1“He got no improvement in breeding, as we intimated; none at all: fought, on the contrary, with his young cousin, afterward our George II., a boy twice his age, though of weaker bone, and gave him a bloody nose, to the scandal and consternation of the French Protestant gentlemen and court dames in their stiff silks. ‘Ahee your electoral highness!’ This had been a rough unruly boy from the first discovery of him.”—Carlyle.

2GestÄndnisse eines Œsterreichischen Veterans, i., p. 64.

3“When his majesty took a walk, every human being fled before him, as if a tiger had broken loose from a menagerie. If he met a lady in the street, he gave her a kick, and told her to go home and mind her brats. If he saw a clergyman staring at the soldiers, he admonished the reverend gentleman to betake himself to study and prayer, and enforced this pious advice by a sound caning administered on the spot. But it was in his own house that he was most unreasonable and ferocious. His palace was hell, and he the most execrable of fiends.”—Macaulay.

4“It was the queen-mother who encouraged the prince in his favorite amusement, and who engaged musicians for his service. But so necessary was secrecy in all these negotiations that if the king, his father, had discovered he was disobeyed, all these sons of Apollo would have incurred the danger of being hanged. The prince frequently took occasion to meet his musicians a-hunting, and had his concerts either in a forest or cavern.”—Burney, Present State of Music in Germany, ii., 139.

5“One of the preceptors ventured to read the ‘Golden Bull’ in the original Latin with the prince royal. Frederick William entered the room, and broke out, in his usual kingly style, ‘Rascal, what are you at there?’ ‘Please your majesty,’ answered the preceptor, ‘I was explaining the “Golden Bull” to his royal highness.’ ‘I’ll Golden Bull you, you rascal!’ roared the majesty of Prussia. Up went the king’s cane, away ran the terrified instructor, and Frederick’s classical studies ended forever.”—Macaulay.

6“Frederick William and George II., though brothers-in-law, and, in a manner, brought up together, could never endure each other, even when children. This personal hatred and settled antipathy had like to have proved fatal to their subjects. The King of England used to style the King of Prussia my brother the sergeant. The King of Prussia called the King of England my brother the player. This animosity soon infected their dealings, and did not fail to have its influence on the most important events.”—Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, by Frederick II., vol. ii., p. 69.

7“It was a marriage much beneath what this princess might have pretended to. But Frederick William loved such alliances—first, because they were at hand, and brought about without trouble, and thus his daughters were taken off his hands at an early age; and, secondly, because to these little princes the honor of obtaining a Princess of Prussia was sufficient, whereas great sovereigns would have required a more considerable dower than the avaricious habits of Frederick William permitted him to give.”—Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover.

8“The sad truth, dimly indicated, is sufficiently visible. His life for the next four or five years was extremely dissolute. Poor young man, he has got into a disastrous course; consorts chiefly with debauched young fellows, as Lieutenants Katte, Keith, and others of their stamp, who lead him on ways not pleasant to his father, nor conformable to the laws of this universe. Health, either of body or mind, is not to be looked for in his present way of life. The bright young soul, with its fine strengths and gifts wallowing like a rhinoceros in the mud bath. Some say it is wholesome for a human soul; not we.”—Carlyle, ii., p. 21.

9“Never in any romance or stage play was young lady, without blame, without furtherance, and without hinderance of her own, so tormented about a settlement in life—passive she all the while, mere clay in the hands of the potter, and begging the universe to have the extreme goodness only to leave her alone.”—Carlyle.

10The Prussian minister Reichenbach, at London, wrote to M. Grumkow, under date of March 14, 1730: “Reichenbach flatters himself that the king will remain firm, and not let his enemies deceive him. If Grumkow and Seckendorf have opportunity, they may tell his Prussian majesty that the whole design of this court is to render his country a province dependent on England. When once the Princess Royal of England shall be wedded to the Prince Royal of Prussia, the English, by that means, will form such a party at Berlin that they will altogether tie his Prussian majesty’s hands.”

11Carlyle.

12Memoires de la Margrave De Bareuth.

13“A Captain FouquÉ comes to CÜstrin on duty or as a volunteer by-and-by. He is an old friend of the prince’s; a ready-witted, hot-tempered, highly-estimable man. He is often with the prince. Their light is extinguished precisely at seven o’clock. ‘Very well, lieutenant,’ he would say, ‘you have done your orders to the Crown Prince’s light. But his majesty has no concern with Captain FouquÉ’s candles,’ and thereupon would light a pair. Nay, I have heard of lieutenants who punctually blew out the prince’s light, as a matter of duty and command, and then kindled it again as a civility left free to human nature. In short, his majesty’s orders can only be fulfilled to the letter. Even in the letter his majesty’s orders are severe enough.”—Carlyle, vol. ii., p. 218.

