Count Saxe

“ The ugly duchess, having fallen in love with Count Saxe the first time she saw him, as all the women did, poor souls, they could not help themselves—invited him to lodge with his suite at the palace, instead of at the old schloss with the rats. Never were there such rats. We used to have regular battues of rats, killing them with our swords. But Count Saxe was wary—he had no mind to be lodged too far away from his horses. As it was, our stabling was at an inconvenient distance from the schloss. But how to get away from the pressing attentions of a lady is a problem ”

“ I will say, however, it is pretty generally understood when Babache, captain of Count Saxe’s body-guard of Uhlans, sometimes known as the Clear-the-way-boys, or the Storm-alongs, and also as the Devil’s Own, is in the neighborhood, that Count Saxe is the greatest man that ever lived.
I am supposed to be a Tatar prince, by birth, that is; but in truth the only claim I have to either the race or the title is, that I am very ugly. God could have made an uglier man than I am, because He is omnipotent, but I am sure He never did. ”

“ And the services of eleven men, when time was so precious to us, could ill be spared; but Count Saxe took no note of these things.
He talked a little longer with the Russian, who had a German name, Schnelling. This Schnelling had the impudence to claim to be a part of Bibikoff’s force, and when Count Saxe asked him what he was doing holding prisoners for ransom, the rascal replied that the money was to be applied for a fund of defense against Count Saxe! ”

“ They aver that they have 44,000 men, but they really have but 33,000. To all appearance they are very fine ones, especially the Cavalry; but as I have already told you how ill they are paid, you must see that without a large sum to put them in motion, ’tis impossible they should act out of their own country. As to their generals, Count Rotosha and the Chevalier de Saxe, both natural sons of the late King of Poland, are at the head of the Army. ”

“ Their valets served them with ices in the trenches, under the cannon of besieged towns. A troop of actors formed part of the army-train of Marshal Saxe. At night there was a comedy, a ballet, or a ball, and in the morning a battle. Saxe, however, himself a sturdy German, while he recognized their fighting value, and knew well how to make the best of it, sometimes complained that they were volatile, excitable, and difficult to manage.
The weight of the Court, with its pomps, luxuries, and wars, bore on the classes least able to support it. The poorest were taxed most; the richest not at all. ”

“ Take Prag!' advises Comte de Saxe, with earnestness, day after day. [His Letters on it to Karl Albert and others (in Espagnac, i. 94-99) .) ] 'Take Prag: but how?' answer they. 'By escalade, by surprise, and sword in hand, answers he: 'Ogilvy their General has but 3,000, and is perhaps no wizard at his trade: we can do it, thus and thus, and then farther thus; and I perceive we are a lost Army if we don't!' So counsels Maurice Comte de Saxe, brilliant, fervent in his military views;—and, before it is quite too late, Schmettau and he persuade Karl Albert, persuade Rutowsky chief of the Saxons ”

“ On the part of the Allies, the Duke of Cumberland was chief in command, but, from his youth, he was not able to set himself free from the assumptions of the Austrian general, old Marshal Königsegg, and the Dutch general, the Prince of Waldeck. As it was, to march against the French before Tournay was to rush into a certain contest with the whole French army of nearly eighty thousand men, whilst the Allies could have only about fifty thousand. Saxe made the ablest arrangements for the coming fight. ”

“ Who cost us more distinguishing than they are worth!
Chief General of these Saxons, says an Authentic Author, is Rutowsky; got from a Polish mother, I should guess: he commands in chief here;—once had a regiment under Friedrich Wilhelm, for a while; but has not much head for strategy, it may be feared. But mark that Fourth individual of the Three Hundred and Fifty-four, who has a great deal. Fourth individual, called Comte de Saxe, who is now in that French Vanward a good way to east, was (must I again remind you!) ”

“ The force of the French was about 60,000 of all arms, not including 22,000 left in the lines before Tournai. Marshal Saxe himself, who was suffering from dropsy to such an extent that he was unable to mount his horse, slept in a wicker chariot in the midst of the troops. At early dawn of the 11th of May, the Anglo-Hanoverian army with the Austrian contingent formed up in front of Vézon, facing towards Fontenoy and the wood, while the Dutch on their left extended the general line to Péronne. The total force was 46,000, against about 52,000 whom Saxe could actually put into the line of battle. ”

“ If she could not love with her entire being, if she could not give all that was in her to be given, whether of her heart or mind or soul, then she would love no more at all.
At this time there came to Paris a man remarkable in his own century, and one who afterward became almost a hero of romance. This was Maurice, Comte de Saxe, as the French called him, his German name and title being Moritz, Graf von Sachsen, while we usually term him, in English, Marshal Saxe. Maurice de Saxe was now, in 1721, entering his twenty-fifth year. Already, though so young, his career had been a strange one ”

“ Saxe had about 125,000 men, the allies ninety thousand, of which about ten thousand were British and twenty thousand Hanoverians and Hessians in British pay. While holding in check the Austrians, who were on the right, and the Dutch, who were in the centre, Saxe dealt his blow against the left. The hamlet of Laeffelt was taken and retaken four times. After three hours' obstinate fighting a fifth assault was made upon it by nearly twenty-five thousand men. At the same time the French cavalry charged and routed some Dutch squadrons drawn up on the right of it. ”

“ The British and Hanoverian conquerors on their right, when they mounted the French positions, looked out for their left wing, the Dutch, and, to their dismay, beheld them hanging with cowardly inactivity in the distance. The brave Marshal Saxe, at the same moment making the same discovery, called forward the Household Troops, which had been posted to receive the Dutch, and precipitated them on the flank of the British. Foremost in this charge was the Irish Brigade, in the pay of France, who fought like furies against their countrymen. ”

“ When she was fifty years old she wrote her memoirs, and in this prolix and imperfect but extremely entertaining work a large space is devoted to the heroine's parents and grandparents.
It was a very picturesque pedigree—quite an ideal pedigree for a romancer. Mme. Sand's great-grandfather was the Marshal Maurice de Saxe, one of the very few generals in the service of Louis XV. who tasted frequently of victory. Maurice de Saxe was a royal bastard, the 'son of Augustus II., surnamed the Strong,; Elector of Saxony and King of Po land, and of a brilliant mistress, Aurore de Königsmark. ”

“ Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Coburg, and their cousin Saxes are racing against each other for the hand of the Princess Victoria, to say nothing of a brace of Brunswicks and a Prince of Orange and his two sons, who probably thinks he should be given first chance, as he was done out of the Princess Charlotte. The Duke of Cumberland’s son is quite hors-de-combat, and the simple child, George of Cambridge, is not encouraged by the Government on account of his mental incapacity. The Saxe tribe are the most hungry, the most persevering, and the most lucky. ”

“ Let the white man wait until to-morrow. Night was falling; it was time to sleep. By the sunlight they could deal better. The woman panted heavily beneath his feet, never loosing her hold. The young slave girl looked down at her with unconcealed malignity. Saxe found himself forced to retire from the royal hut—sleeping-chamber, banqueting-hall, audience-room in one. He said that all he thought of, as he stumbled out, was the idiotic figure he should make at the Mission as the owner of an Arab-Mandingo woman. It was worse than the yellow Portuguese. ”

“ Maurice de Saxe had been sired by a king. He had the lofty ambition to be a king himself, and he felt the stirrings of that genius which in after years was to make him a great soldier, and to win the brilliant victory of Fontenoy, which to this very day the French are never tired of recalling. Already Louis XV. had made him a marshal of France; and a certain restlessness came over him. He loved Adrienne; yet he felt that to remain in the enjoyment of her witcheries ought not to be the whole of a man's career. ”

