Under these circumstances, Frederick made indirect but vigorous exertions to bring the war to a close. I am ready and desirous now, he said, as at all times, for peace. I will immediately sheathe the sword if I can be guaranteed the possession of Silesia.
Wilhelmina.Heir is a gallant enough young gentleman. Frederick judges that he probably will have haggled to sign any Austrian convention for dismemberment of Baiern, and that he will start into life upon it so soon as he sees hope.
ONE:He condemned all pleasures; damnable all of them, he said. You were to speak of nothing but the Word of God only. All other conversation was forbidden. It was always he who carried on the improving talk at table, where he did the office of reader, as if it had been a refectory of monks. The king treated us to a sermon every afternoon. His valet de chambre gave out a psalm, which we all sang. You had to listen to this sermon with as much devout attention as if it had been an apostles. My brother and I had all the mind in the world to laugh. We tried hard to keep from laughing, but often we burst out. Thereupon reprimand, with all the anathemas of the Church hurled on us, which we had to take with a contrite, penitent aira thing not easy to bring your face to at the moment.
TWO:I have been to Lebus. There is excellent land there; fine weather for the husbandmen. Major R?der passed this way, and dined with me last Wednesday. He has got a fine fellow for my most all-gracious fathers regiment. I depend on my most all-gracious fathers grace that he will be good to me. I128 ask for nothing, and for no happiness in the world but what comes from him; and hope that he will some day remember me in grace, and give me the blue coat to put on again.
TWO:Wilhelmina, having thus given her very reluctant assent to her marriage with the Prince of Baireuth, wrote as follows to her mother: Commencement of the Sixth Campaign.The Fortified Camp at Bunzelwitz.Skillful Engineering.Unintermitted Toil of the Soldiers.Retreat of the Russians.Loss of Schweidnitz.Peculiar Treatment of General Zastrow.Close of the Sixth Campaign.The King at Breslau.Desponding Letter to DArgens.Death of Elizabeth of Russia.Accession of Peter III.His Marriage with the Daughter of a Prussian General.Takes the Baptismal Name of Catharine.Assassination of Peter III.Curious Proclamation by the Empress.Commencement of the Seventh Campaign.Alliance of Russia with Prussia.Withdrawal from the Alliance.Termination of the War.
TWO:There were some gross vulgarities in Voltaires letter which we refrain from quoting. Both of these communications were printed and widely circulated, exciting throughout Europe contempt and derision. Voltaire had still the copy of the kings private poems. Frederick, quite irritated, and not knowing what infamous use Voltaire might make of the volume, which contained some very severe satires against prominent persons, and particularly against his uncle, the King of England, determined, at all hazards, to recover the book. He knew it would be of no avail to write to Voltaire to return it.
TWO:The king esteems his wife, and can not endure her. It was but a few days ago she handed him a letter petitioning for some things of which she had the most pressing want. Frederick took the letter with that most smiling, gracious air, which he assumes at pleasure, and, without breaking the seal, tore it up before her face, made her a profound bow, and turned his back on her.
TWO:My brother Henry has gone to see the Duchess of Gotha to-day. I am so oppressed with grief that I would rather keep my sadness to myself. I have reason to congratulate myself much on account of my brother Henry. He has behaved like an angel, as a soldier, and well toward me as a brother. I can not, unfortunately, say the same of the elder. He sulks at me, and has sulkily retired to Torgau, from which place he has gone to Wittenberg. I shall leave him to his caprices and to his bad conduct; and I prophesy nothing for the future unless the younger guide him.The king then hastened on to Schweidnitz, a few miles west from Breslau. This was a small town, strongly fortified, about equally distant from the three beleaguered fortressesNeisse, Brieg, and Glogau. The young monarch was daily becoming more aware that he had embarked in an enterprise which threatened him with fearful peril. He had not only failed to secure a single ally, but there were indications that England and other powers were in secret deliberation to join against him. He soon learned that England had sent a gift or loan of a million of dollarsa large sum in those daysto replenish the exhausted treasury of Maria Theresa. His minister in Russia also transmitted to him an appalling rumor that a project was in contemplation by the King of England, the King of Poland, Anne, regent of Russia, and Maria Theresa, to unite, and so partition the Prussian kingdom as to render the ambitious Frederick powerless to disturb the peace of Europe. The general motives which239 influenced the great monarchies in the stupendous war which was soon evolved are sufficiently manifest. But these motives led to a complication of intrigues which it would be alike tedious and unprofitable to attempt to unravel.
Madam,I am much obliged by the wishes you deign to form; but a heavy fever I have taken hinders me from answering you. P.S.I most humbly beg your majesty not to speak of this323 to the queen-mother, as perhaps she would not approve of the step we are now taking. My dear Voltaire,You wish to know what I have been about since leaving Berlin. Annexed you will find a description of it.
荣誉榜
THREE:Frederick was indignant. Scornfully he rejected the proposal, saying, Such a paltry sum might with propriety, perhaps, be offered to a petty duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, but it is not suitable to make such a proposition to the King of Prussia.
THREE:It is not the king that I love in him; it is the man. If I considered the dignity and the power of the king, I should only seek to keep myself at a distance from him. But the qualities which are personal to him, both of the heart and of the head, they attach me to him for life, without reserve and without fear.26What was the sum of money your majesty then offered the Queen of Austria? Lord Hyndford inquired.
