The conquest of Port Mahon had thrown around Richelieu a halo of glory; in Germany, he reaped the fruits of Marshal d’Estrees’ successes; the Electorate of Hanover was entirely occupied; all the towns opened their gates; Hesse Cassel, Brunswick, the duchies of Verden and of Bremen met with the same fate.  The marshal levied on all the conquered countries heavy contributions, of which he pocketed a considerable portion.  His soldiers called him “Father La Maraude.”  The pavilion of Hanover at Paris was built out of the spoils of Germany.  Meanwhile, the Duke of Cumberland, who had taken refuge in the marshes at the mouth of the Elbe, under the protection of English vessels, was demanding to capitulate; his offers were lightly accepted.  On the 8th of September, through the agency of Count Lynar, minister of the King of Denmark, the Duke of Cumberland and the marshal signed at the advanced posts of the French army the famous convention of Closter-Severn.  The king’s troops kept all the conquered country; those of Hesse, Brunswick, and Saxe-Gotha returned to their homes; the Hanoverians were to be cantoned in the neighborhood of Stade.  The marshal had not taken the precaution of disarming them.

Incomplete as the convention was, it nevertheless excited great emotion in Europe.  The Duke of Cumberland had lost the military reputation acquired at Fontenoy; the King of Prussia remained alone on the Continent, exposed to all the efforts of the allies; every day fresh reverses came down upon him; the Russian army had invaded the Prussian provinces and beaten Marshal Schwald near Memel; twenty-five thousand Swedes had just landed in Pomerania.  Desertion prevailed amongst the troops of Frederick, recruited as they often were from amongst the vanquished; it was in vain that the king, in his despair, shouted out on the battle-field of Kolin, “D’ye expect to live forever, pray?” Many Saxon or Silesian soldiers secretly left the army.  One day Frederick himself kept his eye on a grenadier whom he had seen skulking to the rear of the camp.  “Whither goest thou?” he cried.  “Faith, sir,” was the answer, “I am deserting; I’m getting tired of being always beaten.” " Stay once more,” replied the king, without showing the slightest anger; “I promise that, if we are beaten, we will both desert together.”  In the ensuing battle the grenadier got himself killed.

For a moment, indeed, Frederick had conceived the idea of deserting simultaneously from the field of battle and from life.  “My dear sister,” he wrote to the Margravine of Baireuth, “there is no port or asylum for me any more save in the arms of death.”  A letter in verse to the Marquis of Argens pointed clearly to the notion of suicide.  A firmer purpose, before long, animated that soul, that strange mixture of heroism and corruption.  The King of Prussia wrote to Voltaire,—­

          “Threatened with shipwreck though I be,
          I, facing storms that frown on me,
          Must king-like think, and live, and die.”