My friend, this was Charlemagne's high place; and his dust lies here, these thousand years last past. And there used to soar "a very large Gilt Eagle," ten feet wide or so, aloft on the Cathedral-steeple there; Eagle turned southward when the Kaiser was in Frankenland, eastward when he was in Teutsch or Teuton-land; in fact, pointing out the Kaiser's whereabouts to loyal mankind. [Kohler, _Reichs-Historie._] Eagle which shines on me as a human fact; luminously gilt, through the dark Dryasdustic Ages, gone all spectral under Dryasdust's sad handling. Friedrich knows farther, that for many centuries after, the "Reich's INSIGNIA (REICHS-KLEINODIEN)" used to be here,--though Maria Theresa has them now, and will not give them up. The whole of which points are indifferent to him. The practical, not the sentimental, is Friedrich's interest;--not to say that WERTER and the sentimental were not yet born into our afflicted Earth. A King thoroughly practical;--yet an exquisite player on the flute withal, as we often notice; whose adagio could draw tears from you. For in himself, too, there were floods of tears (as when his Mother died); and he has been heard saying, not bragging but lamenting, what was truly the fact, that "he had more feeling than other men." But it was honest human feeling always; and was repressed, where not irrepressible;--as it behooved to be. Friedrich's suite was not considerable, says the French spy at Aix on this occasion; pomp of Entrance,--a thing to be mute upon! "Came driving in with the common post-horses of the country; and such a set of carriages as your Lordship, intent on the sublime, has no idea of." [Spy-Letter, in _Campagnes des Trois Marechaux,_ i. 222.] Rumor was, His Britannic Majesty was coming (also on pretext of the waters) to confer with him; other rumor is, If King George came in at one gate, King Friedrich would go out at the other. A dubious Friedrich, to the French spy, at this moment; nothing like so admirable as he once was!-- The French emotions (of which we say little), on Friedrich's making Peace for himself, had naturally been great. To the French Public it was unexpected, somewhat SUDDEN even to the Court; and, sure enough, it was of perilous importance in the circumstances. Few days ago, Broglio (by order given him) "could not spare a man," for the Common Cause;--and now the Common Cause has become entirely the Broglio one, and Broglio will have the full use of all his men! "Defection [plainly treasonous to your Liege Lord and Nation]! horrible to think of!" cried the French Public; the Court outwardly taking a lofty tragic-elegiac tone, with some air of hope that his Prussian Majesty would perhaps come round again, to the side of his afflicted France! Of which, except in the way of helping France and the other afflicted parties to a just Peace if he could, his Prussian Majesty had small thought at this time.