ONE:A bomb bursting in the room could scarcely have created a greater panic. Katte and Quantz seized the flutes and music-books, and rushed into a wood-closet, where they stood quaking with terror. Fritz threw off his dressing-gown, hurried on his military coat, and sat down at the table, affecting to be deeply engaged with his books. The king, frowning like a thunder-cloudfor he always frowned when he drew near Fritzburst into the room. The sight of the frizzled hair of his son kindled the paternal wrath into a tornado pitch. The king had a wonderful command of the vocabulary of abuse, and was heaping epithets of vituperation upon the head of the prince, when he caught sight of the dressing-gown behind a screen. He seized the glittering garment, and, with increasing outbursts of rage, crammed it into the fire. Then searching the room, he collected all the French books, of which Fritz had quite a library, and, sending for a bookseller near by, ordered him to take every volume away, and sell them for what they would bring. For more than an hour the king was thus raging, like a maniac, in the apartment of his son. Fortunately he did not look into the wood-closet. Had he done so, both Quantz and Katte would have been terribly beaten, even had they escaped being sent immediately to the scaffold.Others have made roads for us. We make them for posterity. But Christ has opened for us all a road to heaven.46
THREE:On the 29th of December, the Old Dessauer, with thirty-five thousand men, crossed the frontiers and entered Saxony. He marched rapidly upon Leipsic, and seized the town, from which a division of Rutowskis army precipitately fled. Leopold found here quite a supply of commissary and ordnance stores. He also replenished his empty army-chest by levying a contribution of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars upon the inhabitants.368 Then, by a rapid march northeast to Torgo, on the Elbe, he captured another imperial magazine. Turning south, he pressed his troops along up the river to Myssen, which was within two days easy march of Dresden. Here there was a bridge across the Oder. Frederick was pushing his troops, by forced marches, from Hennersdorf, to effect a junction with Leopold at Myssen. Unitedly they were to fall upon Grüne and Rutowski at Dresden. In the mean time, also, Prince Charles, a despondent man, crushed by domestic woe and humiliating defeats, was moving, by not very energetic steps, to re-enforce the allied troops at Dresden.
THREE:Voltaire, on his journey to Paris, would pass through Frankfort. Frederick secretly employed a Prussian officer to obtain from the authorities there the necessary powers, and to arrest him, and take from him the cross of Merit, the gold key of the chamberlain, and especially the volume of poems. The officer, M. Freytag, kept himself minutely informed of Voltaires movements. At eight oclock in the evening of the 31st of May the illustrious philosopher arrived, with a small suite, traveling in considerable state, and stopped at the Golden Lion. M. Freytag was on the spot. He was a man of distinction. He called upon Voltaire, and, after the interchange of the customary civilities, informed the poet that he was under the necessity of arresting him in the name of the King of Prussia, and detaining him until he should surrender the cross, the key, and the volume of poems. Voltaire was greatly annoyed. He professed warm friendship for the King of Prussia. Very reluctantly, and not until after several hours of altercation, he surrendered the key and the cross. The volume of poems he was very anxious indeed to retain, and affirmed that they were, he knew not where, with luggage he had left behind him in Leipsic or Dresden. He was informed that he would be detained as a prisoner until the volume was produced.It was but sixty miles from Prague to Tabor. The march of Fredericks division led through Kunraditz, across the Sazawa River, through Bistritz and Miltchin. It was not until the ninth332 day of their toilsome march that the steeples of Tabor were descried, in the distant horizon, on its high, scarped rock. Here both columns united. Half of the draught cattle had perished by the way, and half of the wagons had been abandoned.
THREE: The Battle of Chotusitz.Letter to Jordan.Results of the Battle.Secret Negotiations.The Treaty of Breslau.Entrance into Frankfort.Treachery of Louis XV.Results of the Silesian Campaigns.Panegyrics of Voltaire.Imperial Character of Maria Theresa.Her Grief over the Loss of Silesia.Anecdote of Senora Barbarina.Duplicity of both Frederick and Voltaire.Gayety in Berlin.Straitened Circumstances.Unamiability of Frederick.We have often spoken of the entire neglect with which the king treated his virtuous and amiable queen. Preuss relates the following incident:
