Part 34

Having by this stratagem obtained Silesia, he assured the French of his unchanging fidelity, and denied that he had ever entered into any arrangements with Austria. In commencing this war he had said, “Ambition, interest, and the desire to make the world speak of me vanquished all, and war was determined on.” He had indeed made the world speak of him. All Europe spoke of him. Some extolled him, others denounced his amazing perfidy. Admiration for his sagacity and fear of his power made many courts of Europe seek his alliance. Carlyle thus comments on these events:—

“Of the political morality of this game of fast-and-loose, what have we to say, except that the dice on both sides seem to be loaded; that logic might be chopped upon it forever; that a candid mind will settle what degree of wisdom (which is always essential veracity) and what of folly (which is always falsity) there was in Frederick and the others; and, in fine, it will have to be granted that you cannot work in pitch and keep hands evidently clean. Frederick has got into the enchanted wilderness populous with devils and their work. Alas! it will be long before he get out of it again; his life waning toward night before he get victoriously out.”

This selfish rapacity of the Prussian king set the example to others. The whole world sprang to arms. Macaulay says: “On the head of Frederick is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many years, and in every quarter of the globe,—the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the brave mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils produced by this wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown. In order that he might rob a neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.”

In the winter of 1742 Frederick was engaged in a campaign to deliver Moravia, which was overrun by the Austrians. But in this he was not successful. On the morning of the 17th of May, 1742, Frederick again faced the Austrians at the battle of Chotusitz. In this famous battle Frederick was victorious, and the Austrians, under Prince Charles, were obliged to retreat. It required nine acres of ground to bury the dead after this bloody conflict.

Frederick did not pursue the Austrians after this victory, and on the 11th of June the treaty of Breslau was signed. By this treaty Silesia was ceded to Frederick, and he agreed to withdraw from the French alliance and enter into friendly relations with Maria Theresa. In 1744, however, Maria Theresa, having been joined by England, had been achieving so many victories on the field, that Frederick, deciding that she was gathering her forces to reconquer Silesia, again entered into an alliance with France and took the field against the Austrians. But in this campaign Frederick himself narrowly escaped being taken prisoner, and returned a defeated monarch, leaving a shattered army behind him. He had already exhausted nearly all the resources which his father had accumulated. Already the sumptuous chandeliers and silver balconies had been melted up. His disastrous Bohemian campaign had cost him three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month. The least sum with which he could commence a new campaign for the protection of Silesia was four million five hundred thousand dollars. In spite of these apparently insurmountable difficulties, the administrative genius of Frederick made a way by which he succeeded in raising another army. On the 4th of June, 1745, the battle of Hohenfriedberg was fought, by which victory Frederick escaped utter destruction, and the Austrians were forced sullenly to retire. All Europe was now in war, caused by the personal ambition of one man, who did not pretend that it involved any question of human rights. Frederick had openly avowed that he drew his sword and led his hundred thousand soldiers to death and destruction that he might enlarge his territories and achieve renown. All the nations of Europe wished to borrow. None but England had money to lend, and England was fighting Frederick, and supplying his foes with aid and money. Frederick realized that Maria Theresa, whom he had despised as a woman, was fully his equal in ability to raise and direct armies and in diplomatic intrigue. Berlin was almost defenceless. All Saxony was rising behind Frederick. In this hour of peril, with an army of twenty-six thousand men, Frederick was obliged to meet his foes at Sohr. Defeat to Frederick would have been utter ruin; but the brave determination of the Prussian king animated his troops with desperate valor to conquer or die. And conquer they did, and the victory of Frederick was complete.

[Illustration: ARREST OF VOLTAIRE BY ORDER OF FREDERICK.]

On the 25th of December, 1745, the peace of Dresden was signed. The demands of Frederick were acceded to. Augustus III. of Saxony, Maria Theresa of Austria, and George II. of England became parties to the treaty. Frederick now entered upon a period of ten years of peace. The Prussian king now constructed for himself a beautiful villa, on a pleasant hilltop near Potsdam, which he called _Sans Souci_, which Carlyle quaintly translates “No Bother.” He had three other palaces, far surpassing Sans Souci in magnificence,—Charlottenburg, at Berlin, the new palace at Potsdam, and his palace at Reinsberg.

Voltaire made a long visit to the Prussian king. Frederick had been for many years greatly fascinated with that talented writer, but gradually Voltaire lost favor with the king. Frederick prided himself upon his literary abilities, and at first Voltaire flattered him; but on one occasion, when the king had sent him a manuscript to revise, he sarcastically exclaimed to the royal messenger, “When will his Majesty be done with sending me his dirty linen to wash?”

This speech was repeated to the king. Frederick did not lose his revenge. Voltaire had been made chamberlain. His duties were to give an hour a day to the Prussian king, and, as Voltaire said, “to touch up a bit his works in prose and verse.”

