FORE:My lord, the court of Vienna has entirely divulged our secret. The Dowager Empress has acquainted the court of Bavaria with it. Wasner, the Austrian minister at Paris, has communicated it to the French minister, Fleury. The Austrian minister at St. Petersburg, M. Linzendorf, has told the court of Russia of it. Sir Thomas Robinson has divulged it to the court of Dresden. Several members of the British government have talked about it publicly.
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FORE:
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FORE:
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FORE:66 Just as these troubles were commencing, there was, in May, 1729, a marriage in the Prussian royal family. Some two hundred miles south of Brandenburg there was, at that time, a small marquisate called Anspach, next in dignity to a dukedom. The marquis was a frail, commonplace boy of seventeen, under the care of a young mother, who was widowed, sick, and dying. Much to the dissatisfaction of Sophie Dorothee, the queen-mother, Frederick William had arranged a marriage between this young man, who was far from rich, and his second daughter, Frederica Louisa, who was then fifteen years of age.7
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FORE:FREDERICK AND THE BRITISH MINISTERS. My dearest Sister,I find no other consolation but in your precious letters. May Heaven108 reward so much virtue and such427 heroic sentiments! Since I wrote you last my misfortunes have but gone on accumulating. It seems as though destiny would discharge all its wrath and fury upon the poor country which I had to rule over. I have advanced this way to fall upon a corps of the allied army, which has run off and intrenched itself among hills, whither to follow, still more to attack them, all rules of war forbid. The moment I retire toward Saxony this whole swarm will be upon my heels. Happen what may, I am determined, at all risks, to fall upon whatever corps of the enemy approaches me nearest. I shall even bless Heaven for its mercy if it grant me the favor to die sword in hand.
FORE:The Crown Prince had for some time been inspired with an ever-increasing ambition for high intellectual culture. Gradually he was gathering around him, in his retreat at Reinsberg, men of high literary reputation, and was opening correspondence with the most distinguished men of letters in all the adjacent countries.On the 15th of June Frederick gave a grand dinner to his generals at his head-quarters. In an after-dinner speech he said to them,
FORE:Prince Charles was now forming magazines at Beneschau, just south of the Sazawa River, about seventy miles north of Fredericks encampment at Budweis. Frederick hastily recrossed the Moldau, and, marching through Bechin, concentrated nearly all his forces at Tabor. He hoped by forced marches to take the335 Austrians by surprise, and capture their magazines at Beneschau. Thousands, rumor said fourteen thousand, of the wild Pandours, riding furiously, hovered around his line of march. They were in his front, on his rear, and upon his flanks. Ever refusing battle, they attacked every exposed point with the utmost ferocity. The Prussian king thus found himself cut off from Prague, with exhausted magazines, and forage impossible. He had three hundred sick in his hospitals. He could not think of abandoning them, and yet he had no means for their transportation.
FORE: I bequeath eight thousand crowns (00) to my domestics. All that I have elsewhere depends on you. To each of my brothers and sisters make a present in my name; a thousand affectionate regards to my sister at Baireuth. You know what I think on their score; and you know, better than I can tell you, the tenderness and all the sentiments of most inviolable friendship with which I am, dearest brother, your faithful brother and servant till death,I am sure his excellency had no such meaning, sire. His excellency will advance nothing so very contrary to his instructions.
FORE:England furnished him with a subsidy of about four million dollars. He immediately melted this coin, gold and silver, and adulterated it with about half copper, thus converting his four476 millions into nominally eight millions. But a few weeks of such operations as he was engaged in would swallow up all this. The merciless conscription, grasping nearly every able-bodied man, destroyed nearly all the arts of industry. The Prussian realms, thus impoverished by wars ravages and taxation, could furnish the king with very meagre supplies. When the king invaded any portion of the territory of the allies, he wrenched from the beggared people every piece of money which violence or terror could extort. Wealthy merchants were thrown into prison, and fed upon bread and water until they yielded. The most terrible severities were practiced to extort contributions from towns which had been stripped and stripped again. Still violence could wrench but little from the skinny hand of beggary. These provinces, swept by wars surges year after year, were in the most deplorable state of destitution and misery.They have a daughter, Sophie-Frederike, now near fifteen, and very forward for her age; comely to look upon, wise to listen to. Is not she the suitable one? thinks Frederick in regard to this matter. Pier kindred is of the oldestold as Albert the Bear. She has been frugally brought up, Spartan-like, though as a princess by birth. Let her cease skipping ropes on the ramparts yonder with her young Stettin playmates, and prepare for being a czarina of the Russias, thinks he. And communicates his mind to the czarina, who answers, Excellent! How did I never think of that myself!
