Fritz, having thus established his outposts, was accustomed to retire to his room with his teacher, lay aside his tight-fitting Prussian military coat, which he detested, and called his shroud, draw on a very beautiful, flowing French dressing-gown of scarlet, embroidered with gold, and decorated with sash and tags, and, with his hair dressed in the most fashionable style of the French court, surrender himself to the indulgence of his own luxurious tastes for sumptuous attire as well as for melodious sounds. He was thus, one day, in the height of his enjoyment, taking his clandestine music-lesson, when Lieutenant Katte came rushing into the room in the utmost dismay, with the announcement that the king was at the door. The wily and ever-suspicious monarch had stolen the march upon them. He was about to make his son a very unwelcome surprise visit.
Voltaire, speaking of this conflict, says, It was the most inconceivable and complete rout and discomfiture of which history433 makes any mention. Thirty thousand French and twenty thousand imperial troops were there seen making a disgraceful and precipitate flight before five battalions and a few squadrons. The defeats of Agincourt, Cressy, and Poitiers were not so humiliating.110The stunning news soon reached Frederick that General Fouquet, whom he had left in Silesia with twelve thousand men, had been attacked by a vastly superior force of Austrians. The assault was furious in the extreme. Thirty-one thousand Austrians commenced the assault at two oclock in the morning. By eight oclock the bloody deed was done. Ten thousand of the Prussians strewed the field with their gory corpses. Two thousand only escaped. General Fouquet himself was wounded and taken prisoner. To add to the anguish of the king, this disaster was to be attributed to the king himself. He had angrily ordered General Fouquet to adopt a measure which that general, better acquainted with the position and forces of the foe, saw to be fatal. Heroically he obeyed orders, though he knew that it would prove the destruction of his army.
ONE:At table his majesty told the queen that he had letters from Anspach; the young marquis to be at Berlin in May for his wedding; that M. Bremer, his tutor, was just coming with the ring of betrothal for Louisa. He asked my sister if that gave her pleasure, and how she would regulate her housekeeping when married. My sister had got into the way of telling him whatever she thought, and home truths sometimes, without his taking it ill. She answered, with her customary frankness, that she would have a good table, which should be delicately served, and, added she, which shall be better than yours. And if I have children I will not maltreat them like you, nor force them to eat what they have an aversion to.
On Tuesday evening, October 24, 1758, Frederick, in a rapid and secret march, protected by darkness, pushed his whole army around the right wing of the Austrian encampment, and took a very strong position at Reichenbach, in the rear of Marshal Daun, and on the road to Neisse. The Austrian general, astonished at this bold and successful man?uvre, now found that the march of Frederick to Neisse could by no possibility be prevented except by attacking him on his own chosen ground. This he did not dare to do. He therefore resolved to make a rush with his whole army to the west for the capture of Dresden. Frederick, in the mean time, by forced marches, was pressing forward to the east for the relief of Neisse. Thus the two armies were flying from each other in opposite directions.On the 6th of July, the trunk having arrived, the volume of poems was recovered and Voltaire was allowed to go on his way. His pen, dipped in gall, was an instrument which even a monarch might fear. It inflicted wounds upon the reputation of Frederick which will probably never be healed. Four years passed away, during which Voltaire and Frederick were almost entirely strangers to each other.Still, most of the courtly carousers did not comprehend this. And when the toast to Wilhelmina as Princess of Wales was received with such acclaim, they supposed that all doubt was at an end. The news flew upon the wings of the wind to Berlin. It was late in the afternoon of Monday, April 30. Wilhelmina writes:The king, my brother, she wrote, supports his misfortunes with a courage and a firmness worthy of him. I am in a frightful state, and will not survive the destruction of my house and family. That is the one consolation that remains to me. I can not write farther of it. My soul is so troubled that I know not what I am doing. To me there remains nothing but to follow his destiny if it is unfortunate. I have never piqued myself on being a philosopher, though I have made many efforts to become so. The small progress I made did teach me to despise grandeur and riches. But I could never find in philosophy any cure for the wounds of the heart, except that of getting done with our miseries by ceasing to live. The state I am in is worse than death. I see the greatest man of his age, my brother, my friend, reduced to the most frightful extremity. I see my whole family exposed to dangers and, perhaps, destruction. Would to Heaven I were alone loaded with all the miseries I have described to you.Frederick angrily replied, You can have no instructions to ask that question. And if you had, I have an answer ready for you. England has no right to inquire into my designs. Your great sea armaments, did I ask you any question about them? No! I was, and am, silent on that head.40My 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.
路见不平Eason吼