But Voltaire used his sarcastic pen against the king, and especially against the president of the academy founded by the king at Berlin. A bitter pamphlet, entitled _La Diatribe du Docteur Akakia_, appeared, and the satire was so scathing that the Prussian king ordered all copies to be burned. Voltaire, though allowing the whole edition to be destroyed before his eyes, managed to send a copy to some safe place, where it was again published, and arrived at Berlin by post from Dresden. People fought for the pamphlet. Everybody laughed; the satire was spread over all Europe. Frederick was enraged, and Voltaire thought it safe to leave Prussia. The king had previously presented him with a copy of his own poems, and fearing that Voltaire had him now in his power—as this volume contained some very wicked and licentious burlesques, in which Frederick had scoffed at everything and everybody—he ordered Voltaire to be arrested at Frankfort, and the book of poems recovered. Either by Frederick’s malice or the stupidity of his agent, Freytag, Voltaire and his friends were subjected to an imprisonment for twelve days in a miserable hostelry. The intimacy between Frederick and Voltaire was thus destroyed, and a lasting friendship made impossible.

In 1756 Frederick invaded Saxony. Thus was commenced the Seven Years’ War, which proved to be one of the most bloody and cruel strifes ever waged. It gave Frederick the renown of being one of the ablest generals of the world. In 1757 France, Russia, Austria, Poland, and Sweden were combined against Frederick. The entire force of the Prussian king did not exceed eighty thousand men. There were marching against him combined armies amounting to four hundred thousand men. On the battle-field of Leuthen Frederick met and conquered his foes.

But still, peace was out of the question without further fighting. England, at last alarmed at the growing power of France, came to the aid of Frederick. But France, Austria, Sweden, and Russia prepared for a campaign against him.

On Aug. 25, 1758, occurred the bloody battle of Zorndorf, between the Russians and the Prussians. It was an awful massacre. The stolid Russians refused to fly. The Prussians sabred them and trampled them beneath their horses’ feet. It is considered the most bloody battle of the Seven Years’ War, and some claim it was the most furious ever fought. Frederick was again victorious. But in October, 1758, on the field of Hochkirch, Frederick was defeated by the Austrians. Just after the dreadful defeat came the tidings of the death of his sister Wilhelmina. Thus ended the third campaign in clouds and darkness for the Prussian king.

The destinies of Europe were now held in the hands of three women: Maria Theresa, who by common consent had good cause for war, and was fighting in self-defence; Madame de Pompadour, who, virtually sovereign of France, by reason of her supreme control of the infamous Louis XV., as Frederick had stung her by some insult, did not hesitate to deluge Europe in blood; and Catherine II., empress of Russia, who was also Frederick’s foe on account of personal pique.

Frederick himself was undeniably an unscrupulous aggressor, and some call him “a highway robber.”

The cause of Maria Theresa alone could have been called honorable. In the fourth campaign of 1759 the terrible battle of Kunersdorf was fought in August. At first the Prussians were victorious, but the Russians at length routed them with fearful loss. So great was the despair of Frederick that it is said he contemplated suicide.

For a year the struggle continued. The Prussian army left in Silesia was utterly destroyed by the Austrians. But at length the tide turned, and Frederick routed the Austrians at the battle of Liegnitz. But the position of Frederick was still most hazardous. He was in the heart of Silesia, surrounded by hostile armies, three times larger than his own. Weary weeks of marching, fighting, blood, and woe, passed on. Sieges, skirmishes, battles innumerable, ensued.

At length the allies captured Berlin; whereupon Frederick marched quickly to the rescue of his capital. At his dread approach the allies fled. Frederick followed the Austrians.

We have no space to give details of the end of the bloody war. Frederick attacked the Austrians, under Marshal Daun, at Torgan, saying to his soldiers:—

“This war has become tedious. If I beat him, all his army must be taken prisoners or drowned in the Elbe. If we are beaten we must all perish.”

After a day of hard fighting the Prussians held the field. Frederick, who was a very profane man, replied to a soldier, who inquired if they should go into winter quarters, “By all the devils I shall not till we have taken Dresden.” But Dresden he did not take at that time, and went into winter quarters at Leipsic. The fifth campaign of the Seven Years’ War closed with the winter of 1760.

[Illustration: EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT, ÆT. 73.]

The Russians and Austrians had concentrated in Bohemia. The summer and autumn wore away with little accomplished; the allies feared to attack Frederick, and the Russians retreated for winter quarters. But the Austrians captured Schweidnitz and so could winter in Silesia. This was a terrible blow to Frederick, but no word betrayed the anguish of the hard-pressed Prussian king. Taking his weary, suffering troops to Breslau, Frederick sought shelter for the winter of 1761-62. At this dark time he wrote:—

“The school of patience I am at is hard, long-continued, cruel; nay, barbarous. I have not been able to escape my lot. All that human foresight could suggest has been employed, and nothing has succeeded. If Fortune continues to pursue me, doubtless I shall sink. It is only she that can extricate me from the situation I am in. I escape out of it by looking at the universe on the great scale like an observer from some distant planet. All then seems to me so infinitely small, and I could almost pity my enemies for giving themselves such trouble about so very little.”

Poor blinded Frederick! He could not even see that his own selfish ambition had tempted him to commence an unjust war, and thus to bring upon his own head all these sorrows.

On the 24th of November, 1762, the belligerents entered into an armistice until the 1st of March. All were exhausted. On the 15th of February, 1763, peace was concluded. The bloody Seven Years’ War was over, and its immense result was, _Frederick the Great had captured and retained Silesia_.

The expense of the war had been eight hundred and fifty-three thousand lives, which had perished on the battle-field. Of the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children who had died from exposure, famine, and pestilence, no note is taken. The population of Prussia had diminished five hundred thousand. The world had run red with blood. The air had resounded with wails and cries and groans. Prussia was laid waste by the ravages of the war; and what had been accomplished? Frederick had achieved his renown; he had made himself _talked of_. Silesia had been captured, and Frederick the Great had been placed in the foremost ranks of the world’s generals.

Compared with the achievements of Gustavus Adolphus, whose victories had laid the foundation for the success of the Reformation, how petty had been the prize! One, a Christian king, upholding liberty of conscience and religious freedom; the other, an infidel king fighting in an unjust war for his own glory and aggrandizement. But the world applauded. Berlin blazed with illuminations and rang with the shouts of rejoicing. For twenty-three years Frederick the Great still lived to bear his honors. He must have the credit of endeavoring, during the remainder of his life, to repair the terrible desolation and ruin which his wars had brought upon Prussia.

We have but space to glance at his last hours. Dark was the gloom which shrouded his closing days. His worst enemies were the scoffing devils of unbelief he had let loose within his own soul. No Christian hopes illuminated the vast unknown into which he must so soon pass. To him the grave was but the awful portal to the direful abyss of annihilation.

To his patient, cruelly neglected wife, he penned these last cold words: “Madam, I am much obliged by the wishes you deign to form, but a heavy fever I have taken hinders me from answering you.”

With no companions near him but his servants and his dogs, he awaited the coming of his last despairing end. And thus this lonely, hopeless old man fought his last battle of life; and on the 17th of August, 1786, the fight was ended, the battle lost, and Frederick the Second—Frederick the Great—was carried to the tomb, and laid by the side of his father. What a warning to the world! What a warning to parents! The inconsistent, brutal life of his father made him an infidel.

His own selfish ambition made him more of a curse than a blessing to mankind. In the eyes of the Great and Just Judge of the world, both lives were _terrible failures_.

History has decreed that Frederick the Great gained a foremost place amongst the famous rulers of the world, and that his name stands in the first rank of the world’s conquerors.

But history has also written over his career the verdict,—He was an ambitious aggressor in an unjust war, which plunged all Europe into the horrors of famine, pestilence, bloody conflicts, and desolated battle-fields piled up with heaps of ghastly corpses, above which rose the direful wails of anguished hearts and the relentless flames of ruined homes.

NAPOLEON I.

1769-1821 A.D.

“He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.” SHAKESPEARE.

“Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny; for it is destiny.”—LONGFELLOW.

IT was not physical force, it was the magnetic majesty of mind, which looked forth from those awe-inspiring eyes, and gave him Jovesque grandeur and dignity and sovereign pre-eminence among mankind. No merely mortal man stands beside him upon the same level on the heights of fame. Upon the highest mountain peak of human achievement and earthly greatness he stands alone, looking with calm, deep eyes and eagle glance upon the rolling centuries which preceded his marvellous career.

In spite of all the contradictory views which have been presented of Napoleon; in spite of hostile historians who have stigmatized him as a usurper; in spite of foes who have denounced him as a tyrant, inexorable as Nero; in spite of calumny which has proclaimed him a blood-thirsty monster; in spite of English literature and English criticism, which have denounced him as a scourge of the race, as a “_cook_ roasting whole continents and populations in the flames of war”; in spite of many a Judas, such as Bourrienne, Augereau, Marmont, Berthier, Bernadotte, Moreau, and others among those whom his own genius had lifted into prominence and power; in spite of obstacles, such as no other mortal man ever conquered, Napoleon the Great stands forth the most amazing phenomenon of human achievement, personal magnetism, and mortal greatness.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON.]

