ONE:FREDERICK AND WILHELMINA.The packet had been opened. The king would think I was guilty of high treason, and I should be in disgrace with Madame De Pompadour. I was obliged, in order to prevent my ruin, to make known to the court the character and conduct of their enemy.
TWO: Choose whatever apartment in our house you like. Regulate yourself all that you want, either for comfort or luxury. Make your arrangements in such a way as that you may be happy and comfortable, and leave it to me to provide for the rest. You will be always entirely free, and master to choose your own way of life. My only pretension is to enchain you by friendship and kindness.
TWO:I have been unhappy all my life, and I think it is my destiny to continue so. One must be patient, and take the time as it comes. Perhaps a sudden tract of good fortune, on the back of all the chagrins I have encountered since I entered this world, would have made me too proud. I have suffered sufficiently, and I will not engage myself to extend my miseries into future times. I have still resources. A pistol-shot can deliver me from my sorrows and my life, and I think a merciful God would not damn me for that, but, taking pity on me, would, in exchange for a life of wretchedness, grant me salvation. This is whitherward despair can lead a young person whose blood is not so quiescent as if he were seventy.
TWO:Voltaire, speaking of this conflict, says, It was the most inconceivable and complete rout and discomfiture of which history433 makes any mention. Thirty thousand French and twenty thousand imperial troops were there seen making a disgraceful and precipitate flight before five battalions and a few squadrons. The defeats of Agincourt, Cressy, and Poitiers were not so humiliating.110
TWO: God give his blessing to it, and bless you and your posterity, and keep you as a good Christian. And have God always before your eyes, and dont believe that damnable predestination tenet; and be obedient and faithful. So shall it here in time, and there in eternity, go well with thee. And whosoever wishes that from the heart, let him say Amen.The king, with a very complaisant smile, said, Russia, my good sirIt is not proper for me to explain myself, but I have means to keep the Russians employed.
Never you mind that, they replied. The Austrians are not Prussians. You know what we can do.CAMPAIGN OF HOCHKIRCH.The contest between General Neipperg and myself seemed to be which should commit the most faults. Mollwitz was the school of the king and his troops. That prince reflected profoundly upon all the faults and errors he had fallen into, and tried to correct them for the future.Immediately he sent a polite note to Count Wallis, assuring him that the attack, if attack were necessary, should be made on the other side of the city, so that no military advantage could be taken of the church. This popular act resounded widely not225 only through the Protestant community of Silesia, but throughout Europe.
荣誉榜
THREE:In the account which Frederick gave, some years after, of this campaign, in his Histoire de Mons Temps, he wrote:
THREE:98 Pretty soon the king came back, and we, his children, ran to pay our respects to him, by kissing his hands. But he no sooner noticed me than rage and fury took possession of him. He became black in the face, his eyes sparkling fire, his mouth foaming. Infamous wretch! said he, dare you show yourself before me? Go and keep your scoundrel brother company. Whereas the Baron De P?llnitz, born of honest parents, so far as we know, having served our grandfather as gentleman of the chamber, Madame DOrleans in the same rank, the King of Spain as colonel, the deceased Emperor Charles VI. as captain of horse, the pope as chamberlain, the Duke of Brunswick as chamberlain, the Duke of Weimar as ensign, our father as chamberlain, and, in fine, us as grand master of ceremonies, has, notwithstanding such accumulation of honors, become disgusted with the world, and requests of us a parting testimony;
