It was in the year 1750 that Voltaire left the great capital, which

he was not to see again till, after the lapse of near thirty years,

he returned bowed down by extreme old age, to die in the midst of a

splendid and ghastly triumph. His reception in Prussia was such as might

well have elated a less vain and excitable mind. He wrote to his friends

at Paris, that the kindness and the attention with which he had been

welcomed surpassed description, that the King was the most amiable

of men, that Potsdam was the paradise of philosophers. He was created

chamberlain, and received, together with his gold key, the cross of an

order, and a patent ensuring to him a pension of eight hundred pounds

sterling a year for life. A hundred and sixty pounds a year were

promised to his niece if she survived him. The royal cooks and coachmen

were put at his disposal. He was lodged in the same apartments in which

Saxe had lived, when, at the height of power and glory, he visited

Prussia. Frederic, indeed, stooped for a time even to use the language

of adulation. He pressed to his lips the meagre hand of the little

grinning skeleton, whom he regarded as the dispenser of immortal renown.

He would add, he said, to the titles which he owed to his ancestors

and his sword, another title, derived from his last and proudest

acquisition. His style should run thus: Frederic, King of Prussia,

Margrave of Brandenburg, Sovereign Duke of Silesia, Possessor of

Voltaire. But even amidst the delights of the honeymoon, Voltaire’s

sensitive vanity began to take alarm. A few days after his arrival, he

could not help telling his niece that the amiable King had a trick of

giving a sly scratch with one hand while patting and stroking with the

other. Soon came hints not the less alarming, because mysterious. “The

supper parties are delicious. The King is the life of the company.

But--I have operas and comedies, reviews and concerts, my studies and

books. But--but--Berlin is fine, the princesses charming, the maids of

honour handsome. But--”

This eccentric friendship was fast cooling. Never had there met two

persons so exquisitely fitted to plague each other. Each of them had

exactly the fault of which the other was most impatient; and they were,

in different ways, the most impatient of mankind. Frederic was frugal,

almost niggardly. When he had secured his plaything he began to think

that he had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on the other hand, was greedy,

even to the extent of imprudence and knavery; and conceived that the

favourite of a monarch who had barrels full of gold and silver laid up

in cellars ought to make a fortune which a receiver-general might envy.

They soon discovered each other’s feelings. Both were angry; and a war

began, in which Frederic stooped to the part of Harpagon, and Voltaire

to that of Scapin. It is humiliating to relate, that the great warrior

and statesman gave orders that his guest’s allowance of sugar and

chocolate should be curtailed. It is, if possible, a still more

humiliating fact, that Voltaire indemnified himself by pocketing the wax

candles in the royal antechamber. Disputes about money, however, were

not the most serious disputes of these extraordinary associates. The

sarcasms of the King soon galled the sensitive temper of the poet.

D’Arnaud and D’Argens, Guichard and La Metrie, might, for the sake of

a morsel of bread, be willing to bear the insolence of a master; but

Voltaire was of another order. He knew that he was a potentate as well

as Frederic, that his European reputation, and his incomparable power

of covering whatever he hated with ridicule, made him an object of dread

even to the leaders of armies and the rulers of nations. In truth, of

all the intellectual weapons which have ever been wielded by man, the

most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots and tyrants, who had

never been moved by the wailing and cursing of millions, turned pale

at his name. Principles unassailable by reason, principles which had

withstood the fiercest attacks of power, the most valuable truths, the

most generous sentiments, the noblest and most graceful images, the

purest reputations, the most august institutions, began to look mean and

loathsome as soon as that withering smile was turned upon them. To every

opponent, however strong in his cause and his talents, in his station

and his character, who ventured to encounter the great scoffer, might be

addressed the caution which was given of old to the Archangel:=

```“I forewarn thee, shun

```His deadly arrow: neither vainly hope

```To be invulnerable in those bright arms,

```Though temper’d heavenly; for that fatal dint,

```Save Him who reigns above, none can resist.”=

We cannot pause to recount how often that rare talent was exercised

against rivals worthy of esteem; how often it was used to crush

and torture enemies worthy only of silent disdain; how often it was

perverted to the more noxious purpose of destroying the last solace of

earthly misery, and the last restraint on earthly power. Neither can we

pause to tell how often it was used to vindicate justice, humanity, and

toleration, the principles of sound philosophy, the principles of free

government. This is not the place for a full character of Voltaire.

Causes of quarrel multiplied fast. Voltaire, who, partly from love

of money, and partly from love of excitement, was always fond of

stock-jobbing, became implicated in transactions of at least a dubious

character. The King was delighted at having such an opportunity to

humble his guest; and bitter reproaches and complaints were exchanged.

Voltaire, too, was soon at war with the other men of letters who

surrounded the King; and this irritated Frederic, who, however, had

himself chiefly to blame: for, from that love of tormenting which was

in him a ruling passion, he perpetually lavished extravagant praises

on small men and bad books, merely in order that he might enjoy the

mortification and rage which on such occasions Voltaire took no pains to

conceal. His Majesty, however, soon had reason to regret the pains which

he had taken to kindle jealousy among the members of his household. The

whole palace was in a ferment with literary intrigues and cabals. It was

to no purpose that the imperial voice, which kept a hundred and sixty

thousand soldiers in order, was raised to quiet the contention of the

exasperated wits. It was far easier to stir up such a storm than to lull

it. Nor was Frederic, in his capacity of wit, by any means without

his own share of vexations. He had sent a large quantity of verses to

Voltaire, and requested that they might be returned, with remarks and

corrections. “See,” exclaimed Voltaire, “what a quantity of his dirty

linen the King has sent me to wash!” Talebearers were not wanting to

carry the sarcasm to the royal ear; and Frederic was as much incensed as

a Grub Street writer who had found his name in the Dunciad.

This could not last. A circumstance which, when the mutual regard of

the friends was in its first glow, would merely have been matter for

laughter, produced a violent explosion. Maupertuis enjoyed as much

of Frederic’s goodwill as any man of letters. He was President of the

Academy of Berlin; and he stood second to Voltaire, though at an immense

distance, in the literary society which had been assembled at the

Prussian Court. Frederic had, by playing for his own amusement on the

feelings of the two jealous and vainglorious Frenchmen, succeeded in

producing a bitter enmity between them. Voltaire resolved to set his

mark, a mark never to be effaced, on the forehead of Maupertuis, and

wrote the exquisitely ludicrous Diatribe of Doctor Akakia. He showed

this little piece to Frederic, who had too much taste and too much

malice not to relish such delicious pleasantry. In truth, even at this

time of day, it is not easy for any person who has the least perception

of the ridiculous to read the jokes on the Latin city, the Patagonians,

and the hole to the centre of the earth, without laughing till he cries.

But though Frederic was diverted by this charming pasquinade, he was

unwilling that it should get abroad. His self-love was interested. He

had selected Maupertuis to fill the chair of his Academy. If all Europe

were taught to laugh at Maupertuis, would not the reputation of the

Academy, would not even the dignity of its royal patron, be in some

degree compromised? The King, therefore, begged Voltaire to suppress

this performance. Voltaire promised to do so, and broke his word.

The Diatribe was published, and received with shouts of merriment and

applause by all who could read the French language. The King stormed.

Voltaire, with his usual disregard of truth, asserted his innocence, and

made up some lie about a printer or an amanuensis. The King was not to

be so imposed upon. He ordered the pamphlet to be burned by the common

hangman, and insisted upon having an apology from Voltaire, couched in

the most abject terms. Voltaire sent back to the King his cross, his

key, and the patent of his pension. After this burst of rage, the

strange pair began to be ashamed of their violence, and went through the

forms of reconciliation. But the breach was irreparable; and Voltaire

took his leave of Frederic for ever. They parted with cold civility;

but their hearts were big with resentment. Voltaire had in his keeping

a volume of the King’s poetry, and forgot to return it. This was, we

believe, merely one of the oversights which men setting out upon a

journey often commit. That Voltaire could have meditated plagiarism

is quite incredible. He would not, we are confident, for the half of

Frederic’s kingdom, have consented to father Frederic’s verses. The

King, however, who rated his own writings much above their value, and

who was inclined to see all Voltaire’s actions in the worst light, was

enraged to think that his favourite compositions were in the hands of an

enemy, as thievish as a daw and as mischievous as a monkey. In the

anger excited by this thought, he lost sight of reason and decency, and

determined on committing an outrage at once odious and ridiculous.

Voltaire had reached Frankfort. His niece, Madame Denis, came thither to

meet him. He conceived himself secure from the power of his late master,

when he was arrested by order of the Prussian resident. The precious

volume was delivered up. But the Prussian agents had, no doubt, been

instructed not to let Voltaire escape without some gross indignity.

He was confined twelve days in a wretched hovel. Sentinels with fixed

bayonets kept guard over him. His niece was dragged through the mire

by the soldiers. Sixteen hundred dollars were extorted from him by his

insolent gaolers. It is absurd to say that this outrage is not to be

attributed to the King. Was anybody punished for it? Was anybody called

in question for it? Was it not consistent with Frederic’s character? Was

it not of a piece with his conduct on other similar occasions? Is it not

notorious that he repeatedly gave private directions to his officers to

pillage and demolish the houses of persons against whom he had a grudge,

charging them at the same time to take their measures in such a way that

his name might not be compromised? He acted thus towards Count Bruhl in

the Seven Years’ War. Why should we believe that he would have been more

scrupulous with regard to Voltaire?

When at length the illustrious prisoner regained his liberty, the

prospect before him was but dreary. He was an exile both from the

country of his birth and from the country of his adoption. The French

Government had taken offence at his journey to Prussia, and would not

permit him to return to Paris; and in the vicinity of Prussia it was not

safe for him to remain.

He took refuge on the beautiful shores of Lake Leman. There, loosed from

every tie which had hitherto restrained him, and having little to hope,

or to fear from courts and churches, he began his long war against all

that, whether for good or evil, had authority over man; for what Burke

said of the Constituent Assembly, was eminently true of this its great

forerunner: Voltaire could not build: he could only pull down: he

was the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a single

doctrine to be called by his name, not a single addition to the stock

of our positive knowledge. But no human teacher ever left behind him so

vast and terrible a wreck of truths and falsehoods, of things noble and

things base, of things useful and things pernicious. From the time when

his sojourn beneath the Alps commenced, the dramatist, the wit, the

historian, was merged in a more important character. He was now the

patriarch, the founder of a sect, the chief of a conspiracy, the prince

of a wide intellectual commonwealth. He often enjoyed a pleasure dear

to the better part of his nature, the pleasure of vindicating innocence

which had no other helper, of repairing cruel wrongs, of punishing

tyranny in high places. He had also the satisfaction, not less

acceptable to his ravenous vanity, of hearing terrified Capuchins call

him the Antichrist. But whether employed in works of benevolence, or

in works of mischief, he never forgot Potsdam and Frankfort; and he

listened anxiously to every murmur which indicated that a tempest was

gathering in Europe, and that his vengeance was at hand.

He soon had his wish. Maria Theresa had never for a moment forgotten the

great wrong which she had received at the hand of Frederic. Young and

delicate, just left an orphan, just about to be a mother, she had been

compelled to fly from the ancient capital of her race; she had seen her

fair inheritance dismembered by robbers, and of those robbers he had

been the foremost. Without a pretext, without a provocation, in defiance

of the most sacred engagements, he had attacked the helpless ally whom

he was bound to defend. The Empress Queen had the faults as well as the

virtues which are connected with quick sensibility and a high spirit.

There was no peril which she was not ready to brave, no calamity which

she was not ready to bring on her subjects, or on the whole human

race, if only she might once taste the sweetness of a complete revenge.

Revenge, too, presented itself, to her narrow and superstitious mind, in

the guise of duty. Silesia had been wrested not only from the House of

Austria, but from the Church of Rome. The conqueror had indeed permitted

his new subjects to worship God after their own fashion; but this

was not enough. To bigotry it seemed an intolerable hardship that the

Catholic Church, having long enjoyed ascendency, should be compelled to

content itself with equality. Nor was this the only circumstance

which led Maria Theresa to regard her enemy as the enemy of God. The

profaneness of Frederic’s writings and conversation, and the frightful

rumours which were circulated respecting the immorality of his private

life, naturally shocked a woman who believed with the firmest faith all

that her confessor told her, and who, though surrounded by temptations,

though young and beautiful, though ardent in all her passions, though

possessed of absolute power, had preserved her fame unsullied even by

the breath of slander.

To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty of Hohenzollern to the dust,

was the great object of her life. She toiled during many years for this

end, with zeal as indefatigable as that which the poet ascribed to the

stately goddess who tired out her immortal horses in the work of raising

the nations against Troy, and who offered to give up to destruction her

darling Sparta and Mycenae, if only she might once see the smoke going

up from the palace of Priam. With even such a spirit did the proud

Austrian Juno strive to array against her foe a coalition such as Europe

had never seen. Nothing would content her but that the whole civilised

world, from the White Sea to the Adriatic, from the Bay of Biscay to the

pastures of the wild horses of the Tanais, should be combined in arms

against one petty State.

She early succeeded by various arts in obtaining the adhesion of Russia.

An ample share of spoil was promised to the King of Poland; and that

prince, governed by his favourite, Count Bruhl, readily promised the

assistance of the Saxon forces. The great difficulty was with France.

That the Houses of Bourbon and of Hapsburg should ever cordially

co-operate in any great scheme of European policy, had long been

thought, to use the strong expression of Frederic, just as impossible

as that fire and water should amalgamate. The whole history of the

Continent, during two centuries and a half, had been the history of

the mutual jealousies and enmities of France and Austria. Since the

administration of Richelieu, above all, it had been considered as the

plain policy of the Most Christian King to thwart on all occasions the

Court of Vienna, and to protect every member of the Germanic body who

stood up against the dictation of the Caesars. Common sentiments of

religion had been unable to mitigate this strong antipathy. The rulers

of France, even while clothed in the Roman purple, even persecuting the

heretics of Rochelle and Auvergne, had still looked with favour on the

Lutheran and Calvinistic princes who were struggling against the

chief of the empire. If the French ministers paid any respect to the

traditional rules handed down to them through many generations, they

would have acted towards Frederic as the greatest of their predecessors

acted towards Gustavus Adolphus. That there was deadly enmity between

Prussia and Austria was of itself a sufficient reason for close

friendship between Prussia and France. With France Frederic could never

have any serious controversy. His territories were so situated that his

ambition, greedy and unscrupulous as it was, could never impel him to

attack her of his own accord. He was more than half a Frenchman: he

wrote, spoke, read nothing but French: he delighted in French society:

the admiration of the French he proposed to himself as the best reward

of all his exploits. It seemed incredible that any French Government,

however notorious for levity or stupidity, could spurn away such an

ally.

The Court of Vienna, however, did not despair. The Austrian diplomatists

propounded a new scheme of politics, which, it must be owned, was not

altogether without plausibility. The great powers, according to this

theory, had long been under a delusion. They had looked on each other as

natural enemies, while in truth they were natural allies. A succession

of cruel wars had devastated Europe, had thinned the population, had

exhausted the public resources, had loaded governments with an immense

burden of debt; and when, after two hundred years of murderous hostility

or of hollow truce, the illustrious Houses whose enmity had distracted

the world sat down to count their gains, to what did the real advantage

on either side amount? Simply to this, that they had kept each other

from thriving. It was not the King of France, it was not the Emperor,

who had reaped the fruits of the Thirty Years’ War, or of the War of

the Pragmatic Sanction. Those fruits had been pilfered by states of

the second and third rank, which, secured against jealousy by their

insignificance, had dexterously aggrandised themselves while pretending

to serve the animosity of the great chiefs of Christendom. While the

lion and tiger were tearing each other, the jackal had run off into the

jungle with the prey. The real gainer by the Thirty Years’ War had been

neither France nor Austria, but Sweden. The real gainer by the War of

the Pragmatic Sanction had been neither France nor Austria, but the

upstart of Brandenburg. France had made great efforts, had added largely

to her military glory, and largely to her public burdens; and for what

end? Merely that Frederic might rule Silesia. For this and this alone

one French army, wasted by sword and famine, had perished in Bohemia;

and another had purchased with flood of the noblest blood, the barren

glory of Fontenoy. And this prince, for whom France had suffered so

much, was he a grateful, was he even an honest ally? Had he not been as

false to the Court of Versailles as to the Court of Vienna?

Had he not played, on a large scale, the same part which, in private

life, is played by the vile agent of chicane who sets his neighbours

quarrelling, involves them in costly and interminable litigation, and

betrays them to each other all round, certain that, whoever may be

ruined, he shall be enriched? Surely the true wisdom of the great

powers was to attack, not each other, but this common barrator, who,

by inflaming the passions of both, by pretending to serve both, and by

deserting both, had raised himself above the station to which he was

born. The great object of Austria was to regain Silesia; the great

object of France was to obtain an accession of territory on the side

of Flanders. If they took opposite sides, the result would probably be

that, after a war of many years, after the slaughter of many thousands

of brave men, after the waste of many millions of crowns, they would lay

down their arms without having achieved either object; but, if they came

to an understanding, there would be no risk, and no difficulty. Austria

would willingly make in Belgium such cessions as France could not expect

to obtain by ten pitched battles. Silesia would easily be annexed to

the monarchy of which it had long been a part. The union of two such

powerful governments would at once overawe the King of Prussia. If he

resisted, one short campaign would settle his fate. France and Austria,

long accustomed to rise from the game of war both losers, would, for the

first time, both be gainers. There could be no room for jealousy between

them. The power of both would be increased at once; the equilibrium

between them would be preserved; and the only sufferer would be a

mischievous and unprincipled buccaneer, who deserved no tenderness from

either.

These doctrines, attractive from their novelty and ingenuity, soon

became fashionable at the supper-parties and in the coffee-houses of

Paris, and were espoused by every gay marquis and every facetious abbe

who was admitted to see Madame de Pompadour’s hair curled and powdered.

It was not, however, to any political theory that the strange coalition

between France and Austria owed its origin. The real motive which

induced the great continental powers to forget their old animosities

and their old state maxims was personal aversion to the King of Prussia.

This feeling was strongest in Maria Theresa; but it was by no means

confined to her. Frederic, in some respects a good master, was

emphatically a bad neighbour. That he was hard in all dealings, and

quick to take all advantages, was not his most odious fault. His bitter

and scoffing speech had inflicted keener wounds than his ambition.

In his character of wit he was under less restraint than even in

his character of ruler. Satirical verses against all the princes

and ministers of Europe were ascribed to his pen. In his letters and

conversation he alluded to the greatest potentates of the age in terms

which would have better suited Colle, in a war of repartee with young

Crebillon at Pelletier’s table, than a great sovereign speaking of great

sovereigns. About women he was in the habit of expressing himself in a

manner which it was impossible for the meekest of women to forgive; and,

unfortunately for him, almost the whole Continent was then governed

by women who were by no means conspicuous for meekness. Maria Theresa

herself had not escaped his scurrilous jests. The Empress Elizabeth

of Russia knew that her gallantries afforded him a favourite theme for

ribaldry and invective. Madame de Pompadour, who was really the head

of the French Government, had been even more keenly galled. She had

attempted, by the most delicate flattery, to propitiate the King of

Prussia; but her messages had drawn from him only dry and sarcastic

replies. The Empress Queen took a very different course. Though the

haughtiest of princesses, though the most austere of matrons, she forgot

in her thirst for revenge both the dignity of her race and the purity

of her character, and condescended to flatter the lowborn and low-minded

concubine, who, having acquired influence by prostituting herself,

retained it by prostituting others. Maria Theresa actually wrote with

her own hand a note, full of expressions of esteem and friendship to

her dear cousin, the daughter of the butcher Poisson, the wife of the

publican D’Etioles, the kidnapper of young girls for the haram of an

old rake, a strange cousin for the descendant of so many Emperors of the

West! The mistress was completely gained over, and easily carried her

point with Lewis, who had, indeed, wrongs of his own to resent. His

feelings were not quick, but contempt, says the Eastern proverb, pierces

even through the shell of the tortoise; and neither prudence nor decorum

had ever restrained Frederic from expressing his measureless contempt

for the sloth, the imbecility, and the baseness of Lewis. France was

thus induced to join the coalition; and the example of France determined

the conduct of Sweden, then completely subject to French influence.

The enemies of Frederic were surely strong enough to attack him

openly; but they were desirous to add to all their other advantages the

advantage of a surprise. He was not, however, a man to be taken off his

guard. He had tools in every Court; and he now received from Vienna,

from Dresden, and from Paris, accounts so circumstantial and so

consistent, that he could not doubt of his danger. He learnt, that he

was to be assailed at once by France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden,

and the Germanic body; that the greater part of his dominions was to

be portioned out among his enemies; that France, which from her

geographical position could not directly share in his spoils, was to

receive an equivalent in the Netherlands; that Austria was to have

Silesia, and the Czarina East Prussia; that Augustus of Saxony expected

Magdeburg; and that Sweden would be rewarded with part of Pomerania. If

these designs succeeded, the House of Brandenburg would at once sink in

the European system to a place lower than that of the Duke of Wurtemberg

or the Margrave of Baden.

And what hope was there that these designs would fail? No such union

of the continental powers had been seen for ages. A less formidable

confederacy had in a week conquered, all the provinces of Venice, when

Venice was at the height, of power, wealth, and glory. A less formidable

confederacy had compelled Lewis the Fourteenth to bow down his haughty

head to the very earth. A less formidable confederacy has, within our

own memory, subjugated a still mightier empire, and abused a still

prouder name. Such odds had never been heard of in war. The people whom

Frederic ruled were not five millions. The population of the countries

which were leagued against him amounted to a hundred millions, The

disproportion in wealth was at least equally great. Small communities,

actuated by strong sentiments of patriotism or loyalty, have sometimes

made head against great monarchies weakened by factions and discontents.

But small as was Frederic’s kingdom, it probably contained a greater

number of disaffected subjects than were to be found in all the states

of his enemies. Silesia formed a fourth part of his dominions; and from

the Silesians, born under Austrian princes, the utmost that he could

expect was apathy. From the Silesian Catholics he could hardly expect

anything but resistance.

Some states have been enabled, by their geographical position, to defend

themselves with advantage against immense force. The sea has repeatedly

protected England against the fury of the whole Continent. The Venetian

Government, driven from its possessions on the land, could still bid

defiance to the confederates of Cambray from the arsenal amidst the

lagoons. More than one great and well appointed army, which regarded the

shepherds of Switzerland as an easy prey, has perished in the passes of

the Alps. Frederic hid no such advantage. The form of his states, their

situation, the nature of the ground, all were against him. His long,

scattered, straggling territory seemed to have been shaped with an

express view to the convenience of invaders, and was protected by no

sea, by no chain of hills. Scarcely any corner of it was a week’s march

from the territory of the enemy. The capital itself, in the event of

war, would be constantly exposed to insult. In truth there was hardly a

politician or a soldier in Europe who doubted that the conflict would

be terminated in a very few days by the prostration of the House of

Brandenburg.

Nor was Frederic’s own opinion very different. He anticipated nothing

short of his own ruin, and of the ruin of his family. Yet there was

still a chance, a slender chance, of escape. His states had at least the

advantage of a central position; his enemies were widely separated from

each other, and could not conveniently unite their overwhelming forces

on one point. They inhabited different climates, and it was probable

that the season of the year which would be best suited to the military

operations of one portion of the League, would be unfavourable to those

of another portion. The Prussian monarchy, too, was free from some

infirmities which were found in empires far more extensive and

magnificent. Its effective strength for a desperate struggle was not

to be measured merely by the number of square miles or the number of

people. In that spare but well-knit and well-exercised body, there was

nothing but sinew, and muscle and bone. No public creditors looked for

dividends. No distant colonies required defence. No Court, filled with

flatterers and mistresses, devoured the pay of fifty battalions. The

Prussian army, though far inferior in number to the troops which were

about to be opposed to it, was yet strong out of all proportion to the

extent of the Prussian dominions. It was also admirably trained and

admirably officered, accustomed to obey and accustomed to conquer. The

revenue was not only unincumbered by debt, but exceeded the ordinary

outlay in time of peace. Alone of all the European princes, Frederic had

a treasure laid up for a day of difficulty. Above all, he was one,

and his enemies were many. In their camps would certainly be found the

jealousy, the dissension, the slackness inseparable from coalitions;

on his side was the energy, the unity, the secrecy of a strong

dictatorship. To a certain extent the deficiency of military means might

be supplied by the resources of military art. Small as the King’s

army was, when compared with the six hundred thousand men whom the

confederates could bring into the field, celerity of movement might in

some degree compensate for deficiency of bulk. It was thus just possible

that genius, judgment, resolution, and good luck united, might protract

the struggle during a campaign or two; and to gain even a month was of

importance. It could not be long before the vices which are found in all

extensive confederacies would begin to show themselves. Every member of

the League would think his own share of the war too large, and his

own share of the spoils too small. Complaints and recriminations would

abound. The Turk might stir on the Danube; the statesmen of France

might discover the error which they had committed in abandoning the

fundamental principles of their national policy. Above all, death might

rid Prussia of its most formidable enemies. The war was the effect

of the personal aversion with which three or four sovereigns regarded

Frederic; and the decease of any one of those sovereigns might produce a

complete revolution in the state of Europe.

In the midst of a horizon generally dark and stormy, Frederic could

discern one bright spot. The peace which had been concluded between

England and France in 1748, had been in Europe no more than an

armistice; and had not even been an armistice in the other quarters of

the globe. In India the sovereignty of the Carnatic was disputed between

two great Mussulman houses; Fort Saint George had taken one side,

Pondicherry the other; and in a series of battles and sieges the troops

of Lawrence and Clive had been opposed to those of Dupleix. A struggle

less important in its consequences, but not less likely to produce

irritation, was carried on between those French and English adventurers,

who kidnapped negroes and collected gold dust on the coast of Guinea.

But it was in North America that the emulation and mutual aversion of

the two nations were most conspicuous. The French attempted to hem in

the English colonists by a chain of military posts, extending from the

Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi. The English took arms.

The wild aboriginal tribes appeared on each side mingled with the

Pale-Faces. Battles were fought; forts were stormed; and hideous stories

about stakes, scalpings, and death-songs reached Europe, and inflamed

that national animosity which the rivalry of ages had produced. The

disputes between France and England came to a crisis at the very time

when the tempest which had been gathering was about to burst on Prussia.

The tastes and interests of Frederic would have led him, if he had been

allowed an option, to side with the House of Bourbon. But the folly of

the Court of Versailles left him no choice. France became the tool of

Austria; and Frederic was forced to become the ally of England. He could

not, indeed, expect that a power which covered the sea with its fleets,

and which had to make war at once on the Ohio and the Ganges, would be

able to spare a large number of troops for operations in Germany. But

England, though poor compared with the England of our time, was far

richer than any country on the Continent. The amount of her revenue, and

the resources which she found in her credit, though they may be thought

small by a generation which has seen her raise a hundred and thirty

millions in a single year, appeared miraculous to the politicians of

that age. A very moderate portion of her wealth, expended by an able

and economical prince, in a country where prices were low, would be

sufficient to equip and maintain a formidable army.

Such was the situation in which Frederic found himself. He saw the whole

extent of his peril. He saw that there was still a faint possibility of

escape; and, with prudent temerity, he determined to strike the first

blow. It was in the month of August 1756, that the great war of the

Seven Years commenced. The King demanded of the Empress Queen a distinct

explanation of her intentions, and plainly told her that he should

consider a refusal as a declaration of war. “I want,” he said, “no

answer in the style of an oracle.” He received an answer at once haughty

and evasive. In an instant the rich electorate of Saxony was overflowed

by sixty thousand Prussian troops. Augustus with his army occupied a

strong position at Pirna. The Queen of Poland was at Dresden. In a few

days Pirna was blockaded and Dresden was taken. The first object of

Frederic was to obtain possession of the Saxon State papers; for those

papers, he well knew, contained ample proofs that, though apparently an

aggressor, he was really acting in self-defence. The Queen of Poland, as

well acquainted as Frederic with the importance of those documents, had

packed them up, had concealed them in her bed-chamber, and was about to

send them off to Warsaw, when a Prussian officer made his appearance.

In the hope that no soldier would venture to outrage a lady, a queen,

a daughter of an emperor, the mother-in-law of a dauphin, she placed

herself before the trunk, and at length sat down on it. But all

resistance was vain. The papers were carried to Frederic, who found in

them, as he expected, abundant evidence of the designs of the coalition.

The most important documents were instantly published, and the effect of

the publication was great. It was clear that, of whatever sins the

King of Prussia might formerly have been guilty, he was now the injured

party, and had merely anticipated a blow intended to destroy him.

The Saxon camp at Pirna was in the meantime closely invested; but the

besieged were not without hopes of succour. A great Austrian army

under Marshal Brown was about to pour through the passes which separate

Bohemia from Saxony. Frederic left at Pirna a force sufficient to deal

with the Saxons, hastened into Bohemia, encountered Brown at Lowositz,

and defeated him. This battle decided the fate of Saxony. Augustus and

his favourite Bruhl fled to Poland. The whole army of the Electorate

capitulated. From that time till the end of the war, Frederic treated

Saxony as a part of his dominions, or, rather, he acted towards the

Saxons in a manner which may serve to illustrate the whole meaning

of that tremendous sentence, “subjectos tanquam suos, viles tanquam

alienos.” Saxony was as much in his power as Brandenburg; and he had

no such interest in the welfare of Saxony as he had in the welfare of

Brandenburg. He accordingly levied troops and exacted contributions

throughout the enslaved province, with far more rigour than in any part

of his own dominions. Seventeen thousand men who had been in the camp

at Pirna were half compelled, half persuaded to enlist under

their conqueror. Thus, within a few weeks from the commencement of

hostilities, one of the confederates had been disarmed, and his weapons

were now pointed against the rest.

The winter put a stop to military operations. All had hitherto gone

well. But the real tug of war was still to come. It was easy to foresee

that the year 1757 would be a memorable era in the history of Europe.

The King’s scheme for the campaign was simple, bold, and judicious. The

Duke of Cumberland with an English and Hanoverian array was in Western

Germany, and might be able to prevent the French troops from attacking

Prussia. The Russians, confined by their snows, would probably not stir

till the spring was far advanced. Saxony was prostrated. Sweden could do

nothing very important. During a few months Frederic would have to deal

with Austria alone. Even thus the odds were against him. But ability and

courage have often triumphed against odds still more formidable.

Early in 1757 the Prussian army in Saxony began to move. Through four

defiles in the mountains they came pouring into Bohemia. Prague was

the King’s first mark; but the ulterior object was probably Vienna. At

Prague lay Marshal Brown with one great army. Daun, the most cautious

and fortunate of the Austrian captains, was advancing with another.

Frederic determined to overwhelm Brown before Daun should arrive. On the

sixth of May was fought, under those walls which, a hundred and thirty

years before, had witnessed the victory of the Catholic league and the

flight of the unhappy Palatine, a battle more bloody than any which

Europe saw during the long interval between Malplaquet and Eylau. The

King and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick were distinguished on that day by

their valour and exertions. But the chief glory was with Schwerin.

When the Prussian infantry wavered, the stout old marshal snatched

the colours from an ensign, and, waving them in the air, led back his

regiment to the charge. Thus at seventy-two years of age he fell in the

thickest battle, still grasping the standard which bears the black eagle

on the field argent. The victory remained with the King; but it had been

dearly purchased. Whole columns of his bravest warriors had fallen.

He admitted that he had lost eighteen thousand men. Of the enemy,

twenty-four thousand had been killed, wounded, or taken.

Some of the defeated army was shut up in Prague. Part fled to join

the troops which, under the command of Daun, were now close at hand.

Frederic determined to play over the same game which had succeeded at

Lowositz. He left a large force to besiege Prague, and at the head

of thirty thousand men he marched against Daun. The cautious Marshal,

though he had a great superiority in numbers, would risk nothing. He

occupied at Kolin a position almost impregnable, and awaited the attack

of the King.

It was the eighteenth of June, a day which, if the Greek superstition

still retained its influence, would be held sacred to Nemesis, a day

on which the two greatest princes of modern times were taught, by

a terrible experience, that neither skill nor valour can fix the

inconstancy of fortune. The battle began before noon; and part of the

Prussian army maintained the contest till after the midsummer sun had

gone down. But at length the King found that his troops, having been

repeatedly driven back with frightful carnage, could no longer be led

to the charge. He was with difficulty persuaded to quit the field. The

officers of his personal staff were under the necessity of expostulating

with him, and one of them took the liberty to say, “Does your Majesty

mean to storm the batteries alone?” Thirteen thousand of his bravest

followers had perished. Nothing remained for him but to retreat in good

order, to raise the siege of Prague, and to hurry his army by different

routes out of Bohemia.

This stroke seemed to be final. Frederic’s situation had at best been

such, that only an uninterrupted run of good luck could save him, as it

seemed, from ruin. And now, almost in the outset of the contest he had

met with a check which, even in a war between equal powers, would have

been felt as serious. He had owed much to the opinion which all Europe

entertained of his army. Since his accession, his soldiers had in many

successive battles been victorious over the Austrians. But the glory had

departed from his arms. All whom his malevolent sarcasms had wounded,

made haste to avenge themselves by scoffing at the scoffer. His soldiers

had ceased to confide in his star. In every part of his camp his

dispositions were severely criticised. Even in his own family he had

detractors. His next brother, William, heir-presumptive, or rather, in

truth, heir-apparent to the throne, and great-grandfather of the present

King, could not refrain from lamenting his own fate and that of the

House of Hohenzollern, once so great and so prosperous, but now, by

the rash ambition of its chief, made a by-word to all nations. These

complaints, and some blunders which William committed during the retreat

from Bohemia, called forth the bitter displeasure of the inexorable

King. The prince’s heart was broken by the cutting reproaches of his

brother; he quitted the army, retired to a country seat, and in a short

time died of shame and vexation.

It seemed that the King’s distress could hardly be increased. Yet at

this moment another blow not less terrible than that of Kolin fell upon

him. The French under Marshal D’Estrees had invaded Germany. The Duke of

Cumberland had given them battle at Hastembeck, and had been defeated.

In order to save the Electorate of Hanover from entire subjugation, he

had made, at Closter Seven, an arrangement with the French Generals,

which left them at liberty to turn their arms against the Prussian

dominions.

That nothing might be wanting to Frederic’s distress, he lost his mother

just at this time; and he appears to have felt the loss more than was to

be expected from the hardness and severity of his character. In truth,

his misfortunes had now cut to the quick. The mocker, the tyrant, the

most rigorous, the most imperious, the most cynical of men, was very

unhappy. His face was so haggard, and his form so thin, that when on his

return from Bohemia he passed through Leipsic, the people hardly knew

him again. His sleep was broken; the tears, in spite of himself, often

started into his eyes; and the grave began to present itself to

his agitated mind as the best refuge from misery and dishonour. His

resolution was fixed never to be taken alive, and never to make peace

on condition of descending from his place among the powers of Europe.

He saw nothing left for him except to die; and he deliberately chose his

mode of death. He always carried about with him a sure and speedy poison

in a small glass case; and to the few in whom he placed confidence, he

made no mystery of his resolution.

But we should very imperfectly describe the state of Frederic’s mind,

if we left out of view the laughable peculiarities which contrasted so

singularly with the gravity, energy, and harshness of his character. It

is difficult to say whether the tragic or the comic predominated in

the strange scene which was then acting. In the midst of all the great

King’s calamities, his passion for writing indifferent poetry grew

stronger and stronger. Enemies all round him, despair in his heart,

pills of corrosive sublimate hidden in his clothes, he poured forth

hundreds upon hundreds of lines, hateful to gods and men, the insipid

dregs of Voltaire’s Hippocrene, the faint echo of the lyre of Chaulieu.

It is amusing to compare what he did during the last months of 1757,

with what he wrote during the same time. It may be doubted whether any

equal portion of the life of Hannibal, of Caesar, or of Napoleon, will

bear a comparison with that short period, the most brilliant in the

history of Prussia and of Frederic. Yet at this very time the scanty

leisure of the illustrious warrior was employed in producing odes

and epistles, a little better than Cibber’s, and a little worse than

Hayley’s. Here and there a manly sentiment which deserves to be in prose

makes its appearance in company with Prometheus and Orpheus, Elysium and

Acheron, the Plaintive Philomel, the poppies of Morpheus, and all

the other frippery which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty to her

waiting woman, has long been contemptuously abandoned by genius to

mediocrity. We hardly know any instance of the strength and weakness

of human nature so striking, and so grotesque, as the character of this

haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates

and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of

poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.

Frederic had some time before made advances towards a reconciliation

with Voltaire; and some civil letters had passed between them. After

the battle of Kolin their epistolary intercourse became, at least in

seeming, friendly and confidential. We do not know any collection of

Letters which throws so much light on the darkest and most intricate

parts of human nature, as the correspondence of these strange beings

after they had exchanged forgiveness. Both felt that the quarrel had

lowered them in the public estimation. They admired each other. They

stood in need of each other. The great King wished to be handed down to

posterity by the great Writer. The great Writer felt himself exalted by

the homage or the great King. Yet the wounds which they had inflicted

on each other were too deep to be effaced, or even perfectly healed.

Not only did the scars remain; the sore places often festered and bled

afresh. The letters consisted for the most part of compliments, thanks,

offers of service, assurances of attachment. But if anything brought

back to Frederic’s recollection the cunning and mischievous pranks

by which Voltaire had provoked him, some expression of contempt and

displeasure broke forth in the midst of eulogy. It was much worse when

anything recalled to the mind of Voltaire the outrages which he and his

kinswoman had suffered at Frankfort. All at once his flowing panegyric

was turned into invective. “Remember how you behaved to me. For your

sake I have lost the favour of my native King. For your sake I am an

exile from my country. I loved you. I trusted myself to you. I had

no wish but to end my life in your service. And what was my reward?

Stripped of all that you had bestowed on me, the key, the order, the

pension, I was forced to fly from your territories. I was hunted as if

I had been a deserter from your grenadiers. I was arrested, insulted,

plundered. My niece was dragged through the mud of Frankfort by your

soldiers, as if she had been some wretched follower of your camp. You

have great talents. You have good qualities. But you have one odious

vice. You delight in the abasement of your fellow-creatures. You have

brought disgrace on the name of philosopher. You have given some colour

to the slanders of the bigots, who say that no confidence can be placed

in the justice or humanity of those who reject the Christian faith.”

Then the King answers, with less heat but equal severity--“You know that

you behaved shamefully in Prussia. It was well for you that you had to

deal with a man so indulgent to the infirmities of genius as I am. You

richly deserved to see the inside of a dungeon. Your talents are not

more widely known than your faithlessness and your malevolence. The

grave itself is no asylum from your spite. Maupertuis is dead; but you

still go on calumniating and deriding him, as if you had not made him

miserable enough while he was living. Let us have no more of this. And,

above all, let me hear no more of your niece. I am sick to death of her

name. I can bear with your faults for the sake of your merits; but she

has not written Mahomet or Merope.”

An explosion of this kind, it might be supposed, would necessarily put

an end to all amicable communication. But it was not so. After every

outbreak of ill humour this extraordinary pair became more loving than

before, and exchanged compliments and assurances of mutual regard with a

wonderful air of sincerity.

It may well be supposed that men who wrote thus to each other, were not

very guarded in what they said of each other. The English ambassador,

Mitchell, who knew that the King of Prussia was constantly writing to

Voltaire with the greatest freedom on the most important subjects, was

amazed to hear his Majesty designate this highly favoured correspondent

as a bad-hearted fellow, the greatest rascal on the face of the earth.

And the language which the poet held about the King was not much more

respectful.

It would probably have puzzled Voltaire himself to say what was his

real feeling towards Frederic. It was compounded of all sentiments, from

enmity to friendship, and from scorn to admiration; and the proportions

in which these elements were mixed, changed every moment. The old

patriarch resembled the spoiled child who screams, stamps, cuffs,

laughs, kisses, and cuddles within one quarter of an hour. His

resentment was not extinguished; yet he was not without sympathy for

his old friend. As a Frenchman, he wished success to the arms of his

country. As a philosopher, he was anxious for the stability of a

throne on which a philosopher sat. He longed both to save and to humble

Frederic. There was one way, and only one, in which all his conflicting

feelings could at once be gratified. If Frederic were preserved by the

interference of France, if it were known that for that interference

he was indebted to the mediation of Voltaire, this would indeed be

delicious revenge; this would indeed be to heap coals of fire on that

haughty head. Nor did the vain and restless poet think it impossible

that he might, from his hermitage near the Alps, dictate peace to

Europe. D’Estrees had quitted Hanover, and the command of the French

army had been intrusted to the Duke of Richelieu, a man whose chief

distinction was derived from his success in gallantry. Richelieu was

in truth the most eminent of that race of seducers by profession,

who furnished Crebillon the younger and La Clos with models for their

heroes. In his earlier days the royal house itself had not been

secure from his presumptuous love. He was believed to have carried his

conquests into the family of Orleans; and some suspected that he was not

unconcerned in the mysterious remorse which embittered the last hours of

the charming mother of Lewis the Fifteenth. But the Duke was now sixty

years old. With a heart deeply corrupted by vice, a head long accustomed

to think only on trifles, an impaired constitution, an impaired