“A man who raised himself from obscurity to a throne; who changed the face of the world; who made himself felt through powerful and civilized nations; who sent the terror of his name across seas and oceans; whose will was pronounced and feared as destiny; whose donatives were crowns; whose ante-chamber was thronged by submissive princes; who broke down the awful barrier of the Alps, and made them a highway; and whose fame was spread beyond the boundaries of civilization to the steppes of the Cossack and the deserts of the Arab,—a man who has left this record of himself in history has taken out of our hands the question whether he shall be called great. All must concede to him a sublime power of

## action, an energy equal to great effects.”

“Whether we think of his amazing genius, his unparalleled power of embracing vast combinations, while he lost sight of none of the details necessary to insure success, his rapidity of thought and equally sudden execution, his tireless energy, his ceaseless activity, his ability to direct the movements of half a million of soldiers in different parts of the world, and at the same time reform the laws, restore the finances, and administer the government of his country, or whether we trace his dazzling career from the time he was a poor, proud charity boy at the military school of Brienne to the hour when he sat down on the most brilliant throne of Europe, he is the same wonderful man,—the same grand theme for human contemplation.”

In this short sketch we have no space for arguments; nor does Napoleon need arguments to substantiate his claims to greatness. Facts only can prove the supremacy of his fame, and _facts_ proclaim him unparalleled in history. _Lies_ only defame him and make him out a tyrant. That he was without fault or blemish we would not maintain; that sad mistakes brought upon him evil consequences which he himself was the first to trace to their source, we do not deny. But that amongst all these famous rulers of the world, his is the greatest name, unprejudiced history has decreed.

Of all these mighty conquerors of the world, Napoleon stands second to none.

“When the sword of Alexander overthrew the Persian throne and subjugated the East as far as the Indus, he did but extend the civilization of Athens. The refinement of the age of Pericles, the acquirements of Attica, the philosophy of the academy and the lyceum, followed in the train of his victories.

“When Cæsar subjugated Parthia and Germany, and carried the Roman eagles from the summit of Caucasus to the hills of Caledonia; when he passed from Gaul to Italy, from Rome to Greece, from the plains of Pharsalia to the shores of Africa, from the ruins of Carthage to the banks of the Nile and the Euxine; when he traversed the Bosphorus and the Rhine, the Taurus and the Alps, the Atlas and the Pyrenees,—in all these triumphal courses lie propagated under the protection of his personal glory, the name, the language, and manners of civilized Rome. If Alexander carried with him the Age of Pericles, and Cæsar that of Augustus, if they were accompanied in their triumphs by the genius of Homer and of Sophocles, of Plato and Aristotle, of Virgil and Horace, Napoleon carried with him an age that the arts, sciences, and philosophy have rendered equally illustrious, and his enterprise is no less than that of his predecessors.”

Though the aristocracy of Europe denounced him as an odious despot and an insatiable conqueror, in the hearts of his people—the artisan, the laborer, and the soldier—he is still cherished as the “Man of the people, as the personification of that spirit of equality which pervaded both his administration and the camp.” His name is still religiously respected by the peasant in his cottage. His tomb is still cherished as the most sacred spot on earth by the French people. Never did mortal man inspire such love and adoration in the hearts of his soldiers. This unprecedented idolatry of a nation is the best refutation of the malign accusations of his enemies, “that Napoleon _usurped_ the sovereignty of France; that having attained the supreme power, he was a tyrant, devoting that power to the promotion of his own selfish aggrandizement; that the wars in which he was incessantly engaged were provoked by his arrogance.”

Should the testimony of disappointed sycophants, whose pens are dipped in the venom of thwarted ambition and vanity, or the accusations of bitter foes, whose opinions are biassed by political intrigues, be believed against the character of Napoleon, rather than his own noble utterances, and the testimony of his incorruptible friends?

That his invasion of Egypt was aggressive and unjust, we will admit; but should England be the one to make the loudest outcry against this expedition, when it was only following her own policy when she increased her possessions by her conquests in India? And even the superiority of English literature and English writers should not make us blind to the unjust prejudices of English critics. Had Napoleon not quelled the insurrection, and given the final death-blow to the Revolution, how can any monarchy in Europe be certain that all thrones in Europe might not have tottered and fallen; that all European kingdoms might not have had to face a revolution? Had Napoleon died upon the throne of France, even his English foes, who feared the lonely exile, whom their duplicity and treachery had banished to the dreary rock of St. Helena, more than they feared any European monarch, would doubtless have joined the plaudits of the world in honor of the _Hero of Success_, irrespective of methods or motives. It is only because Napoleon outlived his marvellous and almost miraculous success that the world condemns, and his enemies malign him. Had our own Washington been unsuccessful, then would he have been hung as a rebel, and our own glorious Revolution would have been called a rebellion, and none would have been so loud in the outcry against us as England.

But our success has compelled her recognition, and our marvellous growth in strength, power, and resources has gained her reluctant admiration. It is hardly to be expected that England should ever forget how Napoleon made her tremble, and how near she came to being the conquered rather than the conqueror.