ONE:Frederick immediately sent an announcement of the victory to his friend Voltaire. It does not appear that he alluded to his own adventures. Voltaire received the note when in the theatre at Lisle, while listening to the first performance of his tragedy of Mahomet. He read the account to the audience between the acts. It was received with great applause. You will see, said Voltaire, that this piece of Mollwitz will secure the success of mine. Vous verrez que cette piece de Mollwitz fera russir la miene. Young counts who have learned nothing are the most ignorant people in all countries. In England the kings son begins by being a sailor on board a ship, in order to learn the man?uvres belonging to that service. If it should miraculously happen that a count could be good for any thing, it must be by banishing all thoughts about his titles and his birth, for these are only follies. Every thing depends upon personal merit.
THREE:Voltaire was, at this time, about forty years of age. His renown as a man of genius already filled Europe. He was residing,173 on terms of the closest intimacy, with Madame Du Chatelet, who had separated from her husband. With congenial tastes and ample wealth they occupied the chateau of Cirey, delightfully situated in a quiet valley in Champagne, and which they had rendered, as Madame testifies, a perfect Eden on earth. It is not always, in the divine government, that sentence against an evil work is executed speedily. Madame Du Chatelet, renowned in the writings of Voltaire as the divine Emilie, was graceful, beautiful, fascinating. Her conversational powers were remarkable, and she had written several treatises upon subjects connected with the pure sciences, which had given her much deserved celebrity.
THREE:The seventh campaign of the Seven Years War commenced on the 1st of July, 1762. Peter III. had sent an army of twenty thousand men to the support of Frederick. Aided by these troops, united with his own army, Frederick had emerged from532 his winter quarters, and was just about to attack the Austrian army, which was intrenched upon the heights of Burkersdorf, a little south of Schweidnitz, which fortress the Austrians then held. The evening before the contemplated attack the Russian General Czernichef entered the tent of Frederick with the following appalling tidings:God be praised, my dearest sister, that you are better. Nobody can love you more tenderly than I do. As to the Princess of Bevern, the queen bids me answer that you need not style her Highness, but that you may write to her quite as to an indifferent145 princess. As to kissing the hands, I assure you I have not kissed them nor will kiss them. They are not pretty enough to tempt me that way.