THREE: Incessant Marches and Battles.Letter from Frederick to DArgens.Letter to his Brother Henry.Berlin summoned to Surrender.Sacking of the City.Letter to DArgens.Desperate Resolves of Frederick.The Resort of Suicide.Remarkable Address of Frederick to his Generals.Bloody Battle of Torgau.Dismal Night-scene.Familiarity of the King with the Soldiers.Winter Quarters at Freiberg.Singular Letter to the Countess of Camas.Death of the Princess Amelia.Anecdotes of the King.His domestic Habits.His unscrupulous Measures to obtain Men and Money.Letter of Charlotte of Mecklenburg.I respect metaphysical ideas. Rays of lightning they are in the midst of deep night. More, I think, is not to be hoped from metaphysics. It does not seem likely that the first principles of things will ever be known. The mice that nestle in some little holes of an immense building know not whether it is eternal, or who the architect, or why he built it. Such mice are we. And the divine architect has never, that I know of, told his secret to one of us.
THREE: Frederick.
THREE: We went gravely at a slow pace,MARIA THERESA AT THE HEAD OF HER ARMY.
TWO:Many bitter words had already passed between Louis XV. and Frederick. But recently a new element of discord had appeared. The Duchess of Pompadour, the guilty favorite of Louis XV., beautiful, fascinating, and wicked, had become a power in Europe, notwithstanding the ignoble position she occupied.399 This artful and enchanting woman, having the weak king completely under her control, was in reality the ruler of France. The proudest nobles and the highest ecclesiastics bowed submissively at her shrine. Even the immaculate Maria Theresa, constrained by state policy, wrote flattering notes to her, addressing her as my cousin, princess and cousin, madame, my dearest sister.In very rapid march, the troops advanced through Grünberg toward Glogau, about forty miles in the interior. Here there was a fortified town, which was considered the key of Northern Silesia. It was but feebly garrisoned, and was entirely unprepared for resistance. By great exertions, the Austrian governor of the province, Count Wallis, and his second in command, General Browne, succeeded in placing behind the works a little garrison of one thousand men. The whole population was summoned to work upon the ramparts. Count Wallis remained in Glogau. General Browne took command of the troops and garrisons abroad. But there was a division of sentiment within the walls. Quite a large portion of the population was Protestant, and would be glad to come under the protection of Protestant Prussia. The Catholics were zealous for the continued reign of Austria.
TWO:Frederick, having cantoned his troops at Freiberg and its vicinity, on the 27th of November wrote again to the Countess of Camas:The battle, thus commenced, continued to rage for four long312 hours, with all its demon energies, its blood, its wounds, its oaths, its shrieks, its death; on the right wing, on the left wing, in the centre; till some ten or twelve thousand, some accounts say more, of these poor peasant soldiers lay prostrate upon the plain, crushed by the hoof, torn by the bullet, gashed by the sabre. Many were dead. Many were dying. Many had received wounds which would cripple them until they should totter into their graves. At the close of these four hours of almost superhuman effort, the villages all around in flames, the Austrians slowly, sullenly retired from the contest. Prince Charles, having lost nearly seven thousand men, with his remaining forces breathless, exhausted, bleeding, retired through Czaslau, and vanished over the horizon to the southwest. Frederick, with his forces almost equally breathless, exhausted, and bleeding, and counting five thousand of his soldiers strewn over the plain, in death or wounds, remained master of the field. Such was the famous battle of Chotusitz.