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ONE:The probable object of the Austrian court in revealing the secret treaty of Schnellendorf was to set Frederick and France at variance. Frederick, much exasperated, not only denied the treaty, but professed increased devotion to the interests of Louis XV. The allies, consisting of France, Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony, now combined to wrest Moravia from Maria Theresa, and annex it to Saxony. This province, governed by a marquis, was a third larger than the State of Massachusetts, and contained a population of about a million and a half. Moravia bounded Silesia on the south. Frederick made a special treaty with the King of Saxony, that the southern boundary of Silesia should be a full German mile, which was between four and five English miles, beyond the line of the River Neisse. With Frederick��s usual promptitude, he insisted that commissioners should be immediately sent to put down the boundary stones. France was surprised that the King of Saxony should have consented to the surrender of so important a strip of his territory.

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ONE:George II. had always hated his nephew Frederick. His only object in sustaining the war was to protect his native electorate of Hanover and to abase France.161 The new sovereign, in his first speech to Parliament, said:

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ONE:Wilhelmina and her husband soon left for Baireuth. Though the princess thus left the splendors of a royal palace for the far more quiet and humble state of a ducal mansion, still she was glad to escape from a home where she had experienced so many sorrows.

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ONE:It was on the night of the 25th of November, cold and dreary, that General Einsiedel commenced his retreat from Prague. He pushed his wagon trains out before him, and followed with his horse and foot. The Austrians were on the alert. Their light horsemen came clattering into the city ere the rear-guard had left. The Catholic populace of the city, being in sympathy with the Austrians, immediately joined the Pandours in a fierce attack upon the Prussians. The retreating columns were torn by a terrific fire from the windows of the houses, from bridges, from boats, from every point whence a bullet could reach them. But the well-drilled Prussians met the shock with the stern composure of machines, leaving their path strewn with the dying and the dead.

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ONE:��The selfish rapacity of the King of Prussia gave the signal to his neighbors. His example quieted their sense of shame. The whole world sprang to arms. On the head of Frederick is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many years, and in every quarter of the globe��the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the brave mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils produced by this wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown. In order that he might rob a neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.��In the mean time, during the two years in which Maria Theresa was making these conquests, Frederick, alarmed by the aggrandizement of Austria and the weakening of France, while unavailingly striving to promote peace, was busily employed in the administration of his internal affairs. He encouraged letters; devoted much attention to the Academy of Arts and Sciences; reared the most beautiful opera-house in Europe; devoted large sums to secure the finest musicians and the most exquisite ballet-dancers which Europe could afford. He sought to make his capital attractive to all those throughout Europe who were inspired by a thirst for knowledge, or who were in the pursuit of pleasure.

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ONE:The Austrians retired to Dresden for winter quarters. Frederick was left in the field which he had won. Gradually he withdrew to his old camping-ground at Freiberg, where his troops had been cantoned the previous winter. On the 10th of November, 1760, he wrote from Meissen to the Marquis D��Argens at Berlin: