ONE:The wife of George I., the mother of Sophie Dorothee, was the subject of one of the saddest of earthly tragedies. Her case is still involved in some obscurity. She was a beautiful, haughty, passionate princess of Zelle when she married her cousin George, Elector of Hanover. George became jealous of Count K?nigsmark, a very handsome courtier of commanding address. In an angry altercation with his wife, it is said that the infuriate husband boxed her ears. Suddenly, on the 1st of July, 1694, Count K?nigsmark disappeared. Mysteriously he vanished from earth, and was heard of no more. The unhappy wife, who had given birth to the daughter Sophie Dorothee, bearing her mothers name, and to a son, afterward George II., almost frenzied with42 rage, was divorced from her husband, and was locked up in the gloomy castle of Ahlden, situated in the solitary moors of Luneburg heath. Here she was held in captivity for thirty years, until she died. In the mean time, George, ascending the throne of England, solaced himself in the society of female favorites, none of whom he honored with the title of wife. The raging captive of Ahlden, who seems never to have become submissive to her lot, could, of course, exert no influence in the marriage of her grandchildren.Frankfort is on the west side of the Oder. The Russian army was encamped on the eastern side of the river. The force collected there consisted of about seventy-eight thousand Russians and eighteen thousand Austrians. Frederick had, by great exertions, gathered fifty thousand troops to attack them. He was approaching Frankfort from the southwest. In a secret midnight march he crossed the river by bridges of boats some miles north of the city, near Cüstrin. At four oclock in the morning of the 11th of August his troops had all accomplished the passage482 of the stream, and, to the surprise of the Russians, were marching down upon them from the north.
TWO:While in this deplorable condition, Maupertuis was found by the Prince of Lichtenstein, an Austrian officer who had met him in Paris. The prince rescued him from his brutal captors and supplied him with clothing. He was, however, taken to Vienna as a prisoner of war, where he was placed on parole. Voltaire, whose unamiable nature was pervaded by a very marked vein of malignity, made himself very merry over the misfortunes of the philosopher. As Maupertuis glided about the streets of Vienna for a time in obscurity, the newspapers began to speak of his scientific celebrity. He was thus brought into notice. The queen treated him with distinction. The Grand-duke Francis drew his own watch from his pocket, and presented it to Maupertuis265 in recompense for the one he had lost. Eventually he was released, and, loaded with many presents, was sent to Brittany.
THREE:I have now the honor, and, what is still more, the pleasure of being with the king at Potsdam. I have the honor to dine and sup with him almost every day. He has more wit than I have wit to tell you; speaks solidly and knowingly on all kinds of subjects; and I am much mistaken if, with the experience of four campaigns, he is not the best officer of his army. He has several persons with whom he lives with almost the familiarity of a friend, but he has no favorite. He shows a natural politeness for every body who is about him. For one who has been four days about his person, you will say, I pretend to know a great deal about his character. But what I tell you you may depend upon. With more time I shall know as much of him as he will let me know, and no one of his ministry knows any more.The sun rose clear and cloudless over the plain, soon to be crimsoned with blood and darkened by the smoke of battle. The Prussians took position in accordance with very minute directions given to the young Prince Leopold by Frederick. It was manifest to the most unskilled observer that the storm of311 battle would rage over many miles, as the infantry charged to and fro; as squadrons of strongly-mounted cavalry swept the field; as bullets, balls, and shells were hurled in all directions from the potent enginery of war.
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