"MARQUIS, QUEL CHANGEMENT, what a change! I, a poor heretic creature, never blessed by the Holy Father; indeed, little frequenting Church, nor serving either Baal or the God of Israel; held down these many months, and reported by more than one shaven scoundrel [priest-pamphleteer at Vienna] to be quite extinct, and gone vagabond over the world,--see how capricious Fortune, after all her hundred preferences of my rivals, lifts me with helpful hand from the deep, and packs this Hero of the Hat and Sword,--whom Popes have blessed what they could, and who has walked in Pilgrimage before now [to Marienzell once, I believe, publicly at Vienna],--out of Saxony; panting, harassed goes he, like a stranger dog from some kitchen where the cook had flogged him out!" [Ib. xix. 103-106.]... (A very exultant Lilt, and with a good deal more of the chanticleer in it than we are used to in this King!) 2. AFTER MAXEN. TO D'ARGENS (Wilsdruf, 22d November). "Do with that [some small piece of business] whatever you like, my dear Marquis. I am so stupefied (E'TOURDI) with the misfortune which has befallen General Finck, that I cannot recover from my astonishment. It deranges all my measures; it cuts me to the quick. Ill-luck, which persecutes my old age, has followed me from the Mark [Kunersdorf, in the Mark of Brandenburg] to Saxony. I will still strive what I can. The little ODE I sent you, addressed TO FORTUNE, had been written too soon! One should not sing victory till the battle is over. I am so crushed down by these incessant reverses and disasters, that I wish a thousand times I were dead; and from day to day I grow wearier of dwelling in a body worn out and condemned to suffer. I am writing to you in the first moment of my grief. Astonishment, sorrow, indignation, scorn, all blended together, lacerate my soul. Let us get to the end, then, of this execrable Campaign; I will then write to you what is to become of me; and we will arrange the rest. Pity me;--ad make no noise about me; bad news go fast enough of themselves. Adieu, dear Marquis." [_OEuvres de Frederic, _ xix. 107.]