ace of the Muses;" and the greatest general and most hardy soldier of modern times spent some years of his youth in corresponding with Maupertuis, Voltaire, and other French philosophers, and in making indifferent verses and madrigals, which gave no token of any remarkable genius. He had already prepared for the press a book entitled Refutation of the

Prince of Machiavel," when, in 1740, the death of his father called him to the throne, its duties, its dangers, and its ambition.

34.

His accession

application to

its duties.

The philosophers were in transports when they beheld “one of themselves," as they styled him, elevated to a to the throne, throne; they indulged in hopes that he would conand vigorous tinue in his literary pursuits, and acknowledge their influence, when surrounded by the attractions, and wielding the patronage of the crown. They soon found their mistake. Frederic retained through life his literary tastes he corresponded with Voltaire and the philosophers through all his campaigns; he made French verses in his tent, after tracing out the plans of the battles of Leuthen and Rosbach. But his heart was in his kingdom; his ambition was set on its aggrandizement; his passion was war, by which alone that aggrandizement could be achieved. Without being forgotten, the philosophers and madrigals were soon comparatively discarded. The finances and the army occupied his whole attention. The former were in excellent order, and his father had even accumulated a large treasure which remained in the exchequer. The army, admirably equipped and disciplined, already amounted to sixty thousand men he augmented it to eighty thousand. Nothing could exceed the vigor he displayed in every department, or the unceasing attention he paid to public affairs. Indefatigable day and night, sober and temperate in his habits, he employed even artificial means to augment the time during the day he could devote to business. Finding that he was constitutionally inclined to more rest than he deemed consistent with the full discharge of all his regal duties, he ordered his servants to waken him

at five in the morning; and if words were not effectual to rouse him from his sleep, he commanded them, on pain of dismissal, to apply linen steeped in cold water to his person. This order was punctually executed, even in the depth of winter, till nature was fairly subdued, and the king had gained the time he desired from his slumbers.

35.

His aggression on and conquest of Silesia,

and first victory at Mollwitz.

It was not long before he had an opportunity of evincing at once the vigor and unscrupulous character of his mind. The Emperor Charles VI. having died on the 20th of October, 1740, the immense possessions of the house of Austria devolved to his daughter, since so famous by the name of MARIA THERESA. The defenseless condition of the Imperial dominions, consisting of so many different and discordant states, some of them but recently united under one head, when under the guidance of a young unmarried princess, suggested to the neighboring powers the idea of a partition. Frederic eagerly united with France in this project. He revived some old and obsolete claims of Prussia to Silesia; but in his manifesto to the European powers upon invading that province, he was scarcely at the pains to conceal the real motives of his aggression. "It is," said he, an army ready to take the field, treasures long accumulated, and perhaps the desire to acquire glory." He was not long in succeeding in the object of his ambition, though it was at first rather owing to the skill of his generals, and discipline of his soldiers, than to his own capacity. On the 10th of April, 1741, the army under his command gained a complete victory over the Austrians, at Mollwitz, in Silesia, which led to the entire reduction of that rich and important province. The king owed little to his own courage, however, on this occasion. Like Wellington, the first essay in arms of so indomitable a hero was unfortunate. He fled from the field of battle at the first repulse of his cavalry; and he was already seven miles off, where he was resting in a mill, when he received intelligence that his troops had regained the day; and at the earnest entreaties of General, afterward

Marshal, Schwerin, he returned to take the command of the

army.

successes over

Next year, however, he evinced equal courage and capacity 36. in the battle of Czaslau, which he gained over the His glorious Prince of Lorraine. Austria, on the brink of ruin, the Austrians. hastened to disarm the most formidable of her assailants; and by a separate peace, concluded at Breslau on the 11th of June, 1742, she ceded to Prussia nearly the whole of Silesia. This cruel loss, however, was too plainly the result of necessity to be acquiesced in without a struggle by the cabinet of Vienna. Maria Theresa made no secret of her determination to resume possession of the lost province on the first convenient opportunity. Austria soon united the whole of Germany in a league against Frederic, who had no ally but the King of France. Assailed by such a host of enemies, however, the young king was not discouraged, and, boldly assuming the initiative, he gained at Hohenfriedberg a complete victory over his old antagonist, the Prince of Lorraine. This triumph was won entirely by the extraordinary genius displayed by the King of Prussia. "It was one of those battles," says the military historian Guibert, "where a great master makes every thing give way before him, and which is gained from the very beginning, because he never gives the enemy time to recover from their disorder.”

