During all the day of Wednesday weeping friends stood around the bed, as the lamp of life flickered in its socket. Every moment it was expected that the emperor would breathe his last. At two oclock the next morning the spirit took its flight, and the lifeless clay alone remained. The grief-stricken empress closed the eyes of her departed husband, kissed his hands, and was carried out more dead than alive. Thus ended the male line of the house of Hapsburg, after five centuries of royal sway. The emperor died on the 20th of October 1740, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.Again he writes, under the same date, to Cardinal De Fleury, then the most prominent member of the cabinet of Louis XV.:
ONE:Not only I, the aid replied, but the whole army, firmly believe it of your majesty.
ONE:Poland, ever in turmoil, was at this time choosing a king. The emperor advocated the claims of August of Saxony. France urged Stanislaus, a Polish noble, whose daughter had married the French dauphin. War ensued between France and Germany. Frederick William became the ally of the emperor. An army of ten thousand men, admirably equipped and organized, was upon the march for the Rhine, to act with the emperor against France. The Crown Prince was very eager to join the expedition, and obtained permission to do so.I liked dancing, and was taking advantage of my chances. Grumkow came up to me, in the middle of a minuet, and said, Mon dieu, madame, you seem to have got bit by the tarantula. Dont you see those strangers who have just come in? I stopped short, and, looking all around, I noticed at last a young man, dressed in gray, whom I did not know. Go, then, said Grumkow, and embrace the Crown Prince. There he is before you. My whole frame was agitated with joy. Oh, heavens, my brother! cried I; but I do not see him. Where is he? For Gods sake show him to me.
THREE:I, as well as many others, had hardly time to put on my clothes. As I was leading my wife, with a young child in her arms, and my other children and servants before mewho were almost naked, having, ever since the first fright, run about as they got out of bedthe bombs and red-hot balls fell round462 about us. The bombs, in their bursting, dashed the houses to pieces, and every thing that was in their way. Every body that could got out of the town as fast as possible. The crowd of naked and in the highest degree wretched people was vastly great.
His energy inspired the whole kingdom, and paved the way25 for the achievements of his son. The father created the machine with which the son attained such wonderful results. He commuted the old feudal service into a fixed money payment. He goaded the whole realm into industry, compelling even the apple-women to knit at the stalls. The crown lands were carefully farmed out. He drained bogs, planted colonies, established manufactures, and in every way encouraged the use of Prussian products. He carried with him invariably a stout rattan cane. Upon the slightest provocation, like a madman, he would thrash those who displeased him. He was thoroughly an arbitrary king, ruling at his sovereign will, and disposing of the liberty, the property, and the lives of his subjects at his pleasure. Every year he was accumulating large masses of coin, which he deposited in barrels in the cellar of his palace. He had no powers of graceful speech, but spent his energetic, joyless life in grumbling and growling.While these scenes were transpiring, the Crown Prince was at Cüstrin, upon probation, being not yet admitted to the presence of his father. He seems to have exerted himself to the utmost to please the king, applying himself diligently to become familiar with all the tedious routine and details of the administration of finance, police, and the public domains. Fritz was naturally very amiable. He was consequently popular in the little town in which he resided, all being ready to do every thing in their power to serve him. The income still allowed him by his father was so small that he would have suffered from poverty had not the gentry in the neighborhood, regardless of the prohibition to lend money to the prince, contributed secretly to replenish his purse.
