For three months long the King had been representing, in the proper quarters, what plunderings, and riotous and even disgusting savageries, the Saxons had perpetrated at Charlottenburg, Schonhausen, Friedrichsfeld, in October last, while masters there for a few days: but neither in Reichs Diet, where Plotho was eloquent, nor elsewhere by the Diplomatic method, could he get the least redress, or one civil word of regret. From Polish Majesty himself, to whom Friedrich remonstrated the matter, through the English Resident at Warsaw, Friedrich had expected regret; but he got none. Some think he had hoped that Polish Majesty, touched by these horrors of war, and by the reciprocities evidently liable to follow, might be induced to try something towards mediating a General Peace: but Polish Majesty did not; Polish Majesty answered simply nothing at all, nor would get into any correspondence: upon which Friedrich, possibly a little piqued withal, had at length determined on retaliation. Within our cantonments, reflects Friedrich, here is Hubertsburg Schloss, with such a hunting apparatus in and around it; Polish Majesty's HERTZBLATT ("lid of the HEART," as they call it; breastbone, at least, and pit of his STOMACH, which inclines to nothing but hunting): let his Hubertsburg become as our Charlottenburg is; perhaps that will touch his feelings! Friedrich had formed this resolution; and, Wednesday, January 21st, sends for Saldern, one of the most exact, deft-going and punctiliously honorable of all his Generals, to execute it. Enter Saldern accordingly,--royal Audience-room "in the APEL'SCHE HAUS, New Neumarkt, No. 16," as above;--to whom (one Kuster, a reliable creature, reporting for us on Saldern's behalf) the King says, in the distinct slowish tone of a King giving orders:-- KING. "Saldern, to-morrow morning you go [ER, He goes) with a detachment of Infantry and Cavalry, in all silence, to Hubertsburg; beset the Schloss, get all the furnitures carefully packed up and invoiced. I want nothing with them; the money they bring I mean to bestow on our Field Hospitals, and will not forget YOU in disposing of it." Saldern, usually so prompt with his "JA" on any Order from the King, looks embarrassed, stands silent,--to the King's great surprise;--and after a moment or two says:-- SALDERN. "Forgive me, your Majesty: but this is contrary to my honor and my oath." KING (still in a calm tone). "You would be right to think so if I did not intend this desperate method for a good object. Listen to me: great Lords don't feel it in their scalp, when their subjects are torn by the hair; one has to grip their own locks, as the only way to give them pain." (These last words the King said in a sharper tone; he again made his apology for the resolution he had formed; and renewed his Order. With the modesty usual to him, but also with manliness, Saldern replied:)--