THREE:All Frankfort was excited by these events. The renown of Voltaire as a philosopher, a poet, and as the friend of Frederick, filled Europe. His eccentricities were the subject of general remark. The most distinguished men, by birth and culture, had paid him marked attention during his brief compulsory sojourn in Frankfort. Having arrived at ��The Billy-Goat,�� his conduct, according to the report of M. Freytag, was that of a madman, in which attempted flight, feigned vomitings, and a cocked pistol took part. The account which Voltaire gave of these events is now universally pronounced to be grossly inaccurate. ��Prosperity, my dear lord, often inspires a dangerous confidence. Twenty-three battalions were not sufficient to drive sixty thousand men from their intrenchments. Another time we will take our precautions better. Fortune has this day turned her back upon me. I ought to have expected it. She is a female, and I am not gallant. What say you to this league against the Margrave of Brandenburg? How great would be the astonishment of the great elector if he could see his great-grandson at war at the same time with the Russians, the Austrians, almost all Germany, and one hundred thousand French auxiliaries! I do not know whether it will be disgraceful in me to be overcome, but I am sure there will be no great glory in vanquishing me.��102
FORE:203
THREE:The next morning the Prussian troops, led by their indomitable king, were early on the march, groping through the thick mist to find more of the foe. But the blow already given was decisive. The Austrian army was shattered, demoralized, ruined. The king could find nothing but broken tumbrils, abandoned wagons, and the d��bris of an utterly routed army. Prince Charles, bewildered by the disaster, had wheeled his columns around, and fled through the passes of the mountains back to Bohemia. Five thousand of his troops he left behind in killed or prisoners.On Sunday, April 5, 1778, Frederick reviewed these troops, and addressed his officers in a speech, which was published in the newspapers to inform Austria what she had to expect. Eager as Frederick was to enlarge his own dominions, he was by no means disposed to grant the same privilege to other and rival nations. The address of Frederick to his officers was in reality a declaration to the Austrian court.
Perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accu santium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.
THREE:The Prussian minister replied that he could not conceive why he should be refused an audience; that he should not fail to be at the council-chamber at eleven o��clock the next day to receive an answer to the proposals already made, and also to the proposals which he was prepared to make. He endeavored to inform Hartoff of the terms of compromise which the Prussian king was ready to present. But Hartoff refused to hear him, declaring that he had positive orders not to listen to any thing he had to say upon the subject. We will give the conclusion in the words of the Prussian minister, as found in his dispatch of the 18th of August, 1729:
Perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accu santium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.
THREE:Prince Charles was now forming magazines at Beneschau, just south of the Sazawa River, about seventy miles north of Frederick��s encampment at Budweis. Frederick hastily recrossed the Moldau, and, marching through Bechin, concentrated nearly all his forces at Tabor. He hoped by forced marches to take the335 Austrians by surprise, and capture their magazines at Beneschau. Thousands, rumor said fourteen thousand, of the wild Pandours, riding furiously, hovered around his line of march. They were in his front, on his rear, and upon his flanks. Ever refusing battle, they attacked every exposed point with the utmost ferocity. The Prussian king thus found himself cut off from Prague, with exhausted magazines, and forage impossible. He had three hundred sick in his hospitals. He could not think of abandoning them, and yet he had no means for their transportation.
Perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accu santium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.