“ Though the allied army was greatly inferior in number to the enemy, yet as the French army was detached, the duke resolved to march to the relief of Tournay. Marshal Saxe, who soon became aware of the design of the allies, drew up his army in line of battle, on the right bank of the Scheldt, extending from the wood of Barri to Fontenoy, and thence to the village of St Antoine in sight of the British army. ”

“ The choice spirits of the court, of the great world, of the greater world of literature, were glad to meet in fellowship around her generous and joyous table. Among them she found excuse for an occasional caprice, but her deepest and most lasting passion was given to the superb adventurer, Maurice de Saxe. His quarters, when home from the wars—for which her pawned jewels furnished him forth—were only a step down Rue Bonaparte from her house, on Quai Malaquais. They were at No. 5, the most ancient mansion left on the quay, with the exception of No. 1, hid behind the wing of the Institute. ”

“ And then the Saxons (21,000 strong, a fine little Army, all that Saxony has) are, at the same time, come across the Metal Mountains (ERZGEBIRGE) , in quest of those Bohemian clippings, of that Kingdom of Moravia: and march from the westward upon Prag,—Rutowsky leading them. Comte de Rutowsky, Comte de Saxe's Half-Brother, one of the Three Hundred and Fifty-four:—with whom is CHEVALIER de Saxe, a second younger ditto; and I think there is still a third, who shall go unnamed. In this grand Oriflamme Expedition, Four of the Royal-Saxon Bastards altogether. ”

“ Nay, in fact, she is the same devil-serving Army that Marechal de Saxe commanded with such triumph,—Marechal de Saxe in better luck for opponents; Army then in a younger stage of its development. Foaming then as sweet must, as new wine, in the hands of a skilful vintner, poisonous but brisk; not run, as now, to the vinegar state, intolerable to all mortals. ”

“ Saxe betrayed his emotion by the tenseness of his features, the rigidity of his pose, the sparkle in his keen, gray eyes.
It was evident that the successful investigator was hugely enjoying the sensation he had created. He delighted in the importance [211] of his accomplishment, gloried in the stunning effect of it on his companions. He smiled broadly, chuckled in a rumbling fashion of his own, and finally lighted one of his black cigars with irritating slowness. ”

“ When a Saxon king would create an earl, it did not lie in men's thoughts, accustomed as they were to deal with realities, that such could be a merely titular creation, or exist without territorial jurisdiction; and a 'share' or 'shire' was assigned him to govern, which also gave him his title. But at the Conquest this Saxon officer was displaced by a Norman, the 'earl' by the 'count'—this title of 'count,' borrowed from the later Roman empire, meaning originally 'companion' (comes) , one who had the honour of being closest companion to his leader ”

“ Indeed, if we should arraign marshal Saxe of ostentation when he shewed his army, drawn up, to our captive general, the day after the battle of La Val, we cannot say that the ostentation was entirely vain; since he certainly shewed him an army which had not been often equalled, either in the number or goodness of the troops, and which, in those respects, so far exceeded ours, that none can ever cast any reflexion on the brave young prince who could not reap the lawrels of conquest in that day ”

“ It were juster to fix the blame on the impatience of the King of Saxony, whom it would have beseemed to wait for the old man's death, and not demand his throne; for it was somewhat better to succeed to the dead than to rob the living. Yet, that he might not be thought to make over the honours of his ancient freedom, like a madman, to the possession of another, he would accept the challenge with his own hand. The envoys answered that they knew that their king would shrink from the mockery of fighting a blind man, for such an absurd mode of combat was thought more shameful than honourable. ”

“ It seems [xxix] strange that he should refuse to go to Saxe-Merseberg, when, a short time after, he unhesitatingly accepted an invitation from the magistrates of Lübben, which was in the territories of Duke Christian; and in his correspondence with the magistrates of Lübben there is no reference to such an invitation from the Duke. The fact of his refusal, in the first instance, and his ready acceptance in the second, might be accounted for, however, by the death of his wife, which took place in March, 1668, whereby one very strong tie that bound him to Berlin was severed. ”