“We’ll keep right on,” Mr. Henderson answered. “No

Fleury and the Kaiser, though it is long before the signature and last finish can take place, are come to terms of settlement, at the Crown-Prince's return; and it is known, in political circles, what the Kaiser's Polish-Election damages will probably amount to. Here are, in substance, the only conditions that could be got for him:--

"1. Baby Carlos, crowned in Naples, cannot be pulled out again: Naples, the Two Sicilies, are gone without return. That is the first loss; please Heaven it be the worst! On the other hand, Baby Carlos will, as some faint compensation, surrender to your Imperial Majesty his Parma and Piacenza apanages; and you shall get back your Lombardy,--all but a scantling which we fling to the Sardinian Majesty; who is a good deal huffed, having had possession of the Milanese these two years past, in terms of his bargain with Fleury. Pacific Fleury says to him: 'Bargain cannot be kept, your Majesty; please to quit the Milanese again, and put up with this scantling.'

"2. The Crown of Poland, August III. has got it, by Russian bombardings and other measures: Crown shall stay with August,--all the rather as there would be no dispossessing him, at this stage. He was your Imperial Majesty's Candidate; let him be the winner there, for your Imperial Majesty's comfort.

"3. And then as to poor Stanislaus? Well, let Stanislaus be Titular Majesty of Poland for life;--which indeed will do little for him:--but in addition, we propose, That, the Dukedom of Lorraine being now in our hands, Majesty Stanislaus have the life-rent of Lorraine to subsist upon; and--and that Lorraine fall to us of France on his decease!--'Lorraine?' exclaim the Kaiser, and the Reich, and the Kaiser's intended Son-in-law Franz Duke of Lorraine. There is indeed a loss and a disgrace; a heavy item in the Election damages!

"4. As to Duke Franz, there is a remedy. The old Duke of Florence, last of the Medici, is about to die childless: let the now Duke of Lorraine, your Imperial Majesty's intended Son-in-law, have Florence instead.--And so it had to be settled. 'Lorraine? To Stanislaus, to France?' exclaimed the poor Kaiser, still more the poor Reich, and poor Duke Franz. This was the bitterest cut of all; but there was no getting past it. This too had to be allowed, this item for the Election breakages in Poland. And so France, after nibbling for several centuries, swallows Lorraine whole. Duke Franz attempted to stand out; remonstrated much, with Kaiser and Hofrath, at Vienna, on this unheard-of proposal: but they told him it was irremediable; told him at last (one Bartenstein, a famed Aulic Official, told him), 'No Lorraine, no Archduchess, your Serenity!'--and Franz had to comply, Lorraine is gone; cunning Fleury has swallowed it whole. 'That was what he meant in picking this quarrel.!' said Teutschland mournfully. Fleury was very pacific, candid in aspect to the Sea-Powers and others; and did not crow afflictively, did not say what he had meant.

"5. One immense consolation for the Kaiser, if for no other, is: France guarantees the Pragmatic Sanction,--though with very great difficulty; spending a couple of years, chiefly on this latter point as was thought. [Treaty on it not signed till 18th November, 1738 (Scholl, ii. 246).] How it kept said guarantee, will be seen in the sequel."

And these were the damages the poor Kaiser had to pay for meddling in Polish Elections;--for galloping thither in chase of his Shadows. No such account of broken windows was ever presented to a man before. This may be considered as the consummation of the Kaiser's Shadow-Hunt; or at least its igniting and exploding point. His Duel with the Termagant has at last ended; in total defeat to him on every point. Shadow-Hunt does not end; though it is now mostly vanished; exploded in fire. Shadow-Hunt is now gone all to Pragmatic Sanction, as it were: that now is the one thing left in Nature for a Kaiser; and that he will love, and chase, as the summary of all things. From this point he steadily goes down, and at a rapid rate;--getting into disastrous Turk Wars, with as little preparation for War or Fact as a life-long Hunt of SHADOWS presupposes; Eugene gone from him, and nothing but Seckendorfs to manage for him;--and sinks to a low pitch indeed. We will leave him here; shall hope to see but little more of him.

In the Summer of 1736, in consequence of these arrangements,-- which were completed so far, though difficulties on Pragmatic Sanction and other points retarded the final signature for many months longer,--the Titular Majesty Stanislaus girt himself together for departure towards his new Dominion or Life-rent; quitted Konigsberg; traversed Prussian Poland, safe this time, "under escort of Lieutenant-General von Katte [our poor Katte of Custrin's Father] and fifty cuirassiers;" reached Berlin in the middle of May, under flowerier aspects than usual. He travelled under the title of "Count" Something, and alighted at the French Ambassador's in Berlin: but Friedrich Wilhelm treated him like a real Majesty, almost like a real Brother; had him over to the Palace; rushed out to meet him there, I forget how many steps beyond the proper limits; and was hospitality itself and munificence itself;--and, in fact, that night and all the other nights, "they smoked above thirty pipes together," for one item. May 21st, 1736, [Forster (i. 227), following loose Pollnitz (ii. 478), dates it 1735: a more considerable error, if looked into, than is usual in Herr Forster; who is not an ill-informed nor inexact man;--though, alas, in respect of method (that is to say, want of visible method, indication, or human arrangement), probably the most confused of all the Germans!] Ex-Majesty Stanislaus went on his way again; towards France,--towards Meudon, a quiet Royal House in France,--till Luneville, Nanci, and their Lorraine Palaces are quite ready. There, in these latter, he at length does find resting-place, poor innocent insipid mortal, after such tossings to and fro: and M. de Voltaire, and others of mark, having sometimes enlivened the insipid Court there, Titular King Stanislaus has still a kind of remembrance among mankind.