"I do not complain of your heart; but I do of your incapaciy, of your want of judgment in not choosing better methods. A man who [like me; mark the phrase, from such a quarter!] has but a few days to live need not dissemble. I wish you better fortune than mine has been: and that all the miseries and bad adventures you have had may teach you to treat important things with more of care, more of sense, and more of resolution. The greater part of the misfortunes which I now see to be near comes only from you. You and your Children will be more overwhelmed by them than I. Be persuaded nevertheless that I have always loved you, and that with these sentiments I shall die. FRIEDRICH."[MAIN DE MAITRE, p. 22.]
As the King went off to the Heights of Weissenberg, Zittau way, to encamp there against the Austrians, that same evening, the Prince did not answer this Letter,--except by asking verbally through Lieutenant-Colonel Lentulus (a mute Swiss figure, much about the King, who often turns up in these Histories), "for leave to return to Dresden by the first escort."--"Depends on himself;--an escort is going this night! answered Friedrich. And the Prince went accordingly; and, by two stages, got into Dresden with his escort on the morrow. And had, not yet conscious of it, quitted the Field of War altogether; and was soon about to quit the world, and die, poor Prince. Died within a year, 12th June, 1758, at Oranienburg, beside his Family, where he had latterly been. [Preuss, ii. 60(ib. 78).]--Winterfeld was already gone, six months before him;Goltz went, not long after him; the other Zittau Generals all survived this War.
The poor Prince's fate, as natural, was much pitied; and Friedrich, to this day, is growled at for "inhuman treatment" and so on.
Into which question we do not enter, except to say that Friedrich too had his sorrows; and that probably his concluding words, "with these sentiments I shall die," were perfectly true. MAIN DE MAITREwent widely abroad over the world. The poor Prince's words and procedures were eagerly caught up by a scrutinizing public,--and some of the former were not too guarded. At Dresden, he said, one morning, calling on a General Finck whom we shall hear of again:
"Four such disagreeing, thin-skinned, high-pacing (UNEINIGE, PIQUIRTE) Generals as Fouquet, Schmettau, Winterfeld and Goltz, about you, what was to be done!" said the Prince to Finck.
[Preuss, ii. 79 n.: see ib. 60, 78.]
His Wife, when at last he came to Oranienburg, nursed him fondly;that is one comfortable fact. Prince Henri, to the last, had privately a grudge of peculiar intensity, on this score, against all the peccant parties, King not excepted. As indeed he was apt to have, on various scores, the jealous, too vehement little man.
Friedrich's humor at this time I can guess to have been well-nigh desperate. He talks once of "a horse, on too much provocation, getting the bit between its teeth; regardless thenceforth of chasms and precipices:" [Letter to Wilhelmina, "Linay, 22d July" (cited above).]--though he himself never carries it to that length;and always has a watchful eye, when at his swiftest!
From Weissenberg, that night, he drives in the Pandours on Zittau and the Eckartsberg--but the Austrians don't come out. And, for three weeks in this fierce necessity of being speedy, he cannot get one right stroke at the Austrians; who sit inexpugnable upon their Eckart's Hill, bristling with cannon; and can in no way be manoeuvred down, or forced or enticed into Battle. A baffling, bitterly impatient three weeks;--two of them the worst two, he spends at Weissenberg itself, chasing Pandours, and scuffling on the surface, till Keith and the Magazine-train come up;--even writing Verses now and then, when the hours get unendurable otherwise!
The instant Keith and the Magazines are come he starts for Bernstadt; 56,000 strong after this junction:--and a Prussian Officer, dating "Bernstadtel [Bernstadt on the now Maps], 21st August, 1757," sends us this account; which also is but of preliminary nature:--"AUGUST 15th, Majesty left Weissenberg, and marched hither, much to the enemy's astonishment, who had lain perfectly quiet for a fortnight past, fancying they were a mastiff on the door-sill of Silesia: little thinking to be trampled on in this unceremonious way! General Beck, when our hussars of the vanguard made appearance, had to saddle and ride as for life, leaving every rag of baggage, and forty of his Pandours captive. Our hussars stuck to him, chasing him into Ostritz, where they surprised General Nadasti at dinner; and did a still better stroke of business:
Nadasti himself could scarcely leap on horseback and get off;left all his field equipage, coaches, horses, kitchen-utensils, flunkies seventy-two in number,--and, what was worst of all, a secret box, in which were found certain Dresden Correspondences of a highly treasonous character, which now the writers there may quake to think of;"--if Friedrich, or we, could take much notiee of them, in this press of hurries! [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iv. 595-599.]
Next day, August 16th, Friedrich detached five battalions to Gorlitz;--Prince Karl (he calls it DAUN) still camping on the Eckartsberg;--and himself, about 4 P.M., with the main Army, marched up to those Austrians on their Hill, to see if they would fight. [<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> iv. 137.]
No, they would n't: they merely hustled themselves round so as to face him; face him, and even flank him with cannon-batteries if he came too near. Steep ground, "precipitons front of rocks," in some places. "A hollow before their front; Village of Wittgenau there, and three roads through it, ONE of them with width for wheels;"Daun sitting inaccessible, in short. Next day, Winterfeld, with a detached Division, crossed the Neisse, tried Nadasti:
