Mr. Carlyle has written the Life of Frederick the Great in six closely printed volumes of over five hundred pages each. It is a work of much ability and accuracy. There are, however, but few persons, in this busy age, who can find time to read three thousand pages of fine type, descriptive of events, many of which have lost their interest, and have ceased to possess any practical value. Still, the student who has leisure to peruse these voluminous annals of all the prominent actors in Europe during the reign of Frederick and of his half-insane father, will find a rich treat in the wonderfully graphic and accurate pages of Carlyle.
With the first dawn of the morning, the two armies, in close contact, rushed furiously upon each other. There were seventy351 thousand on the one side, seventy-five thousand on the other. They faced each other in lines over an undulating plain nearly ten miles in extent. It is in vain to attempt to give the reader an adequate idea of the terrible battle which ensued. With musketry, artillery, gleaming sabres, and rushing horsemen, the infuriate hosts dashed upon each other. For fifteen hours the blood-red surges of battle swept to and fro over the plain. At length Prince Charles, having lost nine thousand in dead and wounded, seven thousand prisoners, sixteen thousand in all, sixty-six cannon, seventy-three flags and standards, beat a retreat. Rapidly his bleeding and exhausted troops marched back through Hohenfriedberg, entered the mountain defiles, and sought refuge, a thoroughly beaten army, among the fortresses of Bohemia. Frederick remained the undisputed victor of the field. Five thousand of his brave soldiers lay dead or wounded upon the plain. Even his stoical heart was moved by the greatness of the victory. As he first caught sight of M. Valori after the battle, he threw his arms around him, exclaiming, My friend, God has helped me wonderfully this day.
ONE:In reference to this event, the prince wrote to his mother from Potsdam, I am in the utmost despair. What I had always apprehended has at last come on me. The king has entirely forgotten that I am his son. This morning I came into his room as usual. At the first sight of me he sprang forward, seized me by the collar, and struck me a shower of blows with his rattan. I tried in vain to screen myself, he was in so terrible a rage, almost out of himself. It was only weariness that made him give up. I am driven to extremity. I have too much honor to endure such treatment, and I am resolved to put an end to it in one way or another.
TWO:It was apparently easy for the Crown Prince to relinquish Amelia. But the English princess, being very unhappy at home, had fixed her affections upon Frederick with the most romantic tenderness. In beauty of person, in chivalric reputation, in exalted rank, he was every thing an imaginative maiden could have desired. She regarded him probably as, in heart, true to her. He had often sent his protestations to the English court that he would never marry any one but Amelia. Though the marriage ceremony had been performed with Elizabeth, he recognized only its legal tie. Poor Amelia was heart-crushed. Earth had no longer any joys for her. She never married, but wore the miniature of the prince upon her breast for the rest of her days. We have no record of the weary years during which grief was consuming her life. Her eyelids became permanently swollen with weeping. And when, at the age of sixty, she died, the miniature of the Crown Prince was still found resting upon her true and faithful heart. Amelia and Elizabethhow sad their fate! Through no fault of their own, earth was to them both truly a vale of tears. The only relief from the contemplation of the terrible tragedies of earth is found in the hope that the sufferers may find compensation in a heavenly home.
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ONE:General Loudon was in command of the Austrians, and General Butturlin of the Russians, who were arrayed against Frederick. They could not agree upon a plan of attack. Neither commander was willing to expose his troops to the brunt of a battle in which the carnage would necessarily be dreadful. Thus the weeks wore away. Frederick could not be safely attacked, and winter was approaching.On the 30th of August Frederick commenced his march from Dresden. Great caution was requisite, and great military skill, in so bold an adventure. On the 13th of September he reached Erfurt. The Prince of Soubise, aware of the prowess of his antagonist, retired to the hills and intrenched himself, waiting until he could accumulate forces which would render victory certain. Frederick had now with him his second brother, Henry, who seems to have very fully secured his confidence. On the 16th of September the king wrote:
TWO:
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ONE:
TWO:The king, in response to the report of Baron Grumkow, which119 was so gratifying to him, sent the same evening the following note to Wilhelmina:Suddenly dashing the tears away, he issued his swift orders, and, mounting his horse, galloped to Prague, where he arrived Sunday evening. The next day the siege was raised, and the besieging troops were on the retreat north into Saxony. The whole army was soon rendezvoused at Leitmeritz, on the Elbe, about thirty miles south of Dresden. Here Frederick awaited the development of the next movement of his foes.
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TWO: Character of the Crown Prince.Stratagem of the Emperor Joseph II.Death of the Empress Catharine of Russia.Matrimonial Alliance of Russia and Prussia.Death of the King of Bavaria.Attempt to Annex Bavaria to Austria.Unexpected Energy of Frederick.Court Intrigues.Preparations for War.Address to the Troops.Declaration of War.Terror in Vienna.Irritability of Frederick.Death of Voltaire.Unjust Condemnation of the Judges.Death of Maria Theresa.Anecdote.The Kings Fondness for Children.His Fault-finding Spirit.The Kings Appearance.The Last Review.Statement of Mirabeau.Anecdote related by Dr. Moore.Fredericks Fondness for Dogs.Increasing Weakness. Unchanging Obduracy toward the Queen.The Dying Scene.
