TWO:As the Prussian king brought up his little army to within a mile of the lines of General Daun, and ordered the troops to take position there, his boldest generals were appalled. It seemed to be courting sure and utter destruction. The king��s favorite adjutant general, Marwitz, ventured to remonstrate against so fearful a risk. He was immediately ordered under arrest. The line was formed while the Austrian cannon were playing incessantly upon it. General Retzow, who for some cause had failed to seize the heights of Stromberg, was also placed under arrest. Thus the king taught all that he would be obeyed implicitly and without questioning.

TWO:

TWO:On Tuesday, the 20th of November, 1731, Wilhelmina, eight months after her betrothal, was married to the Prince of Baireuth. The marriage ceremony was attended with great magnificence in the royal palace of Berlin. The father of Frederick William, who was fond of pageantry, had reared one of the most sumptuous mansions in Europe, and had furnished it with splendor which no other court could outvie. Entering the interior of the palace through the outer saloon, one passed through nine apartments en suite, of grand dimensions, magnificently decorated, the last of which opened into the picture-gallery, a room ninety feet in length, and of corresponding breadth. All these were in a line. Then turning, you entered a series of fourteen rooms, each more splendid than the preceding. The chandeliers were of massive solid silver. The ceilings were exquisitely painted130 by Correggio. Between each pair of windows there were mirrors twelve feet high, and of such width that before each mirror tables could be spread for twelve guests. The last of these magnificent apartments, called the Grand Saloon, was illuminated by ��a lustre weighing fifty thousand crowns; the globe of it big enough to hold a child of eight years, and the branches of solid silver.��

TWO:��The valet took the beef from the table and set it on the charcoal dish until wanted. He did the like with the fish and roast game, and poured me out wine and beer. I ate and drank till I had abundantly enough. Dessert, confectionery, what I could. A plate of big black cherries and a plateful of pears my waiting-man wrapped in paper, and stuffed them into my pockets to be a refreshment on the way home. And so I rose from the royal table, and thanked God and the king in my heart that I had so gloriously dined. At that moment a secretary came, brought me a sealed order for the custom-house at Berlin, with my certificates and the pass; told down on the table five tail-ducats and a gold Friedrich under them, saying, ��The king sent me this to take me home to Berlin.��93

TWO:

TWO:

TWO:THE DEATH-SCENE OF THE EMPEROR.

TWO:He then requested to be shown the cup in which his heart would be placed after that operation. His daughter, Maria Theresa, who had married the Grand-duke Francis, was in a delicate state of health. The death of her father would place the weighty crown upon her youthful brow. Grief and agitation threw her helpless upon her bed. So important was her life to the world that the emperor was unwilling that, in her214 then condition, she should enter the death-chamber. ��Tell my Theresa,�� said he, in faint and dying accents, ��that I bless her, notwithstanding her absence.��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: