THREE: With coursers lank-sided,On Saturday morning, August 28, 1756, the Prussian army, over one hundred thousand strong, entered Saxony at three different points on the northern frontier. Frederick, with about sixty thousand troops, crossed the Elbe at Torgau, and seized upon Leipsic. Duke Ferdinand, of Hanover, led his columns405 across the frontier about eighty miles to the right. The Duke of Brunswick-Bevern crossed about the same distance to the left. Each column was stronger than the whole Saxon army. The appointed place of rendezvous for the three divisions was the city of Dresden, the capital of Saxony. By the route marked out, each column had a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles to traverse.
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THREE:At Wesel the king met Maupertuis, to whom we have already alluded, who was then one of the greatest of European celebrities. His discovery of the flattening of the earth at the poles had given him such renown that the kings of Russia, France, and Prussia were all lavishing honors upon him. It was a great gratification to Frederick that he had secured his services in organizing the Berlin Academy. While at Wesel the king was seized by a fever, which shut him up for a time in the small chateau of Moyland. He had never yet met Voltaire, and being very anxious to see him, wrote to him as follows, under date of September 6th, 1740:The months rolled rapidly on, and Fritz, having entered his fourteenth year, was appointed by his father, in May, 1725, captain in the Potsdam Grenadier Guard. This giant regiment has attained world-wide renown, solely from the peculiarity of its organization. Such a body of men never existed before, never will again. It was one of the singular freaks of the Prussian king to form a grenadier guard of men of gigantic stature. In the prosecution of this senseless aim not only his own realms were ransacked, but Europe and even Asia was explored in search of giants. The army was with Frederick William the great object of life, and the giant guard was the soul of the army. This guard consisted of three battalions, 800 in each, 2400 in all. The shortest of the men were nearly seven feet high. The tallest were almost nine feet in height. They had been gathered, at an enormous expense, out of every country where they could be found. No greater favor could be conferred upon the king than to obtain for him a giant. Many amusing anecdotes are related of the stratagems to which the king resorted to obtain these mammoth soldiers. Portraits were painted of all of them. Frederick William paid very little regard to individual rights or to the law of nations if any chance presented itself by which he could seize upon one of these monster men. Reigning in absolutism, compared with which the despotism of Turkey is mild, if he found in his domains any young woman of remarkable stature, he would compel her to marry one of his giants. It does not, however, appear that he thus succeeded in perpetuating a gigantic race.
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THREE: My dear Voltaire,Resist no longer the eagerness I have to see you. Do, in my favor, whatever your humanity allows. In the end of August I go to Wesel, and perhaps farther. Promise that you will come and join me, for I could not live happy nor die tranquil without having embraced you. Thousand compliments to the Marquise (Madame Du Chatelet, the divine Emilie). I am busy with both handsworking at the army with one hand, at the people and the fine arts with the other.To his friend Jordan, who was also in Breslau, he wrote:
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THREE:You are greatly wanting to me here. In all these three hundred miles I have found no human creature comparable to the Swan of Padua. I would willingly give ten cubic leagues of ground for a genius similar to yours. But I perceive I was about entreating you to return fast, and join me again, while you are not yet arrived where your errand was. Make haste to arrive then, to execute your commission, and fly back to me. I wish you had a Fortunatus hat; it is the only thing defective in your outfit.From seven till nine Duhan takes him on history; at nine oclock comes Noltenius (a clergyman from Berlin) with the Christian religion till a quarter to eleven. Then Fritz rapidly washes his face with water, his hands with soap and water; clean shirt; powders and puts on his coat. At eleven oclock he comes to the king, dines with him at twelve, and stays till two.
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THREE:A royal crown was placed upon my head, together with twenty-four curls of false hair, each as big as my arm. I could not hold up my head, as it was too weak for so great a weight. My gown was a very rich silver brocade, trimmed with gold lace, and my train was twelve yards long. I thought I should have died under this dress.
THREE: Schwartz, at Neisse, made the unpardonable mistake of not sufficiently besetting the height on the left wing; had it been serious, the battle had been lost. At Breslau, Erlach, instead of covering the army by seizing the heights, marched off with his division straight as a row of cabbages into that defile; whereby, had it been earnest, the enemys cavalry would have cut down our infantry, and the fight was gone.
THREE:
