Carteret, though there had been no Duke of Newcastle to run athwart this fine scheme, would have had his difficulties in making her Hungarian Majesty comply. Her Majesty's great heart, incurably grieved about Silesia, is bent on having, if not restoration one day, which is a hope she never quits, at any rate some ample (cannot be too ample) equivalent elsewhere. On the Hanau scheme, united Teutschland, with England for soul to it, would have fallen vigorously on the throat of France, and made France disgorge: Lorraine, Elsass, the Three Bishoprics,--not to think of Burgundy, and earlier plunders from the Reich,--here would have been "cut and come again" for her Hungarian Majesty and everybody!--But Diana, in the shape of his Grace of Newcastle, intervenes; and all this has become chimerical and worse.

It was while Carteret's courier was gone to England and not come back, that King Louis made the above-mentioned mild, almost penitent, Declaration to the Reich, "Good people, let us have Peace; and all be as we were! I, for my share, wish to be out of it; I am for home!" And, in effect, was already home; every Frenchman in arms being, by this time, on his own side of the Rhine, as we shall presently observe.

For, the same day, July 26th, while that was going on at Frankfurt, and Carteret's return-courier was due in five days, his Britannic Majesty at Hanau had a splendid visit,--tending not towards Peace with France, but quite the opposite way. Visit from Prince Karl, with Khevenhuller and other dignitaries; doing us that honor "till the evening of the 28th." Quitting their Army,--which is now in these neighborhoods (Broglio well gone to air ahead of it; Noailles too, at the first sure sniff of it, having rushed double- quick across the Rhine),--these high Gentlemen have run over to us, for a couple of days, to "congratulate on Dettingen;" or, better still, to consult, face to face, about ulterior movements. "Follow Noailles; transfer the seat of war to France itself? These are my orders, your Majesty. Combined Invasion of Elsass: what a slash may be made into France [right handselling of your Carteret Scheme] this very year!" "Proper, in every case!" answers the Britannic Majesty; and engages to co-operate. Upon which Prince Karl--after the due reviewing, dinnering, ceremonial blaring, which was splendid to witness [Anonymous, Duke of Cumberland, pp. 65, 86.]--hastens back to his Army (now lying about Baden Durlach, 70,000 strong); and ought to be swift, while the chance lasts.

HUNGARIAN MAJESTY ANSWERS, IN THE DIET, THAT FRENCH DECLARATION, "MAKE PEACE, GOOD PEOPLE; I WISH TO BE OUT OF IT!"--IN AN OMINOUS MANNER.

These are fine prospects, in the French quarter, of an equivalent for Schlesien;--very fine, unless Diana intervene! Diana or not, French prospects or not, her Hungarian Majesty fastens on Bavaria with uncommon tightness of fist, now that Bavaria is swept clear; well resolved to keep Bavaria for equivalent, till better come. Exacts, by her deputy, Homage from the Population there; strict Oath of Fealty to HER; poor Kaiser protesting his uttermost, to no purpose; Kaiser's poor Printer (at Regensburg, which is in Bavaria) getting "tried and hanged" for printing such Protest! "She draughts forcibly the Bavarian militias into her Italian Army;" is high and merciless on all hands;--in a word, throttles poor Bavaria, as if to the choking of it outright. So that the very Gazetteers in foreign places gave voice, though Bavaria itself, such a grasp on the throat of it, was voiceless. Seckendorf's poor Bargain for neutrality as a Bavarian Reich-Army, her Hungarian Majesty disdains to confirm; to confirm, or even to reject; treats Seckendorf and his Bavarian Army little otherwise than as a stray dog which she has not yet shot. And truly the old Feldmarschall lies at Wembdingen, in most disconsolate moulting condition; little or nothing to live upon;--the English, generous creatures, had at one time flung him something, fancying the Armistice might be useful; but now it must be the French that do it, if anybody! [Adelung, iii. B, 204 ("22d Angust"), 206, &c.]

Hanau Conferences having failed, these things do not fail. Kaiser Karl is become tragical to think of. A spectacle of pity to Landgraf Wilhelm, to King Friedrich, and serious on-lookers;--and perhaps not of pity only, but of "pity and fear" to some of them!-- sullen Austria taking its sweet revenges, in this fashion. Readers who will look through these small chinks, may guess what a world-welter this was; and how Friedrich, gazing into phase on phase of it, as into Oracles of Fate, which to him they were, had a History, in these months, that will now never be known.

August 16th came out her Hungarian Majesty's Response to that mild quasi-penitent Declaration of King Louis to the Reich; and much astonished King Louis and others, and the very Reich itself. "Out of it?" says her Hungarian Majesty (whom we with regret, for brevity's sake, translate from Official into vulgate): "His Most Christian Majesty wishes to be out of it:--Does not he, the (what shall I call him) Crowned Housebreaker taken in the fact? You shall get out of it, please Heaven, when you have made compensation for the damage done; and till then not, if it please Heaven!" And in this strain (lengthily Official, though indignant to a degree) enumerates the wanton unspeakable mischiefs and outrages which Austria, a kind of sacred entity guaranteed by Law of Nature and Eleven Signatures of Potentates, has suffered from the Most Christian Majesty,--and will have compensation for, Heaven now pointing the way! [IN EXTENSO in Adelung, iii. B, 201 et seqq.]

A most portentous Document; full of sombre emphasis, in sonorous snuffling tone of voice; enunciating, with inflexible purpose, a number of unexpected things: very portentous to his Prussian Majesty among others. Forms a turning-point or crisis both in the French War, and in his Prussian Majesty's History; and ought to be particularly noted and dated by the careful reader. It is here that we first publicly hear tell of Compensation, the necessity Austria will have of Compensation,--Austria does not say expressly for Silesia, but she says and means for loss of territory, and for all other losses whatsoever: "Compensation for the past, and security for the future; that is my full intention," snuffles she, in that slow metallic tone of hers, irrevocable except by the gods.