fortune, and, worst of all, a very red nose, he was entering on a

dull, frivolous, and unrespected old age. Without one qualification for

military command, except that personal courage which was common between

him and the whole nobility of France, he had been placed at the head of

the army of Hanover; and in that situation he did his best to repair, by

extortion and corruption, the injury which he had done to his property

by a life of dissolute profusion.

The Duke of Richelieu to the end of his life hated the philosophers as

a sect, not for those parts of their system which a good and wise man

would have condemned, but for their virtues, for their spirit of free

inquiry, and for their hatred of those social abuses of which he was

himself the personification. But he, like many of those who thought

with him, excepted Voltaire from the list of proscribed writers. He

frequently sent flattering letters to Ferney. He did the patriarch

the honour to borrow money of him, and even carried this condescending

friendship so far as to forget to pay the interest. Voltaire thought

that it might be in his power to bring the Duke and the King of Prussia

into communication with each other. He wrote earnestly to both; and he

so far succeeded that a correspondence between them was commenced.

But it was to very different means that Frederic was to owe his

deliverance. At the beginning of November, the net seemed to have closed

completely round him. The Russians were in the field, and were spreading

devastation through his eastern provinces. Silesia was overrun by the

Austrians. A great French army was advancing from the west under the

command of Marshal Soubise, a prince of the great Armorican house of

Rohan. Berlin itself had been taken and plundered by the Croatians. Such

was the situation from which Frederic extricated himself, with dazzling

glory, in the short space of thirty days.

He marched first against Soubise. On the fifth of November the

armies met at Rosbach. The French were two to one; but they were

ill-disciplined, and their general was a dunce. The tactics of Frederic,

and the well-regulated valour of the Prussian troops obtained a complete

victory. Seven thousand of the invaders were made prisoners. Their guns,

their colours, their baggage, fell into the hands of the conquerors.

Those who escaped fled as confusedly as a mob scattered by cavalry.

Victorious in the West, the King turned his arms towards Silesia. In

that quarter everything seemed to be lost. Breslau had fallen; and

Charles of Lorraine, with a mighty power, held the whole province. On

the fifth of December, exactly one month after the battle of Rosbach,

Frederic, with forty thousand men, and Prince Charles, at the head of

not less than sixty thousand, met at Leuthen, hard by Breslau. The King,

who was, in general, perhaps too much inclined to consider the common

soldier as a mere machine, resorted, on this great day, to means

resembling those which Bonaparte afterwards employed with such signal

success for the purpose of stimulating military enthusiasm. The

principal officers were convoked. Frederic addressed them with great

force and pathos; and directed them to speak to their men as he had

spoken to them. When the armies were set in battle array, the Prussian

troops were in a state of fierce excitement; but their excitement showed

itself after the fashion of a grave people. The columns advanced to the

attack chanting, to the sound of drums and fifes, the rude hymns of the

old Saxon Sternholds. They had never fought so well; nor had the genius

of their chief ever been so conspicuous. “That battle,” said Napoleon,

“was a masterpiece. Of itself it is sufficient to entitle Frederic to

a place in the first rank among generals.” The victory was complete.

Twenty-seven thousand Austrians were killed, wounded, or taken; fifty

stand of colours, a hundred guns, four thousand waggons, fell into

the hands of the Prussians. Breslau opened its gates; Silesia was

reconquered; Charles of Lorraine retired to hide his shame and sorrow at

Brussels; and Frederic allowed his troops to take some repose in winter

quarters, after a campaign, to the vicissitudes of which it will be

difficult to find any parallel in ancient or modern history.

The King’s fame filled all the world. He had during the last year,

maintained a contest, on terms of advantage, against three powers, the

weakest of which had more than three times his resources. He had fought

four great pitched battles against superior forces. Three of these

battles he had gained: and the defeat of Kolin, repaired as it had been,

rather raised than lowered his military renown. The victory of Leuthen

is, to this day, the proudest on the roll of Prussian fame. Leipsic

indeed, and Waterloo, produced consequences more important to mankind.

But the glory of Leipsic must be shared by the Prussians with the

Austrians and Russians; and at Waterloo the British infantry bore the

burden and heat of the day. The victory of Rosbach was, in a military

point of view, less honourable than that of Leuthen; for it was gained

over an incapable general, and a disorganised army; but the moral effect

which it produced was immense. All the preceding triumphs of Frederic

had been triumphs over Germans, and could excite no emotions of national

pride among the German people. It was impossible that a Hessian or

a Hanoverian could feel any patriotic exultation at hearing that

Pomeranians had slaughtered Moravians, or that Saxon banners had been

hung in the churches of Berlin. Indeed, though the military character of

the Germans justly stood high throughout the world, they could boast of

no great day which belonged to them as a people; of no Agincourt, of no

Bannockburn. Most of their victories had been gained over each other;

and their most splendid exploits against foreigners had been achieved

under the command of Eugene, who was himself a foreigner. The news

of the battle of Rosbach stirred the blood of the whole of the mighty

population from the Alps to the Baltic, and from the borders of Courland

to those of Lorraine. Westphalia and Lower Saxony had been deluged by

a great host of strangers, whose speech was unintelligible, and whose

petulant and licentious manners had excited the strongest feelings of

disgust and hatred. That great host had been put to flight by a small

band of German warriors, led by a prince of German blood on the side of

father and mother, and marked by the fair hair and the clear blue eye of

Germany. Never since the dissolution of the empire of Charlemagne,

had the Teutonic race won such a field against the French. The tidings

called forth a general burst of delight and pride from the whole of the

great family which spoke the various dialects of the ancient language

of Arminius. The fame of Frederic began to supply, in some degree,

the place of a common government and of a common capital. It became a

rallying point for all true Germans, a subject of mutual congratulation

to the Bavarian and the Westphalian, to the citizen of Frankfort, and

to the citizen of Nuremberg. Then first it was manifest that the Germans

were truly a nation. Then first was discernible that patriotic spirit

which, in 1813, achieved the great deliverance of central Europe, and

which still guards, and long will guard, against foreign ambition the

old freedom of the Rhine.

Nor were the effects produced by that celebrated day merely political.

The greatest masters of German poetry and eloquence have admitted that,

though the great King neither valued nor understood his native language,

though he looked on France as the only seat of taste and philosophy,

yet, in his own despite, he did much to emancipate the genius of his

countrymen from the foreign yoke; and that, in the act of vanquishing

Soubise, he was, unintentionally, rousing the spirit which soon began to

question the literary precedence of Boileau and Voltaire. So strangely

do events confound all the plans of man. A prince who read only French,

who wrote only French, who aspired to rank as a French classic, became,

quite unconsciously, the means of liberating half the Continent from the

dominion of that French criticism of which he was himself, to the end

of his life, a slave. Yet even the enthusiasm of Germany in favour of

Frederic hardly equalled the enthusiasm of England. The birthday of

our ally was celebrated with as much enthusiasm as that of our own

sovereign; and at night the streets of London were in a blaze with

illuminations. Portraits of the Hero of Rosbach, with his cocked hat and

long pigtail, were in every house. An attentive observer will, at this

day, find in the parlours of old-fashioned inns, and in the portfolios

of print-sellers, twenty portraits of Frederic for one of George the

Second. The sign-painters were everywhere employed in touching up

Admiral Vernon into the King of Prussia. This enthusiasm was strong

among religious people, and especially among the Methodists, who knew

that the French and Austrians were Papists, and supposed Frederic to be

the Joshua or Gideon of the Reformed Faith. One of Whitfield’s hearers,

on the day On which thanks for the battle of Leuthen were returned at

the Tabernacle, made the following exquisitely ludicrous entry in a

diary, part of which has come down to us: “The Lord stirred up the King

of Prussia and his soldiers to pray. They kept three fast days, and

spent about an hour praying and singing psalms before they engaged the

enemy. O! how good it is to pray and fight!” Some young Englishmen

of rank proposed to visit Germany as volunteers, for the purpose of

learning the art of war under the greatest of commanders. This last

proof of British attachment and admiration, Frederic politely but

firmly declined. His camp was no place for amateur students of military

science. The Prussian discipline was rigorous even to cruelty.

The officers, while in the field, were expected to practise an

abstemiousness and self-denial such as was hardly surpassed by the most

rigid monastic orders. However noble their birth, however high their

rank in the service, they were not permitted to eat from anything better

than pewter. It was a high crime even in a count and field-marshal to

have a single silver spoon among his baggage. Gay young Englishmen of

twenty thousand a year, accustomed to liberty and luxury, would not

easily submit to these Spartan restraints. The King could not venture to

keep them in order as he kept his own subjects in order. Situated as

he was with respect to England, he could not well imprison or shoot

refractory Howards and Cavendishes. On the other hand, the example of a

few fine gentlemen, attended by chariots and livery servants, eating

in plates, and drinking champagne and Tokay, was enough to corrupt his

whole army. He thought it best to make a stand at first, and civilly

refused to admit such dangerous companions among his troops.

The help of England was bestowed in a manner far more useful and more

acceptable. An annual subsidy of near seven hundred thousand pounds

enabled the King to add probably more than fifty thousand men to his

army. Pitt, now at the height of power and popularity, undertook the

task of defending Western Germany against France, and asked Frederic

only for the loan of a general. The general selected was Prince

Ferdinand of Brunswick, who had attained high distinction in the

Prussian service. He was put at the head of an army, partly English,

partly Hanoverian, partly composed of mercenaries hired from the petty

princes of the empire. He soon vindicated the choice of the two allied

Courts, and proved himself the second general of the age.

Frederic passed the winter at Breslau, in reading, writing, and

preparing for the next campaign. The havoc which the war had made among

his troops was rapidly repaired; and in the spring of 1758 he was again

