ONE:I know not, I answered; but it seems to me, until one knows a man, and is completely acquainted with his situation and his way of thought, one can not possibly determine whether he is happy or unhappy.General Neipperg cautiously advanced toward him, and encamped in the vicinity of Steinauthe same Steinau which but a few weeks before had been laid in ashes as the Prussian troops284 passed through it. The two armies were now separated from each other but by an interval of about five miles. The country was flat, and it was not probable that the contest which Frederick so eagerly sought could long be avoided.
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ONE:A court-martial was convened to pronounce sentence upon the105 Crown Prince and his confederates. The court was appointed by the king, and consisted of three major generals, three colonels, three lieutenant colonels, three majors, three captains, and three belonging to the civil courts, called auditors. The court, thus composed of eighteen members, met on the 20th of October, 1730, in the little town of Copenick, a few miles from Berlin. Grumkow, well aware that these proceedings would attract the attention of every court in Europe, had persuaded the king to submit to the formality of a court-martial.Queen Sophie, who still clung pertinaciously to the idea of the English match, was, of course, bitterly hostile to the nuptial alliance with Elizabeth. Indeed, the queen still adhered to the idea of the double English marriage, and exhausted all the arts of diplomacy and intrigue in the endeavor to secure the Princess Amelia for the Crown Prince, and to unite the Prince of Wales to a younger sister of Wilhelmina. Very naturally she cherished feelings of strong antipathy toward Elizabeth, who seemed to be the cause, though the innocent cause, of the frustration of her plans. She consequently spoke of the princess in the most contemptuous manner, and did every thing in her power to induce her son to regard her with repugnance. But nothing could change the inexorable will of the king. Early in March the doomed Princess Elizabeth, a beautiful, artless child of seventeen years, who had seen but little of society, and was frightened in view of the scenes before her, was brought to Berlin to be betrothed to the Crown Prince, whom she had never seen, of whom she could not have heard any very favorable reports, and from142 whom she had never received one word of tenderness. The wreck of happiness of this young princess, which was borne so meekly and uncomplainingly, is one of the saddest which history records. Just before her arrival, Fritz wrote to his sister as follows. The letter was dated Berlin, March 6, 1732:
FORE:We seldom hear from Frederick any recognition of God. But on this occasion, perhaps out of regard to the feelings of his subjects, he ordered the Te Deum to be sung in the churches of Berlin for the deliverance of Silesia from invasion.During this time, in May, the king wrote a very bitter and satirical ode against Louis XV.the plaything of the Pompadour, polluted with his amours, and disgracefully surrendering the government of his realms to chance. The ode he sent to Voltaire. The unprincipled poet, apprehending that the ode might come to light, and that he might be implicated, treacherously sent it to the prime minister, the Duke De Choiseul, to be shown to the king. At the same time, he wrote to Frederick that he had burned the ode. In the account which Voltaire himself gives of this disgraceful transaction, he writes:
FORE:At the earliest dawn the whole army was in motion. Ranked in four columns, they cautiously advanced toward Ohlau, ready to deploy instantly into line of battle should the enemy appear. Scouts were sent out in all directions. But, toiling painfully through the drifts, they could obtain no reliable information. The spy-glass revealed nothing but the winding-sheet of crisp and sparkling snow, with scarcely a shrub or a tree to break the dreary view. There were no fences to be seennothing but a smooth, white plain, spreading for miles around. The hamlet of Mollwitz, where General Neipperg had established his head-quarters, was about seven miles north from Pogerell, from which point Frederick was marching. At the distance of a few miles from each other there were several wretched little255 hamlets, consisting of a few low, thatched, clay farm-houses clustered together.
FORE:The young sovereign commenced his reign with the utterance of very noble sentiments. The day after his accession he assembled the chief officers of his father to administer to them the oath of allegiance. He urged them to be humane in the exercise of all authority which might be delegated to them.Again he writes, under the same date, to Cardinal De Fleury, then the most prominent member of the cabinet of Louis XV.:
FORE:It was a sore calamity to Frederick. Had General Schmettau held out only until the next day, which he could easily have done, relief would have arrived, and the city would have been saved. Frederick was in a great rage, and was not at all in the mood to be merciful, or even just. He dismissed the unfortunate general from his service, degraded him, and left him to die in poverty. The Battle of Chotusitz.Letter to Jordan.Results of the Battle.Secret Negotiations.The Treaty of Breslau.Entrance into Frankfort.Treachery of Louis XV.Results of the Silesian Campaigns.Panegyrics of Voltaire.Imperial Character of Maria Theresa.Her Grief over the Loss of Silesia.Anecdote of Senora Barbarina.Duplicity of both Frederick and Voltaire.Gayety in Berlin.Straitened Circumstances.Unamiability of Frederick.
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