338 Just at that time, when all hope seemed lost, it so happened that a cannon-ball crushed the foot of the Austrian commander. This disaster, together with the darkness and the torrents of rain, caused the fire of the enemy to cease. The next morning some Prussian re-enforcements came to the rescue of the king, and he escaped.CHAPTER XXXIV. THE PARTITION OF POLAND.
ONE: Sufferings of the Peasantry.Renown and Peril of Frederick.New Plan of Maria Theresa.Despondency of Frederick.Surprise and Rout of the Austrians.The Old Dessauer enters Saxony.Battle of Kesseldorf.Singular Prayer of the Old Dessauer.Signal Victory of the Prussians.Elation of Frederick.The Peace of Dresden.Death of M. Duhan.
ONE: You will have passports for the post-horses, and whatever else you may ask. I hope to see you on Wednesday. I shall then profit by the few moments of leisure which remain to me, to enlighten myself by the blaze of your powerful genius. I entreat you to believe I shall always be the same toward you. Adieu.I was in such a state I know not how we got down stairs. I remember only that it was in a concert of lamentable sobbings. Madame, the Marchioness of Schwedt, who had been named to attend the princess to Stralsund, on the Swedish frontier, this high lady, and the two dames DAtours, who were for Sweden itself, having sprung into the same carriage, the door of it was shut with a slam, the postillions cracked, the carriage shot away, and disappeared from our eyes. In a moment the king and court lost sight of the beloved Ulrique forever.73
THREE:Thus circumstanced, General Neipperg gave the order to retreat. At the double quick, the Austrians retired back through the street of Mollwitz, hurried across the River Laugwitz by a bridge, and, turning short to the south, continued their retreat toward Grottkau. They left behind them nine of their own guns, and eight of those which they had captured from the Prussians. The Prussians, exhausted by the long battle, their cavalry mostly dispersed and darkness already enveloping them, did not attempt any vigorous pursuit. They bivouacked on the grounds, or quartered themselves in the villages from which the Austrians had fled.The early governess of little Fritz was a French lady of much refinement and culture, Madame Racoule. She was in entire sympathy with her pupil. Their tastes were in harmony. Fritz became as familiar with the French language as if it were his mother tongue. Probably through her influence he acquired that fondness for French literature and that taste for French elegance which continued with him through life.
THREE:The poor courtier, Wilhelmina adds, obliged to become possessor of this miserable performance, and to pay so dear for it, determined for the future to be more circumspect in his admiration.
April 10, 1741.The betrothed princess, bewildered, wounded, heart-broken, returned with her parents to her home, there to await the consummation of her sacrifice by being married to a man who had never addressed to her a loving word, and who, in his heart, had resolved never to receive her as his wife. The Crown Prince, unfeeling and reckless, returned to his dissolute life in garrison at Ruppin. The queen continued an active correspondence with England, still hoping to break the engagement of her son with Elizabeth, and to secure for him the Princess Amelia.A ROYAL EXECUTIONER.The next morning the Prussian troops, led by their indomitable king, were early on the march, groping through the thick mist to find more of the foe. But the blow already given was decisive. The Austrian army was shattered, demoralized, ruined. The king could find nothing but broken tumbrils, abandoned wagons, and the dbris of an utterly routed army. Prince Charles, bewildered by the disaster, had wheeled his columns around, and fled through the passes of the mountains back to Bohemia. Five thousand of his troops he left behind in killed or prisoners.
