This app gives you all the unique moments of exploring - game before
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This app gives you all the unique moments of exploring - game before
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This app gives you all the unique moments of exploring - game before
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This app gives you all the unique moments of exploring - game before
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This app gives you all the unique moments of exploring - game before
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On the 25th of December, 1745, the peace of Dresden was signed. The demands of Frederick were acceded to. Augustus III. of Saxony, Maria Theresa of Austria, and George II. of England became parties to the treaty. The next day Frederick attended sermon in the Protestant church. Monday morning his army, by slow marches, commenced its return to Brandenburg. Frederick, highly elated by the wonderful and almost miraculous change in his affairs, entered his carriage in company with his two brothers, and drove rapidly toward Berlin. The next day,373 at two oclock in the afternoon, they reached the heath of Britz, five miles out from the city. Here the king found an immense concourse of the citizens, who had come on horseback and in carriages to escort him to his palace. Frederick sat in an open phaeton, accompanied by the Prince of Prussia and Prince Henry. The throng was so great that the horses could only proceed at the slowest pace. The air resounded with shouts of Long live Frederick the Great. The king was especially gracious, saying to those who eagerly crowded around his carriage wheels,The marriage took place in the Grand Saloon. The moment the benediction was pronounced, a triple discharge of cannon announced the event to the inhabitants of Berlin. Then the newly-married pair, seated under a gorgeous canopy, received the congratulations of the court. A ball followed, succeeded by a supper. After supper there came, according to the old German custom, what was called the dance of torches. This consisted of the whole company marching to music in procession through the rooms, each holding a lighted torch. The marriage festivities were continued for several days, with a succession of balls each night. Wilhelmina had not yet been permitted to see her brother since his arrest. But the king had promised Wilhelmina, as her reward for giving up the wretched Prince of Wales, that he132 would recall her brother and restore him to favor. On Friday evening, the 23d, three days after the wedding, there was a brilliant ball in the Grand Apartment. Wilhelmina thus describes the event which then took place:He then requested to be shown the cup in which his heart would be placed after that operation. His daughter, Maria Theresa, who had married the Grand-duke Francis, was in a delicate state of health. The death of her father would place the weighty crown upon her youthful brow. Grief and agitation threw her helpless upon her bed. So important was her life to the world that the emperor was unwilling that, in her214 then condition, she should enter the death-chamber. Tell my Theresa, said he, in faint and dying accents, that I bless her, notwithstanding her absence.Frederick found himself plunged into the midst of difficulties and perils which exacted to the utmost his energies both of body and of mind. Every moment was occupied in strengthening his posts, collecting magazines, recruiting his forces, and planning to circumvent the foe. From the calm of Reinsberg he found himself suddenly tossed by the surges of one of the most terrible tempests of conflict which a mortal ever encountered. Through night and storm, almost without sleep and without food, drenched and chilled, he was galloping over the hills and through the valleys,244 climbing the steeples, fording the streams, wading the morasses, involved in a struggle which now threatened even the crown which he had so recently placed upon his brow. Had Frederick alone suffered, but few tears of sympathy would have been shed in his behalf; but his ambition had stirred up a conflict which was soon to fill all Europe with the groans of the dying, the tears of the widow, the wailings of the orphan.You have cut me to the heart, and have inflicted on me the greatest misery I ever endured. I had placed all my hope in you, in consequence of my ignorance of your character. You have had the address to disguise to me the bad propensities of your heart, and the baseness of your disposition. I repent a thousand times the kindness I have shown you, the care I have taken of your education, and all that I have suffered on your account. I no longer acknowledge you as my daughter, and shall, in future, never regard you but as my most cruel enemy, since it is you who have sacrificed me to my persecutors, who now triumph over me. Never count upon me again. I vow eternal hatred to you, and will never forgive you.