14Voltaire, in his unreliable “Vie PrivÉe du Roi de Prusse,” t. ii., p. 51, says that, when Frederick became king, he settled upon Doris, who was then married and poor, an annuity of seventy-six dollars. Thiebault, far more accurate, in his “Souvenirs de Vingt Ans de SÉjour À Berlin,” says he gave her a pension of one hundred and fifty-six dollars. It does not speak well for Frederick that he could have so meanly requited so terrible a wrong.

15“The first idea of Frederick William was to deliver his son over to be condemned by the ordinary tribunal of Prussia, well knowing that his judges would never venture to decide except according to his wishes. Indeed, he took a very summary as well as a very certain mode of effecting this object; for, whenever their sentiments were not approved by him, he was in the habit of going into the court where they sat and there distributing kicks and blows to all the judges in turn, at the same time calling them rogues and blackguards! From men so circumstanced Frederick would have no chance of acquittal.”—The Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. i., p. 33.

16“The prince had been some weeks in his prison at CÜstrin when one day an old officer, followed by four grenadiers, entered his chamber weeping. Frederick had no doubt that he was to be made a head shorter. But the officer, still in tears, ordered the grenadiers to take him to the window and hold his head out of it, that he might be obliged to look on the execution of his friend Katte upon a scaffold expressly built for that purpose. He saw, stretched out his hand, and fainted. The father was present at this exhibition.”—Memoirs of the Life of Voltaire, p. 26.

17“General Ginkel, the Dutch embassador, here told me of an interview he had with the king. The king harbors most monstrous wicked designs, not fit to be spoken of in words. It is certain, if he continue in the mind he is in at present, we shall see scenes here as wicked and bloody as any that were ever heard of since the creation of the world. He will sacrifice his whole family—every body, except Grumkow, being, as he imagines, in conspiracy against him. All these things he said with such imprecations and disordered looks, foaming at the mouth all the while, as it was terrible either to see or hear.”—Dickens’s Dispatch, 7th December, 1730.

18Carlyle.

19Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. i., p. 127.

20The grandmother was a very gay, fashionable woman, entirely devoted to pleasure.

21The prince used a harsher term, which we can not quote.

22A ruble was about eighty-five cents of our money.

23To Frederick cultivating tranquillity.

24Her husband.

25The above extracts are taken from Correspondance FamiliÈre et Amicale de FrÉdÉric II., Roi de Prusse, avec U.F. de Suhm.

26Thibault, Souvenirs de Vingt Ans de SÉjours À Berlin.

27William III. of England.

28Baron Bielfeld, in his letters, gives the following account of the prince’s admission to the masonic fraternity: “On the 14th the whole day was spent in preparations for the lodge. A little after midnight we saw the Prince Royal arrive, accompanied by Count W——. The prince presented this gentleman as a candidate whom he recommended, and whose reception he wished immediately to succeed his own. He desired us likewise to omit, in his reception, not any one rigorous ceremony that was used in similar cases; to grant him no indulgence whatever; but gave us leave, on this occasion, to treat him merely as a private person. In a word, he was received with all the usual and requisite formalities. I admired his intrepidity, the serenity of his countenance, and his graceful deportment even in the most critical moments. After the two receptions we opened the lodge, and proceeded to our work. He appeared delighted, and acquitted himself with as much dexterity as discernment.”—Letters of Baron Bielfeld, vol. iii., p. 36.

29Baron Bielfeld gives the following account of the personal appearance of the king at this time: “If we judge by his portraits, he was in his youth very handsome. But it must be confessed that he does not now retain any traces of beauty. His eyes are indeed lively, but his looks are frightful. His complexion is composed of a mixture of high red, blue, yellow, and green. His head is large. His neck is quite sunk between his shoulders, and his figure is short and gross.”—Letters, vol. iii., p. 67.

30Frederick had taken the fancy of calling his companions by classical names. Suhm was Diaphanes; Keyserling was called CÆsarion, etc.

