About thirty miles southeast of Breslau is the pleasant little town of Ohlau, situated in the delta formed by the junction of the Ohlau River with the Oder. It was a place of some strength, and the Austrian authorities had thrown into it a garrison of three hundred men. Frederick appeared before its gates on the morning of January the 9th. He immediately sent in the following summons to the garrison:
ONE:It is almost touching, Mr. Carlyle writes, to reflect how unexpectedly, like a bolt out of the blue, all this had come upon Frederick, and how it overset his fine programme for the winter at Reinsberg, and for his life generally. Not the Peaceable magnanimities, but the Warlike, are the thing appointed Frederick this winter, and mainly henceforth. Those golden or soft radiances which we saw in him, admirable to Voltaire and to Frederick, and to an esurient philanthropic world, it is not218 those, it is the steel bright or stellar kind that are to become predominant in Fredericks existence; grim hail-storms, thunders, and tornado for an existence to him instead of the opulent genialities and halcyon weather anticipated by himself and others.
I found him much grown; an air of health and gayety about him. He caressed me greatly. We went to dinner. He asked me to sit beside him. Among other things, he said that he liked the great world, and was charmed to observe the ridiculous, weak side of some people. Notre carrosse en cent lieux accroch,To add to the embarrassments of Frederick, the King of Poland, entirely under the control of his minister Brühl, who hated Frederick, entered into an alliance with Maria Theresa, and engaged to furnish her with thirty thousand troops, who were to be supported by the sea powers England and Holland, who were also in close alliance with Austria.