Papers of the
Reich,--these had lain so long at Vienna, the high Maria could not think
of giving them up. "So difficult to extricate what Papers are Austrian
specially, from what are Austrian-Imperial;--must have time!" answered
she always. And neither the Kaiser's more and more pressing demands, nor
those of the late Kur-Mainz, backed by the Reich, and reiterated month
after month and year after year, could avail in the matter. Mere angry
correspondences, growing ever angrier;--the Archives of the Reich lay
irrecoverable at Vienna, detained on this pretext and on that: nor were
they ever given up; but lay there till the Reich itself had ended, much
more the Kaiser Karl VII.! These are high procedures.

As if the Reich had been one's own chattel; as if a Non-Austrian Kaiser
mere impossible, and the Reich and its laws had, even Officially, become
phantasmal! That, in fact, was Maria Theresa's inarticulate inborn
notion; and gradually, as her successes on the field rose higher, it
became ever more articulate: till this of "the SEYN-SOLLENDE Kaiser" put
a crown on it. Justifiable, if the Reich with its Laws were a chattel,
or rebellious vassal, of Austria; not justifiable otherwise. "Hear ye?"
answered almost all the Reich (eight Kurfursts, with the one exception
of Kur-Hanover: as we observed): "Our solemnly elected Kaiser, Karl
VII., is a thing of quirks and quiddities, of French shreds and patches;
at present, it seems, the Reich has no Kaiser at all; and will go ever
deeper into anarchies and unnamabilities, till it proceed anew to get
one,--of the right Austrian type!"--The Reich is a talking entity: King
Friedrich is bound rather to silence, so long as possible. His thoughts
on these matters are not given; but sure enough they were continual,
too intense they could hardly be. "Compensation;" "The Reich as good
as mine:" Whither is all this tending? Walrave and those Silesian
Fortifyings,--let Walrave mind his work, and get it perfected!

BRITANNIC MAJESTY GOES HOME.

The "Combined Invasion of Elsass"--let us say briefly, overstepping
the order of date, and still for a moment leaving Friedrich--came to
nothing, this year. Prince Karl was 70,000; Britannic George (when
once those Dutch, crawling on all summer, had actually come up) was
66,000,--nay 70,000; Karl having lent him that beautiful cannibal
gentleman, "Colonel Mentzel and 4,000 Tolpatches," by way of
edge-trimming. Karl was to cross in Upper Elsass,