31Bielfeld informs us that “about one in the afternoon he sent for Ellert, his first physician, and asked him if he thought that his life and his sufferings could continue long, and if the agonies of his last moments would be great. The physician answered, ‘Your majesty has already arrived at that period. I feel the pulse retire. It now beats below your elbow.’

“The king inquired, ‘Where will it retire at last?’

“‘To the heart,’ the doctor replied. ‘And in about an hour it will cease to beat at all.’

“On which the king said, with perfect resignation, ‘God’s will be done!’”—Letters, vol. iii., p. 127.

32Frederick William, in his reviews of the giant guard, was frequently attended by the foreign ministers who chanced to be at his court. On one of these occasions he asked the French minister if he thought that an equal number of the soldiers of France would venture to engage with these troops. With politeness, characteristic of the nation, the minister replied that it was impossible that men of the ordinary stature should think of such an attempt. The same question was asked of the English embassador. He replied, “I can not affirm that an equal number of my countrymen would beat them, but I think that I may safely say that half the number would try.”

33Voltaire, after he had quarreled with Frederick, gave the following amusing account of a gift he received from the king soon after his accession to the throne: “He began his reign by sending an embassador extraordinary to France, one Camas, who had lost an arm. He said that, as there was a minister from the French court at Berlin who had but one hand, he, that he might acquit himself of all obligation toward the most Christian king, had sent him an embassador with one arm. Camas, as soon as he arrived safe at his inn, dispatched a lad to tell me that he was too much fatigued to come to my house, and therefore begged that I would come to him instantly, he having the finest, greatest, and most magnificent present that was ever presented to make me on the part of the king his master. ‘Run, run, as fast as you can,’ said Madame Du ChÂtelet; ‘he has assuredly sent you the diamonds of the crown.’ Away I ran, and found my embassador, whose only baggage was a small keg of wine, tied behind his chaise, sent from the cellar of the late king by the reigning monarch, with a royal command for me to drink. I emptied myself in protestations of astonishment and gratitude for these liquid marks of his majesty’s bounty, instead of the solid ones I had been taught to expect, and divided my keg with Camas.”—Memoirs, p. 34.

34“As the bishops of Liege had been in possession of the contested districts for more than a century, and as Frederick William had not, any more than his predecessors, adopted any vigorous measures to gain possession of them, it is not probable that the claim of Frederick was very well founded. At all events, his conduct was violent and unjust. The inhabitants of these districts had been guilty of no crime but that of avowing their allegiance to the prince whom they had been accustomed to obey, and whom they appear to have considered as their lawful sovereign. When Frederick, therefore, sent his troops to live upon the inhabitants of those districts at discretion, he committed an act of tyranny and of cruelty which nothing in the circumstances of the case could justify.”—Memoirs of Voltaire, p. 44.

35Memoirs, p. 47, 48.

36“His majesty,” says M. Bielfeld, “did not appear to be greatly moved. But what followed convinces me that he possesses the art of composing his countenance, and that the emotion passed within; for he rose soon after, sent for M. Von Eichel, secretary of the cabinet, and commanded him to write to Marshal Schwerin and M. Von Podewils, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and order them to come immediately to Reinsberg. These gentlemen arrived forthwith. They daily held long and very secret conferences with his majesty. They say that sovereigns have sometimes authority even over their infirmities. The fever has shown itself docile to the will of the monarch, for after two slight attacks it has entirely left him.”—Letters, vol. iv., p. 18.

37Macaulay, speaking of the claims of Frederick to Silesia, says: “They amount to this, that the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to Silesia, and had, in the previous century, been compelled, by hard usage on the part of the court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain that, whoever might have been originally in the right, Prussia had submitted. Prince after prince of the house of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the court of Berlin had recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian states. Is it not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long possession, the world can never be at peace for a day?”—Life of Frederick the Great, by Macaulay, p. 62.

38“The King of Prussia, the Anti-Machiavel, had already fully determined to commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and desolating war, and all this for no other end whatever except that he might extend his dominions and see his name in the gazettes. He determined to assemble a great army with speed and secrecy to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should be apprised of his design, and to add that rich province to his kingdom.”—Life of Frederick the Great, by Macaulay, p. 61.

39

40In this wicked world power seldom respects weakness. No sooner was the emperor dead than four claimants sprang up to wrest from Maria Theresa a part or the whole of the kingdoms she had inherited from her father; and this, notwithstanding nearly all the powers of Europe had guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction. The Elector of Bavaria claimed Bohemia, from an article in the will of the Emperor Ferdinand I., made two centuries before. The King of Poland demanded the whole Austrian succession, in virtue of the right of his wife, who was the eldest daughter of the Emperor Joseph, elder brother of Charles VI. The King of Spain claimed all the Austrian possessions, in consequence of his descent from the wife of Philip II., who was daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. The King of Sardinia hunted up an obsolete claim to the duchy of Milan. But for the embarrassment into which these claims plunged Maria Theresa, Frederick would hardly have ventured to invade the province of Silesia. The woes which, in consequence, desolated the nations of Europe, no mind but that of the omniscient God can gauge.

41The husband of Maria Theresa.

42Voltaire’s Age of Louis XV., vol. i., p. 54.

43Id.

44Military Instructions, p. 171.

45The army with which Frederick invaded Silesia consisted of a general force of 28,000 men, which was followed by a rear-guard of 12,000. He had, in all, about 12,000 cavalry. The remainder were foot soldiers. The artillery consisted of 20 three-pounders, 4 twelve-pounders, 4 howitzers, and 4 large mortars of fifty-pounds calibre. His artillerymen numbered 166.

46

47Charles Etienne Jordan was thirty-six years of age. He was the son of wealthy parents in Berlin, and had been a preacher. The death of a beloved wife, leaving him with an only daughter, had plunged him into the profoundest melancholy. Frederick, when Crown Prince, took a great fancy to him, making him nominally his reader, giving him charge of his library. He is represented as a man of small figure, genial, and affectionate, of remarkable vivacity, very courteous, and one who was ever careful never, by word or action, to give pain to others.

48His next younger brother, Augustus William, who had accompanied him on the expedition.

49Colonel Keyserling was a Courlander of good family. He had been officially named as “Companion” of the Crown Prince in his youthful days. Frederick entitled him CÆsarion, and ever regarded him as one of the choicest of his friends. He was a man of very eccentric manners, but warm-hearted and exceedingly companionable.

50Algarotti was a Venetian gentleman of much elegance of manners and dress. He was very fervent in his utterance, and could talk fluently upon every subject. He was just of the age of Frederick. Being the son of wealthy parents, he had enjoyed great advantages of study and travel, had already published several works, and was quite distinguished as a universal genius, a logician, a poet, a philosopher, and a connoisseur in all the arts. He was a great favorite of Frederick, and accompanied him to Strasbourg and on this expedition to Silesia. Wilhelmina describes him as “one of the first beaux esprits of the age,” and “as one who does the expenses of the conversation.”

51Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau was one of the most extraordinary men of any age. His life was but a constant whirlwind of battle, almost from his birth in 1676, to his death in 1747. His face was of the “color of gunpowder,” and his fearless, tumultuous soul was in conformity with the rugged body in which it was incased. The whole character of the man may be inferred from the following prayer, which it is said he was accustomed to offer before entering battle: “O God! assist our side. At least, avoid assisting the enemy, and leave the result to me.” Leopold, called the Old Dessauer, and his son, the Young Leopold, were of essential service to Frederick in his wars. Pages might be filled illustrative of the character of this eccentric man.

52Military Instructions, p. 113.

53It was the day before. But it is not surprising that the bewildered young king should have been somewhat confused in his dates.

54Monsieur le Baron Bielfeld, Lettres FamiliÈres et Autres, tome i., p. 3.

55“Some men,” says a quaint writer, “have a God to swear by, though they have none to pray to.”

56Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xi., p. 90.

57“Valori was one night with him, and, on rising to take leave, the fat hand, sticking probably in the big waistcoat pocket, twitched out a little diplomatic-looking Note, which Frederick, with gentle adroitness (permissible in such circumstances), set his foot upon, till Valori had bowed himself out.”—Carlyle, vol. iii., p. 330.

58The Iron Crown. It was so called because there was entwined, amidst its priceless gems and exquisitely wrought frosted gold, some iron wire, said to be drawn from one of the spikes which had been driven through one of the hands of our Savior.

59Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, vol. ii., p. 84.

60“Sure enough, the Sea Powers are checkmated now. Let them make the least attempt in favor of the queen if they dare. Holland can be overrun from OsnabrÜck quarter at a day’s warning. Little George has his Hanoverians, his subsidized Hessians, Danes, in Hanover; his English on Lexden Heath. Let him come one step over the marches, Maillebois and the Old Dessauer swallow him. It is a surprising stroke of theatrical-practical Art, brought about, to old Fleury’s sorrow, by the genius of Belleisle, and they say of Madame ChÂteauroux; enough to strike certain Governing Persons breathless for some time, and denotes that the Universal Hurricane, or World Tornado has broken out.”—Carlyle, vol. iii., p. 357.

