chance or unlikely possibility. At the end of the second week
("June 14th," as we shall mark by and by), the chance
was withdrawn.

Daun and his Lacy are but one, and that by no means the most
harassing, of the many cares and anxieties which Friedrich has upon
him in those Seven Weeks, while waiting at Schlettau, reading the
omens. Never hitherto was the augury of any Campaign more
indecipherable to him, or so continually fluctuating with wild
hopes, which proved visionary, and with huge practical fears, of
what he knew to be the real likelihood. "Peace coming?" It is
strange how long Friedrich clings to that fond hope: "My Edelsheim
is in the Bastille, or packed home in disgrace: but will not the
English and Choiseul make Peace? It is Choiseul's one rational
course; bankrupt as he is, and reduced to spoons and kettles.
In which case, what a beautiful effect might Duke Ferdinand
produce, if he marched to Eger, say to Eger, with his 50,000
Germans (Britannic Majesty and Pitt so gracious), and twitched Daun
by the skirt, whirling Daun home to Bohemia in a hurry!" Then the
Turks; the Danes,--"Might not the Danes send us a trifle of Fleet
to Colberg (since the English never will), and keep our Russians at
bay?"--"At lowest these hopes are consolatory," says he once,
suspecting them all (as, no doubt, he often enough does), "and give
us courage to look calmly for the opening of this Campaign, the
very idea of which has made me shudder!" ["To Prince Henri:" in
Schoning, ii. 246 (3d April, 1760): ib. 263
(of the DANISH outlook); &c. &c.]

Meanwhile, by the end of May, the Russians are come across the
Weichsel again, lie in four camps on the hither side; start about