TWO:On Wednesday, April 12, two days after the battle, Frederick wrote to his sister Wilhelmina from Ohlau as follows:While in this deplorable condition, Maupertuis was found by the Prince of Lichtenstein, an Austrian officer who had met him in Paris. The prince rescued him from his brutal captors and supplied him with clothing. He was, however, taken to Vienna as a prisoner of war, where he was placed on parole. Voltaire, whose unamiable nature was pervaded by a very marked vein of malignity, made himself very merry over the misfortunes of the philosopher. As Maupertuis glided about the streets of Vienna for a time in obscurity, the newspapers began to speak of his scientific celebrity. He was thus brought into notice. The queen treated him with distinction. The Grand-duke Francis drew his own watch from his pocket, and presented it to Maupertuis265 in recompense for the one he had lost. Eventually he was released, and, loaded with many presents, was sent to Brittany.
THREE:All the courts of Europe were involved in these intrigues, which led to minor complications which it would be in vain to attempt to unravel. In the secret treaty into which Frederick entered with France on the 5th of June, 1741, the Count of Belleisle engaged, in behalf of his master, Louis XV., to incite Sweden to declare war against Russia, that the semi-barbaric power of the North, just beginning to emerge into greatness, might be so occupied as not to be able to render any assistance to Austria. France also agreed to guarantee Lower Silesia, with Breslau, to Frederick, and to send two armies, of forty thousand men each, one across the Upper and the other across the Lower Rhine, to co-operate with his Prussian majesty. The forty thousand men on the Upper Rhine were to take position in the vicinity of the Electorate of Hanover, which belonged to George II. of England, prepared to act immediately in concert with the Prussian army at G?tten under the Old Dessauer, in seizing Hanover resistlessly, should England make the slightest move toward sending troops to the aid of Maria Theresa.
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FORE:a a. Prussian Infantry, b. Cavalry, c c. Artillery. d d. Austrian Army.
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FORE:231 If you make any resistance, you shall be treated as prisoners of war. If you make no resistance, and promise not to serve against us, you may march out of the city unmolested, with your arms.
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FORE:Sunday, July 6th, was a day of terrible heat. At three oclock in the morning the Prussian troops were again in motion. There was not a breath of wind. The blazing sun grew hotter and hotter. There was no shade. The soldiers were perishing of thirst. Still the command was onward, onward. In that days march one hundred and five Prussian soldiers dropped dead in their tracks.
Nulla sed nunc et tortor luctus faucibus. Morbi at aliquet turpis, et consequat felis. Quisque condimentum.
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FORE:Affairs were now assuming throughout Europe a very threatening aspect. The two French armies, of forty thousand each, had already crossed the Rhine to join their German allies in the war against Austria. One of these armies, to be commanded by Belleisle, had crossed the river about thirty miles below Strasbourg to unite with the Elector of Bavarias troops and march upon Vienna. The other army, under Maillebois, had crossed the Lower Rhine a few miles below Düsseldorf. Its mission was, as we have mentioned, to encamp upon the frontiers of Hanover, prepared to invade that province, in co-operation with the Prussian troops in the camp at G?ttin, should the King of England venture to raise a hand in behalf of Austria. It was also in position to attack and overwhelm Holland, Englands only ally, should that power manifest the slightest opposition to the designs of Prussia and France. At the same time, Sweden, on the 4th of August, had declared war against Russia, so that no help could come to Austria from that quarter. Great diplomatic ability had been displayed in guarding every point in these complicated measures. The French minister, Belleisle, was probably the prominent agent in these wide-spread combinations.60Another adventurer, by the name of Fassman, who had written books, and who made much literary pretension, had come to Berlin and also got introduced to the Tabagie. He was in character very like Gundling, and the two could never agree. Fassman could be very sarcastic and bitter in his speech. One evening, as the king and his smoking cabinet were sitting enveloped in the clouds which they were breathing forth, and were all muddled with tobacco and beerfor the king himself was a hard drinkerFassman so enraged Gundling by some cutting48 remarks, that the latter seized his pan of burning peat and red-hot sand and dashed it into the face of his antagonist. Fassman, who was much the more powerful of the two, was seriously burned. He instantly grasped his antagonist, dragged him down, and beat him savagely with his hot pan, amidst roars of laughter from the beer-stupefied bacchanals.
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FORE:
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FORE:Frederick so concentrated his forces as, ere long, to have about fifty thousand troops with him at Breslau. Weary weeks of marchings and fightings, blood and woe, passed on. Painful508 blows were struck upon both sides, but nothing decisive was accomplished. In the midst of these harassments, perils, and toils, the king wrote to DArgens, on the 18th of September, from Reisendorf:
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FORE:The five great powers of Europe, who have sworn alliance, and conspired to ruin the Marquis of Brandenburg, how might they puzzle their heads to guess what he is now doing! Scheming some dangerous plan, think they, for the next campaign, collecting funds, studying about magazines for man and horse; or is he deep in negotiations to divide his enemies, and get new allies for himself? Not a bit of it. He is sitting peaceably in his room feeding his dogs.165I have already, he wrote, given your majesty my word of honor never to wed any one but the Princess Amelia, your daughter. I here reiterate that promise, in case your majesty will consent to my sisters marriage.
FORE:While these sad scenes were transpiring, the Princess Wilhelmina was held in close captivity in her apartment at the palace in Berlin. The king had convened a council of eight clergymen, and had put to them the question whether a father had not a right to give his daughter in wedlock to whom he pleased. Much to the honor of these clergymen, they replied, with but one exception, in the negative.
FORE: