ONE:Another severe fit of coughing ensued, and the king, having with difficulty got rid of the phlegm, said, The mountain is passed; we shall be better now. These were his last words. The expiring monarch sat in his chair, but in a state of such extreme weakness that he was continually sinking down, with his chest and neck so bent forward that breathing was almost impossible. One of his faithful valets took the king upon his knee and placed his left arm around his waist, while the king threw his right arm around the valets neck.During the first part of his journey the king had been remarkably cheerful and genial, but toward its close he was attacked by a new fit of very serious illness. To the discomfort of all, his chronic moodiness returned. A few extracts from P?llnitzs account of this journey throws interesting light upon those scenes:
FORE:We can not afford the least narrative of G?rtz and his courses: imagination, from a few traits, will sufficiently conceive them. He had gone first to Karl Theodors minister: Dead to it, I fear; has already signed? Alas! yes. Upon which to Zweibrück, the heirs minister, whom his master had distinctly ordered to sign,554 but who, at his own peril, gallant man, delayed, remonstrated, had not yet done it; and was able to answer:Voltaire, being safe out of Prussia, in the territory of the King of Poland, instead of hastening to Plombires, tarried in Dresden, and then in Leipsic. From those places he began shooting, through magazines, newspapers, and various other instrumentalities, his poisoned darts at M. Maupertuis. Though these malignant assaults, rapidly following each other, were anonymous, no one could doubt their authorship. M. Maupertuis, exasperated, wrote to him from Berlin on the 7th of April:
FORE:
FORE:On the 19th of February, 1741, Frederick, having been at home but three weeks, again left Berlin with re-enforcements, increasing his army of invasion to sixty thousand men, to complete the conquest of Silesia by the capture of the three fortresses which still held out against him. On the 21st he reached Glogau. After carefully reconnoitring the works, he left directions with Prince Leopold of Dessau, who commanded the Prussian troops there, to press the siege with all possible vigor. He was fearful that Austrian troops might soon arrive to the relief of the place.
