This poisoned meal we are to buy from them, ready money, at the price they fix; and that famine may induce us, they are about to stop the mills, and forcibly take away what little bread-corn we have left.
God have pity on us, and deliver us soon! Next week we are to have a transit of 6,000 Pfalzers [Kur-Pfalz, foolish idle fellow, and Kur-Baiern too, are both in subsidy of France, as usual; 6,000 Pfalzers just due here]; these, I suppose, will sweep us clean bare." [_Helden-Geschichte,_ iv.

399.]: Wesel Fortress, Gate of the Rhine, could not be defended by Friedrich: and the Hanover Incapables, and England still all in St.Vitus, would not hear of undertaking it; left it wide open for the French; never could recover it, or get the Rhine-Gate barred again, during the whole War.

One hopes they repented;--but perhaps it was only Pitt and Duke Ferdinand that did so, instead! The Wesel Countries were at once occupied by the French; "a conquest of her Imperial Majesty's;" continued to be administered in Imperial Majesty's name,--and are thriving as above.
2.

DAUPHINESS PROPER (that is, Soubise) IN THURINGEN, AT A LATE STAGE:-- "LETTER FROM FREIBURG, SHORTLY AFTER ROSSBACH .-- It was on the 23d October, a Sunday, that we of Freiburg had our first billeting of French; a body of Cavalry from different regiments [going to take Leipzig, take Torgau, what not]: and from that day Freiburg never emptied of French, who kept marching through it in extraordinary quantities.

The marching lasted fourteen days, namely, till the 6th November [day AFTER Rossbach; when they burnt our poor Bridge, and marched for the last time]; and often the billeting was so heavy, that in a single house there were forty or fifty men.