The young king, all unaccustomed to those horrors of war which he had evoked, was swept along with the inundation. The danger of his falling in the midst of the general carnage, or of his capture, which was, perhaps, still more to be dreaded, was imminent. His friends entreated him to escape for his life. Even Marshal Schwerin, the veteran soldier, assured him that the battle was lost, and that he probably could escape capture only by a precipitate flight.
TWO: The King patronizes literary and scientific Men.Anecdotes.The Family Quarrel.Birth of Frederick William III.Rapid Recuperation of Prussia.The Kings Tour of Observation.Desolate Aspect of the Country.Absolutism of Frederick.Interview between Frederick and DAlembert.Unpopularity of Frederick.Death of the King of Poland.Plans for the Partition of Poland.Intrigues of Catharine.Interview between Frederick and the Emperor Joseph.Poland seized by Russia, Prussia, and Austria.The Division of the Spoil.Remorse of Maria Theresa.Indifference of Frederick to public Opinion.
TWO:Wilhelminas purse was generally empty, and she was often in great want of money. Her penurious father had married her below her rank that he might escape settling upon her a dowry. Though her husband was heir to the marquisate of Baireuth, his father was still living. That father was a drunkard and a miser. It seems that the son received but little more than his wages as colonel in the army. Wilhelmina records that one day her brother Fritz came to her and said,
TWO:The Austrian army, which outnumbered the Prussian over three to one, was in a camp, very strongly fortified, near Breslau. A council of war was held. Some of the Austrian officers, dreading the prowess of their redoubtable opponent, advised that they should remain behind their intrenchments, and await an attack. It would, of course, be impossible for less than thirty thousand men to storm ramparts bristling with artillery, and defended by nearly ninety thousand highly disciplined and veteran troops.To this tumult succeeded a fresh burst of mirth, during which the prince slipped away, and, aided by his pages, retired to his171 apartment; and the princess immediately followed. The day after this adventure the court was at its last gasp. Neither the prince nor any of the courtiers could stir from their beds.
When you find it very necessary, yet very difficult, to gain any intelligence of the enemy, there is another expedient, though a cruel one. You take a rich burgher, possessed of rich lands, a wife, and children. You oblige him to go to the enemys camp, as if to complain of hard treatment, and to take along with him, as his servant, a spy who speaks the language of the country; assuring him at the same time that, in case he does not bring the spy back with him, after having remained a sufficient time in the enemys camp, you will set fire to his house, and massacre his wife and children. I was forced to have recourse to this cruel expedient. It answered my purpose.173The camp was so utterly destroyed that Frederick could not even obtain pen and ink. He was obliged to write with a pencil. Not a loaf of bread nor a cup of wine was left for the exhausted king. The hungry soldiers, after a conflict of five hours, having had neither breakfast nor dinner, found no refreshments awaiting them; yet, without a murmur, they smoked their pipes, drank some spring water, and rejoiced in their great victory.Yesterday, July 3d, the king sent for me, in the afternoon, the first time he has seen any body since the news came. I had the honor to remain with him in his closet. I must own I was most sensibly affected to see him indulging his grief, and giving way to the warmest filial affections; recalling to mind the many obligations he had to her late majesty; all she had suffered, and how nobly she had borne it; the good she did to every body;419 the one comfort he now had, that he tried to make her last years more agreeable.Chaplain Müller was especially directed to argue with Frederick upon this point, and, if possible, to convert him to Christianity. The correspondence which ensued between the king and Müller is preserved. The king wrote to the chaplain, under date of November 3d, 1730:It was soon ascertained that the main body of the Austrian249 army was fifteen miles to the southwest, at Freudenthal, pressing on toward Neisse. General Neipperg, without the slightest suspicion that Frederick was any where in his vicinity, had sent aside a reconnoitring party of skirmishers to ascertain if there were any Prussians at Jagerndorf. General Neipperg, at Freudenthal, was as near Neisse as Frederick was at Jagerndorf.
荣誉榜
THREE:
THREE: The case is this: I am treated in an unheard of manner by the king; and I know that there are terrible things in preparation against me touching certain letters which I wrote last winter, of which I believe you are informed. In a word, to speak frankly to you, the real, secret reason why the king will not consent to this marriage is, that he wishes to keep me on a low footing85 constantly, and to have the power of driving me mad whenever the whim takes him, throughout his life. Thus he will never give his consent.He had hardly arrived at Leitmeritz ere he received the tidings of the death of Sophia Dorothea, his mother. She died at Berlin on the 28th of June, 1757, in the seventy-first year of her age. This grief, coming in the train of disasters which seemed to be overwhelming his Prussian majesty, affected him very deeply. Frederick was subdued and softened by sorrow. He remembered the time when a mothers love rocked his cradle, and wrapped him around with tender care. The reader will be surprised to learn that his griefperhaps with some comminglings of remorsewas so great that he shut himself in his closet, and wept with sobbings like a child.