61Count BrÜhl was for many years the first minister of the king. He was a weak, extravagant man, reveling in voluptuousness. His decisions could always be controlled by an ample bribe. His sole object seemed to be his own personal luxurious indulgence. “Public affairs,” he said, “will carry themselves on, provided we do not trouble ourselves about them.”

Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in his letters from Dresden, writes: “Now, as every thing of every kind, from the highest affairs of the state down to operas and hunting, are all in Count BrÜhl’s immediate care, I leave you to judge how his post is executed. His expenses are immense. He keeps three hundred servants and as many horses. It is said, and I believe it, that he takes money for every thing the king disposes of in Poland, where they frequently have very great employments to bestow.”

62Histoire de mon Temps.

63Campagnes de le Roi de Prusse, p. 5.

64Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, xvii., p. 196.

65Campaigns of the King of Prussia, p. 57.

66Correspondance de FrÉdÉric II.

67“Huge huzzaing, herald-trumpeting, bob-major-ing, burst forth from all Prussian towns, especially from all Silesian ones, in those June days, as the drums beat homeward; elaborate illuminations in the short nights, with bonfires, with transparencies; transparency inscribed ‘Frederico Magno (To Frederick the Great),’ in one small instance, still of premature nature.”—Carlyle.

68Bielfeld, 251.

69Histoire de mon Temps.

70Bielfeld, p. 251.

71It would seem that Voltaire was sent to Frederick as the secret agent and spy of the French minister. “Voltaire,” writes Macaulay, “was received with every mark of respect and friendship. The negotiation was of an extraordinary description. Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than the conferences which took place between the first literary man and the first practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness had induced to change their parts. The great poet would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and the king of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion Voltaire put into his majesty’s hand a paper on the state of Europe, and received it back with verses scrawled on the margin. In secret they both laughed at each other. Voltaire did not spare the king’s poems, and the king has left on record his opinion of Voltaire’s diplomacy, saying, ‘He had no credentials, and the whole mission was a mere farce.’”

As a specimen of the character of the document above alluded to, we give the following. Voltaire, in what he deemed a very important state paper, had remarked,

“The partisans of Austria burn with the desire to open the campaign in Silesia again. Have you, in that case, any ally but France? And, however potent you are, is an ally useless to you?”

The king scribbled on the margin,

72Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, XXVII., vol. i., p. 387.

73Letters of Bielfeld, vol. i., p. 188.

74In PÖllnitz’s memoirs and letters he repeated the rumor that the great elector’s second wife, an ancestor of Frederick, had attempted to poison her step-son.

75Voltaire is proverbially inaccurate in details. It was the king’s invariable custom to rise at four in summer and six in winter.

76“In his retreat Frederick is reported to have lost above thirty thousand men, together with most of his heavy baggage and artillery, and many wagons laden with provisions and plunder.”—Tower’s Life and Reign of Frederick, vol. i., p. 209.

77Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 50.

78Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 76.

79Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 54.

80Carlyle, vol. i., p. 302.

81Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 80.

82Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. ii., p. 218.

83Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. iii., p. 123.

84Scamander, a small stream in Asia Minor, celebrated in the songs of Homer.

85Robinson’s Dispatch, August 4, 1745.

86Histoire de mon Temps.

87In this, as in most other similar cases, there is considerable diversity of statement as to the precise number of troops engaged on either side. But there is no question that the Austrians were in numbers far superior to the Prussians.

88MÜller, Tableaux des guerres de FrÉdÉric le Grand.

89MÉmoires de FrÉdÉric, Baron de Trenck.

90Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 171.

91Id. ibid.

92Voltaire, speaking of this action, says: “It was the famous old Prince of Anhalt who gained this decisive victory. He had been a warrior fifty years, and was the first who had entered into the lines of the French army at Turin in 1707. For conducting the infantry he was esteemed the most experienced officer in Europe. This great battle was the last that filled up the measure of his military glory—the only glory which he had enjoyed, for fighting was his only province.”—Age of Louis XV., chap. xvii.

93“About three pounds ten shillings, I think—better than ten pounds in our day to a common man, and better than one hundred pounds to a Linsenbarth.”—Carlyle.

