There was a young lady in Potsdam by the name of Doris Ritter. She was the daughter of highly respectable parents, and was of unblemished character. As Fritz was extremely fond of music, and she played sweetly on the harpsichord, he loaned her pieces of music, and occasionally, under the eye of her parents, accompanied her with the flute. The life of a colonel in garrison at Potsdam was so dull, that this innocent amusement was often quite a help in beguiling the weary hours.
The loss of Silesia she regarded as an act of pure highway robbery. It rankled in her noble heart as the great humiliation and disgrace of her reign. Frederick was to her but as a hated and successful bandit, who had wrenched from her crown one of318 its brightest jewels. To the last day of her life she never ceased to deplore the loss. It is said that if any stranger, obtaining an audience, was announced as from Silesia, the eyes of the queen would instantly flood with tears. But the fortunes of war had now triumphantly turned in her favor. Aided by the armies and the gold of England, she was on the high career of conquest. Her troops had overrun Bohemia and Bavaria. She was disposed to hold those territories in compensation for Silesia, which she had lost.Both of the English ministers, in much agitation, spoke together. The king, impatiently interrupting them, said,
ONE:Frederick, having completed the investment of Glogau, cutting off all its supplies, left a sufficient detachment there to starve the city into submission. There were about seven thousand inhabitants within the wallsa much-enduring, frugal, pious, and very desirable people. As it was probable that the feeble garrison, after a brief show of resistance, would surrender, Frederick hastened in person, with all his remaining available troops, toward Breslau, the capital of Silesia. On the 27th he wrote to M. Jordan:
TWO:The seventh day after our accession to the throne of all the Russias we received information that the late emperor, Peter III., was attacked with a violent colic. That we might not be wanting in Christian duty, or disobedient to the divine command by which we are enjoined to preserve the life of our neighbor, we immediately ordered that the said Peter should be furnished with every thing that might be judged necessary to restore his health by the aids of medicine. But, to our great regret and affliction, we were yesterday evening apprized that, by permission of the Almighty, the late emperor departed this life.
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ONE:
TWO:Old Leopold is hardly at home at Dessau, writes Carlyle, when the new Pandour tempests, tides of ravaging war, again come beating against the Giant Mountains, pouring through all passes, huge influx of wild riding hordes, each with some support of Austrian grenadiers, cannoniers, threatening to submerge Silesia. Precursors, Frederick need not doubt, of a strenuous, regular attempt that way. Hungarian majestys fixed intention,347 hope, and determination is to expel him straightway from Silesia.81
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ONE: I am firmly resolved on the utmost efforts to save my country. Happy the moment when I took to training myself in philosophy. There is nothing else that can sustain a soul in a situation like mine. I spread out to you, my dear sister, the detail of my sorrows. If these things regarded myself only, I could stand it with composure. But I am the bound guardian of the happiness of a people which has been put under my charge. There lies the sting of it. And I shall have to reproach myself with every fault if, by delay or by overhaste, I occasion the smallest accident.
TWO:Frederick, having carefully scanned the Austrian lines for an instant or two, gave the signal, and all his batteries opened their thunders. Under cover of that storm of iron, several thousand of the cavalry, led by the veteran General Bredow, deployed from behind some eminences, and first at a gentle trot, and then upon the most impetuous run, with flashing sabres, hurled themselves upon the left wing of the Austrian lines. The ground was dry and sandy, and a prodigious cloud of dust enveloped them. For a moment the tornado, vital with human energies, swept on, apparently unobstructed. The first line of the Austrian horse was met, crushed, annihilated. But the second stood as the rock breasts the waves, horse against horse, rider against rider, sabre against sabre. Nothing met the eye but one vast eddying whirlpool of dust, as if writhing in volcanic energies, while here and there the flash of fire and the gleam of steel flickered madly through it.
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TWO:
FORE:The queen, Maria Theresa, still remained at Presburg, in her Hungarian kingdom. The Aulic Council was with her. On the 15th of August Sir Thomas Robinson had returned to Presburg with the intelligence of his unsuccessful mission, and of the unrelenting determination of Frederick to prosecute the war with the utmost vigor unless Silesia were surrendered to him.
FORE:The question arises, Why was Frederick William so averse to the marriage of Fritz with the Princess Amelia? Probably the real reason was his rooted antipathy to his son, and his consequent unwillingness to do any thing which would promote his interests or increase his influence. His advisers strengthened him in this sentiment. The English were very unpopular at Berlin. Their assumption of superiority over all other peoples was a constant annoyance. The Prussian king said to his confidential friends,
FORE:The young lady was not beautiful, and there was no evidence of the slightest improprieties, or of any approach even to flirtation. But the infuriate king, who, without the shadow of reason, could accuse his own daughter of infamy, caused this young lady, under the pretext that she had been the guilty intimate of his son, to be taken from her parents, to be delivered to the executioners, and to be publicly conveyed in a cart and whipped on the bare back through the principal streets of the town. She was then imprisoned, and doomed to beat hemp as a culprit for three years.
FORE:His contempt, writes Sir Thomas in his narrative, was so great, and was expressed in such violent terms, that now, if ever, was the time to make the last effort. A moment longer was not to be lost, to hinder the king from dismissing us.
FORE:On the other hand, Frederick himself was in the very prime of manhood. He was ambitious of military renown. He had a compact army of one hundred thousand men, in better drill and more amply provided with all the apparatus of war than any other troops in Europe. The frugality of his father had left him with a treasury full to overflowing. To take military possession of Silesia would be a very easy thing. There was nothing to obstruct the rush of his troops across the frontiers. There were no strongly garrisoned fortresses, and not above three thousand soldiers in the whole realm. No one even suspected that Frederick would lay any claim to the territory, or that there was the slightest danger of invasion. The complicated claim which he finally presented, in official manifestoes, was founded upon transactions which had taken place a hundred years before. In conversation with his friends he did not lay much stress upon any legitimate title he had to the territory. He frankly admitted, to quote his own words, that ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me, carried the day, and I decided for war.37It is unquestionable that the mental discipline acquired by this elevated course, to which he consecrated so diligently his hours, prepared him for the wonderful career upon which he soon entered, and enabled him to act with efficiency which filled Europe with his renown.
FORE:No, no, said he; you shall have those one hundred thousand thalers. I have destined them for you. People will be much surprised to see me act quite differently from what they had expected. They imagine I am going to lavish all my treasures, and that money will become as common as pebbles in Berlin. But they will find that I know better. I mean to increase my army, and to leave all other things on the old footing. I will have every consideration for the queen, my mother, and will satiate her with honors. But I do not mean that she shall meddle with my affairs. If she try it she will find so.
FORE:The queen, Maria Theresa, still remained at Presburg, in her Hungarian kingdom. The Aulic Council was with her. On the 15th of August Sir Thomas Robinson had returned to Presburg with the intelligence of his unsuccessful mission, and of the unrelenting determination of Frederick to prosecute the war with the utmost vigor unless Silesia were surrendered to him.
FORE: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:
FORE:By all the devils, exclaimed the king, I shall not till we have taken Dresden. Then I will provide for you to your hearts content.
TWO:In a very triumphant mood, the king, on the 19th of November, wrote a boastful and irreverent Ode to Fortune, in that easy rhyme which he called poetry. The substance of this ode, translated into prose, was as follows:ROYALTY AT DINNER.
TWO:447 We have taken here from fourteen to fifteen thousand prisoners. In all, I have above twenty-three thousand of the queens troops in my hands, fifteen generals, and above seven hundred officers. It is a plaster on my wounds, but it is far enough from healing them.Let him learn arithmetic, mathematics, artillery, economy, to the very bottom; history in particular; ancient history only slightly, but the history of the last hundred and fifty years to the exactest pitch. He must be completely master of geography, as also of whatever is remarkable in each country. With increasing years you will more and more, to an especial degree, go upon fortification, the formation of a camp, and other war sciences, that the prince may, from youth upward, be trained to act as officer and general, and to seek all his glory in the soldier profession. You have, in the highest measure, to make it your care to infuse into my son a true love for the soldier business, and to impress on him that, as there is nothing in the world which can bring a prince renown and honor like the sword, so he would be a despised creature before all men if he did not love it and seek his glory therein.
