ents. All
which Soltikof accepts, but with a full sense of what they mean. An
unmanageable Soltikof; his answer always,--'Your turn now to fight a
victory! I will go my ways to Posen again, if you don't.' And, in these
current weeks, in Soltikof's audience-room, if anybody were curious
about it, we could present a very lively solicitation going on, with
answers very gruff and negatory. No suasion of Montalembert, Lacy, and
Daun Embassies, backed by diamond-hilted swords, and splendor of gifts
from Vienna itself, able to prevail on the barbarous people.

"Daun at length resolves to go in person; solicits an Interview with
the distinguished Russian Conqueror; gets it, meets Soltikof at Guben,
half-way house between Frankfurt and Triebel; select suite attending
both Excellencies (August 22d); and exerts whatever rhetoric is in him
on the barbarous man. The barbarous man is stiff as brass; but Daun
comes into all his conditions: 'Saxony, Silesia,--Excellenz, we have
them both within clutch; such our exquisite angling and manoeuvring, in
concert with your immortal victory, which truly gives the life-breath to
everything. Oh, suffer us to clutch them: keep that King away from us;
and see if they are not ours, Saxony first, Silesia next! Provisions of
meal? I will myself undertake to furnish bread for you [though I have to
cart it from Bohemia all the way, and am myself terribly off; but fixed
to do the impossible]; ration of bread shall fail no Russian man, while
you escort us as protective friend. Towards Saxony first, where the
Reichs Army is, and not a Prussian in the field; the very Garrisons
mostly gone by this time. Dresden is to be besieged, within a week;
Dresden itself is ours, if only YOU please! Come into the Lausitz with
us, Magazines are there, loaves in abundance: Saxony done, Dresden ours,
cannot we turn to Silesia together; besiege Glogau together (I am myself
about trying Neisse, by Harsch again); capture Glogau as well as Neisse;
and crown the successfulest campaign that ever was? Oh, Excellenz--!'"

In a word, Excellenz, strictly fixing that condition of the loaves,
consents. Will get ready to leave those Frankfurt Wine-Hills in about
a week. "But the loaves, you recollect: no Bread, no Russian!" Daun
returns to Triebel a victorious man,--though with an onerous condition
incumbent. Tempelhof, minutely computing, finds that to cart from
Bohemia such a cipher of human rations daily into these parts, will
sur