ready for the conflict. Prince Ferdinand kept the French in check.

The King in the meantime, after attempting against the Austrians some

operations which led to no very important result, marched to encounter

the Russians, who, slaying, burning, and wasting wherever they turned,

had penetrated into the heart of his realm. He gave them battle at

Zorndorf, near Frankfort on the Oder. The fight was long and bloody.

Quarter was neither given nor taken; for the Germans and Scythians

regarded each other with bitter aversion, and the sight of the ravages

committed by the half savage invaders, had incensed the King and his

army. The Russians were overthrown with great slaughter; and for a few

months no further danger was to be apprehended from the east.

A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed by the King, and was celebrated

with pride and delight by his people. The rejoicings in England were not

less enthusiastic or less sincere. This may be selected as the point of

time at which the military glory of Frederic reached the zenith. In the

short space of three quarters of a year he had won three great battles

over the armies of three mighty and warlike monarchies, France, Austria,

and Russia.

But it was decreed that the temper of that strong mind should be tried

by both extremes of fortune in rapid succession. Close upon this series

of triumphs came a series of disasters, such as would have blighted the

fame and broken the heart of almost any other commander. Yet Frederic,

in the midst of his calamities, was still an object of admiration to his

subjects, his allies, and his enemies. Overwhelmed by adversity, sick

of life, he still maintained the contest, greater in defeat, in, flight,

and in what seemed hopeless ruin, than on the fields of his proudest

victories.

Having vanquished the Russians, he hastened into Saxony to oppose the

troops of the Empress Queen, commanded by Daun, the most cautious, and

Laudohn, the most inventive and enterprising of her generals. These two

celebrated commanders agreed on a scheme, in which the prudence of the

one and the vigour of the other seem to have been happily combined. At

dead of night they surprised the King in his, camp at Hochkirchen. His

presence of mind saved his troops from destruction; but nothing could

save them from defeat and severe loss. Marshal Keith was among the

slain. The first roar of the guns roused the noble exile from his rest,

and he was instantly in the front of the battle. He received a dangerous

wound, but refused to quit the field, and was in the act of rallying

his broken troops, when an Austrian bullet terminated his chequered and

eventful life.

The misfortune was serious. But of all generals Frederic understood best

how to repair defeat, and Daun understood least how to improve victory.

In a few days the Prussian army was as formidable as before the battle.

The prospect was, however, gloomy. An Austrian army under General Harsch

had invaded Silesia, and invested the fortress of Neisse. Daun, after

his success at Hochkirchen, had written to Harsch in very confident

terms:--“Go on with your operations against Neisse. Be quite at ease as

to the King. I will give a good account of him.” In truth, the position

of the Prussians was full of difficulties. Between them and Silesia, lay

the victorious army of Daun. It was not easy for them to reach Silesia

at all. If they did reach it, they left Saxony exposed to the Austrians.

But the vigour and activity of Frederic surmounted every obstacle. He

made a circuitous march of extraordinary rapidity, passed Daun, hastened

into Silesia, raised the siege of Niesse, and drove Harsch into Bohemia.

Daun availed himself of the King’s absence to attack Dresden. The

Prussians defended it desperately. The inhabitants of that wealthy and

polished capital begged in vain for mercy from the garrison within, and

from the besiegers without. The beautiful suburbs were burned to the

ground. It was clear that the town, if won at all, would be won street

by street by the bayonet. At this conjuncture came news, that Frederic,

having cleared Silesia of his enemies, was returning by forced marches

into Saxony. Daun retired from before Dresden, and fell back into the

Austrian territories. The King, over heaps of ruins, made his triumphant

entry into the unhappy metropolis, which had so cruelly expiated the

weak and perfidious policy of its sovereign. It was now the twentieth of

November. The cold weather suspended military operations; and the King

again took up his winter quarters at Breslau.

The third of the seven terrible years were over; and Frederic still

stood his ground. He had been recently tried by domestic as well as by

military disasters. On the fourteenth of October, the day on which

he was defeated at Hochkirchen, the day on the anniversary of which,

forty-eight years later, a defeat far more tremendous laid the Prussian

monarchy in the dust, died Wilhelmina, Margravine of Bareuth. From the

accounts which we have of her, by her own hand, and by the hands of the

most discerning of her contemporaries, we should pronounce her to have

been coarse, indelicate, and a good hater, but not destitute of kind and

generous feelings. Her mind, naturally strong and observant, had been

highly cultivated; and she was, and deserved to be, Frederic’s favourite

sister. He felt the loss as much as it was in his iron nature to feel

the loss of anything but a province or a battle.

At Breslau, during the winter, he was indefatigable in his poetical

labours. The most spirited lines, perhaps, that he ever wrote, are, to

be found in a bitter lampoon on Lewis and Madame de Pompadour, which he

composed at this time, and sent to Voltaire. The verses were, indeed,

so good, that Voltaire was afraid that he might himself be suspected of

having written them, or at least of having corrected them; and partly

from fright, partly, we fear, from love of mischief, sent them to the

Duke of Choiseul, then prime minister of France. Choiseul very wisely

determined to encounter Frederic at Frederic’s own weapons, and applied

for assistance to Palissot, who had some skill as a versifier, and some

little talent for satire. Palissot produced some very stinging lines on

the moral and literary character of Frederic, and these lines the Duke

sent to Voltaire. This war of couplets, following close on the carnage

of Zorndorf and the conflagration of Dresden, illustrates well the

strangely compounded character of the King of Prussia.

At this moment he was assailed by a new enemy. Benedict the Fourteenth,

the best and wisest of the two hundred and fifty successors of St.

Peter, was no more. During the short interval between his reign and that

of his disciple Ganganelli, the chief seat in the Church of Rome was

filled by Rezzonico, who took the name of Clement the Thirteenth. This

absurd priest determined to try what the weight of his authority could

effect in favour of the orthodox Maria Theresa against a heretic

king. At the high mass on Christmas-day, a sword with a rich belt and

scabbard, a hat of crimson velvet lined with ermine, and a dove of

pearls, the mystic symbol of the Divine Comforter, were solemnly blessed

by the supreme pontiff, and were sent with great ceremony to Marshal

Daun, the conqueror of Kolin and Hochkirchen. This mark of favour had

more than once been bestowed by the Popes on the great champions of the

faith. Similar honours had been paid, more than six centuries earlier,

by Urban the Second to Godfrey of Bouillon. Similar honours had been

conferred on Alba for destroying the liberties of the Low Countries, and

on John Sobiesky after the deliverance of Vienna. But the presents which

were received with profound reverence by the Baron of the Holy Sepulchre

in the eleventh century, and which had not wholly lost their value

even in the seventeenth century, appeared inexpressibly ridiculous to a

generation which read Montesquieu and Voltaire. Frederic wrote sarcastic

verses on the gifts, the giver, and the receiver. But the public wanted

no prompter; and an universal roar of laughter from Petersburg to Lisbon

reminded the Vatican that the age of crusades was over.

The fourth campaign, the most disastrous of all the campaigns of this

fearful war, had now opened. The Austrians filled Saxony and menaced

Berlin. The Russians defeated the King’s generals on the Oder,

threatened Silesia, effected a junction with Laudohn, and intrenched

themselves strongly at Kunersdorf. Frederic hastened to attack them. A

great battle was fought. During the earlier part of the day everything

yielded to the impetuosity of the Prussians, and to the skill of their

chief. The lines were forced. Half the Russian guns were taken. The

King sent off a courier to Berlin with two lines, announcing a complete

victory. But, in the meantime, the stubborn Russians, defeated yet

unbroken, had taken up their stand in an almost impregnable position,

on an eminence where the Jews of Frankfort were wont to bury their dead.

Here the battle recommenced. The Prussian infantry, exhausted by six

hours of hard fighting under a sun which equalled the tropical heat,

were yet brought up repeatedly to the attack, but in vain. The King led

three charges in person. Two horses were killed under him. The officers

of his staff fell all round him. His coat was pierced by several

bullets. All was in vain. His infantry was driven back with frightful

slaughter. Terror began to spread fast from man to man. At that moment,

the fiery cavalry of Laudohn, still fresh, rushed on the wavering ranks.

Then followed an universal rout. Frederic himself was on the point of

falling into the hands of the conquerors, and was with difficulty saved

by a gallant officer, who, at the head of a handful of Hussars, made

good a diversion of a few minutes. Shattered in body, shattered in mind,

the King reached that night a village which the Cossacks had plundered;

and there, in a ruined and deserted farm-house, flung himself on a heap

of straw. He had sent to Berlin a second despatch very different from

the first:--“Let the royal family leave Berlin. Send the archives to

Potsdam. The town may make terms with the enemy.”

The defeat was, in truth, overwhelming. Of fifty thousand men who had

that morning marched under the black eagles, not three thousand remained

together. The King bethought him again of his corrosive sublimate, and

wrote to bid adieu to his friends, and to give directions as to the

measures to be taken in the event of his death:-“I have no resource

left”--such is the language of one of his letters--“all is lost. I will

not survive the ruin of my country.--Farewell for ever.”

But the mutual jealousies of the confederates prevented them from

following up their victory. They lost a few days in loitering and

squabbling; and a few days, improved by Frederic, were worth more than

the years of other men. On the morning after the battle, he had got

together eighteen thousand of his troops. Very soon his force amounted

to thirty thousand. Guns were procured from the neighbouring fortresses;

and there was again an army. Berlin was for the present safe; but

calamities came pouring on the King in uninterrupted succession. One of

his generals, with a large body of troops, was taken at Maxen; another

was defeated at Meissen; and when at length the campaign of 1759 closed,

in the midst of a rigorous winter, the situation of Prussia appeared

desperate. The only consoling circumstance was, that, in the West,

Ferdinand of Brunswick had been more fortunate than his master; and by a

series of exploits, of which the battle of Minden was the most glorious,

had removed all apprehension of danger on the side of France.

The fifth year was now about to commence. It seemed impossible that the

Prussian territories, repeatedly devastated by hundreds of thousands of

invaders, could longer support the contest. But the King carried on war