94Commentaire Historique sur les Œuvres de l’Auteur de la Henriade.

95SupplÉment aux Œuvres Posthumes de FrÉdÉric, ii.

96Voltaire boasted that he had gained the cause, because the Jew was fined thirty shillings. But he knew full well, as did every one else, that the result of the suit covered him with dishonor.

97This was a private letter which reflected severely upon the character of Maupertuis.

98Thiebault, Souvenirs de Vingt Ans de SÉjour À Berlin.

99Biographie Universelle.

100In a letter which the Prince of Prussia, Augustus William, wrote to the king, remonstrating against those encroachments which were arraying all Europe against him, he says: “Russia is persuaded that your designs upon her occasioned the applications which you have made to the court of Vienna to substitute a truce of two years in room of a solemn treaty of peace. She believes that you wanted to tie up the hands of the empress queen so as to put it out of her power to succor her ally; that a war against Russia was the principal object of your intrigues in Sweden; that you have designs upon Courland; that Polish Prussia and Pomerania would be very convenient to you; and that you find Russia the greatest obstacle to this rounding of your dominions. In short, she believes that she has the same interest in your abasement as the house of Austria.”—Vie de FrÉdÉric II., Roi de Prusse, t. ii., p. 318.

101Age of Louis XV., chapter xxxii.

102Archenholtz, Histoire de la Guerre de cet Homme.

103An uncle of the great Mirabeau.

104The Duchess of Pompadour.

105In the years 1508–1509 the celebrated league of Cambrai was formed by Louis XII. of France, Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, Ferdinand, King of Spain, and Pope Julius II., against Venice. The league was called Holy because the pope took part in it.

106

107Correspondance FamiliÈre et Amicale, tome i., p. 31.

108“Heaven!” This was probably a slip of the pen. Frederick would have been perplexed to explain who or what he meant by “Heaven.” It would, however, subsequently appear that he used the word as synonymous with fate or destiny.

109The atheistic pen of Frederick will sometimes slip.

110Memoires pour servir À la Vie de M. De Voltaire.

111Carlyle, vol. v., p. 168.

112Archenholtz, vol. i., p. 209.

113

114“Indeed, there is in him, in those grim days, a tone as of trust in the Eternal, as of real religious piety and faith, scarcely noticeable elsewhere in his history. His religion, and he had, in withered forms, a good deal of it, if we will look well, being almost always in a strictly voiceless state—nay, ultra voiceless, or voiced the wrong way, as is too well known!”—Carlyle.

115

116Vie de FrÉdÉric II., Roi de Prusse, Strasbourg, 1788, t. ii., p. 317.

117Carlyle.

118The son of the late Prince of Prussia. He was now heir to the crown.

119Carlyle.

120London Magazine, vol. xxvii., p. 670.

121This confession of the king is worthy of notice. His philosophy afforded him no consolation in these hours of anguish. It is faith in Christ alone which can “take from death its sting, and from the grave its victory.”

122Correspondance de Voltaire avec le Roi de Prusse.

123Archenholtz, Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans.

124Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans, par FrÉdÉric II.

125“The loss of his Wilhelmina, had there been no other grief, has darkened all his life to Frederick. Readers are not prepared for the details of grief we could give, and the settled gloom of mind they indicate. A loss irreparable and immeasurable; the light of life, the one heart that loved him, gone. All winter he dwells internally on the sad matter, though soon falling silent on it to others.”—Carlyle, vol. v., p. 318.

126Carlyle, vol. v., p. 314.

127Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xix., p. 56.

128MÉmoires pour servir À la Vie de M. De Voltaire, Ecrit par Lui-mÊme.

129The Duchess of Pompadour.

130Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xxiii., p. 53.

131Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans, par FrÉdÉric II.

132General Haddick was in command of an Austrian force marching to join the Russians. Frederick had surprised one of his detachments.

133General Finck, one of the most efficient of Frederick’s generals, to whom we shall often hereafter refer.

134This was a mistake. Frederick had probably been misinformed.

135There were three horses shot under Frederick; but from the third the king dismounted before he fell.

136Haddick and Loudon were two of the most able generals in the army of Soltikof.

137Prince Henry.

138This was a slip of the pen. The battle of Kunersdorf was on the 12th.

139“I pray God!” Even the heart of the atheist in hours of calamity yearns for a God.

140The king here undoubtedly refers to the vial of poison which he invariably carried in his waistcoat pocket.

141“Of the 14,000 men who had made the expedition with him, only 3000 remained unwounded at the time of the capitulation.”—Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. ii., p. 134.

142Carlyle, vol. v., p. 469.

143Biographie Universelle.

144Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xxii., p. 61.

145Voltaire’s niece, Madame Denis, was with him when he was arrested at Frankfort, and she was terribly frightened.

146Œuvres de Voltaire, t. lxxx., p. 313.

147Archenholtz, vol. ii., p. 53.

148“The symptoms we decipher in these letters, and otherwise, are those of a man drenched in misery; but used to his black element, unaffectedly defiant of it, or not at the pains to defy it; occupied only to do his very utmost in it, with or without success, till the end come.”—Carlyle.

149Annual Register, vol. iii., p. 209.

150Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. ii., p. 152.

151The king had a coat torn from him by a rebounding cannon-ball, and a horse shot under him.

152Œuvres Posthumes de FrÉdÉric II.

153“No human intellect in our day could busy itself with understanding these thousandfold marchings, manoeuvrings, assaults, surprisals, sudden facings about (retreat changed to advance); nor could the powerfulest human memory, not exclusively devoted to study the art military under Frederick, remember them when understood.”—Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 59.

154Great in small things, small in great things.

155Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xix., p. 139.

156

157Carlyle.

158Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xix., p. 204.

159Correspondance FamiliÈre et Amicale de FrÉdÉric, Roi de Prusse, t. ii., p. 140.

160Carlyle.

161Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. ii., p. 170.

162Walpole’s Letters to Sir Horace Mann, vol. i., p. 6, 7.

163Maria Theresa of Austria, Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, and the Marchioness of Pompadour, who was virtually Queen of France.

164Vie de FrÉdÉric II., Roi de Prusse, t. ii., p. 141.

165Prusse, t. ii., p. 282.

166KÜster, CharakterzÜge des General Lieutenant v. Saldern, p. 40

167Carlyle.

168Archenholtz, vol. ii., p. 262.

169Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xix., p. 281.

170Carlyle.

171Carlyle.

172Carlyle.

173Military Instructions, written by the King of Prussia, p. 176.

174Archenholtz, Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans.

175“Northern tourists, Wraxall and others, passing that way, speak of this princess down to recent times as a phenomenon of the place. Apparently a high and peremptory kind of lady, disdaining to be bowed too low by her disgraces. She survived all her generation, and the next and the next, and, indeed, into our own. Died 18th February, 1840, at the age of ninety-six.”—Carlyle.

176Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. vi., p. 23.

177Œuvres Posthumes de D’Alembert, t. i., p. 197, cited by Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 283.

178Histoire ou Anecdotes sur la RÉvolution de Russie en l’annÉe 1762, par M. RulhiÈre.

179Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. vi., p. 26.

180Correspondance avec l’Electrice Marie-Antoine.

181Pezzl, Vie de Loudon, vol. ii., p. 29.

182“Kaunitz,” writes Frederick, “had a clear intellect, greatly twisted by perversities of temper, especially by a self-conceit and arrogance which were boundless. He did not talk, but preach. At the smallest interruption he would stop short in indignant surprise. It has happened that at the council-board in SchÖnbrunn, when her imperial majesty has asked some explanation of a word or thing not understood by her, Kaunitz made his bow and quitted the room.”

183Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xxvi., p. 30.

184Schnitzler, vol. ii., p. 247.

185Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. xxvi., p. 345.

186Hormayr, Taschenbuch, 1831, S. 66, cited by Dr. J.D.E. Preuss, Historiographer of Brandenburg, in his life of Friedrich der Grosse, vol. iv., p. 38.

187Preuss, vol. iv., p. 39.

188G. Freytag, Neue Bilder aus dem Leben des deutschen Volkes, cited by Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 378.

189Freytag, p. 397.

190Œuvres de FrÉdÉric, t. vi., p. 124.

191Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 446–449.

192Schmettau, vol. xxv., p. 30.

193Preuss, t. iv., p. 187.

194Fischer, vol. ii., p. 445, as cited by Carlyle.

195Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 529.

196Carlyle.

197Correspondance InÉdite de Marie Antoinette, p. 137.

198MÉmoires et MÉlanges Historiques et LittÉraires, par le Prince de Ligny.

199Dr. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany.

200Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 535.

201RÖdenbeck, vol. iii., p. 365.