[<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> i. 473-475.] Nay, he was clear for burning down, or blowing up, the Protestant Church, indispensable sacred edifice which stands outside the walls:
"Prussians will make a block-house of it!" said Wallis. A chief Protestant, Baron von Something, begged passionately for only twelve hours of respite,--to lay the case before his Prussian Majesty. Respite conceded, he and another chief Protestant had posted off accordingly; and did the next morning (Friday, 16th), short way from Crossen, meet his Majesty's carriage; who graciously pulled up for a few instants, and listened to their story. "MEINEHERREN, you are the first that ask a favor of me on Silesian ground; it shall be done you!" said the King; and straightway despatched, in polite style, his written request to Wallis, engaging to make no military use whatever of said Church, "but to attack by the other side, if attack were necessary." Thus his Majesty saved the Church of Glogau; which of course was a popular act. Getting to see this Church himself a few days hence, he said, "Why, it must come down at any rate, and be rebuilt; so ugly a thing!"Wallis is ****** strenuous preparation; forces the inhabitants, even the upper kinds of them, to labor day and night by relays, in his rampartings, palisadings; is for burning all the adjacent Villages,--and would have done it, had not the peasants themselves turned out in a dangerous state of mind. He has got together about 1,000 men. His powder, they say, is fifty years old; but he has eatable provender from Breslau, and means to hold out to the utmost. Readers must admit that the Austrian military, Graf von Wallis to begin with,-- still more, General Browne, who is a younger man and has now the head charge,--behave well in their present forsaken condition. Wallis (Graf FRANZ WENZEL this one, not to be confounded with an older Wallis heard of in the late Turk War) is of Scotch descent,--as all these Wallises are; "came to Austria long generations ago; REICHSGRAFS since 1612:"--Browne is of Irish; age now thirty-five, ten years younger than Wallis.
Read this Note on the distinguished Browne:--"A German-Irish Gentleman, this General (ultimately Fieldmarshal)Graf von Browne; one of those sad exiled Irish Jacobites, or sons of Jacobites, who are fighting in foreign armies; able and notable men several of them, and this Browne considerably the most so.
We shall meet him repeatedly within the next eighteen years.
Maximilian-Ulysses Graf von Browne: I said he was born German;Basel his birthplace (23d October, 1705), Father also a soldier:
he must not be confounded with a contemporary Cousin of his, who is also 'Fieldmarshal Browne,' but serves in Russia, Governor of Riga for a long time in the coming years. This Austrian General, Fieldmarshal Browne, will by and by concern us somewhat; and the reader may take note of him.
"Who the Irish Brothers Browne, the Fathers of these Marshals Browne, were? I have looked in what Irish Peerages and printed Records there were, but without the least result. One big dropsical Book, of languid quality, called <italic> King James's Irish Army-List, <end italic> has multitudes of Brownes and others, in an indistinct form; but the one Browne wanted, the one Lacy, almost the one Lally, like the part of HAMLET, are omitted. There are so many Irish in the like case with these Brownes. A Lacy we once slightly saw or heard of; busy in the Polish-Election time,--besieging Dantzig (investing Dantzig, that Munnich might besiege it);--that Lacy, 'Governor of Riga,' whom the RUSSIAN Browne will succeed, is also Irish: a conspicuous Russian man; and will have a Son Lacy, conspicuous among the Austrians. Maguires, Ogilvies (of the Irish stock), Lieutenants 'Fitzgeral;' very many Irish;and there is not the least distinct account to be had of any of them." [For Browne see "Anonymous of Hamburg" (so I have had to label a J.F.S. <italic> Geschichte des &c. <end italic>--in fact, History of Seven-Years War, in successive volumes, done chiefly by the scissors; Leipzig and Frankfurt, 1759, et seqq.), i. 123-131n.: elaborate Note of eight pages there; intimating withal that he, J.F.S., wrote the <italic> "Life of Browne," <end italic> a Book Ihad in vain sought for; and can now guess to consist of those same elaborate eight pages, PLUS water and lathering to the due amount.
Anonymous "of Hamburg" I call my J.F.S.,--having fished him out of the dust-abysses in that City: a very poor take; yet worth citing sometimes, being authentic, as even the darkest Germans generally are.--For a glimpse of LACY (the Elder Lacy) see Busching, <italic>
Beitrage, <end italic> vi. 162.--For WALLIS (tombstone Note on Wallis) see (among others who are copious in that kind of article, and keep large sacks of it, in admired disorder) Anonymous Seyfarth, <italic> Geschichte Friedrichs des Andern <end italic>
(Leipzig, 1784-1788), i. 112 n.; and Anonymous, <italic> Leben der &c. Marie Theresie <end italic> (Leipzig, 1781), 27 n.: laboriously authentic Books both; essentialy DICTIONARIES,--stuffed as into a row of blind SACKS.]
Let us attend his Majesty on the next few marches towards Glogau, to see the manner of the thing a little; after which it will behoove us to be much more summary, and stick by the main incidents.
MARCH TO WEICHAU (SATURDAY, 17th, AND STAY SUNDAY THERE);TO MILKAU (MONDAY, 19th); GET TO HERRENDORF, WITHIN SIGHT OFGLOGAU, DECEMBER 22d.