FORE:Schweidnitz was strictly blockaded during the winter. On the 15th of March, the weather being still cold, wet, and stormy, Frederick marched from Breslau to attack the place. His siege artillery was soon in position. With his accustomed impetuosity he commenced the assault, and, after a terrific bombardment of many days, on the night of the 15th of April took the works by storm. The garrison, which had dwindled from eight thousand to four thousand five hundred, was all captured, with fifty-one guns, thirty-five thousand dollars of money, and a large quantity of stores. Thus the whole of Silesia was again in the hands of Frederick.
FORE:The king, upon his return from Charlottenburg to Berlin, made no allusion whatever in his family to the matter. In the court, however, it was generally considered that the question, so far as Wilhelmina was concerned, was settled. Hotham held daily interviews with the king, and received frequent communications from the Prince of Wales, who appears to have been very eager for the consummation of the marriage. Many of these letters were shown to Wilhelmina. She was much gratified with the fervor they manifested on the part of a lover who had never yet seen her. In one of these letters the prince says: I conjure you, my dear Hotham, get these negotiations finished. I am madly in love (amoureux comme un fou), and my impatience is unequaled.
FORE:But the assailants were already so near the walls that the shot passed harmlessly over their heads. Without firing a gun or uttering a sound, these well-drilled soldiers of Frederick William hewed down the palisades, tore out the chevaux-de-frise, and clambered over the glacis. With axe and petard they burst open the gates and surged into the city.413 The final and decisive struggle took place on and around two important eminences, called the Sterbohol Hill and the Homoly Hill. Both of these heights the Prussians stormed. In the following glowing words Carlyle pictures the scene:
THREE:In the following letter, which Frederick wrote at this time to his friend DArgens, he unbosoms his sorrows with unusual frankness. The letter was dated Breslau, March 1, 1759:
THREE:There were other abodes of the king, the Berlin and Potsdam palaces, which retained much of the splendor with which they had been embellished by the splendor-loving monarch, Frederick I. There were but few regal mansions in the world which then surpassed them. And though the king furnished his own apartments with Spartan simplicity and rudeness, there were other portions of these royal residences, as also their surroundings in general, which were magnificent in the highest degree. The health of little Fritz was rather frail, and at times he found it hard to devote himself to his sturdy tasks with the energy which his father required.
