aa. Prussian Camp at Schilda. bbb. Austrian Army. ccc. Rear-guard, under Lacy. d. Prussian Detachment, under Ziethen. e. Frederick's Division beginning the Attack. f. Hülsen's Infantry. g. Holstein's Cavalry. of the short November day was rapidly sinking. Hasty preparations were made for another charge, aided by a body of Prussian cavalry which had just reached the ground. The gathering twilight was darkening hill and valley as the third assault was made. It was somewhat successful. By this time the two armies were quite intermingled. Marshal Daun was severely wounded, and was taken into Torgau to have his wounds dressed. The hour of six had now arrived. It was a damp, cloudy, dark night. The combatants were guided mainly by the flash of the muskets and the guns. "The night was so dark," says Archenholtz, "that you could not see your hand before you." Still for two hours the battle raged. Marshal Daun, as he retired with a shattered leg to have his wound dressed, resigned the command to general Buccow. In a few moments his arm was shot off, and general O'Donnell took the command. He ordered a retreat. The Austrian army, at nine o'clock in the evening, in much disorder, were crossing the Elbe by three bridges which had been thrown across the stream in preparation for a possible disaster. The king, disappointed in a victory which did not promise great results, passed the night conversing with the soldiers at their watchfires. He had ever indulged them in addressing him with much familiarity, calling him Fritz, which was a diminutive of Frederick, and expressive of affection. "I suppose, Fritz," said one of the soldiers, "after this you will give us good winter-quarters." "By all the devils," exclaimed the king, "I shall not till we have taken Dresden. Then I will provide for you to your heart's content." The king was not a man of refined sensibilities. Not unfrequently his letters contained coarse and indelicate expressions. He was very profane. Voltaire says of him: "He has a pleasing tone of voice even in swearing, which is as familiar to him as to a grenadier." The battle of Torgau is to be numbered among the most bloody of the Seven Years' War. The Austrians lost twelve thousand in killed and wounded, eight thousand prisoners, forty-five cannon, and twenty-nine flags. The Prussian loss was also very heavy. There were fourteen thousand killed or wounded, and four thousand taken prisoners. The Austrians retired to Dresden for winterquarters. Frederick was left in the field which he had won. Gradually he withdrew to his old camping-ground at Freiberg, where his troops had been cantoned the previous winter. On the 10th of November, 1760, he wrote from Meissen to the marquis D'Argens at Berlin: "I drove the enemy to the gates of Dresden. They occupy their camp of last year. All my skill is not enough to dislodge them. We have saved our reputation by the day of Torgau. But do not imagine that our enemies are so disheartened as to desire peace, I fear that the French will preserve through the winter the advantages they have gained during the campaign. will retain sentiments of esteem and tender friendship for my good mamma. Adien." On Saturday, the 25th of October of this year, George II., king of England, died. The poor old gentleman, who had been endowed with but a very ordinary share of intelligence, was seventy-seven years of age. On Monday he had presided at a review of troops in Hyde Park. On Thursday he stood upon the portico of his "In a word, I see all black, as if I were at the bottom of a tomb. Have some compassion on the situation I am in. Conceive that I disguise nothing from you, and yet that I do not detail to you all my embarrassments, my ap-rural palace in Kensington to see his Guards prehensions, and troubles. Adieu, my dear marquis. Write to me sometimes. Do not forget a poor devil who curses ten times a day his fatal existence, and could wish he already were in those silent countries from which nobody returns with news." march by for foreign service. Saturday morning he rose at an early hour, took his cup of chocolate as usual, and, opening his windows, said the morning was so fine he would take a walk in his garden. It was then eight o'clock. His valet withdrew with the cup and saucer. He had hardly shut the door when he heard a groan and a fall. Hurrying back, he found the The next day, the 11th, Frederick wrote from Neustadt to the countess of Camas, who at Berlin was the grand mistress of the queen's house-king upon the floor. Faintly the death-strickhold. The trifling tone of this letter, which was penned in the midst of a struggle so awful, is quite characteristic of the writer: “I am punctual in answering, and eager to satisfy you. You shall have a breakfast-set, my good mamma; six coffee-cups, very pretty, well diapered, and tricked out with all the little embellishments which increase their value. On account of some pieces which they are adding to the set you will have to wait a few days. But I flatter myself this delay will contribute to your satisfaction, and produce for you a toy that will give you pleasure, and make you remember your old adorer. "It is curious how old people's habits agree. For four years past I have given up suppers as incompatible with the trade I am obliged to follow. On marching days my dinner consists of a cup of chocolate. "We have been running about like fools, quite inflated with our victory, to see if we could not chase the Austrians out of Dresden. But they made mockery of us from the tops of their mountains. So I have withdrawn, like a naughty little boy, to hide myself out of spite in one of the most cursed villages of Saxony. We must now drive these gentlemen of the imperial army out of Freiberg in order to get something to eat and a place to sleep in.' "This is, I swear to you, such a dog's life [chienne de vie] as no one but Don Quixote ever led before me. All this tumbling, toiling, bother, and confusion have made me such an old fellow that you would scarcely know me again. The hair on the right side of my head has grown quite gray. My teeth break and fall out. My face is as full of wrinkles as the furbelow of a petticoat. My back is bent like a fiddle-bow, and my spirit is sad and downcast, like a monk of La Trappe. "I forewarn you of this that, if we should meet again in flesh and bone, you might not feel yourself too violently shocked by my appearance. There remains nothing to me unaltered but my heart, which, as long as I breathe, 1 Euvres de Frédéric, xix. 204. en monarch exclaimed, "Call Amelia," and instantly died. "Poor deaf Amelia (Frederick's old love, now grown old and deaf) listened wildly for some faint sound from those lips now mute forever. George II. was no more. His grandson, George III., was now king." George II. had always hated his nephew Frederick. His only object in sustaining the war was to protect his native electorate of Hanover, and to abase France. The new sovereign, in his first speech to parliament, said: "I rely upon your zeal and hearty concurrence to support the king of Prussia and the rest of my allies, and to make ample provision for carrying on the war, as the only means of bringing our enemies to equitable terms of accommodation." It seems that in England there were two parties in reference to the war. Sir Horace Walpole, in a letter under date of December 5, 1760, wrote to sir Horace Mann, at Florence: "I shall send you a curious pamphlet, the only work I almost ever knew that changed the opinions of many. It is called 'Considerations on the present German War.' The confirmation of the king of Prussia's victory near Torgau does not prevent the disciples of the pamphlet from thinking that the best thing which could happen for us would be to have that monarch's head shot off." Notwithstanding the opposition, parliament voted to continue the subsidy to Frederick of about three million four hundred thousand dollars (£670,000). This sum was equal to twice or three times that amount at the present day. Frederick, having cantoned his troops at Freiberg and its vicinity, on the 27th of November wrote again to the countess of Camas : "We have settled our winter-quarters. I have yet a little round to take, and afterward I shall seek for tranquillity at Leipsic, if it be to be found there. But, indeed, for me tranquilli 1 Correspondance Familière et Amicale de Frédéric, Roi de Prusse, t. ii. p. 140. 2 CARLYLE. 3 Life of Frederick II., by LORD DOVER, vol. ii. p. 170. 4 Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann, i. 6, 7. ty is only a metaphysical word which has no the troops. It will be remembered that upon reality." the capture of Berlin several of the king's palFrederick was so busy cantoning his troops aces had been sacked by the Russian and Austhat he did not take possession of his head-quar-trian troops. The king, being in great want of ters in Leipsic until the 8th of December. He money, looked around for some opportunity to occupied the Apel House, No. 16 Neumarkt retaliate. There was within his cantonments Street, the same which he had occupied before a very splendidly furnished palace, called the the battle of Rossbach. The same mistress kept Hubertsburg Schloss, belonging to the king of the house as before. Upon seeing the king the Poland. On the 21st of January, 1761, Fredgood woman exclaimed, in astonishment: erick summoned to his audience-room general Saldern. This officer cherished a very high sense of honor. The bravest of the brave on the field of battle, he recoiled from the idea of performing the exploits of a burglar. The following conversation took place between the king and his scrupulous general. In very slow, deliberate tones, the king said: "How lean your majesty has grown!" "Lean, indeed, I am," the king replied. "And what wonder, with three women' hanging on the throat of me all this while!" Thus ended the fifth campaign of the Seven Years' War. Though the king had thus far averted the destruction which seemed every hour to be impending, his strength and resources were so rapidly failing that it seemed impossible that he could much longer continue the struggle. Under these despairing circumstances, the king, with an indomitable spirit, engaged vigorously in gathering his strength for a renewal of the fight in the spring. "In the midst of these preparations for a new campaign against a veteran army of two hundred and eighty thousand enemies, Frederick yet found sufficient leisure for peaceable occupations. He consecrated some hours every day to reading, to music, and to the conversation of men of letters." D'Argens spent the winter with the king at Leipsic. He gives the following incident: “One day I entered the king's apartment, and found him sitting on the floor with a platter of fried meat, from which he was feeding his dogs. He had a little rod, with which he kept order among them, and shoved the best bits to his favorites." The marquis looked for a moment upon the singular spectacle with astonishment. Then raising his hands, he exclaimed: "The five great powers of Europe, who have sworn alliance, and conspired to ruin the marquis of Brandenburg, how might they puzzle their heads to guess what he is now doing! Scheming some dangerous plan, think they, for the next campaign, collecting funds, studying about magazines for man and horse; or is he deep in negotiations to divide his enemies, and get new allies for himself? Not a bit of it. He is sitting peaceably in his room feeding his dogs. "3 The king was quite unscrupulous in the measures to which he resorted to recruit his army. Deserters, prisoners, peasants, were alike forced into the ranks. Even boys but thirteen and fourteen years of age were seized by the pressgangs. The countries swept by the armies were so devastated and laid waste that it was almost an impossibility to obtain provisions for Maria Theresa of Austria, Elizabeth empress of Russia, and the marchioness of Pompadour, who was virtually queen of France. Vie de Frédéric II., Roi de Prusse, t. ii. p. 141.. "General Saldern, to-morrow morning I wish you to go with a detachment of infantry and cavalry to Hubertsburg. Take possession of the palace, and pack up all the furniture. The money they bring I mean to bestow on our field hospitals. I will not forget you in disposing of it." "Forgive me, your majesty," general Saldern replied, "but this is contrary to my honor and my oath." The king, in still very calm and measured words, rejoined, “You would be right if I did not intend this desperate method for a good object. Listen to me. Great lords don't feel it in their scalp when their subjects are torn by the hair. One has to grip their own locks as the only way to give them pain." "Order me, your majesty," said general Saldern, "to attack the enemy and his batteries, and I will cheerfully, on the instant, obey. But I can not, I dare not, act against honor, oath, and duty. For this commission your majesty will easily find another person in my stead." The king turned upon his heel, and, with angry voice and gesture, said, “Saldern, you refuse to become rich.' In a pet Frederick left the room. The heroic general, who had flatly refused to obey a positive command, found it necessary to resign his commission. The next day another officer plundered the castle. Seventy-five thousand dollars of the proceeds of the sale were appropriated to the field hospitals. The remainder, which proved to be a large sum, was the reward of the plundering general. Your "The case was much canvassed in the army. It was the topic in every tent among officers and men. And among us army chaplains, too, the question of conflicting duties arose. king ordering one thing, and your conscience another, what ought a man to do? And what ought an army chaplain to preach or advise? "Our general conclusion was that neither the king nor general Saldern could well be called in the wrong. General Saldern in obeying the inner voice did certainly right. But the king, also, in his place, might judge such a measure expedient. Perhaps general Saldern himself would have done so had he been king | The king threatened to burn down the city over of Prussia." The duke of Mecklenburg had a sister, Charlotte, a bright and beautiful young girl of seventeen. Her heart was so moved by the scenes of misery which she witnessed every where around her that she ventured to write a very earnest appeal to Frederick for peace. "It was but a few years ago," she wrote, "that this territory wore the most pleasing appearance. The country was cultivated. The peasants looked cheerful. The towns abounded with riches and festivity. What an alteration at present from such a charming scene! I am not expert at description, neither can my fancy add any horrors to the picture. But sure even conquerors themselves would weep at the hideous prospect now before me. "The whole country, my dear country, lies one frightful waste, presenting only objects to excite terror, pity, and despair. The business of the husbandman and the shepherd are quite discontinued. The husbandman and shepherd are become soldiers themselves, and help to ravage the soil they formerly occupied. The towns are inhabited by old men, women, and children. Perhaps here and there a warrior, rendered unfit for service by wounds and want of limbs, is left at his door. His little children hang round him, ask a history of every wound, and grow themselves soldiers before they find strength for the field. their heads. The combustibles were gathered. The soldiers stood with the torches in their hands to kindle the conflagration. But then the king, apparently reflecting that from the smouldering ashes of the city he could glean no gold, ordered the city to be saved, but arrested a hundred of the chief merchants and threw them into prison. These men, of the highest distinction, were treated with every indignity to extort the money from them. They were incarcerated in gloomy dungeons, with straw only for their beds, and with bread and water only for their food. But even this severity was unavailing. Seventeen were then selected from their number, and were informed that they were to be forced into the ranks as common soldiers. Their muskets and their knapsacks were given to them, and they were ordered to Magdeburg to be drilled. By this application of torture the money was obtained. And now, while the storms of winter were sweeping the frozen fields, both parties were gathering their strength anew for the struggle of the sixth campaign. AN AFFAIR ON A TOMBSTONE. Fo OURTH of July seems to be such a bore nowadays to every body but the children! They, poor things, dote on every minute of it from three in the morning, when they take such mysterious delight in making hideous noises, and firing off pistols and fire-crackers in the pitch-dark, up to the blaze of the last fireworks in the evening. For myself, being on this memorable Fourth a young lady of twentythree, it brought no special pleasure-was, in fact, as I thought, the very dreariest day I ever knew-being particularly dull in the way of pub "But this were nothing did we not feel the alternate insolence of either army as it happens to advance or retreat. It is impossible to express the confusion which even those create who call themselves our friends. Even those from whom we might expect redress oppress us with new calamities. From you, therefore, it is that we expect relief. To you even wo-lic shows. Portland isn't big enough to be very men and children may complain; for your humanity stoops to the most humble petition, and your power is capable of repressing the greatest injustice. I am, sire, etc., "CHARLOTTE SOPHIA, "Of Mecklenburg-Strelitz." This letter was extensively circulated in England. It was greatly admired. It so happened that the court was then looking around for a bride for their young king. The result was that in the course of a few months Charlotte became queen of England, as the wife of George III. lavish at such times; and then I do hate an east wind, and there was a raw east wind blowing all day, that increased steadily. By night it had become a terrible gale, before which man was utterly powerless, as it swept before it the pitiless flames which burned to the ground half a city, and made ten thousand people homeless that night. Father and mother had gone to Niagara for a week, and I was left as housekeeper, with Sarah, who is two years younger than I, and Bessie, who was only five. My heart aches with love and sorrow as I write her name, our little crippled sister, the pet and darling of the house, the pivot round which ev her by our care and tenderness for the life-long suffering and privations that must be hers. But God was even more sorry for her than we, and in the little grass-covered bed where Bessie is lying now her small tired body will never suffer or be weary any more. It is not known that Frederick paid any at-ery thing moved, as we all strove to make up to tention to this appeal. Impoverished as his realms were, large sums of money were absolutely necessary for the conduct of a new campaign. The king levied a contribution upon Leipsic of nearly a million of dollars. The leading citizens said that in their extreme destitution it was impossible to raise that sum. 1 KUSTER. Charakterzüge des General-Lieutenant v. Saldern, p. 40. We were sitting all by ourselves that afternoon in the front parlor, Sarah and I; for Mrs. Martin had insisted on Bessie's spending the afternoon with her two little girls, and Mr. Mar A year had passed in this way, and we never saw each other now except as we passed, with formal bows, in the street, or when we met in so tin had promised to bring her home in his bug-ip's. If the bell did ring, how tumultuously my gy punctually at seven. The Martins lived on heart beat, and I would feel the color leave my Middle Street, a long way from our house, cheek, while I still bent over my book! Then though we lived "down town" too. Sarah was the revulsion of feeling, the bitter disappointwriting to her fiancé in New Orleans, and I sat ment, when it turned out to be only a boy with by the window watching the whirling clouds of Sarah's new boots, or some prosy neighbor. dust, and looking doubtless, as I felt, the most With what a sickening heart I took off my finmelancholy of damsels. Now when you find a ery when I went to bed, and, as I crept quietly young girl in full health and in a happy home in beside Sarah, kept back the tears till I was in such a mournful state of mind, you are, in sure she was asleep! ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, safe in concluding that there is a lover in the case. I was no exception to the rule. As I looked at Sarah bending over her letter with a half-smiling,ciety; and my family-who all admired him happy face, I envied her, and my heart was sad from father down to little Bessie, whom he was and lonely, thinking of my own strong, hand- so good to always-regarded it as an affair which some, manly lover of only a year ago, who had had blown over and never come to any thing, so utterly forgotten me now-Philip Armstrong, and thought no more about it, never dreaming whom I had secretly looked up to and worshiped of the nights when I lay awake crying, or of afar off ever since I was a school-girl, when only the wretched days I spent taking long walks to get one of those merry, careless smiles of his, for the mere pleasure of passing his home-a as he passed me with my books on the street, beautiful, old-fashioned house, surrounded with would make my cheek flush with pleasure, and stately elms, in the upper part of the city-or goput my lessons out of my head for the day. ing out to church in the bitterest winter storms Then came the happy time when, to my sur- just for the one glimpse of the back of his head prise, he began to single me out for his special I could get from our pew. Do you wonder now attention thereby making me the envy of all that I was so sad as I sat there alone by the the girls-becoming gradually more and more window that day, and thought of the last Fourth devoted, till I was as happy as a dream all day of July, how happy it had been, because he had long in the consciousness of his love, though been with me all day long? I remembered the there was as yet no positive engagement be-yacht-party he got up to go down the harbor and tween us, only one of those "understandings" which have all the delicate charm and mystery of the dawn before the full blaze and glory of the sunrise. Then, alas! came one day our first quarrel, our estrangement. We were both to blame, I think, and yet I the most, for I would not say the one warm, frank word that, spoken at first, would have made all right. I did not think he was so deeply offended, and was sure he would soon come back to me of his own accord; and he, having thus made the first overtures toward peace, oh how penitent and sweet and loving I meant to be! But the days went by, and the weeks and the months, and he came no more; and now we had drifted far apart, and it was too late! I would not believe at first that it would end so. Oh the days when I said to myself, with my heart full of sunshine at the thought, "He will surely come to-night!" and so, after tea, with what infinite care I arrayed myself to please his critical eyes! fussing over my locks till every hair was right, trying on first one collar and then another, to see which was most becoming, as I put on the black silk, with my coral pin and ear-rings, which I knew he liked, because he said once that it all "matched" the dress with my hair and eyes, and the coral with my lips. Then I would seat myself in the parlor with a book, and pretend to read, answering Sarah's wondering question, "what in the world I was dressed up so for to-night," with a withering glance, and an indignant "I'm sure I'm not dressed up at all," while I was literally all ear as I listened for every coming footstep on the street, sure that it must be Phil see the regatta; how merry and splendid he was that day, the life of the whole party, and yet so careful of me; how he sang and how he talked," and how proud I was of him as he stood in the bows of the boat, his cap off, his brown hair blowing in the wind, his brown eyes gleaming with enthusiasm as he cheered the skillful rowing of the winning boat when she shot past us. All this was over now for me, and all the zest and the charm were gone out of my life. Presently Sarah looked up. "By-the-way, Alice, I meant to tell you that I heard yesterday that Philip Armstrong is engaged to that beautiful Miss Sheldon-her father bought that handsome house next the Armstrongs' lately, you know. He has been very attentive to her for some time, they say." Ah, as if I did not know that, and every thing else about him! But I said nothing, and Sarah rattled on : "I met them walking together Monday. I declare she was as pretty as a picture, and he was looking down into her face and talking in that devoted manner of his, and I don't know when I have seen a handsomer couple!" "I should think they must be," said I, quietly; then, as Sarah went on with her letter, I turned my face to the window, and pressed my fingers on my eyes to keep back the hot tears that would come. Just then I heard the alarm of "Fire!" far off, and in a little while the bells began to ring. A man passing called out to another that the "sugar-house" was burning, and he was afraid that with such a wind we should have a bad fire. |