ient 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