TWO:On Tuesday, the 16th, the King and Queen of Prussia left Salzdahlum to return to Potsdam. At the close of the week the Crown Prince and his bride, escorted by a brilliant retinue of Brunswick notabilities, set out on their return. In most of the intervening towns they were received with great pomp. On151 the 27th, the last day of the next week, the bridal pair had a grand entrance into Berlin. The troops were all out upon parade. The clang of bells, the roar of cannon, and peals of martial music filled the air. All the inhabitants of Berlin and the surrounding region were in the streets, which were spanned by triumphal arches, and garlanded with flowers. Gladly would the princess have exchanged all this for one loving word from her husband. But that word was not uttered. Two days before the grand reception at Berlin the princess arrived at Potsdam. Here Wilhelmina, for the first time, met her cruelly-wronged and heart-crushed sister-in-law. In the following terms she describes the interview:
FORE: My dearest Brother,The enemy has just got into Silesia. We are not more than a mile from them. To-morrow must decide our fortune. If I die, do not forget a brother who has always loved you most tenderly. I recommend to you my most dear mother, my domestics, and my first battalion. Eichel and Schuhmacher are informed of all my testamentary wishes.
FORE: My dearest Brother,I know not if it is not too bold to trouble your majesty on private affairs. But the great confidence my sister and I have in your kindness encourages us to lay before you a sincere avowal of our little finances, which are a good deal deranged just now. The revenues, having for two years and a half past been rather small, amounting to only four hundred crowns (0) a year, could not be made to cover all the little expenses required in the adjustment of ladies. This circumstance, added to our card-playing, though small, which we could not dispense with, has led us into debt. Mine amounts to fifteen hundred crowns (25); my sisters, to eighteen hundred crowns (50). We have not spoken of it to the queen-mother, though we are sure she would have tried to assist us. But as that could not have been done without some inconvenience to her, and as she would have retrenched in some of her own little entertainments, I thought we should do better to apply directly to your majesty. We were persuaded you would have taken it amiss had we deprived the queen of her smallest pleasure, and especially as we consider you, my dear brother, the father of the family, and hope you will be so gracious as to help us. We shall never forget the kind acts of your majesty. We beg you to be persuaded of the perfect and tender attachment with which we are proud to be, all our lives, your majestys most humble sisters and servants,
FORE:The next day the two British ministers dined with Frederick. The king was in reality, or assumed to be, in exultant spirits. He joked and bantered his guests even upon those great issues which were threatening to deluge Europe in blood. As they took leave, intending to return to Vienna through Neisse, which281 was held by the Austrian army, the king said to Sir Thomas Robinson, derisively,General Neipperg, in his account of the interview, writes, in reference to Frederick: He is a very spirited young king. He will not stand contradiction; but a great deal may be made of him if you seem to adopt his ideas, and honor him in a delicate, dexterous way. He did not in the least hide his engagements with France, Bavaria, Saxony. But he would really, so far as I could judge, prefer friendship with Austria on the given terms. He seems to have a kind of pique at Saxony, and manifests no favor for the French and their plans.
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TWO:You will beforehand inform the high mightinesses in regard to that Advice of April 24th, which they determined on giving me, through his excellency General Ginckel, along with his excellency Lord Hyndford, that such advice can be considered by me only as a blind complaisance to the court of Viennas improper urgencies. That for certain I will not quit Silesia till my claims be satisfied. And the longer I am forced to continue warring for them here, the higher they will rise.
THREE:Voltaire, being safe out of Prussia, in the territory of the King of Poland, instead of hastening to Plombires, tarried in Dresden, and then in Leipsic. From those places he began shooting, through magazines, newspapers, and various other instrumentalities, his poisoned darts at M. Maupertuis. Though these malignant assaults, rapidly following each other, were anonymous, no one could doubt their authorship. M. Maupertuis, exasperated, wrote to him from Berlin on the 7th of April:
THREE:On Saturday morning, August 28, 1756, the Prussian army, over one hundred thousand strong, entered Saxony at three different points on the northern frontier. Frederick, with about sixty thousand troops, crossed the Elbe at Torgau, and seized upon Leipsic. Duke Ferdinand, of Hanover, led his columns405 across the frontier about eighty miles to the right. The Duke of Brunswick-Bevern crossed about the same distance to the left. Each column was stronger than the whole Saxon army. The appointed place of rendezvous for the three divisions was the city of Dresden, the capital of Saxony. By the route marked out, each column had a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles to traverse.
THREE:The whole of Lower Silesia; the River Neisse for the boundary; the city of Neisse for us, as also Glutz; on the other side of the Oder, the ancient boundary between the Duchies of Brieg and Oppeln. Namslau for us. The affairs of religion in statu quo. No dependence upon Bohemia. Cession eternal. In exchange we will go no farther. We will besiege Neisse for form. The commandant shall surrender and depart. We will quietly go into winter quarters; and they (the Austrians) can take their army where they will. Let all be finished in twelve days.
