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There was no authority qualified to decide the legal question; and therefore the question of right was sure to become one of power. At first, strange as it may seem, the power was on the side of the Danes. Germany was weak and disunited, the Prussian troops who had been sent to help the rebellion were withdrawn, and the surrender of Olmütz was fatal to the inhabitants of the Duchies.

It is true no one was able to state positively where the battle had been fought, but the people were able to calculate the spot where the great struggle had probably taken place, for they knew that the allies had occupied the immediate environs of Olmutz, and then advanced toward Brunn and Austerlitz, where the French army had established itself.

Madame de Lafayette interested herself in the management of this estate; she provided pastors and teachers to go to Cayenne as missionaries and educators. The experiment was going on well when the Revolution broke over France. Then it was doomed. While Lafayette was languishing in the dungeon at Olmütz, one of his great anxieties was for his Cayenne charge.

The day after the review, Boris, in his best uniform and with his comrade Berg's best wishes for success, rode to Olmutz to see Bolkonski, wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself the best post he could preferably that of adjutant to some important personage, a position in the army which seemed to him most attractive.

He promised to secure Bohemia to the emperour, and Moravia to the elector of Saxony; and, finding no enemy in the field able to resist him, he returned to Berlin, and left Schwerin, his general, to prosecute the conquest. The Prussians, in the midst of winter, took Olmutz, the capital of Moravia, and laid the whole country under contribution.

Olmutz is so extensive in its works, and so peculiarly situated on the river Morava, that it could not be completely invested without weakening the posts of the besieging army, by extending them to a prodigious circuit; so that, in some parts, they were easily forced by detachments in the night, who fell upon them suddenly, and seldom failed to introduce into the place supplies of men, provisions, and ammunition.

The Prussians, finding that he would not do this, instead of treating him as a prisoner of war threw him into a dungeon at Magdebourg. His estate at home was confiscated and his wife imprisoned. After a year's imprisonment at Magdebourg in a dirty and humid vault he was transferred by the Prussians from one dungeon to another, and at last confined in the Austrian citadel of Olmutz.

"The 'destructive sallies' and the like, at Olmutz, were principally an affair of the gazetteers and the imagination: but it is certain, Olmutz this time was excellently well defended; the Commandant, a vigorous skilful man, prompt to seize advantages; and Garrison and Townsfolk zealously helping: so that Friedrich's progress was unusually slow.

Hence," he said, after a pause, quite merrily and hopefully, "hence, I must succeed." He returned to the map and pointed his finger at it. "The Austrians are over there at Olmutz," he said, quickly. "Here, the Russian guards; there, the united corps of Kutusof and Buxhowden; farther on, the vanguard under Prince Bagration.

Finance-minister Fichy said to me in Olmutz yesterday, 'Peace will be cheap, if we have merely to cede the Tyrol, Venice, and a portion of Upper Austria, and we should be content with such terms. Ah, if THEY could only be got rid of, what a splendid thing the fall of the monarchy would he!