I01S 



FREDERICK II. (OP PRUSSIA). 



FREDERICK II. (OF PRUSSIA). 



1010 



blamed for hi* excessive lore of external pomp, and for the lavish 

 ^ti- in which he rewarded hi* favourite*. It ihould be added in 

 hit praiw, that he gave groat encouragement to art* and science*. 

 He founded the University of Halle, and the Academy of Sculpture 

 and Painting at Berlin. He enlarged hi* capital by adding to it the 

 suburb called Friederichitadt, built the palace of Charlottenburg, in 

 honour of his second wife, and founded in 1705 the Supreme Court of 



P PREDE 



iKRICK II., King of Prussia, distinguished by hi* contem 

 porariea and posterity by the surname of the Oreat, was the ion of 

 Frederick William I. and of Sophia Dorothea, prince** of Hanover, and 

 wa* born on the 84th January, 1712. He passed the first yean of liu 

 youth under the restraints of a rigid education, the sole object of 

 which wa* military exercises ; but a* ie had received the rudiments 

 of his education from a French lady, under whose care he acquired 

 considerable knowledge of the language, and as she and hi* first tutor, 

 M. Duhau, bad great influence over him, ho imbibed a taste for polite 

 literature. These two person*, together with the queen, formed in 

 secret a kind of opposition to his father's system of education. The 

 prince was entirely attached to his mother, and there arose an 

 estrangement between the father and the son, which suggested to the 

 king the idea of leaving the throne to his younger son Augustus 

 William. Impatient of the tyrannical conduct of hi* father, Frederick 

 resolved to seek refuge in England with his maternal uncle Qeorgo II. 

 Only his sister Frederics, and his friend* lieutenants Katt and Keith, 

 were acquainted with the secret of his intended flight, which was to 

 take place from Weael, whither he had accompanied his father. But 

 some indiscreet expressions which fell from Katt betrayed the prince's 

 intention. The prince was overtaken, and sent to Cutrin, where he 

 was kept in close confinement Keith escaped, and lived in Holland, 

 England, and Portugal, till after Frederick's accession, when he returned 

 to Berlin. Katt was taken and beheaded. It appears certain that the 

 king had resolved to take away his son's life, and that he was only 

 saved by the intercession of the emperor of Austria, Charles VI., 

 through his ambassador, Count Seckendorf. (Voltaire, 'Memoirea,' 

 Ac.) The prince, after he had been released from his strict confine- 

 ment in the caatlo of Custrin, was employed by his father as youngest 

 member of the Chamber of Domains, and not permitted to return to 

 court till tho marriage of the princess Frederica to the hereditary prince 

 Frederick of Baireuth. In 1733 his father obliged him to marry the 

 princess Elizabeth Christina, daughter of Ferdinand Albrecut, duke 

 of Brunswick Severn. Frederick William gave her the palace of 

 Schonhatuen, and to the prince tho county of Ruppiu, and in 1734 

 the town of Rhcinsberg, where he appears to have lived happily, chiefly 

 devoting himself to literary pursuits and to music till his accession. 

 Among the persons about him were Bielcfelil, Chuzot, Suhin, Fouquet, 

 Knobelsdorf, Kciscrling. Jordan, and other learned men; likewise the 

 composers Qraun and Bcnda, and the painter Pesue. He had an 

 uninterrupted correspondence with foreign literati, especially with 

 Voltaire, whom he admired above all others. During his retirement 

 at Rbeiniberg, be composed several works, one of which was the 

 ' Anti-Uachiavel,' published at the Hague in 1740. The death of his 

 father in 1 740 placed him on tho throne. Finding a full treasury and 

 a powerful army, his thirst for military glory tempted him to embrace 

 any opportunity that might offer ; but there did not appear to be any 

 occasion for great enterprise till the death of the emperor Charles VI., 

 on tho 'Jutli October 1740, led the way to his extraordinary and 

 brilliant career which changed tho face of Europe. Frederick took 

 this opportunity of asserting the claims of the House of Brandenburg 

 to four principalities in Silesia, the investiture of which his prede- 

 cessors bad not been able to obtain ; but he only required from queen 

 Haria Theresa, the daughter and heiress of Charles VI., the duchies 

 of Ologau and Sagan, promising on his side to support her against all 

 her enemies, to vole for her husband* elevation to the imperial 

 dignity, and to pay her 2,000,000 jdollan. His proposals being 

 rejected, he took possession of Lower Silesia in December 1740, and 

 defeated the Austrian army at Mollwitz, on the 27th April 1741. 



This victory, which nearly decided the fate of Silesia, raised up 

 more enemies to Austria. France and Bavaria united with Prussia, 

 and tho war of the Austrian succession began. George II., king of 

 England, the only ally of Maria Theresa, advised her to make peace 

 with Prussia, because Frederick was her most active and formidable 

 enemy. Frederick having obtained a victory at Czaslau on the 17th of 

 May 1742 over Prince Charles of Lorraine, peace was concluded at 

 Berlin on the 28th of July, and the first Silesian war was ended. 

 Frederick obtained the full sovereignty of Upper and Lower Silesia, and 

 the county of Olatz, with the exception of Tropau, Jiigerndorf, and 

 Teschen. On bis aide, be renounced all claims to the other Austrian 

 dominion', took upon himself a debt of 1,700,000 dollars, with which 

 Silesia was charged, and promised to respect the rights of the Roman 

 Catholic, in Silesia. Saxony acceded to this peace, and it was 

 guaranteed by France and England. Frederick immediately profited 

 by it to organise bis new conquests, and to render his army more 

 formidable. On the death of the last count of East Friesland in 1743 

 be took possession of that country, to which his house had asserted a 

 claim ever since the year 1044. When in the prosecution of the 

 Austrisn war the emperor Charles VI L had been obliged to fly from 

 hi* hereditary dominion*, and the Austrian arm* were everywhere 



victorious, Frederick feared that Silesia might be taken from him. He 

 therefore secretly entered into an alliance with Franca in April 1744, 

 and with the emperor, the Palatinate, and Hesse Cassel, on tho -J;l 

 of May 1744, promising to support the causa of the eraperur by 

 invading Bohemia, but requiring for himself the circle of Ki>iu 

 in Bohemia. On the 10th of August 1744 he unexpectedly entered 

 Bohemia, and took Prague ; but being pressed by the Austriaus under 

 Prince Charles of Lorraine, and the Saxons their allies, he was obliged 

 to leave Bohemia before tho end of the year. The death of the 

 emperor Charles VII. on the ISth of January 1745, and the defeat of 

 the Bavarians at PfafTenhofen, induced bin son the young < 

 Maximilian-Joseph of Bavaria, to make peace at Fussen with Maria 

 Theresa, and the Frankfurt union was dissolved ; Hesse Cassel declaring 

 itself neutral. On the other hand, England, Austria, the Nethei ' 

 and Saxony, had concluded a strict alliance at Warsaw on the 8th of 

 January 1745, and Saxony had besides entered into a special convent ion 

 with Austria against Prussia on the ISth of May 1745. Hut Kr. 

 defeated the Austrian* and Saxons on the 4th of Jun ut llohe: 

 burg in Silesia, then entered Bohemia, and gained another victor 

 a very obstinate combat atSorr, on the 30th of September 1745. The 

 victory of the Prussians, under Prince Leopold of Dessau, over thn 

 Saxons at Kesselsdorf, on the 1 5th of December, led to the treaty of 

 Dresden, December 25, 1745, which was concluded on the basis of the 

 treaty of Berlin ; so that Frederick retained Silesia, acknowledged the 

 husband of Maria Theresa, Francis I., as emperor, and Saxony engaged 

 to pay to Prussia one million of dollars. Thus ended the second 

 Silesian war. 



