Meanwhile, in spite of French intrigues, in spite of backwardness in Lithuania and of distrust in Poland, Sobieski had left Warsaw for Cracow on July 18. Up to the last moment the Turks disbelieved in his coming in person, and the Emperor and the French king both doubted it. He was gouty, he was rheumatic, he was too fat to ride; such was the tenour of the information of the baffled French agent Vitry. Nevertheless, on the 22nd of August, he was on the Silesian frontier with the main part of his army. It consisted mostly of cavalry, of those Polish horsemen matchless in prowess, but the most unstable of forces. His infantry was less numerous and inferior, their shabby accoutrements contrasting sharply with the gaudy equipment of the cavaliers. "They have sworn to dress themselves better in the spoils of the enemy," said the king of one regiment, deprecating the criticism of the Germans. His march lay through Silesia and Moravia, through the borders of the lands devastated by the Tartars, where the trembling inhabitants thronged around him, hailing him already as their deliverer. Urged by message after message from Lorraine, he left his army to follow under the leadership of the Field-Marshal Jablonowski, and hurried on himself at the head of two thousand cavalry, his son Prince James by his side. We can follow every movement of the campaign from the letters which, amid the hurry of the march, during short hours snatched from sleep, once at least during the thunder of a Turkish cannonade, he found time to despatch continually to his queen. _Seule joie de mon âme, char__mante et bien-aimée Mariette_, as he calls her. Her letters in reply are his continual consolation amid the labours of the campaign, the ingratitude of the Emperor, and the insubordination of his subjects. "I read all your letters, my dear and incomparable Maria, thrice over--once when I receive them, once when I retire to my tent and am alone with my love, once when I sit down to answer them." Such is his answer to her expression of a fear that the distractions of his enterprise may leave no time for interest in aught besides. On August 29 he writes, from near Brunn in Moravia, sending the news of the retreat of Tekeli after his defeat by Lorraine, and adding that he hopes the next day, on nearing the Danube, to hear the cannon which tell that Vienna is still untaken. On the 31st he is near Tuln, above Vienna. He has passed the distant thunder of the cannonade upon his left hand, and has effected his junction with the army of Lorraine. Despairing of the arrival of the Lithuanians, he has distributed the arms intended for them among the imperfectly equipped Poles. Still more is he distressed at the non-appearance of the Cossacks, whom he expected, and whom he knew as invaluable for outpost duty. Menzynski, who should have conducted them, is lingering at Lemberg. "_C'est un grand misérable._"