ONE:189 Quite an entire change seemed immediately to take place in the character of the young king. M. Bielfeld was the first who was introduced to his apartment after the death of Frederick William. Frederick was in tears, and seemed much affected.On the 29th of December, the Old Dessauer, with thirty-five thousand men, crossed the frontiers and entered Saxony. He marched rapidly upon Leipsic, and seized the town, from which a division of Rutowskis army precipitately fled. Leopold found here quite a supply of commissary and ordnance stores. He also replenished his empty army-chest by levying a contribution of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars upon the inhabitants.368 Then, by a rapid march northeast to Torgo, on the Elbe, he captured another imperial magazine. Turning south, he pressed his troops along up the river to Myssen, which was within two days easy march of Dresden. Here there was a bridge across the Oder. Frederick was pushing his troops, by forced marches, from Hennersdorf, to effect a junction with Leopold at Myssen. Unitedly they were to fall upon Grüne and Rutowski at Dresden. In the mean time, also, Prince Charles, a despondent man, crushed by domestic woe and humiliating defeats, was moving, by not very energetic steps, to re-enforce the allied troops at Dresden.
FORE:I am a poor heretic. I have never been blessed by the holy father. I never attend church. I worship neither God nor the devil. Often have those shaven scoundrels, the priests, declared that I had become extinct.
FORE:Dessau was a little independent principality embracing a few square miles, about eighty miles southwest of Prussia. The prince had a Liliputian army, and a revenue of about fifty thousand dollars. Leopolds mother was the sister of the great Elector of Brandenburgs first wife. The little principality was thus, by matrimonial alliance as well as location, in affinity with Prussia. Frederick.
FORE:My situation forces me, he said, to give them this trouble, which they will not have to suffer long. My life is on the decline. The time which I still have belongs not to me, but to the state.
