FORE:It would seem that if ever there were an excuse for suicide it was to be found here. But what folly it would have been! Dark as these days were, they led the prince to a crown, and to achievements of whose recital the world will never grow weary. Fritz, goaded to madness, again adopted the desperate resolve to attempt an escape. A young Englishman, Captain Guy Dickens, secretary of the British embassador, Dubourgay, had become quite the intimate friend of the Crown Prince. They conferred together upon plans of escape. But the precautions adopted by the father were such that no plan which they could devise seemed feasible at that time. Fritz confided his thoughts to his friend, Lieutenant Keith, at Berlin.As they marched their voices burst forth simultaneously in a German hymn. The gush of their rude and many-voiced melody was borne distinctly on the wind to the eminence where Frederick stood, anxiously watching those movements which were to decide his own fate, that of his family, and of his kingdom. The following is a translation of one of the verses of this hymn:
FORE:BATTLE OF HOCHKIRCH, OCTOBER 14, 1758.Kannegiesser, at Hanover, received the kings propositions for reconciliation at ten oclock in the morning of the 15th of August, 1729. George II. was then absent on a hunting excursion. The Prussian embassador called immediately at the council-chamber of the Hanoverian court, and informed M. Hartoff, the privy secretary, that he wished an audience with the ministry, then in session, to make a proposition to them from the Prussian court. Hartoff, who had met Kannegiesser in a room adjoining the council-chamber, reported the request to the council, and returned with the disrespectful answer that M. Kannegiesser must defer what he has to say to some other time.
FORE:I should not value the money, the king added. If money would content her I would give more.The rule, in such cases, was that a certain number of companies were to be admitted at a time. The gate was then to be closed until they had marched through the city and out at the opposite gate. After this another detachment was to be admitted, and so on, until all had passed through. But General Schwerin so contrived it, by stratagem, as to crowd in a whole regiment at once. Instead of marching through Breslau, to the surprise of the inhabitants, he directed his steps to the market-place, where he encamped and took possession of the city, admitting the remainder of his regiments. In an hour and a half the whole thing was done, and the streets were strongly garrisoned by Prussian troops. The majority of the inhabitants, being Protestant, were well pleased, and received the achievement with laughter. Many cheers resounded through the streets, with shouts of Frederick and Silesia forever. All the foreign ministers in Breslau, and the magistrates of the city, had been lured to Strehlin to witness the grand review.
FORE:The king could be very courteous. He gave a dinner-party, at which General Loudon, one of the most efficient of the Austrian generals, and who had often been successfully opposed to Frederick, was a guest. As he entered the king said,Wilhelmina endeavored to reply. But the angry mother sternly exclaimed, Silence! and the tortured girl left the apartment, weeping bitterly. Even Fritz took his mothers part, and reproached Wilhelmina for not acceding to her plan. New troubles were thickening around him. He was in debt. The king had found it out. To his fathers stern questioning, Fritz, in his terror, had uttered deliberate falsehood. He confessed a debt of about eight hundred dollars, which his father had detected, and solemnly declared that this was all. In fact, he owed an additional sum of seven thousand dollars. Should the king discover this debt, and thus detect Fritz in a lie, his rage would be tremendous. The king paid the eight hundred dollar debt of his son, and then issued a decree declaring that to lend money to any princes of the blood, even to the prince royal, was a high crime, to be punished, not only by forfeiture of the money, but78 by imprisonment. The king had begun to suspect that Fritz intended to escape. He could not escape without money. The king therefore took special precautions that his purse should be ever empty, and watched him with renewed vigilance.
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