SOPHIA DOROTHEA.
On the 1st of July, the day before the king heard of his mother’s death, he wrote to Wilhelmina, in reply to a letter from her which expressed great anxiety on his account:
“Dear sister, fear nothing on my score. Men are always in the hand of what we call destiny. Accidents will befall people walking on the streets, sitting in their room, lying on their bed; and there are many who escape the perils of war.”
Again, on the 5th of July, he wrote: “I write to apprise you, my dear sister, of the new grief that overwhelms us. We have no longer a mother. This loss puts the crown on my sorrows. I am obliged to act, and have not time to give free course to my tears. Judge, I pray you, of the situation of a feeling heart put to so severe a trial. All losses in the world are capable of being remedied, but those which death causes are beyond the reach of hope.”
On the 7th of July he wrote again to Wilhelmina. The letter reveals the anxiety of his heart, and his earnest desire to escape, if possible, from his embarrassments. Wilhelmina had written, offering her services to endeavor to secure peace. The king replied:
“You are too good. I am ashamed to abuse your indulgence. But do, since you are willing, try and sound the French, and learn what conditions of peace they would demand. Send that Mirabeau[103] to France. Willingly will I pay the expense. He may offer as much as five million thalers [$3,750,000] to the Favorite[104] for peace alone.”
Soon after this, Frederick again wrote to his sister a letter which throws so much light upon his character that we give it almost entire:
“Leitmeritz, July 13, 1757.
“My dear Sister,—Your letter has arrived. I see in it your regrets for the irreparable loss we have had of the best and worthiest mother in this world. I am so overwhelmed by these blows from within and without that I feel myself in a sort of stupefaction.
“The French have seized upon Friesland, and are about to pass the Weser. They have instigated the Swedes to declare war against me. The Swedes are sending seventeen thousand men into Pomerania. The Russians are besieging Memel. General Schwald has them on his front and in his rear. The troops of the empire are also about to march. All this will force me to evacuate Bohemia so soon as that crowd of enemies gets into motion.
“I am firmly resolved on the utmost efforts to save my country. Happy the moment when I took to training myself in philosophy. There is nothing else that can sustain a soul in a situation like mine. I spread out to you, my dear sister, the detail of my sorrows. If these things regarded myself only, I could stand it with composure. But I am the bound guardian of the happiness of a people which has been put under my charge. There lies the sting of it. And I shall have to reproach myself with every fault if, by delay or by overhaste, I occasion the smallest accident.
“I am in the condition of a traveler who sees himself surrounded and ready to be assassinated by a troop of cut-throats, who intend to share his spoils. Since the league of Cambrai[105] there is no example of such a conspiracy as that infamous triumvirate, Austria, France, Russia, now forms against me. Was it ever before seen that three great princes laid plot in concert to destroy a fourth who had done nothing against them? I have not had the least quarrel either with France or with Russia, still less with Sweden.
“Happy, my dear sister, is the obscure man whose good sense, from youth upward, has renounced all sorts of glory; who, in his safe and humble place, has none to envy him, and whose fortune does not excite the cupidity of scoundrels. But these reflections are vain. We have to be what our birth, which decides, has made us in entering upon this world.
“I beg a thousand pardons, my dear sister. In these three long pages I talk to you of nothing but my troubles and affairs. A strange abuse it would be of any other person’s friendship. But yours, my dear sister, is known to me; and I am persuaded that you are not impatient when I open to you my heart—a heart which is yours altogether, being filled with sentiments of the tenderest esteem, with which I am, my dearest sister, your
“Frederick.”
At this time the whole disposable force of his Prussian majesty did not exceed eighty thousand men. There were marching against him combined armies of not less, in the aggregate, than four hundred thousand. A part of the Prussian army, about thirty thousand strong, under the king’s eldest brother, Augustus William, Prince of Prussia, was sent north, especially to protect Zittau, a very fine town of about ten thousand inhabitants, where Frederick had gathered his chief magazines. Prince Charles, with seventy thousand Austrians, pursued this division. He outgeneraled the Prince of Prussia, drove him into wild country roads, took many prisoners, captured important fortresses, and, opening a fire of red-hot shot upon Zittau, laid the whole place, with its magazines, in ashes. The Prince of Prussia, who witnessed the conflagration which he could not prevent, retreated precipitately toward Lobau, and thence to Bautzen, with his army in a deplorable condition of exhaustion and destitution.