as no European power has ever carried on war, except the Committee

of Public Safety during the great agony of the French Revolution. He

governed his kingdom as he would have governed a besieged town, not

caring to what extent property was destroyed, or the pursuits of civil

life suspended, so that he did but make head against the enemy. As long

as there was a man left in Prussia, that man might carry a musket; as

long as there was a horse left, that horse might draw artillery. The

coin was debased, the civil functionaries were left unpaid; in some

provinces civil government altogether ceased to exist. But there was

still rye-bread and potatoes; there was still lead and gunpowder; and,

while the means of sustaining and destroying life remained, Frederic was

determined to fight it out to the very last.

The earlier part of the campaign of 1760 was unfavourable to him. Berlin

was again occupied by the enemy. Great contributions were levied on the

inhabitants, and the royal palace was plundered. But at length, after

two years of calamity, victory came back to his arms. At Lignitz he

gained a great battle over Laudohn; at Torgau, after a day of horrible

carnage, he triumphed over Daun. The fifth year closed, and still the

event was in suspense. In the countries where the war had raged, the

misery and exhaustion were more appalling than ever; but still there

were left men and beasts, arms and food, and still Frederic fought on.

In truth he had now been baited into savageness. His heart was ulcerated

with hatred. The implacable resentment with which his enemies persecuted

him, though originally provoked by his own unprincipled ambition,

excited in him a thirst for vengeance which he did not even attempt to

conceal. “It is hard,” he says in one of his letters, “for a man to bear

what I bear. I begin to feel that, as the Italians say, revenge is a

pleasure for the gods. My philosophy is worn out by suffering. I am no

saint, like those of whom we read in the legends; and I will own that I

should die content if only I could first inflict a portion of the misery

which I endure.”

Borne up by such feelings, he struggled with various success, but

constant glory, through the campaign of 1761. On the whole the result of

this campaign was disastrous to Prussia. No great battle was gained by

the enemy; but, in spite of the desperate bounds of the hunted tiger,

the circle of pursuers was fast closing round him. Laudohn had surprised

the important fortress of Schweidnitz. With that fortress half of

Silesia, and the command of the most important defiles through the

mountains had been transferred to the Austrians. The Russians had

overpowered the King’s generals in Pomerania. The country was so

completely desolated that he began, by his own confession, to look round

him with blank despair, unable to imagine where recruits, horses, or

provisions were to be found.

Just at this time, two great events brought on a complete change in the

relations of almost all the powers of Europe. One of those events was

the retirement of Mr. Pitt from office; the other was the death of the

Empress Elizabeth of Russia.

The retirement of Pitt seemed to be an omen of utter ruin to the House

of Brandenburg. His proud and vehement nature was incapable of anything

that looked like either fear or treachery. He had often declared that,

while he was in power, England should never make a peace of Utrecht,

should never, for any selfish object, abandon an ally even in the last

extremity of distress. The Continental war was his own war. He had been

bold enough, he who in former times had attacked, with irresistible

powers of oratory, the Hanoverian policy of Carteret, and the German

subsidies of Newcastle, to declare that Hanover ought to be as dear to

us as Hampshire, and that he would conquer America in Germany. He

had fallen; and the power which he had exercised, not always with

discretion, but always with vigour and genius, had devolved on a

favourite who was the representative of the Tory party, of the party

which had thwarted William, which had persecuted Marlborough, which

had given tip the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip of Anjou. To make

peace with France, to shake off, with all, or more than all, the speed

compatible with decency, every Continental connection, these were among

the chief objects of the new Minister. The policy then followed inspired

Frederic with an unjust, but deep and bitter aversion to the English

name, and produced effects which are still felt throughout the civilised

world. To that policy it was owing that, some years later, England could

not find on the whole Continent a single ally to stand by her, in her

extreme need against the House of Bourbon. To that policy it was owing

that Frederic, alienated from England, was compelled to connect himself

closely, during his later years, with Russia, and was induced to assist

in that great crime, the fruitful parent of other great crimes, the

first partition of Poland.

Scarcely had the retreat of Mr. Pitt deprived Prussia of her only

friend, when the death of Elizabeth produced an entire revolution in

the politics of the North. The Grand Duke Peter, her nephew, who now

ascended the Russian throne, was not merely free from the prejudices

which his aunt had entertained against Frederic, but was a worshipper,

a servile imitator of the great King. The days of the new Czar’s

government were few and evil, but sufficient to produce a change in the

whole state of Christendom. He set the Prussian prisoners at liberty,

fitted them out decently, and sent them back to their master; he

withdrew his troops from the provinces which Elizabeth had decided on

incorporating with her dominions; and he absolved all those Prussian

subjects, who had been compelled to swear fealty to Russia, from their

engagements.

Not content with concluding peace on terms favourable to Prussia, he

solicited rank in the Prussian service, dressed himself in a

Prussian uniform, wore the Black Eagle of Prussia on his breast, made

preparations for visiting Prussia, in order to have an interview with

the object of his idolatry, and actually sent fifteen thousand excellent

troops to reinforce the shattered army of Frederic. Thus strengthened,

the King speedily repaired the losses of the preceding year, reconquered

Silesia, defeated Daun at Buckersdorf, invested and retook Schweidnitz,

and, at the close of the year, presented to the forces of Maria Theresa

a front as formidable as before the great reverses of 1759. Before the

end of the campaign, his friend, the Emperor Peter, having, by a series

of absurd insults to the institutions, manners, and feelings of his

people, united them in hostility to his person and government, was

deposed and murdered. The Empress, who, under the title of Catherine the

Second, now assumed the supreme power, was, at the commencement of her

administration, by no means partial to Frederic, and refused to permit

her troops to remain under his command. But she observed the peace made

by her husband; and Prussia was no longer threatened by danger from the

East.

England and France at the same time paired off together. They concluded

a treaty, by which they bound themselves to observe neutrality with

respect to the German war. Thus the coalitions on both sides were

dissolved; and the original enemies, Austria and Prussia, remained alone

confronting each other.

Austria had undoubtedly far greater means than Prussia, and was less

exhausted by hostilities; yet it seemed hardly possible that Austria

could effect alone what she had in vain attempted to effect when

supported by France on the one side, and by Russia on the other. Danger

also began to menace the Imperial house from another quarter. The

Ottoman Porte held threatening language, and a hundred thousand Turks

were mustered on the frontiers of Hungary. The proud and revengeful

spirit of the Empress Queen at length gave way; and, in February 1763,

the peace of Hubertsburg put an end to the conflict which had, during

seven years, devastated Germany. The King ceded nothing. The whole

Continent in arms had proved unable to tear Silesia from that iron

grasp.

The war was over. Frederic was safe. His glory was beyond the reach of

envy. If he had not made conquests as vast as those of Alexander, of

Caesar, and of Napoleon, if he had not, on fields of battle, enjoyed

the constant success of Marlborough and Wellington, he had yet given an

example unrivalled in history of what capacity and resolution can effect

against the greatest superiority of power, and the utmost spite of

fortune. He entered Berlin in triumph, after an absence of more than six

years. The streets were brilliantly lighted up; and, as he passed

along in an open carriage, with Ferdinand of Brunswick at his side, the

multitude saluted him with loud praises and blessings. He was moved by

those marks of attachment, and repeatedly exclaimed “Long live my dear

people! Long live my children!” Yet, even in the midst of that

gay spectacle, he could not but perceive everywhere the traces of

destruction and decay. The city had been more than once plundered. The

population had considerably diminished. Berlin, however, had suffered

little when compared with most parts of the kingdom. The ruin of private

fortunes, the distress of all ranks, was such as might appal the

firmest mind. Almost every province had been the seat of war, and of war

conducted with merciless ferocity. Clouds of Croatians had descended on

Silesia. Tens of thousands of Cossacks had been let loose on Pomerania

and Brandenburg. The mere contributions levied by the invaders amounted,

it was said, to more than a hundred millions of dollars; and the value

of what they extorted was probably much less than the value of what

they destroyed. The fields lay uncultivated. The very seed-corn had

been devoured in the madness of hunger. Famine, and contagious maladies

produced by famine, had swept away the herds and flocks; and there was

reason to fear that a great pestilence among the human race was likely

to follow in the train of that tremendous war. Near fifteen thousand

houses had been burned to the ground. The population of the kingdom

had in seven years decreased to the frightful extent of ten per cent. A

sixth of the males capable of bearing arms had actually perished on the

field of battle. In some districts, no labourers, except women, were

seen in the fields at harvest-time. In others, the traveller passed

shuddering through a succession of silent villages, in which not a

single inhabitant remained. The currency had been debased; the authority

of laws and magistrates had been suspended; the whole social system was

deranged. For, during that convulsive struggle, everything that was

not military violence was anarchy. Even the army was disorganised. Some

great generals, and a crowd of excellent officers, had fallen, and it

had been impossible to supply their place. The difficulty of finding

recruits had, towards the close of the war, been so great, that

selection and rejection were impossible. Whole battalions were composed

of deserters or of prisoners. It was hardly to be hoped that thirty

years of repose and industry would repair the ruin produced by seven

years of havoc. One consolatory circumstance, indeed, there was. No

debt had been incurred. The burdens of the war had been terrible, almost

insupportable; but no arrear was left to embarrass the finances in time

of peace.

Here, for the present, we must pause. We have accompanied Frederic to

the close of his career as a warrior. Possibly, when these Memoirs are

completed, we may resume the consideration of his character, and give

some account of his domestic and foreign policy, and of his private

habits, during the many years of tranquillity which followed the Seven

Years’ War.