ONE:To Voltaire the king wrote, in a very similar strain, four days later, on the 23d of December:Alas! your majesty, the man replied, we are so few, and the Austrians are so many, that defeat is certain.
TWO:Still Wusterhausen was but a hunting-lodge, which was occupied by the king only during a few weeks in the autumn. Fritz had many playmateshis brothers and sisters, his cousins, and the children of General Finkenstein. To most boys, the streams, and groves, and ponds of Wusterhausen, abounding with fish and all kinds of game, with ponies to drive and boats to row, with picturesque walks and drives, would have been full of charms. But the tastes of Fritz did not lie in that direction. He does not seem to have become strongly attached to any of his young companions, except to his sister Wilhelmina. The affection and confidence which united their hearts were truly beautiful. They encountered together some of the severest of lifes trials, but heartfelt sympathy united them. The nickname which these children gave their unamiable father was Stumpy.On the 26th of January Frederick set out from Glatz, with a strong cortge, for Olmütz, far away to the southeast. This place his troops had occupied for a month past. His route led through a chain of mountains, whose bleak and dreary defiles were clogged with drifted snow, and swept by freezing gales. It was a dreadful march, accompanied by many disasters and much suffering.
ONE:Late in the fall of 1739 the health of Frederick William was so rapidly failing that it became manifest to all that his days on earth would soon be ended. He sat joylessly in his palace, listening to the moaning of the wind, the rustle of the falling leaves, and the pattering of the rain. His gloomy spirit was in accord with the melancholy days. More dreary storms darkened his turbid soul than those which wrecked the autumnal sky. Frederick.
TWO:The next day the Prussian army, in two divisions, occupying a space about ten miles long and ten broad in the lines of march, crossed the frontiers, and entered the Silesian territory.45 Frederick issued a proclamation declaring that he had come as a friend; that no one would be molested in person, property, or religious privileges; and that every thing used by the army would be amply paid for.
