“On arriving with his column,” writes General Schmettau, “where the officer—a perfectly skillful man—had marked out the camp, the king would lift his spy-glass, gaze to right and left, riding round the place at perhaps a hundred yards distance, and begin, ‘Look here, sir, what a botching you have made of it again!’
“And then, grumbling and blaming, would alter the camp till it was all out of rule, and then say,
“‘See there; that is the way to mark out camps.’”[192]
Through the efforts of Maria Theresa there was another brief conference, but it amounted to nothing. Neither party wished for war. But Austria craved the annexation of Bavaria, and Frederick was determined that Austria should not thus be enlarged. Thus the summer passed away in unavailing diplomacy and in equally unavailing military manœuvrings. While engaged in these adventures, Frederick received the tidings of the death of Voltaire, who breathed his last on the 20th of May, 1778. The soul of Frederick was too much seared by life’s stern conflicts to allow him to manifest, or probably to feel, any emotion on the occasion. He, however, wrote a eulogy upon the renowned littérateur, which, though written by a royal pen, attracted but little attention.
During the winter Russia and France interposed in behalf of peace. The belligerents agreed to submit the question to their decision. Austria was permitted to take a small slice of Bavaria, and for a time the horrors of war were averted.
Soon after this an event occurred very characteristic of the king—an event which conspicuously displayed both his good and bad qualities. A miller was engaged in a lawsuit against a nobleman. The decree of the court, after a very careful examination, was unanimously in favor of the nobleman; the king, who had impulsively formed a different opinion of the case, was greatly exasperated. He summoned the four judges before him, denounced them in the severest terms of vituperation, would listen to no defense, and dismissed them angrily from office.
“May a miller,” he exclaimed, fiercely, “who has no water, and consequently can not grind, have his mill taken from him? Is that just? Here is a nobleman wishing to make a fish-pond. To get more water for his pond, he has a ditch dug to draw into it a small stream which drives a water-mill. Thereby the miller loses his water, and can not grind. Yet, in spite of this, it is pretended that the miller shall pay his rent, quite the same as at the time when he had full water for his mill. Of course he can not pay his rent. His incomings are gone.
“And what does the court of Cüstrin do? It orders the mill to be sold, that the nobleman may have his rent! Go you, sir,” addressing the grand chancellor, “about your business, this instant. Your successor is appointed; with you I have nothing more to do.” The other three were assailed in the same way, but still more vehemently, as the king’s wrath flamed higher and higher. “Out of my sight,” he exclaimed at last; “I will make an example of you which shall be remembered.”
CONDEMNATION OF THE JUDGES.