37. Who are at

quences

The Austrians made great exertions to repair the conseof this disaster, and with such success, that length obliged in four months Prince Charles of Lorraine again to make peace. attacked him, at the head of fifty thousand men, near Soor. Frederic had not twenty-five thousand, but with these he again defeated the Austrians with immense loss, and took up his winter quarters in Silesia. So vast were the resources, however, of the great German League, of which Austria was the head, that they were enabled to keep the field during winter, and even meditated a coup-de-main against the king, in his capital of Berlin. Informed of this design, Frederic lost not a moment in anticipating it by a sudden at

tack, on his part, on his enemies. Assembling his troops in the depth of winter with perfect secrecy, he surprised a large body of Saxons at Naumberg, made himself master of their magazines at Gorlitz, and soon after made his triumphant entry into Dresden, where he dictated a glorious peace, on the 25th of December, 1745, to his enemies, which permanently secured Silesia to Prussia. It was full time for the Imperialists to come to an accommodation. In eighteen months Frederic had defeated them in four pitched battles, besides several combats; taken forty-five thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded an equal number of his enemies. His own armies had not sustained losses to a fifth part of this amount, and the chasms in his ranks were more than compensated by the multitude of the prisoners who enlisted under his banners, anxious to share the fortunes of the hero who had already filled Europe with his renown.

38. His decided

ble character

The ambitious and decided, and, above all, indomitable character of Frederic, had already become conspicuous during these brief campaigns. His corre- and indomitaspondence, all conducted by himself, evinced a vig- already apor and tranchant style at that period unknown in pears, European diplomacy, but to which the world has since been abundantly accustomed in the proclamations of Napoleon. Already he spoke on every occasion as the hero and the conqueror to conquer or die was his invariable maxim. On the eve of his invasion of Saxony, he wrote to the Empress of Russia, who was endeavoring to dissuade him from that design: "I wish nothing from the King of Poland (Elector of Saxony) but to punish him in his electorate, and make him sign an acknowledgment of repentance in his capital." During the negotiations for peace, he wrote to the King of England, who had proposed the mediation of Great Britain: "These are my conditions. I will perish with my army before departing from one iota of them: if the empress does not accept them, I will rise in my demands."

The peace of Dresden lasted ten years; and these were of

39.

ices to his king

next ten years

of peace.

inestimable importance to Frederic. He employ

His great served that precious interval in consolidating his condom during the quests, securing the affections by protecting the interests of his subjects, and pursuing every design which could conduce to their welfare. Marshes were drained, lands were broken up and cultivated, manufactures established, the finances were put in the best order, and agriculture, as the great staple of the kingdom, was sedulously encouraged. His capital was embellished, and the fame of his exploits attracted the greatest and most celebrated men in Europe. Voltaire, among the rest, became for years his guest; but the aspiring genius and irascible temper of the military monarch could ill accord with the vanity and insatiable thirst for praise of the French author, and they parted with mutual respect, but irretrievable alienation. Meanwhile, the strength of the monarchy was daily increasing under Frederic's wise and provident administration. The population nearly reached six millions of souls; the cavalry mustered thirty thousand, all in the highest state of discipline and equipment; and the infantry, esteemed with reason the most perfect in Europe, numbered a hundred and twenty thousand bayonets.

40. Coalition of

Austria, Russia, France, Saxony, and Swe den against Prussia.

These troops had long been accustomed to act together in large bodies; the best training next to actual service in the field which an army can receive. They had need of all their skill, and discipline, and courage; for Prussia was ere long threatened by the most formidable confederacy that ever yet had been directed in modern times against a single state. Austria, Russia, France, Sweden, and Saxony united in alliance for the purpose of partitioning the Prussian territories. These allies had ninety millions of men in their dominions, and could with ease bring four hundred thousand men into the field. Prussia had less than six millions of inhabitants, who were strained to the uttermost to array a hundred and twenty thousand combatants; and even with the aid of England and Hanover, not more than fifty thousand auxiliaries could be relied on. Prus