FORE:338 Just at that time, when all hope seemed lost, it so happened that a cannon-ball crushed the foot of the Austrian commander. This disaster, together with the darkness and the torrents of rain, caused the fire of the enemy to cease. The next morning some Prussian re-enforcements came to the rescue of the king, and he escaped.
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FORE:
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FORE:164 On the fourth day after the arrival of the Crown Prince at Baireuth, a courier came with a letter from the queen conjuring him to return immediately, as the king was growing worse and worse. Frederick immediately hastened to Potsdam, and on the 12th of October entered the sick-chamber of his father in the palace there. He seems to have thought nothing of his wife, who was at Berlin. We have no evidence that he wrote to her during his absence, or that he visited her upon his return. For four months the king remained a great sufferer in Potsdam, trembling between life and death. It was often with great difficulty that he could breathe. He was impatient and irritable in the extreme. As he was rolled about in his Bath chair, he would petulantly cry out, Air! air! as if his attendants were to blame for his shortness of breath. The distress from the dropsy was very great. If you roll the king a little fast, writes an attendant, you hear the water jumble in his body. The Crown Prince was deeply affected in view of the deplorable condition of his father, and wept convulsively. The stern old king was stern to the end. He said one day to Frederick, If you begin at the wrong end with things, and all go topsy-turvy after I am gone, I will laugh at you out of my grave.We are alone, Fritz replied, and I will conceal nothing from you. The queen, by her miserable intrigues, has been the source of our misfortunes. Scarcely were you gone when she began again with England. She wished to substitute our sister Charlotte for you, and to contrive her marriage with the Prince of Wales.
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FORE:
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FORE:Though, as we may see from Fredericks private correspondence, he suffered terribly in these hours of adversity and peril, he assumed in public a tranquil and even a jocose air. Meeting De Catt upon the evening of that dreadful day, he approached him, smiling, and with theatric voice and gesture declaimed a passage from Racine, the purport of which was, Well, here you see me not a conqueror, but vanquished.Poor Linsenbarth had a feather bed, a small chest of clothes, and a bag of books. He went to a humble inn, called the White Swan, utterly penniless. The landlord, seeing that he could levy upon his luggage in case of need, gave him food and a small room in the garret to sleep in. Here he remained in a state verging upon despair for eight weeks. Some of the simple neighbors advised him to go directly to the king, as every poor man could do at certain hours in the day. He wrote a brief statement of the facts, and started on foot for Potsdam. We give the result in the words of Linsenbarth:
FORE:
FORE:The two English gentlemen, stout, burly, florid men, were dressed in the gorgeous court costume of those days. Each wore a large, frizzled, powdered wig. Their shirts were heavily ruffled in the bosoms and at the wrists. Their coats, of antique cut, were covered with embroidery of gold lace. Their waistcoats hung down in deep flaps, and large buckles adorned their shoes.You speak of my personal safety. You ought to know, as I do, that it is not necessary for me to live. But while I do live I must fight for my country, and save it if it be possible. In many little things I have had luck; I think of taking for my motto, Maximus in minimis, et minimus in maximis.154
FORE:250 General Neipperg, as his men were weary with their long march, did not make an attack, but allowed his troops a short season of repose in the enjoyment of the comforts of Neisse. The next morning, the 6th, Frederick continued his retreat to Friedland, ten miles farther north. He was anxious to get between the Austrians and Ohlau. He had many pieces of artillery there, and large stores of ammunition, which would prove a rich prize to the Austrians. It was Fredericks intention to cross the River Neisse at a bridge at Sorgau, eight miles from Friedland; but the officer in charge there had been compelled to destroy the bridge, to protect himself from the Austrian horsemen, who in large numbers had appeared upon the opposite banks. Prince Leopold was sent with the artillery and a strong force to reconstruct the bridge and force the passage, but the Austrian dragoons were encountered in such numbers that the enterprise was found impossible.
FORE:FREDERICK AND HIS SISTER.
