Then addressing Grumkow, she said, in tones deliberate and76 intense, For you, sir, who are the author of my misfortunes, may my curse fall upon you and your house. You have this day killed me. But I doubt not that Heaven will hear my prayer and avenge my wrongs.
There were nearly thirty thousand men, infantry and cavalry, thus assembling under the banners of Frederick for battle. They were in as perfect state of drill as troops have ever attained, and were armed with the most potent implements of war which that age could furnish. The king was visibly affected by the spectacle. Whether humane considerations touched his heart, or merely poetic emotion moved him, we can not tell. But he was well aware that within a few hours not merely hundreds, but thousands of those men, torn by shot and shell, would be prostrate in their blood upon the plain; and he could not but know that for all the carnage and the suffering, he, above all others, would be responsible at the bar of God.The annoyances to which Wilhelmina was exposed, while thus preparing for her wedding, must have been almost unendurable. Not only her mother was thus persistent and implacable in her hostility, but her father reluctantly submitted to the connection. He had fully made up his mind, with all the strength of his inflexible will, that Wilhelmina should marry either the Margrave of Schwedt or the Duke of Weissenfels. It was with extreme reluctance, and greatly to his chagrin, that the stern old man131 found himself constrained, perhaps for the first time in his life, to yield to others.
ONE:Joseph, the oldest son of Maria Theresa and Francis, by the will of his mother became emperor. But Maria Theresa still swayed the sceptre of imperial power, through the hands of her son, as she had formerly done through the hands of her amiable and pliant husband. The young emperor was fond of traveling. He visited all the battle-fields of the Seven Years War, and put up many monuments. Through his minister at Berlin, he expressed his particular desire to make the acquaintance of Frederick. The interview took place at Neisse on the 25th of August, 1769. His majesty received the young emperor on the grand staircase of the palace, where they cordially embraced each other.
TWO:That is not the question, I answered. The question is, whether such a being as God can, or can not, give existence to what, as yet, has none.
TWO: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.Gradually the secret treaty which allied France, Bavaria, and Prussia, and it was not known how many other minor powers, against Austria, came to light. Two French armies of fifty thousand men each were on the march to act in co-operation with Frederick. England, trembling from fear of the loss of Hanover, dared not move. The Aulic Council at Vienna, in a panic, fell back into their chairs like dead men. The ruin of Maria Theresa and the fatal dismemberment of Austria seemed inevitable.
TWO:328 The minister for foreign affairs was charged to hasten my departure. A pretext, however, was necessary. I took that of my quarrel with the Bishop Mirepoix. I wrote accordingly to the King of Prussia that I could no longer endure the persecutions of this monk, and that I should take refuge under the protection of a philosophical sovereign, far from the disputes of this bigot. When I arrived at Berlin the king lodged me in his palace, as he had done in my former journeys. He then led the same sort of life which he had always done since he came to the throne. He rose at five in summer and six in winter.75 A single servant came to light his fire, to dress and shave him. Indeed, he dressed himself almost without any assistance. His bedroom was a handsome one. A rich and highly ornamented balustrade of silver inclosed apparently a bed hung with curtains, but behind the curtains, instead of a bed, there was a library. As for the royal couch, it was a wretched truckle-bed, with a thin mattress, behind a screen, in one corner of the room. Marcus Aurelius and Julian, his favorite heroes, and the greatest men among the Stoics, were not worse lodged.
THREE:His young daughter Louisa, bride of Victor Leopold, reigning Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg, lay dying of a decline. A few days before her death she said, I wish I could see my father at the head of his regiment once again before I die. The remark was reported to Leopold. He was then with his regiment at Halle, thirty miles distant. Immediately the troops were called out, and marched at rapid pace to Bernburg. With banners flying, music playing, and all customary display of military pomp, they entered the court-yard of the palace. The dying daughter, pale and emaciate, sat at the window. The war-worn father rose in his stirrups to salute his child, and then put his regiment through all its most interesting man?uvrings. The soldiers were then marched to the orphan-house, where the common men were treated with bread and beer, all the officers dining at the princes table. All the officers except Leopold alone, who stole away out of the crowd, sat himself upon the Saale bridge, and wept into the river.
THREE:He was clinging on the head of slippery abysses, his path hardly a foots breadth, mere enemies and avalanches hanging round on every side; ruin likelier at no moment of his life.185 On the 26th of May the Crown Prince received an express informing him that his father was dying, and that he must hasten to Potsdam with the utmost speed if he would ever again see him alive. Reinsberg was about thirty miles north from Potsdam. It took the courier some hours to reach the place. Frederick, with emotions not easily imagined, started before the dawn of the morning, followed by a train of attendants, to hasten to the death-bed of his father, and to receive the kingly crown of Prussia.
