Thus travels magnanimous Belleisle in twenty vehicles, a man loaded with weighty matters, in these deep Winter months; suffering dreadfully from rheumatic neuralgic ailments, a Doctor one of his needfulest equipments; and has the hardest problem yet ahead of him.
"Prince Wilhelm's consultations are happily lost altogether; buried from sight forever, to the last hint,--all except as to what road to Berlin would be the best from Cassel.

By Leipzig, through low-lying country, is the great Highway, advisable in winter; but it runs a hundred and thirty miles to right, before ever starting northward; such a roundabout.

Not to say that the Saxons are allies of Austria,--if there be anything in that.

Enemies, they, to the Most Christian King: though surely, again, we are on Kaiser's business, nay we are titular 'Prince of the Reich,' for that matter, such the Kaiser's grace to us?
Well; it is better perhaps to AVOID the Saxon Territory.

And, of course, the Hanoverian much more; through which lies the other Great Road! 'Go by the Harz,' advises Landgraf Wilhelm: 'a rugged Hill Country; but it is your hypotenuse towards Berlin; passes at once, or nearly so, from Cassel Territory into Prussian: a rugged road, but a shorter and safer.' That is the road Belleisle resolves upon.