On a sudden, too, "March 18th,"--wintry blasts and hailstorms still raging,--Marechal de Saxe, regardless of Domestic Hunger, took the field, stronger than ever. Manoeuvred about; bewildering the mind of Royal Highness and the Stadtholder ("Will he besiege Breda? Will he do this, will he do that?")--poor Highness and poor Stadtholder; who "did not agree well together," and had not the half of their forces come in, not to speak of handling them when come! Bewilderment of these two once completed, Marechal de Saxe made "a beautiful march upon Maestricht;" and, April 15th, opened trenches, a very Vesuvius of artillery, before that place; Royal Highness gazing into it, in a doleful manner, from the adjacent steeple-tops. Royal Highness, valor's self, has to admit: "Such an outlook; not half of us got together! The 60,000 Austrians are but 30,000; the--In fact, you will have to make Peace, what else?" [His Letters, in Coxe's--Pelham--("March 29th-April 2d, 1748"), i. 405-410.] Nothing else, as has been evident to practical Official People (especially to frugal Pelham, Chesterfield and other leading heads) for these two months last past. In a word, those 35,000 Russians are still far away under the horizon, when thoughts of a new Congress, "Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle," are busying the public mind: "Mere moonshine again?" "Something real this time?"--And on and from March 17th (Lord Sandwich first on the ground, and Robinson from Vienna coming to help), the actual Congress begins assembling there. April 24th, the Congress gets actually to business; very intent on doing it; at least the three main parties, France, England, Holland, are supremely so. Who, finding, for five diligent days, nothing but haggle and objection on the part of the others, did by themselves meet under cloud of night, "night of April 29th-30th;" and--bring the Preliminaries to perfection. And have them signed before daybreak; which is, in effect, signing, or at least fixing as certain, the Treaty itself; so that Armistice can ensue straightway, and the War essentially end.