This despondency lasted, however, but a moment. Concealing his emotions, he smoothed his furrowed brow, dressed his face in smiles, and wrote doggerel verses and jocose letters as if he were merely a fashionable man of pleasure. At the same time he rallied all his marvelous energies, and prepared to meet the exigency366 with sagacity and intrepidity rarely surpassed. Orders were immediately dispatched to the Old Dessauer to marshal an army to oppose Grüne and Rutowski, while the king hastened to Silesia to attack Prince Charles. Leopold, though he had nearly numbered his threescore years and ten, according to Frederick, was very glad to fight once again before he died. The veteran general ventured to make some suggestions in reference to the orders he had received. The king sternly replied,
FORE:In the mean time, the queen and Wilhelmina, at Berlin, unconscious of the dreadful tidings they were soon to receive, were95 taking advantage of the absence of the king in seeking a few hours of social enjoyment. They gave a ball at the pretty little palace of Monbijou, on the banks of the Spree, a short distance out from Berlin. In the midst of the entertainment the queen received, by a courier, the following dispatch from Frederick William:General Daun, with the utmost caution, followed the retreating army. Though his numbers were estimated at seventy-five thousand, he did not dare to encounter Frederick with his thirty thousand Prussians on the field of battle. With skill which has elicited the applause of all military critics, Frederick, early in August, continued his retreat till he reached, on the 8th of the month, Grüssau, on his own side of the mountains in Silesia. On this march he wrote to his brother Henry from Skalitz:
THREE:
FORE:Many thousands are made miserable, inhabitants as well as strangers. Many from the open country and defenseless towns in Prussia, Pomerania, and the New Marche had fled hither, with their most valuable effects, in hopes of security when the Russians entered the Prussian territories; so that a great many who, a little while ago, were possessed of considerable fortunes, are now reduced to beggary. On the roads nothing was to be seen but misery, and nothing to be heard but such cries and lamentations as were enough to move even the stones. No one knew where to get a morsel of bread, nor what to do for farther subsistence. The fire was so furious that the cannon in the store and artillery houses were all melted. The loaded bombs and cartridges for cannon and muskets, with a large quantity of gunpowder, went off at once with a most horrible explosion. The fury of the enemy fell almost entirely upon the inhabitants. They did not begin to batter the fortifications, except with a few shot, till the 17th, after the rest was all destroyed.
Leopold, in early youth, fell deeply in love with a beautiful young lady, Mademoiselle Fos. She was the daughter of an apothecary. His aristocratic friends were shocked at the idea of so unequal a marriage. The sturdy will of Leopold was unyielding. They sent him away, under a French tutor, to take the grand tour of Europe. After an absence of fourteen months he returned. The first thing he did was to call upon Mademoiselle Fos. After that, he called upon his widowed mother. It was in vain to resist the will of such a man. In 1698 he married her, and soon, by his splendid military services, so ennobled his bride that all were ready to do her homage. For half a century she was his loved and honored spouse, attending him in all his campaigns.While on the retreat, one of his aids approached him, and the king, with a smile, said, Daun has played me a slippery trick to-day.Frederick affected great contempt for public opinion. He wrote to Voltaire:There is a gloom of the soul far deeper than any gloom with which nature can ever be shrouded. It is not easy to conceive of a mortal placed in circumstances of greater mental suffering than was the proud, ambitious young monarch during the hour in which he waited, in terror and disgrace, by the side of the mill, for the return of his courier. At length the clatter of hoofs was heard, and the messenger came back, accompanied by an adjutant, to announce to the king that the Prussians still held Lowen, and that the Prussian army had gained a signal victory at Mollwitz.I have as much honor as you have, the son replied; and I have only done that which I have heard you say a hundred times you would have done yourself had you been treated as I have been.