THREE:Upon reaching the neighborhood of Landshut, the king was surrounded by a troop of two thousand Protestant peasants. They begged permission of him to massacre the Catholics of those parts, and clear the country of them altogether. This animosity arose from the persecutions which the Protestants had suffered during the Austrian domination.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Aliquam aut tenetur, amet earum quia eligendi obcaecati. Repudiandae id illum, vero iste enim reprehenderit quaerat, harum pariatur ipsa nulla tempora ex ratione illo assumenda libero ea, delectus vitae, expedita optio porro.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Aliquam aut tenetur, amet earum quia eligendi obcaecati. Repudiandae id illum, vero iste enim reprehenderit quaerat, harum pariatur ipsa nulla tempora ex ratione illo assumenda libero ea, delectus vitae, expedita optio porro.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Aliquam aut tenetur, amet earum quia eligendi obcaecati. Repudiandae id illum, vero iste enim reprehenderit quaerat, harum pariatur ipsa nulla tempora ex ratione illo assumenda libero ea, delectus vitae, expedita optio porro.
ONE:During the previous summer, the philosopher Maupertuis, after weary wanderings in the languor of consumption, and in great dejection of spirits, had been stricken by convulsions while in his carriage at Basel. He had lost favor with the king, and was poor, friendless, and dying. His latter years had been imbittered by the venomous assaults of Voltaire.
ONE:The sword and death have made frightful ravages among us. And the worst is that we are not yet at the end of the tragedy. You may judge what effect these cruel shocks make on me. I wrap myself in my stoicism the best I can. Flesh and blood revolt against such tyrannous command, but it must be followed. If you saw me you would scarcely know me again. I am old, broken, gray-headed, wrinkled. I am losing my teeth and my gayety. If this go on, there will be nothing of me left but the mania of making verses, and an inviolable attachment to my duties, and to the few virtuous men whom I know.
ONE:Upon the reception of this letter, the prince, without replying to it, verbally asked leave, through one of his officers, to throw up his commission and retire to his family in Berlin. The king scornfully replied, Let him go; he is fit for nothing else. In the deepest dejection the prince returned to his home. Rapidly his health failed, and before the year had passed away, as we shall have occasion hereafter to mention, he sank into the grave, deploring his unhappy lot.Now, however, Frederick, in that downward path through which the rejecters of Christianity invariably descend, had reached the point at which he renounced all belief in the immortality of the soul and in the existence of God. In a poetic epistle addressed to Marshal Keith, he declares himself a materialist, and affirms his unwavering conviction that the soul, which he says is but the result of the bodily organization, perishes with that body. He declares suicide to be the only remedy for man in his hour of extremity.
