FORE:It was soon ascertained that the main body of the Austrian249 army was fifteen miles to the southwest, at Freudenthal, pressing on toward Neisse. General Neipperg, without the slightest suspicion that Frederick was any where in his vicinity, had sent aside a reconnoitring party of skirmishers to ascertain if there were any Prussians at Jagerndorf. General Neipperg, at Freudenthal, was as near Neisse as Frederick was at Jagerndorf.141 I have received a letter from the king, all agog about the princess. When his first fire of approbation is spent, you might, praising her all the while, lead him to notice her faults. Mon Dieu, has he not already seen what an ill-assorted marriage comes tomy sister of Anspach and her husband, who hate one another like the fire? He has a thousand vexations from it every day.
FORE:I shall not attempt to describe the battle which ensuedso bloody, so disastrous to the Prussians. It was, like all other desperate battles, a scene of inconceivable confusion, tumult, and horror. At eight oclock in the morning, General Finck (who was in command of the right wing of the Prussians) was in position to move upon the extreme northern point of attack. It was not until half past eleven that Frederick, in command of the main body of the army, was ready to make a co-operative assault from the east. At the point of attack the Russians had seventy-483two cannons in battery. The Prussians opened upon them with sixty guns. Templeton describes the cannonade as the loudest which he had yet ever heard.
FORE:The correspondence carried on between Frederick and Voltaire, and their mutual comments, very clearly reveal the relations existing between these remarkable men. Frederick was well aware that the eloquent pen of the great dramatist and historian could give him celebrity throughout Europe. Voltaire was keenly alive to the consideration that the friendship of a monarch could secure to him position and opulence. And yet each privately spoke of the other very contemptuously, while in the correspondence which passed between them they professed for each other the highest esteem and affection. Frederick wrote from Berlin as follows to Voltaire:
THREE: Voltaire.Very well, said the king, impatiently; let us see, then, what there is more.
THREE:
