THREE:Order me, your majesty, said General Saldern, to attack the enemy and his batteries, and I will cheerfully, on the instant, obey; but I can not, I dare not, act against honor, oath, and duty. For this commission your majesty will easily find another person in my stead.
THREE:
THREE:
TWO:I am greatly surprised that your excellency does not more accurately follow my orders. If you were more skillful than C?sar, and did not with strict fidelity obey my directions, all341 else were of no help to me. I hope this notice, once for all, will be enough, and that in future you will give no cause for complaint.
TWO:The Russians, with empty meal-wagons and starving soldiers, had taken possession of Frankfort-on-the-Oder on the 29th of July. The city contained twelve thousand inhabitants. The ransom which the Russian general demanded to save the city from pillage by the Cossacks was four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Pillage by the Cossacks! No imagination can conceive the horrors of such an event. Nearly one hundred thousand men, frenzied with intoxication, brutal in their habits, restrained by no law, would inflict every outrage which fiends could conceive of. Well might fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, turn pale and feel the blood curdle in their veins at the thought. Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars ransom! That was nearly forty dollars for each individual, man, woman, and child! Compliance with the demand was impossible. Frankfort, in its impoverishment, could by no possibility raise a tenth part of the sum. Dreadful was the consternation. There was no relenting; the money or the pillage!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.