him. M. de Wurm, confounded and ashamed, or rather exasperated at seeing Zieten escaped from danger and crowned with success, made no reply, but drawing his sword, fell furiously upon him. Zieten likewise drew, and in the scuffle wounded his antagonist slightly on the head. An aid de camp interfered and separated them. This affray made much noise in the army, and an engraving has handed down its memory to the present time.

The colonel, whose wound, or rather whose anger and shame confined to his tent, was unable to attend the head-quarters to receive the parole of the day, and Zieten, as next in command, appeared in his stead. He was about to make report of the late expedition, when the king the moment he perceived him, cried out, "Where is Wurm?" He is indis

posed, "sire," "Make your report then," added the king. Zieten obeyed and his majesty ws well satisfied.

During the pretended indisposition of the colonel, Zieten was charged with the command of the hussars and received orders to repair

*

with the whole corps to head-quarters on the business of an expedition then in agitation. Here Frederick reviewed one squad on after another, and found both men and horses in excellent order; and in testimony of his regard for Zieten forthwith named him lieutenantcolonel. It is impossible that the king had not heard of what had lately passed, and more than probable that he was induced in consequence to recompense in this manner the bravery of an officer whose conduct he had secretly been pleased with, though he was obliged to refrain from all public testimony of approbation. The commission with which his majesty charged him was the recovery of a transport of provisions and money lately fallen into hands of the enemy, and the newlyappointed lieutenant-colonel acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of his sovereign.

Some days after this ** the king determined upon dislodging the enemy from the post of Roth

Between the 12th and 14th of July. ** The 22nd of July,

Rothschloss from whence they had made frequent excursions and laid the country under contribution. He intrusted the enterprize to colonel de Winterfeld, his adjutant-general, who put himself at the head of some battalions of grenadiers and the hussars of Wurm and Prussia under the command of Zieten. The enemy was strong and their position almost impregnable. Before them they had a deep and extensive marsh crossed by a long and narrow causeway that lay in the face of a battery. Zieten began the onset, advanced at full speed along the causeway, and under a quick fire forced the passage, threw the enemy, who little expected to be attacked in front, into disorder, repulsed them after a vigorous resistance and drove them close to a mill, along the side of a rapid stream, the bridge of which had been broken down. retreat was thus cut off from the Austrians while colonel de Winterfeld was still engaging the infantry, and Zieten made a whole regiment of cavalry prisoner. But how great was his surprise as well as his triumph when he discovered he had been coping with the

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cele

The

celebrated general de Baronay, his former preceptor in the art of war! The scholar not only surpassed the master but had likewise taken him prisoner had he not crossed the stream by the timely assistance of a plank and immediately betaken himself to flight. general the next day carried his justice and generosity so far as to write the most obliging letter to his conqueror, in which he confessed himself vanquished, and observed that the master was but too happy in having been able to escape at all from so formidable a scholar.

Colonel de Winterfeld, in a report he made of this brilliant expedition to the king, did proper justice to Zieten and his troops. This first exploit of the hussars made an universal sensation in the camp, and the king not satisfied with testifying his approbation of Zieten in the most flattering terms, appointed him to the rank of colonel,

Too little of a patriot to exult in the glory of another, M. de Wurm was the only person who

who did not share the common effusion of joy which prevailed upon this occasion. Tormented with envy he resumed his command the day after the affair of Rothschloss, and was resolved at all events to distinguish himself. On the following day an occasion was offered, and he availed himself of it; but so incapable was he of turning it to any advantage, that had it not been for the timely support of Zieten, he and all his men would have fallen victims to his ignorance and cowardise. The latter fell upon the enemy in their rear, released the prisoners, took several himself, and after having re-established a desperate af fair, at last terminated it gloriously.

The king was pleased to dismiss colonel de Wurm from his service and to grant him a small pension, and afterwards to place him in a battalion of garrisoned invalids; and in order to recompense Zieten for having saved the hussars, he named him their chief officer, after having united the six squadrons of Berlin and Prussia into one sole regiment. About this time Zieten was likewise decorated with

the