FORE:Orders had been issued for all the Prussian troops to be rendezvoused by the 5th of February at Wischau. They were then to march immediately about seventy-five miles west, to Trebitsch, which was but a few miles south of Iglau, the point of attack. Here they were to join the French and Saxon troops. The force thus concentrated would amount to twenty-four thousand Prussian301 troops, twenty thousand Saxons, and five thousand French horsemen. With this armyforty-nine thousand strongFrederick was to advance, by one short days march, upon Iglau, where the Austrian garrison amounted to but ten thousand men.The army, writes Prince Charles, mournfully, was greatly dilapidated. The soldiers were without clothes, and in a condition truly pitiable. So closely were we pursued by the enemy that at night we were compelled to encamp without tents.
FORE:The French army so handled this place as not only to take from its inhabitants, by open force, all bread and articles of food, but likewise all clothes, bed-linens, and other portable goods. They also broke open, split to pieces, and emptied out all chests, boxes, presses, drawers; shot dead in the back-yards and on the roofs all manner of feathered stock, as hens, geese, pigeons. They carried off all swine, cows, sheep, and horses. They laid violent hands on the inhabitants, clapped swords, guns, and pistols to their breasts, threatening to kill them unless they brought out whatever goods they had; or hunted them out of their houses, shooting at them, cutting, sticking, and at last driving them away, thereby to have freer room to rob and plunder. They flung out hay and other harvest stock into the mud, and had it trampled to ruin under the horses feet.
FORE:From the church the prince was conducted, not back to his prison in the fortress, but to a town mansion, which was assigned as his residence. His sword was restored to him. But he was still not fully liberated. Officials, appointed by his father, surrounded him, who watched and reported all his movements. The first act of the young prince, upon reaching his apartment after this partial liberation, was to write as follows to his father. We give the letter as translated by Carlyle:FREDERICK IN PRISON.
FORE:Wilhelmina had never seen the Prince of Wales. Her mother had not attempted to conceal from her that he was exceedingly plain in person, slightly deformed, weak in intellect, and debased by his debaucheries. But the ambitious queen urged these considerations, not as objections, but as incentives to the marriage. You will be able, she said, to have him entirely under your direction. You will thus be virtually King of England, and can exert a powerful control over all the nations of Europe. These considerations, however, did not influence the princess so much as they did her mother. She had never taken any special interest in her marriage with the Prince of Wales. Indeed, at times, she had said that nothing should ever induce her to marry him.Voltaire was received on this occasion with very distinguished honor. The king, in inviting him to the court, had sent him a sum amounting to three thousand dollars to pay the expenses of his journey. He had also conferred upon him the cross of the order of Merit, and a pension of about four thousand dollars a year.
FORE:
FORE: As God often, by wondrous guidance, strange paths, and thorny steps, will bring men into the kingdom of Christ, so may our divine Redeemer help that this prodigal son be brought into his communion; that his godless heart be beaten until it is softened and changed, and so he be snatched from the claws of Satan. This grant us, the Almighty God and Father, for our Lord Jesus Christ and his passion and deaths sake. Amen.The risk is too great, said he; Soltikof has seventy thousand men, and no end of artillery. We have but twenty-six thousand, and know not that we can bring a single gun to where Soltikof is.
TWO:For such a mind and such a body there could be no possible peace or repose in the dying-chamber. Feverish, restless, sleepless, impatient, he knew not what to do with himself. He was incessantly passing from his bed to his wheel-chair and back again, irascibly demanding this and that, complaining of every body and every thing. Sometimes he would declare that he would no longer be sick, but would dress and be well; and scarcely would he get his clothes on ere he would sink in fainting weakness, as though he had not another hour to live. Thus the sad days of sickness wore away as death drew near.
TWO:It is not the king that I love in him; it is the man. If I considered the dignity and the power of the king, I should only seek to keep myself at a distance from him. But the qualities which are personal to him, both of the heart and of the head, they attach me to him for life, without reserve and without fear.26CHAPTER XVI. THE CONQUEST OF SILESIA.
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TWO:199 Frederick was very desirous of visiting France, whose literature, science, and distinguished men he so greatly admired. Early Monday morning, the 15th of August, the king left Potsdam to visit his sister Wilhelmina, intending then to continue his journey incognito into France, and, if circumstances favored, as far as Paris. The king assumed the name of the Count Dufour. His next younger brother, William, eighteen years of age, accompanied him, also under an assumed name. William was now Crown Prince, to inherit the throne should Frederick leave no children. Six other gentlemen composed the party. They traveled in two coaches, with but few attendants, and avoided all unnecessary display.
354Again he wrote, a few months after, to the Duke of Choiseul: He has been a bad man, this Luc. And now, if one were to bet by the law of probability, it would be three to one that Luc would go to pot [sera perdu], with his rhymings and his banterings, and his injustices and politics, all as bad as himself.146It was but sixty miles from Prague to Tabor. The march of Fredericks division led through Kunraditz, across the Sazawa River, through Bistritz and Miltchin. It was not until the ninth332 day of their toilsome march that the steeples of Tabor were descried, in the distant horizon, on its high, scarped rock. Here both columns united. Half of the draught cattle had perished by the way, and half of the wagons had been abandoned.
TWO:
