All religions must be tolerated, and the kings solicitor must have an eye that none of them make unjust encroachments on the other; for in this country every man must get to heaven his own way.Should it chance that my army in Saxony were beaten, or that the French should get possession of Hanover, and threaten us with invasion from that quarter, or that the Russians should get through by Neumark, you are to save the royal family and the archives. Should we be beaten in Saxony, remove the royal family to Cüstrin. Should the Russians enter by Neumark, or a misfortune befall us in the Lausitz, all must go to Magdeburg, but not till the last extremity. The garrison, the royal family, and the treasure must be kept together. In such a case, the silver plate and the gold plate must at once be coined into money.
THREE:Olmütz was ninety miles from Troppau, in Silesia, where Frederick had established his base of supplies. This was a long line of communication to protect. General Daun, with a numerous Austrian army, all whose movements were veiled by clouds of those fleet and shaggy horsemen called Pandours, was forty miles to the west, at Leutomischel. Cautious in the extreme, nothing could draw him into a general battle. But he watched his foe with an eagle eye, continually assailing his line of communication, and ever ready to strike his heaviest blows upon any exposed point.
The reader will bear in mind that the camp at G?ttin, menacing Hanover, was acting in co-operation with Fredericks ally, France, and that forty thousand men had been sent from France to the aid of those Prussian troops. Frederick now, entering into secret treaty with the enemy, while still feigning to be true to his ally, was perfidiously withdrawing his troops so as to leave the French unsupported. His treachery went even farther than this. In the presence of Lord Hyndford, the representative of England, he informed the Austrian general minutely how he could, to the greatest advantage, attack the French. Frederick.THE RECONCILIATION.It was a dreary winter to Frederick in Breslau. Sad, silent, and often despairing, he was ever inflexibly resolved to struggle till the last possible moment, and, if need be, to bury himself beneath the ruins of his kingdom. All his tireless energies he devoted to the Herculean work before him. No longer did he affect gayety or seek recreations. Secluded, solitary, sombre, he took counsel of no one. In the possession of absolute power, he issued his commands as with the authority of a god.
