FORE:After the battle of Chotusitz, Frederick called upon General Pallant, an Austrian officer, who was wounded and a prisoner. In the course of the conversation, General Pallant stated that France was ready at any moment to betray his Prussian majesty, and that, if he would give him six days¡¯ time, he would furnish him with documentary proof. A courier was instantly dispatched to Vienna. He soon returned with a letter from Cardinal Fleury, the prime minister of Louis XV., addressed to Maria Theresa, informing her that, if she would give up Bohemia to the emperor, France would guarantee to her Silesia. Frederick, though guilty of precisely the same treachery himself, read the document with indignation, and assumed to be as much amazed at the perfidy as he could have been had he been an honest man.This was in January, 1744. The young lady, with her mother, by express invitation, and with this object in view, visited the Russian court. Sophia embraced the Greek religion, received in baptism the new name of Catharine, and on the 1st of September, 1745, was married to her second cousin Peter. ¡°And with invocation of the Russian heaven and Russian earth they were declared to be one flesh, though at last they turned out to be two fleshes, as my reader well knows.¡±171
FORE:
FORE: ¡°Frederick.¡± ¡°I am firmly resolved on the utmost efforts to save my country. Happy the moment when I took to training myself in philosophy. There is nothing else that can sustain a soul in a situation like mine. I spread out to you, my dear sister, the detail of my sorrows. If these things regarded myself only, I could stand it with composure. But I am the bound guardian of the happiness of a people which has been put under my charge. There lies the sting of it. And I shall have to reproach myself with every fault if, by delay or by overhaste, I occasion the smallest accident.
THREE:Another severe fit of coughing ensued, and the king, having with difficulty got rid of the phlegm, said, ¡°The mountain is passed; we shall be better now.¡± These were his last words. The expiring monarch sat in his chair, but in a state of such extreme weakness that he was continually sinking down, with his chest and neck so bent forward that breathing was almost impossible. One of his faithful valets took the king upon his knee and placed his left arm around his waist, while the king threw his right arm around the valet¡¯s neck.
THREE:
