FORE:The camp was so utterly destroyed that Frederick could not even obtain pen and ink. He was obliged to write with a pencil. Not a loaf of bread nor a cup of wine was left for the exhausted king. The hungry soldiers, after a conflict of five hours, having had neither breakfast nor dinner, found no refreshments awaiting them; yet, without a murmur, they smoked their pipes, drank some spring water, and rejoiced in their great victory.
FORE:My children, said Frederick that night at parole, after such a days work you deserve rest. This day will send the renown of your name and that of the nation down to the latest posterity.
FORE:A new career came to open itself to me. And one must have been either without address or buried in stupidity not to have profited by an opportunity so advantageous. I seized this unexpected opportunity by the forelock. By dint of negotiating and intriguing, I succeeded in indemnifying our monarchy for its past losses by incorporating Polish Prussia with my old provinces. This acquisition was one of the most important we could make, because it joined Pommern to East Prussia, and because, rendering us masters of the Weichsel River, we gained the double advantage of being able to defend that kingdom (East Prussia), and to draw considerable tolls from the Weichsel, as all the trade of Poland goes by that river.
THREE:The authorship of the article could not be concealed. Frederick was indignant. He angrily seized his pen, and wrote a reply, which, though anonymous, was known by all to have been written by the king. In this reply he accused the writer of the article, whom he well knew to be Voltaire, of being a manifest retailer of lies, a concocter of stupid libels, and as guilty of conduct more malicious, more dastardly, more infamous than he had ever known before.THE INVASION OF SAXONY.
THREE:
