I am, with the highest esteem and the most perfect consideration, Madam, your Highness's most faithful and affectionate Cousin,--F." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvii.

167.] From Erfurt, on the night of his arrival, finding the Dauphiness in such humor, Friedrich had ordered Ferdinand of Brunswick with his Division and Prince Moritz with his, both of whom were still at Naumburg, to go on different errands,--Ferdinand out Halberstadt-Magdeburg way, whither Richelieu, vulture-like, if not eagle-like, is on wing; Moritz to Torgau, to secure our magazine and be on the outlook there.

Both of them marched on the morrow (November 14th): and are sending him news,--seldom comfortable news; mainly that, in spite of all one can do (and it is not little on Ferdinand's part, the Richelieu vultures, 80,000 of them, floating onward, leagues broad, are not to be kept out of Halberstadt, well if out of Magdeburg itself;--and that, in short, the general conflagration, in those parts too, is progressive.

[In Orlich's _First Moritz,_ pp.

71-89; and in _Westphalen,_ ii.