During the eleven years' peace that followed, Frederick devoted 

 himself with unremitting activity to the internal administration of his 

 dominions the organisation of the army, and to literary; pursuit!). 

 Among the grand improvements which he contemplated was a r 

 in the judicial proceedings, with a view to render them more simpl'- 

 and uniform, in all the different provinces of his dominions. Together 

 with his chancellor Cocceii, he compiled the ' Fredoriciau Code, a 

 body of lawa for the dominions of the King of Prussia, found 

 reason and the constitution of the country.' It is not easy to under- 

 stand what is here meant by the word 'constitution.' His father, it 

 is true, drew up with great care what he called a constitution (Verl'.i 

 Biings-Urkunde), or instructions for the supreme general board of 

 finance, war, and domains, which he issued in 17:!-. and \vi 

 printed by Dr. Forster in his ' Life of Frederick William I.,' but it is 

 not likely that this is here alluded to. Frederick also wrote ' Memoirs 

 of the House of Brandenburg,' a concise account of his house, written 

 in a good style, with a positive declaration of impartiality, which ut' 

 cuur.se is to be taken with some allowance. Another work, a d 

 poem in six books, on the ' Art of War,' is his most considerable 

 poetical production, and is greatly esteemed. These, and all his other 

 works, are iu French. These recreations did not divert his attention 

 from the paramount duties of his position, which he always performed 

 with the most persevering care. Instead of indulging in the pie 

 of the chase, he made journeys to different parts of his dominion*. 

 He endeavoured to make agriculture, manufactures, and the arts 

 flourish; and encouraged commerce, the true principles of whieh 

 however he appears not to have understood. Though possvHsing no 

 naval force, he insisted on the right of free navigation for his subjects, 

 without molestation from tho fleets of contending parties. One 

 object was to improve his revenues, a measure necessary 1 : the 

 maintenance of his army, which he had increased to 160, 00". 

 expended large sums in gratifying his taste for the arts, by decorating 

 the palaces of Berlin and I'oUdain, and in erecting many splrn.li I 

 edifices in those two places, in which however there was this in-m- 

 gruity, that the richest architectural decorations wciv often U\ i^li. .1 

 on the exterior of buildings which wore only barracks for tie tr 



When the war broke out between England and France in 1755, the 

 English government concluded a treaty with Frederick, the 

 object of which was to secure Hanover from invasion. This led to a 

 secret alliance between France, Austria, Saxony, and Russia, of which 

 Frederick, having been privately informed, chiefly through the 

 treachery of a clerk in the Saxon chancery, become apprehensive 

 of an attack, and of the loss of Silesia. He accordingly . 

 anticipate his enemies, and commenced operations by iu\ 

 Saxony on tho 24th of August 1756 ; which was the beginning of the 

 third Silesian, or, as it is generally called, " Tho Seven Years' \Var." 

 This contest was the most extraordinary and important iu modern 

 times, previous to those of the French revolution. Though Frederick 

 is the hero, the history of the war is, in fact, the history of conti- 

 nental Europe. Frederick, intending to invade Bohe.mii, ivim. 

 passage through Saxony, which the elector king of Poland antici- 

 pating, assembled his troops in an intrenched camp at Pirna, Frede- 

 rick invested it, and having defeated, at Lowositz, the Austrian* who 

 came to its relief, it surrendered ; and he compelled all the privates 

 to enlUt iu his own army. In 1757, he advanced into Bohemia, and 

 gained, on the 6th of May, a great victory at Prague, over the 

 Austrian)), mid' r Prince Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Bro.vn. 

 The Auxtrians took shelter in Prague, which Frederick immediately 

 invested; but the approach of the Austriaug under Mar.-lnd Rum, 

 changed tho face of the campaign. Dauu formed an intrenched camp 

 at Kolin, which Frederick attacked, but was defeated with 



