on of Silesia no Peace to be made
with him! And all this is as nothing, to news which arrives just on the
back of Robinson, from another quarter.

"AUGUST 15th-21st. French Army of 40,000 men, special Army of Belleisle,
sedulously equipt and completed, visibly crosses the Rhine at Fort Louis
(an Island Fortress in the Rhine, thirty miles below Strasburg; STONES
of it are from the old Schloss of Hagenau);--steps over deliberately
there; and on the sixth day is all on German ground. These troops, to
be commanded by Belleisle, so soon as he can join them, are to be the
Elector of Bavaria's troops, Kur-Baiern Generalissimo over Belleisle and
them; [_Fastes de Louis XV.,_ ii. 264.] and they are on rapid march to
join that ambitious Kurfurst, in his Passau Expedition; and probably
submerge Vienna itself.

"And what is this we hear farther, O Robinson, O Excellencies Hyndford,
Schweichelt and Company: That another French Army, of the same strength,
under Maillebois, has in the self-same days gone across the Lower Rhine
(at Kaisersworth, an hour's ride below Dusseldorf)! At Kaisersworth;
ostensibly for comforting and strengthening Kur-Koln (the lanky
Ecclesiastical Gentleman, Kur-Baiern's Brother), their excellent ally,
should anybody meddle with him. Ostensibly for this; but in reality to
keep the Sea-Powers, and especially George of England quiet. It marches
towards Osnabruck, this Maillebois Army; quarters itself up and down,
looking over into Hanover,--able to eat Hanover, especially if joined by
the Prussians and Old Leopold, at any moment.

"These things happen in this month of August, close upon the rear of
that steel-shiny scene in the Tent at Strehlen, where Friedrich lifted
his hat, saying, ''T is of no use, Messieurs!'--which was followed by
the seizure of Breslau the wrong way. Never came such a cataract of evil
news on an Aulic Council before. The poor proud people, all these months
they have been sitting torpid, helpless, loftily stupid, like dumb
idols; 'in flat despair,' as Robinson says once, 'only without the
strength to be desperate.'

"Sure enough the Sea-Powers are checkmated now. Let them make the least
attempt in favor of the Queen, if they dare. Holland can be overrun,
from Osnabruck quarter, at a day's warning. Little George has his
Hanoverians, his subsidized Hessians, Danes, in Hanover, his English on
Lexden Heath: let him come one step over the marches, Maillebois and
the Old Dessauer swallow him