That evening Wilhelmina was taken sick with burning fever and severe pain. Still she was compelled to rise from her bed and attend a court party. The next morning she was worse. The king, upon being told of it, exclaimed gruffly, Ill? I will58 cure you! and compelled her to swallow a large draught of wine. Soon her sickness showed itself to be small-pox. Great was the consternation of her mother, from the fear that, even should she survive, her beauty would be so marred that the English prince would no longer desire her as his bride. Fortunately she escaped without a scar.Russia took 87,500 square miles. Austria received 62,500. The share which fell to Frederick was but 9456 square miles. Small in respect to territory as was Fredericks share, it was regarded, in consequence of its position and the nature of the country, equally valuable with the other portions.
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On the other hand, Frederick himself was in the very prime of manhood. He was ambitious of military renown. He had a compact army of one hundred thousand men, in better drill and more amply provided with all the apparatus of war than any other troops in Europe. The frugality of his father had left him with a treasury full to overflowing. To take military possession of Silesia would be a very easy thing. There was nothing to obstruct the rush of his troops across the frontiers. There were no strongly garrisoned fortresses, and not above three thousand soldiers in the whole realm. No one even suspected that Frederick would lay any claim to the territory, or that there was the slightest danger of invasion. The complicated claim which he finally presented, in official manifestoes, was founded upon transactions which had taken place a hundred years before. In conversation with his friends he did not lay much stress upon any legitimate title he had to the territory. He frankly admitted, to quote his own words, that ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me, carried the day, and I decided for war.37Knobelsdorf was the bearer of a second letter from the Crown Prince. The first had not reached her. Frederick, having taken an hour or two of sleep at Hof, rose much refreshed, and, continuing his journey about fifteen miles farther, wrote this second letter as follows to his sister:This immense building presented a front of nearly a thousand feet; for, being in a quadrangular form, it fronted four ways. It was all faced with hammered stone. In one of the towers this bachelor husband constructed his library. It was a magnificent apartment, provided with every convenience, and decorated with the most tasteful adornments which the arts could furnish. Its windows commanded an enchanting prospect of the lake, with its tufted islands and the densely wooded heights beyond.Spain was at war with England, and was ready to enter into an alliance with any power which would aid her in her struggle with that formidable despot of the seas.