TWO:The audacious duplicity of this ambitious young king was still more conspicuously developed by his entering into a secret correspondence with the court of Austria, through certain generals in the Austrian army. And that he might the more effectually disguise his treachery from his allies, the French, he requested Lord Hyndford to write dispatches to various courts292to Presburg, to England, to Dresdencomplaining that Frederick was deaf to all proposals; that nothing could influence him to enter into terms of reconciliation with Austria. It was to be so arranged that the couriers carrying these dispatches of falsehood should be captured by the French, so that these documents should be carried to the French court.
TWO:The Crown Prince manifests in this tender age an uncommon capacity, nay, we may say, something quite extraordinary. He31 is a most alert and vivacious prince. He has fine and sprightly manners, and shows a certain kindly sociality and so affectionate a disposition that all things may be hoped of him. The French lady who has had charge of him hitherto can not speak of him without enthusiasm. He is a little angel, she is wont to say. He takes up and learns whatever is placed before him with the greatest facility.
TWO:The next morning, taking with him a small escort, and leaving his army to follow with as much speed as possible, he rode rapidly down the western bank of the Oder to G?rgast, where he had an encampment of about fifteen thousand Prussian troops. At five oclock in the morning of Tuesday the two bands were united. He now had at his command thirty thousand men.456 Cüstrin was on the eastern bank of the Oder, near the confluence of the Warta. A few miles below Cüstrin, at Schaumburg, there were portions of a bridge across the Oder. Here the Russians had erected a redoubt. Frederick ordered a violent attack upon that redoubt. During the night, while the attention of the Russians was occupied by the assault, Frederick marched his army twelve miles farther down the river, and crossed, without any loss, at Güstebiese. His baggage train he left, carefully guarded, on the western bank of the river.The king smiled, and immediately entered very vigorously upon business. It was not possible, under these circumstances, for him deeply to mourn over the death of so tyrannical a father. Frederick was twenty-eight years of age. He is described as a handsome young man, five feet seven inches in stature, and of graceful presence. The funeral ceremonies of the deceased monarch were conducted essentially according to the programme already given. The body of the king mouldered to dust in the sepulchre of his fathers. His spirit returned to the God who gave it.
TWO:It will be remembered that Prince Charles was at the head of a strong Austrian army, on the western banks of the Rhine. It numbered over fifty thousand combatants. The King of France had pledged himself to press them closely, so that they could not recross the Rhine and rush into Bohemia to thwart the operations of Frederick; but, unfortunately, Louis XV. was seized with a malignant fever, which brought him near to the grave. Taking advantage of this, Prince Charles, on the night of the 23d of August, crossed the Rhine with his whole army. It was bright moonlight, so that every movement was as visible as if it had been made by day. But the French officers, glad thus to be rid of the Austrian army, preferring much that Frederick334 should encounter it in Bohemia than that they should struggle against it on the Rhine, went quietly to their beds, even forbidding the more zealous subalterns from harassing Prince Charles in his passage of the river. It was then the great object of the French to take Freyburg. The withdrawal of Prince Charles, with his fifty thousand men, was a great relief to them.