Fleury has got the Sardinian Majesty; "Sardinian doorkeeper of the Alps," who opens them now this way, now that, for a consideration: "A slice of the Milanese, your Majesty;" bargains Fleury. Fleury has got the Spanish Majesty (our violent old friend the Termagant of Spain) persuaded to join: "Your infant Carlos made Duke of Parma and Piacenza, with such difficulty: what is that? Naples itself, crown of the Two Sicilies, lies in the wind for Carlos;--and your junior infant, great Madam, has he no need of apanages?" The Termagant of Spain, "offended by Pragmatic Sanction" (she says), is ready on those terms; the Sardinian Majesty is ready: and Fleury, this same October, with an overwhelming force, Spaniards and Sardinians to join, invades Italy; great Marshal Villars himself taking the command. Marshal Villars, an extremely eminent old military gentleman,--somewhat of a friend, or husband of a lady-friend, to M. de Voltaire, for one thing;--and capable of slicing Italy to pieces at a fine rate, in the condition it was in. Never had Kaiser such a bill of broken-glass to pay for meddling in neighbors, elections before. The year was not yet ended, when Villars and the Sardinian Majesty had done their stroke on Lombardy; taken Milan Citadel, taken Pizzighetone, the Milanese in whole, and appropriated it; swept the poor unprepared Kaiser clear out of those parts. Baby Carlos and the Spaniards are to do the Two Sicilies, Naples or the land one to begin with, were the Winter gone. For the present, Louis XV. "sings TE DEUM, at Paris, 23d December, 1733" [_Fastes du Regne de Louis XV._] Villars, now above four-score, soon died of those fatigues; various Marshals, Broglio, Coigny, Noailles, succeeding him, some of whom are slightly notable to us; and there was one Maillebois, still a subordinate under them, whose name also may reappear in this History. SUBSEQUENT COURSE OF THE WAR, IN THE ITALIAN PART OF IT. The French-Austrian War, which had now broken out, lasted a couple of years; the Kaiser steadily losing, though he did his utmost; not so much a War, on his part, as a Being Beaten and Being Stript. The Scene was Italy and the Upper-Rhine Country of Germany; Italy the deciding scene; where, except as it bears on Germany, our interest is nothing, as indeed in Germany too it is not much. The principal events, on both stages, are chronologically somewhat as follows;--beginning with Italy:-- MARCH 29th, 1734. Baby Carlos with a Duke of Montemar for General, a difficult impetuous gentleman, very haughty to the French allies and others, lands in Naples Territory; intending to seize the Two Sicilies, according to bargain. They find the Kaiser quite unprepared, and their enterprise extremely feasible.