FORE:I have passed my winter like a Carthusian monk. I dine alone. I spend my life in reading and writing, and I do not sup. When one is sad, it becomes, at last, too burdensome to hide ones grief continually. It is better to give way to it than to carry ones gloom into society. Nothing solaces me but the vigorous application required in steady and continuous labor. This distraction does force one to put away painful ideas while it lasts. But alas! no sooner is the work done than these fatal companions present themselves again, as if livelier than ever. Maupertuis was right; the sum of evil does certainly surpass that of good. But to me it is all one. I have almost nothing more to lose; and my few remaining dayswhat matters it much of what complexion they be?
FORE: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:
FORE:A bomb bursting in the room could scarcely have created a greater panic. Katte and Quantz seized the flutes and music-books, and rushed into a wood-closet, where they stood quaking with terror. Fritz threw off his dressing-gown, hurried on his military coat, and sat down at the table, affecting to be deeply engaged with his books. The king, frowning like a thunder-cloudfor he always frowned when he drew near Fritzburst into the room. The sight of the frizzled hair of his son kindled the paternal wrath into a tornado pitch. The king had a wonderful command of the vocabulary of abuse, and was heaping epithets of vituperation upon the head of the prince, when he caught sight of the dressing-gown behind a screen. He seized the glittering garment, and, with increasing outbursts of rage, crammed it into the fire. Then searching the room, he collected all the French books, of which Fritz had quite a library, and, sending for a bookseller near by, ordered him to take every volume away, and sell them for what they would bring. For more than an hour the king was thus raging, like a maniac, in the apartment of his son. Fortunately he did not look into the wood-closet. Had he done so, both Quantz and Katte would have been terribly beaten, even had they escaped being sent immediately to the scaffold.The king was quite unscrupulous in the measures to which he resorted to recruit his army. Deserters, prisoners, peasants, were alike forced into the ranks. Even boys but thirteen and fourteen years of age were seized by the press-gangs. The countries swept by the armies were so devastated and laid waste that it was almost an impossibility to obtain provisions for the troops. It will be remembered that upon the capture of Berlin several of the kings palaces had been sacked by the Russian and Austrian troops. The king, being in great want of money, looked around for some opportunity to retaliate. There was within his cantonments a very splendidly furnished palace, called the Hubertsburg Schloss, belonging to the King of Poland. On the 21st of January, 1761, Frederick summoned to his audience-room519 General Saldern. This officer cherished a very high sense of honor. The bravest of the brave on the field of battle, he recoiled from the idea of performing the exploits of a burglar. The following conversation took place between the king and his scrupulous general. In very slow, deliberate tones, the king said:
FORE:
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