by Noodle of Newcastle, on those strange terms; and never could get
in again, and is now forgotten; and there succeeded him still more
mournful phenomena,--said Noodle or the poor Pelhams, namely,--of
whom, as of strauge minus quantities set to manage our affairs,
there is still some dreary remembrance in England. Well!"--

Carteret, though there had been no Duke of Newcastle to run athwart
this fine scheme, would have had his difficulties in making her
Hungarian Majesty comply. Her Majesty's great heart, incurably
grieved about Silesia, is bent on having, if not restoration one
day, which is a hope she never quits, at any rate some ample
(cannot be too ample) equivalent elsewhere. On the Hanau scheme,
united Teutschland, with England for soul to it, would have fallen
vigorously on the throat of France, and made France disgorge:
Lorraine, Elsass, the Three Bishoprics,--not to think of Burgundy,
and earlier plunders from the Reich,--here would have been "cut and
come again" for her Hungarian Majesty and everybody!--But Diana, in
the shape of his Grace of Newcastle, intervenes; and all this has
become chimerical and worse.

It was while Carteret's courier was gone to England and not come
back, that King Louis made the above-mentioned mild, almost
penitent, Declaration to the Reich, "Good people, let us have
Peace; and all be as we were! I, for my share, wish to be out of
it; I am for home!" And, in effect, was already home;
every Frenchman in arms being, by this time, on his own side of the
Rhine, as we shall presently observe.

For, the same day, July 26th, while that was going on at Frankfurt,
and Carteret's return-courier was due in five days, his Britannic