CHAPTER V .-- SAXONY WITHOUT DEFENCE: SCHMETTAU SURRENDERS DRESDEN.
Friedrich's despair did not last quite four days.

On the fourth day,--day after leaving Reitwein,--there is this little Document, which still exists, of more comfortable tenor: "My dear Major-General von Wunsch,--Your Letter of the 16th to Lieutenant-General von Finck punctually arrived here: and for the future, as I am now recovered from my illness, you have to address your Reports directly to Myself .-- F." ["Madlitz," on the road to Furstenwalde, "17th August:" in Preuss, _Friedrich der Grosse; eine historische Portrait-Skizze_ (kind of LECTURE, so let us call it, if again citing it; Lecture delivered, on Friedrich's Birthday, to Majesty and Staff-Officers as Audience, Berlin, 24th January, 1855), p.

18.] Finding that, except Tottleben warily reconnoitring with a few Cossacks, no Russians showed themselves at Reitwein; that the Russians were encamping and intrenching on the Wine-Hills south of Frankfurt, not meaning anything immediate,--he took heart again; ranked his 23,000; sent for General Kleist from Pommern with his Anti-Swedish handful (leave the Swedes alone, as usual in time of crisis); considered that artilleries and furnishings could come to him from Berlin, which is but 60 miles; that there still lay possibility ahead, and that, though only a miracle could save him, he would try it to the very last.
A great relief, this of coming to oneself again! "Till death, then;--rage on, ye elements and black savageries!" Friedrich's humor is not despondent, now or afterwards; though at this time it is very sad, very angry, and, as it were, scorning even to hope: but he is at all times of beautifully practical turn; and has, in his very despair, a sobriety of eyesight, and a fixed steadiness of holding to his purpose, which are of rare quality.

His utterances to D'Argens, about this time and onward,--brief hints, spontaneous, almost unconscious,--give curious testimony of his glooms and moody humors.

Of which the reader shall see something.