THREE:It would seem that Frederick was now disposed to compromise. He authorized the suggestion to be made to the court at Vienna by his minister, Count Gotter, that he was ready to withdraw238 from his enterprise, and to enter into alliance with Austria, if the queen would surrender to him the duchy of Glogau only, which was but a small part of Silesia. But to these terms the heroic young queen would not listen. She justly regarded them but as the proposition of the highway robber, who offers to leave one his watch if he will peaceably surrender his purse. Whatever regrets Frederick might have felt in view of the difficulties in which he found himself involved, not the slightest indication of them is to be seen in his correspondence. He had passed the Rubicon. And now he summoned all his energiessuch energies as the world has seldom, if ever, witnessed before, to carry out the enterprise upon which he had so recklessly entered, and from which he could not without humiliation withdraw.
THREE: It is not my purpose to lose battles by the base conduct of my generals; wherefore I hereby appoint that you, next year, if I be alive, assemble the army between Breslau and Ohlau; for four days before I arrive in your camp, carefully man?uvre with the ignorant generals, and teach them what their duty is. Regiment Von Arnim and regiment Von Kanitz are to act the enemy; and whoever does not then fulfill his duty shall go to court-martial; for I should think it a shame of any country to keep such people, who trouble themselves so little about their business.
THREE:The correspondence carried on between Frederick and Voltaire, and their mutual comments, very clearly reveal the relations existing between these remarkable men. Frederick was well aware that the eloquent pen of the great dramatist and historian could give him celebrity throughout Europe. Voltaire was keenly alive to the consideration that the friendship of a monarch could secure to him position and opulence. And yet each privately spoke of the other very contemptuously, while in the correspondence which passed between them they professed for each other the highest esteem and affection. Frederick wrote from Berlin as follows to Voltaire:
TWO: