THREE:
FORE:As usual, Frederick wrote a poem upon the occasion. It was vulgar and profane. Carlyle says of it, The author, with a wild burst of spiritual enthusiasm, sings the charms of the rearward part of certain men. He rises to the height of anti-biblical profanity, quoting Moses on the Hill of Vision; sinks to the bottomless of human or ultra-human depravity, quoting King Nicomedess experience on C?sar, happily known only to the learned. A most cynical, profane affair; yet we must say, by way of parenthesis, one which gives no countenance to Voltaires atrocities of rumor about Frederick himself in the matter.111 My dearest Brother,The enemy has just got into Silesia. We are not more than a mile from them. To-morrow must decide our fortune. If I die, do not forget a brother who has always loved you most tenderly. I recommend to you my most dear mother, my domestics, and my first battalion. Eichel and Schuhmacher are informed of all my testamentary wishes.
THREE:The Prussian minister replied that he could not conceive why he should be refused an audience; that he should not fail to be at the council-chamber at eleven oclock the next day to receive an answer to the proposals already made, and also to the proposals which he was prepared to make. He endeavored to inform Hartoff of the terms of compromise which the Prussian king was ready to present. But Hartoff refused to hear him, declaring that he had positive orders not to listen to any thing he had to say upon the subject. We will give the conclusion in the words of the Prussian minister, as found in his dispatch of the 18th of August, 1729:
FORE:An embassador, Count De Gotter, was sent to Vienna to present this demand to Maria Theresa. He was authorized, in case these terms were not accepted, to declare war. But in the mean time, before the count could possibly reach Vienna, consequently before there was any declaration of war, or even any demand presented, Frederick, at the head of his troops, had entered Silesia, and was seizing its defenseless fortresses.42
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THREE:Two days after committing this important document to Count Finck, Frederick took leave of his mother and his brother. His mother he never saw again. We have no evidence that on this visit he even called upon his irreproachable, amiable, neglected wife. In preparation for the worst, Frederick had provided poison for himself, and wore it constantly about his person. It consisted of several small pills in a glass tube. This fact is fully established.His sister Amelia and several other friends visited him at Breslau. Among others was his reader, Henry de Catt.
FORE:Thus deprived of all the ordinary comforts of life, the prince, in the nineteenth year of his age, was consigned to an imprisonment of absolute solitude. For weeks and months he was left to his own agitating thoughts, with the apparent blighting of every earthly hope, awaiting whatever doom his merciless father might award to him. His jailers, not unmindful of the embarrassing fact that their captive might yet become King of Prussia,102 with their fate in his hands, gradually treated him with all the secret kindness which they dared to exhibit.13
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THREE:The army, writes Prince Charles, mournfully, was greatly dilapidated. The soldiers were without clothes, and in a condition truly pitiable. So closely were we pursued by the enemy that at night we were compelled to encamp without tents.It is very evident, from the glimpses we catch of Fritz at this time, that he was a wild fellow, quite frivolous, and with but a feeble sense of moral obligation. General Schulenburg, an old soldier, of stern principles, visited him at Cüstrin, and sent an account of the interview to Baron Grumkow, under date of October 4th, 1731. From this letter we cull the following statement:
FORE:182 Frederick.
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