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TWO: I was glad to receive you in my house. I esteemed your genius, your talents, and your acquirements. I had reason to think that a man of your age, weary of fencing against authors, and exposing himself to the storm, came hither to take refuge, as in a safe harbor.Though Frederick the First had reared and originally furnished this Berlin palace, yet the masses of solid silver wrought into its ornamentation were mainly the work of Frederick William. Conscious that his influence in Europe depended not only upon the power of his army, but also upon the fullness of his treasury, he had been striving, through all his reign, to accumulate coin. But the money, barreled up and stored away in the vaults of his palace, was of no service while thus lying idle. Banking institutions seem not then to have been in vogue in his realms. But the silver, wrought into chandeliers, mirror-frames, and music balconies, added to the imposing splendor of his court, gave him the reputation of great wealth, and could, at any time when necessary, be melted down and coined. The wealth thus hoarded by the father afterward saved the son from ruin, when involved in wars which exhausted his treasury.
TWO:234 Adieu, dear Swan of Padua. Think, I pray, sometimes of those who are getting themselves cut in slices for the sake of glory here; and, above all, do not forget your friends who think a thousand times of you.
Lieutenant Chasot, another of his friends, was a French officer who had killed a brother officer in a duel at Philipsburg, and, in consequence, had fled to the Prussian lines. He had brightness of intellect and winning manners, which rendered him a universal favorite. Captain Knobelsdorf was a distinguished musician and architect. He rendered signal service in enlarging and decorating the chateau at Reinsberg. Baron De Suhm, with whom Frederick kept up a constant correspondence, was then in Saxony, translating for the Crown Prince the philosophy of Wolff. He sent the prince chapter by chapter, with copious notes.One evening, being too unwell to read his usual devotions, he called upon his valet de chambre to read prayers. In the prayer occurred the words, May God bless thee. The servant, not deeming it respectful to use thee in reference to the king, took the liberty to change the phrase, and read it, May God bless you. The king, exasperated, hurled something at the head of the speaker, exclaiming, It is not so; read it again. The terrified servant, not conceiving in what he had done wrong, read again, May God bless you. The irascible monarch, having nothing else he could grasp, took off his night-cap and threw it into the mans face, exclaiming, It is not so; read it over again. The servant, frightened almost out of his senses, read for the third time, May God bless you. Thee, rogue, shouted the king. May God bless thee. Dost thou not know, rascal, that, in the eyes of God, I am only a miserable rascal like thyself?On Saturday, the 25th of October of this year, George II., King of England, died. The poor old gentleman, who had been endowed with but a very ordinary share of intelligence, was seventy-seven years of age. On Monday he had presided at a review of troops in Hyde Park. On Thursday he stood upon the portico of his rural palace in Kensington to see his Guards march by for foreign service. Saturday morning he rose at an early hour, took his cup of chocolate as usual, and, opening his windows, said the morning was so fine he would take a walk in his garden. It was then eight oclock. His valet withdrew with the cup and saucer. He had hardly shut the door when he heard a groan and a fall. Hurrying back, he found the king upon the floor. Faintly the death-stricken monarch exclaimed, Call Amelia, and instantly died.Frederick was silenced, humiliated. He returned to Berlin, having accomplished nothing, and having lost four days in his fruitless adventure. Leopold was left to accumulate his resources as rapidly as he could, and to attack the Austrians at his discretion.
TWO:234 Adieu, dear Swan of Padua. Think, I pray, sometimes of those who are getting themselves cut in slices for the sake of glory here; and, above all, do not forget your friends who think a thousand times of you.
