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× FORE:When the king reached Lissa he found the village full of Austrian officers and soldiers in a state of utter disorganization and confusion. Had the Austrians known their strength or the weakness of the king, they might easily have taken him captive. Frederick was somewhat alarmed. He, however, assumed a bold front, and rode to the principal house in the town, which was a little one side of the main street. The house was crowded with Austrian officers, bustling about, seeking lodgings for the night. The king stepped in with a slight escort, and said gayly,

× FORE: ��I am too tired to reply to your delightful verses, and shivering too much with cold to taste all the charm of them. But that will come round again. Do not ask poetry from a man who is actually doing the work of a wagoner, and sometimes even of a wagoner stuck in the mud. Would you like to know my way of life? We march from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon. I dine then; afterward I work��I receive tiresome visits; with these comes a detail of insipid matters of business. ��Tis wrong-headed men, punctiliously difficult, who are to be set right; heads too hot which must be restrained, idle fellows that must be urged, impatient men that must be rendered docile, plunderers to be restrained within the bounds of equity, babblers to hear babbling, dumb people to keep in talk; in fine, one has to drink with those that like it, to eat with those who are hungry; one has to become a Jew with Jews, a pagan with pagans. Such are my occupations, which I would willingly make over to another if the phantom they call glory did not rise on me too often. In truth, it is a great folly, but a folly difficult to cast away when once you are smitten by it.The officer drew up a statement of the facts, and sent it to the king, with the complaint that he had been dishonored in discharging the duties intrusted to him by his majesty. The king sent the following reply:

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× FORE:The astounded Austrians bowed to the dust before him, escorted him to the best room, and, stealing out into the darkness, made their way as rapidly as possible to the bridge, which at the east end of the street crossed the Schweidnitz Water. At the farther end of the bridge Austrian cannon were planted to arrest the pursuit. The officers hurried across, and vanished in the gloom of night, followed by the river-guard. The Prussian cannoneers steadily pursued, and kept up through the night an incessant fire upon the rear of the foe.At Geldern, when within a few miles of Wesel, the king��s wrath flamed up anew as he learned that Lieutenant Keith had escaped. The imperiled young officer, warned of his danger, had saddled his horse as if for an evening ride in the country. He passed out at one of the gates of the city, and, riding gently till darkness came, he put spurs to his horse and escaped to the Hague. Here, through the friendly offices of Lord Chesterfield,93 the British embassador, he embarked for England. The authorities there received him kindly, and he entered the British army. For ten years he was heard of no more. The king dispatched officers in pursuit of the fugitive, and redoubled the vigilance with which Fritz was guarded.

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× FORE:Though Fritz wrote a legible business hand, was well instructed in most points of useful knowledge, and had a very decided taste for elegant literature, he never attained correctness in spelling. The father was bitterly opposed to Latin. Perhaps it was the prohibition which inspired the son with an intense desire to learn that language. He took secret lessons. His vigilant father38 caught him in the very act, with dictionary and grammar, and a teacher by his side. The infuriated king, volleying forth his rage, would have caned the teacher had he not in terror fled.5

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× FORE:D��Argens spent the winter with the king at Leipsic. He gives the following incident: ��One day I entered the king��s apartment, and found him sitting on the floor with a platter of fried meat, from which he was feeding his dogs. He had a little rod, with which he kept order among them, and shoved the best bits to his favorites.��While these scenes of war and intrigue were transpiring, no one knowing what alarming developments any day might present, Vienna was thrown into a state of terror in apprehension of the immediate approach of a French army to open upon it all the horrors of a bombardment. The citizens were called out en masse to work upon the fortifications. The court fled to Presburg, in Hungary. The national archives were hurried off to Gr?tz. The royal family was dispersed. There were but six thousand troops in the city. General Neipperg, with nearly the whole Austrian army, was a hundred and fifty miles distant to the north, on the banks of the Neisse. The queen, on the 10th of September, assembled at Presburg the Hungarian Parliament, consisting almost exclusively of chivalric nobles renowned in war. The queen appeared before them with her husband, the Grand-duke Francis, by her side, and with a nurse attending, holding her infant son and heir. Addressing them in Latin, in a brief, pathetic speech, she said: