England, while endeavoring to subsidize Russia against Frederick, entered secretly into a sort of alliance with Frederick, hoping thus to save Hanover. The Empress Elizabeth, of Russia, heartily united with Maria Theresa against Frederick, whom she personally disliked, and whose encroachments she dreaded. His Prussian majesty, proud of his powers of sarcasm, in his poems spared neither friend nor foe. He had written some very severe things against the Russian empress, which had reached her ears.100
FORE:And then, grumbling and blaming, would alter the camp till it was all out of rule, and then say,In a letter to his friend Lord Marischal, dated Dresden, November 23, 1758, just after the retreat of Daun into Bohemia from Saxony, Frederick writes sadly,
FORE:461 Immediately after the battle Sir Andrew Mitchell called upon the king to congratulate him upon his great victory. General Seidlitz, who had led the two decisive cavalry charges, was in the royal tent. The king, in reply to the congratulations of the English minister, pointed to General Seidlitz and said,
ONE:These solemn tones of sacred psalmody fell impressively upon the ear of the king when his earthly all was trembling in the balance. Religionless and atheistic as he was, he could not repress some visible emotion. One of his officers, aware of the kings avowed contempt for every thing of a religious nature, inquired,The routed allies, exasperated and starving, and hating the Protestant inhabitants of the region through which they retreated, robbed and maltreated them without mercy. The woes which the defenseless inhabitants endured from the routed army in its flight no pen can adequately describe.
TWO:Marshal Daun, as he retired with a shattered leg to have his wound dressed, resigned the command to General Buccow. In a few moments his arm was shot off, and General ODonnell took the command. He ordered a retreat. The Austrian army, at nine oclock in the evening, in much disorder, were crossing the Elbe by three bridges which had been thrown across the stream in preparation for a possible disaster. The king, disappointed in a victory which did not promise great results, passed the night conversing with the soldiers at their watch-fires. He had ever indulged them in addressing him with much familiarity, calling him Fritz, which was a diminutive of Frederick, and expressive of affection. I suppose, Fritz, said one of the soldiers, after this, you will give us good winter quarters.In the account which Frederick gave, some years after, of this campaign, in his Histoire de Mons Temps, he wrote:
THREE:
FORE:When you sent me, inclosed in your letter, those verses for our Marcus Aurelius of the North, I fully intended to pay my court to him with them. He was at that time to have come to Brussels incognito. But the quartan fever, which unhappily he still has, deranged all his projects. He has sent me a courier to Brussels, and so I set out to find him in the neighborhood of Cleves.
I therefore beg my dear papa to be gracious to me; and can here say that, after long reflection, my conscience has not accused me of any the least thing with which I could reproach myself. But if I have, against my will and knowledge, done any thing which has angered my dear papa, I herewith most submissively beg forgiveness, and hope my dear papa will lay aside that cruel hatred which I can not but notice in all his treatment of me. I54 could not otherwise suit myself to it, as I always thought I had a gracious papa, and now have to see the contrary. I take confidence, then, and hope that my dear papa will consider all this, and again be gracious to me. And in the mean while I assure him that I will never, all my days, fail with my will; and, notwithstanding his disfavor to me, remain my dear papas most faithful and obedient servant and son,Chaplain Müller seems to have enjoyed the confidence of the king to an unusual decree. He was ordered to remain at Cüstrin, and to have daily interviews with the prince, to instruct him in religion. The king professed to be eminently a religious man. While torturing the body and the mind of the prince in every way, he expressed great anxiety for the salvation of his soul. It is not strange that the example of such a father had staggered the faith of the son. Illogically he renounced that religion which condemned, in the severest terms, the conduct of the father, and which caused the king often to tremble upon his throne, appalled by the declaration, Know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.The Prussian minister replied that he could not conceive why he should be refused an audience; that he should not fail to be at the council-chamber at eleven oclock the next day to receive an answer to the proposals already made, and also to the proposals which he was prepared to make. He endeavored to inform Hartoff of the terms of compromise which the Prussian king was ready to present. But Hartoff refused to hear him, declaring that he had positive orders not to listen to any thing he had to say upon the subject. We will give the conclusion in the words of the Prussian minister, as found in his dispatch of the 18th of August, 1729: My dear Voltaire,You wish to know what I have been about since leaving Berlin. Annexed you will find a description of it.
$120
$340
$250
$378
$428
