Old Dessauer makes for Torgau, far north, where is both an Elbe Bridge and a Magazine; which he takes; Torgau and pertinents now his.

But it is far down the Elbe, far off from Bautzen and Friedrich: "A nearer Bridge and rendezvous, your Highness! Meissen [where they make the china, only fifty miles from me, and twenty from Dresden], let that be the Bridge, now that you have got victual.

And speedy; for Heaven's sake, speedy!" Friedrich pushes out General Lehwald from Bautzen, with 4,000 men, towards Meissen Bridge; Lehwald does not himself meddle with the Bridge, only fires shot across upon the Saxon party, till the Old Dessauer, on the other bank, come up;--and the Old Dessauer, impatience thinks, will never come.

"Three days in Torgau, yes, Your Majesty: I had bread to bake, and the very ovens had to be built." A solid old roadster, with his own modes of trotting; needs thickness of skin.

[Friedrich's Letters to Leopold, in Orlich, ii.