Kessel, short way beyond Grunberg, this
first day: but he by no means loiters there;--cuts across, a dozen miles
westward, through a country where his vanguard on its various lines
of march ought to be arriving;--and goes to lodge, at the Schloss of
Schweinitz, with his other Baron, the Von Kestlitz of Wednesd
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