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Duke Bernard of Weimar, who had been despatched to act against Pappenheim, joined the king at Armstadt, who now saw himself at the head of 20,000 veterans. At Erfurt he took leave of his queen, who was not to behold him, save in his coffin, at Weissenfels. Their anxious adieus seemed to forbode an eternal separation.
Three cannon shots, fired by Count Colloredo from the castle of Weissenfels, announced the king's approach; and at this concerted signal, the light troops of the Duke of Friedland, under the command of the Croatian General Isolani, moved forward to possess themselves of the villages lying upon the Rippach.
While Prince Karl and Weissenfels are daily coming on, in force 100,000, their intention certain; force, say, about 100,000 regular! Very singular to Valori. "Sire, will not you dispute the Passes, then?" asks Valori, amazed: "Not defend your Mountain rampart, then?" "MON CHER; the Mountain rampart is three or four hundred miles long; there are twelve or twenty practicable roads through it.
Right across from Weissenfels, lapped in this crook of the Saale, or washed by it on south side and on east, rises, with extreme laziness, a dull circular lump of country, six or eight miles in diameter; with Rossbach and half a dozen other scraggy sleepy Hamlets scattered on it; which, till the morning of Saturday, 5th November, 1757, had not been notable to any visitor.
A sore stroke for poor old Weissenfels; the last public one he has to take, in this world, for the poor man died before long. Nobody's blame, he says; every Saxon man did well; only some Austrian horse-regiments, that we had among us, were too shy. Adieu to poor old Weissenfels. Luck of war, what else, thereby is he in this pass.
He stormfully reproached his Queen, regardless of the sick-bed; intimated the infallible certainty, That Wilhelmina nevertheless would wed without delay, and that either Weissenfels or Schwedt would be the man. And this said, he straightway walked out to put the same in execution.
Which is all drained away in our time, yet traceable by the studious: quaggy congeries of sluices and fish-ponds, no road through them except on intricate dams; have scrubby thickets about the border; this also is very strong ground, if Weissenfels thought of defence there. Which Weissenfels does not, but only of attack.
If the answer be not Yea at once; then you, Madam, you at once choose Weissenfels or Schwedt, one or the other, under what penalties you know; Oranienburg and worse!" Here is a crisis. But her Majesty did not want firmness. "Write to England? Yes, willingly. But as to Weissenfels and Schwedt, whatever answer come from England, Impossible!" steadily answers her Majesty.
No materials were supplied, and so not a plank nor beam had been placed across a rivulet when, during the night of 18th-19th the Emperor ordered a retreat to Weissenfels and the river Saale. The allies had suffered such heavy losses that they felt it impossible to renew the struggle.
Even in regard to her maiden name she always spoke with some embarrassment, and intimated that it was 'Perthes, though, as we afterwards ascertained, it was in reality 'Bertz. Strange to say, she had been placed in a high-class boarding-school in Leipzig, where she had enjoyed the advantage of the care and interest of one of 'her father's influential friends, to whom she afterwards referred as being a Weimar prince who had been very kind to her family in Weissenfels.
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