On Sunday, April 5, 1778, Frederick reviewed these troops, and addressed his officers in a speech, which was published in the newspapers to inform Austria what she had to expect. Eager as Frederick was to enlarge his own dominions, he was by no means disposed to grant the same privilege to other and rival nations. The address of Frederick to his officers was in reality a declaration to the Austrian court.
My dear Son Fritz,I am glad you need no more medicine. But you must have a care of yourself some days yet, for the severe weather gives me and every body colds. So pray be on your guard.
FORE:Wilhelmina, in her distress in view of the peril of her brother, wrote to Voltaire, hoping that he might be persuaded to exert an influence in his favor.
ONE:
TWO:Frederick wrote to his minister Podewils in Berlin, under date of Neisse, March 29, 1745, as follows: We find ourselves in a great crisis. If we dont by mediation of England get peace, our enemies from different sides will come plunging in against me. Peace I can not force them to. But if we must have war, we will either beat them, or none of us will ever see Berlin again.On the 20th of April he wrote: Our situation is disagreeable, but my determination is taken. If we needs must fight, we will do it like men driven desperate. Never was there a greater peril than that I am now in. Time, at its own pleasure, will untie this knot, or destiny, if there is one, determine the event. The348 game I play is so high, one can not contemplate the issue with cold blood. Pray for the return of my good luck.
THREE: As God often, by wondrous guidance, strange paths, and thorny steps, will bring men into the kingdom of Christ, so may our divine Redeemer help that this prodigal son be brought into his communion; that his godless heart be beaten until it is softened and changed, and so he be snatched from the claws of Satan. This grant us, the Almighty God and Father, for our Lord Jesus Christ and his passion and deaths sake. Amen.
FORE:
He appeared, she writes, quite discountenanced at this last part of my narrative. He returned thanks for the obligations I have laid on him, with some caressings which evidently did not proceed from the heart. To break this conversation he started some indifferent topic, and, under pretense of seeing my apartment, moved into the next room, where the prince, my husband, was. Him he surveyed with his eyes from head to foot for some time; then, after some constrained civilities to him, he went his way.It is pleasant to record another incident more creditable to Frederick. In the year 1750 there was a poor and aged schoolmaster, by the name of Linsenbarth, a very worthy man, a veritable Dominie Sampson, residing in the obscure village of Hemmleben. He had been educated as a clergyman, had considerable book learning, was then out of employment, and was in extreme destitution. The pastor of the village church died, leaving a vacant pulpit, and a salary amounting to about one hundred dollars a year. The great man of the place, a feudal lord named Von Werthern, offered the situation to Linsenbarth upon condition that he would marry his ladys termagant waiting-maid. Linsenbarth, who had no fancy for the haughty shrew, declined the offer. The lord and lady were much offended, and in various381 ways rendered the situation of the poor schoolmaster so uncomfortable that he gathered up his slender means, amounting to about three hundred dollars, all in the deteriorated coin of the province, and went to Berlin. His money was in a bag containing nearly nine thousand very small pieces of coin, called batzen.At eleven this day I went to the council-chamber for the third time, and desired Secretary Hartoff to prevail with the ministry to allow me to speak with them, and communicate what the King of Prussia had ordered me to propose. Herr von Hartoff gave them an account of my request, and brought me, for answer, that I must wait a little, because the ministers were not yet all assembled; which I did. But after having made me stay almost an hour, and after the president of the council was come, Herr von Hartoff came out to me and repeated what he had said yesterday, in very positive and absolute terms, that the ministers were resolved not to see me, and had expressly forbid him taking any paper at my hands.