Thy miser (Voltaire) shall drink to the lees of his insatiable desire to enrich himself. He shall have the three thousand thalers [$2250]. He was with me six days. That will be at the rate of five hundred thalers [$375] a day. That is paying dearly for a fool. Never had court fool such wages before.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE PARTITION OF POLAND.Such were the measures adopted during the first week of Fredericks reign. He soon abolished the enormously expensive regiment of giants, and organized, instead of them, four regiments composed of men of the usual stature.32 Within a few months he added sixteen thousand men to his already large army, thus193 raising the number of the standing army of his little realm to over ninety thousand men. He compelled his old associates to feel, and some of them very keenly, that he was no longer their comrade, but their king. One of the veteran and most honored officers of Frederick William, in his expressions of condolence and congratulation, ventured to suggest the hope that he and his sons might continue to occupy the same posts and retain the same authority as in the last reign.
By the most extraordinary exertions, which must have almost depopulated his realms of all the young men and those of middle age, Frederick succeeded in so filling up his depleted ranks as to have in the opening spring of 1759 two hundred thousand men in field and garrison. Indeed, regardless of all the laws of nations, he often compelled the soldiers and other men of conquered provinces to enlist in his armies. How he, in his poverty, obtained the pecuniary resources requisite to the carrying on of such a war, is to the present day a matter of amazement.England was the hereditary foe of France. It was one of the leading objects in her diplomacy to circumvent that power. Our great-grandfathers, writes Carlyle, lived in perpetual terror that they would be devoured by France; that French ambition would overset the Celestial Balance, and proceed next to eat the British nation. Strengthening Austria was weakening France. Therefore the sympathies of England were strongly with Austria. In addition to this, personal feelings came in. The puerile little king, George II., hated implacably his nephew, Frederick of Prussia, which hatred Frederick returned with interest. Frederick William.Lean indeed I am, the king replied. And what wonder, with three women163 hanging on the throat of me all this while!
