ferred hazarding his head rather than abandon the king at this critical conjuncture, and, deferring the publication of the empress's orders for three days, remained quietly within the camp. Frederick meanwhile was not idle, and gained a complete victory over the Austrians, the 21st of July, 1762. The attempt made by a Silesian nobleman, Baron Warkotsch, together with a priest named Schmidt, secretly to carry off the king from his quarters at Strehlen, failed. In the autumn, Frederick besieged and took Schweidnitz. The two most celebrated French engineers put their new theories into practice on this occasion; Lefevre, for the Prussians against the fortress: Griboval, for the Austrians engaged in its defence. Frederick's good fortune was shared by Prince Henry, who defeated the imperial troops at Freiburg in Saxony, and by Ferdinand of Brunswick, who gained several petty advantages over the French, defeating Soubise at Wilhelmsthal and the Saxons on the Lutterbach. The spiritless war on this side was finally terminated during the course of this year, A. D. 1762, by a peace between England and France.* Golz had at the same time instigated the Tartars in Southern Russia to revolt, and was on the point of creating a diversion with fifty thousand of them in Frederick's favour. Frederick, with a view of striking the empire with terror, also despatched General Kleist into Franconia, with a flying corps, which no sooner made its appearance in Nuremberg † and Bamberg than the whole of the South was seized with a general panic, Charles, duke of Würtemberg, for instance, preparing for instant flight from Stuttgard. Stürzebecher, a bold cornet of the Prussian huzzars, accompanied by a trumpeter and by five and twenty men, advanced as far as Rothenburg on the Tauber, where, forcing his way through the city gate, he demanded a contribution of 80,000 dollars from the town-council. The citizens of this town, which had once so heroically opposed the whole of Tilly's forces, were chased by a handful of huzzars into the Bockshorn, and were actually compelled to pay a fine of

*This campaign was merely a succession of manœuvres and skirmishes, in which Lukner and his huzzars chiefly distinguished themselves against the French, whose service Lukner afterwards entered. He had, at an earlier period, headed the Bavarians against Austria.

Nuremberg had never before yielded. Frederick observed on this occasion, "Kleist has snatched the maiden wreath from the grey locks of that ancient virgin."

40,000 florins, with which the cornet scoffingly withdrew, carrying off with him two of the town-councillors as hostages. So deeply had the citizens of the free towns of the empire at that time degenerated.

Frederick's opponents at length perceived the folly of carrying on war without the remotest prospect of success. The necessary funds were, moreover, wanting. France was weary of sacrificing herself for Austria. Catherine of Russia, who had views upon Poland and Turkey, foresaw that the aid of Prussia would be required in order to keep Austria in check and both cleverly and quickly entered into an understanding with her late opponent. Austria was, consequently, also compelled to succumb. The rest of the allied powers had no voice in the matter. Peace was concluded at Hubertsburg, one of the royal Saxon residences, February the 15th, 1763. Frederick retained possession of the whole of his dominions. The machinations of his enemies had not only been completely frustrated, but Prussia had issued from the seven years' war with redoubled strength and glory; she had confirmed her power by her victories, had rendered herself feared and respected, and had raised herself from her station as one of the principal potentates of Germany on a par with the great powers of Europe.

CCXXXVII.-Frederick Sanspareil.

THE Prussian king, who well deserved his soubriquet of Sanspareil, devoted himself, on his return to Sanssouci, to the occupations of peace, in which he might also serve as a model to all other princes. Every thing prospered under his fostering care. The confidence inspired by his government attracted numbers of foreigners into the country, where he placed waste lands in a state of cultivation, built numerous villages, made roads and canals, and promoted agriculture and industry. Prussia quickly recovered from the calamities of war, and the royal exchequer and the wealth of the country increased at an equal ratio. Among his economical measures, the monopolies in tobacco and coffee are alone reprehensible. The cultivation of the potato, against which there existed a popular prejudice, in Prussia and afterwards throughout Germany, was mainly forwarded by him. The importance of

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this root as an article of food had been strikingly proved during the seven years' war. In Silesia, where its cultivation nad been enforced by Count Schlaberndorf, the Prussian minister, the famine, caused by the failure of the crops in 1770, had been, notwithstanding the immense concourse of poor, felt with far less severity than in the neighbouring countries; in Saxony, where one hundred thousand, in Bohemia, where one hundred and eighty thousand men perished of hunger, and whence twenty thousand persons migrated to Prussia, the land of potatoes. The new monopolies or regie were more particularly unpopular on account of the persons employed in their administration being brought from France by the king, who thus virtually exposed the brave victors of Rossbach to the chicanery of their conquered foe.

The army next occupied his attention. In the autumn and spring he held great reviews for the sake of practice, and perfect order and discipline were maintained during the whole of his reign. The faults in the internal organization of the army were first discovered after his death. Frederick, although personally a patron of art and a promoter of civilization, greatly depreciated the progress of enlightenment in Germany, nor did he perceive that the bourgeoisie, whom he had, on his accession to the throne, found in a state of ignorance and discouragement, had gradually risen to one of great moral and mental refinement, whilst the nobility, whom, at least in Prussia, he had found, during his earlier years, simple in their habits and fitted for the duties of their station, had, as gradually, sunk in luxury and become totally incapable of mental exertion. His exclusive nomination of nobles to all the higher posts in the army was at first natural, the peasantrecruits being already accustomed, in their native provinces, to the sway of the nobility; but his total exclusion, at a later period, of the whole of the citizen class, was productive of immense evils to his successor. The system of flogging was another abuse. Severe punishments had formerly been found necessary among the infantry on account of the inclination of the homeless mercenary to desert his colours or to plunder; but the infliction of corporeal punishment first became general in the army on the enrolment of the peasant serfs, when the system of flogging, prevalent in the villages, was introduced

into the army. This system, consequently, merely prevailed in Prussia and Austria, Slavonian provinces long sunk in the deepest slavery. Other states followed their example, but were unable to carry this system into effect wherever a spark of honour still glowed in the bosoms of the people.* The retention of the unsuitable military dress, introduced by his father, of pigtails, powdered hair, tight breeches, etc., was another of Frederick's caprices.

The simple and strict administration of justice continually occupied the attention of the king. The Codex Frid. formed the basis of the provincial law of Prussia, which was not, however, completed until after his death, by Carmer, A. D. 1794. The injustice enacted in other countries was viewed by him with deep abhorrence, and never was his anger more highly excited than when he imagined that his name had been abused for the purpose of passing an iniquitous judgment. A windmill, not far from Sanssouci, obstructed the view, but the miller threatening to lay a complaint against him in his own court of justice, he chose rather to endure the inconvenience than to resort to violence. Another miller, Arnold, charging a nobleman with having diverted the water from his mill, Frederick, anxious to act with strict justice, sent a confidential officer to the spot to investigate the affair. The officer, either owing to negligence or to some private reason, pronounced in favour of the miller, who was actually in the wrong, and the king instantly deprived three of his chief justices and a number of the lower officers of the law of their appointments and detained the former for some time in prison. Still, notwithstanding his arbitrary and, on some occasions, cruel decisions, he inspired the law officers with a wholesome fear, and by the commission of one injustice often obviated that of many others. His treatment of Colonel Trenck, an Austrian, whom he detained a close prisoner at Magdeburg for eighteen years, made much noise. This handsome adventurer had secretly carried on an intercourse with the king's sister, had mixed himself up with politics,

*Louis XV. attempted to introduce the Prussian military system, and, with it, that of flogging, into the French army, but the soldiers mutinied, shot the subalterns, who had ventured to use the cane, and one of the latter, on being ordered to give the lash to one of the privates, instantly ripped up his own belly. This fact is related by Schubart, at that time one of the brightest ornaments of Germany, who concludes with the exclamation, "What a disgrace for Germany!"

devised intrigues, and a bare-faced indiscretion had occasioned his long imprisonment, whence he was liberated on Frederick's death.-The manner in which the king answered all the cases and petitions presented to him, by a short marginal note, was extremely characteristic, his remarks and decisions being generally just, but witty, satirical, often cruel, and always badly written, on account of his imperfect knowledge of his mother tongue.

He was equally laconic in conversation and abrupt in manner. With a large three-cornered laced hat on his head, rather stooping shoulders, a thread-bare blue uniform with red facings and broad skirts, a long pig-tail hanging behind, the front of his waistcoat sprinkled with snuff, which he took in enormous quantities, short black breeches and long boots, his sword buckled to his side and his celebrated crutch-cane in his hand, he inspired all whom he addressed with awe. No one, however, possessed in a higher degree the art of pleasing, whenever he happened to be surrounded by persons of congenial taste and pursuits, or that of acquiring popularity.*

Frederick exercised immense influence on the spirit of the times, the general impulse towards enlightenment. The age had indeed need of assistance in its attempts to repel the mists of ignorance and superstition by which it was obscured. The pedantry of the schools had already partially yielded before the attacks of Thomasius, who had been the first to rend asunder the veil and to admit the light, which, under Frederick's administration, now poured freely in on all sides. The influence of the French philosophers of the day necessarily preponderated. Fortunately, they were not all as frivolous as Voltaire, and the more fervid enthusiasm of Rousseau, the clear political views of Montes

* Innumerable anecdotes are related of him. During the seven years' war, a Croat aiming at him from behind a bush, he looked sternly at him, shook his cane (which he carried even when on horseback) at him, and the Croat fled.The people of Potsdam had stuck up a caricature in which he was represented with a coffee-mill in his lap, at the street corner; he saw it as he passed along and told the bystanders to hang it lower down and they would see it with greater convenience.- -One of the subalterns of his guard, being too poor to buy a watch, attached a bullet to his chain and wore it in his pocket. This was perceived by the king, who one day purposely asked him what time it was. The officer, unable to evade an exposé, drew forth the bullet, saying as he did so, "My watch points but to one hour, that in which I die for your Majesty." Frederick instantly presented him with his own watch, set in brilliants.