We have mentioned that at first Frederic seemed to have gained the victory.  So sanguine was he then of success that he dispatched a courier from the field, with the following billet to the queen at Berlin:—­

“We have driven the enemy from their intrenchments; in two hours expect to hear of a glorious victory.”

Hardly two hours had elapsed ere another courier was sent to the queen with the following appalling message:—­

“Remove from Berlin with the royal family.  Let the archives be carried to Potsdam, and the capital make conditions with the enemy.”

In this terrible battle the enemy lost so fearfully that no effort was made to pursue Frederic.  Disaster never disheartened the Prussian king.  It seemed but to rouse anew his energies.  With amazing vigor he rallied his scattered forces, and called in reenforcements.  The gold of England was at his disposal; he dismantled distant fortresses and brought their cannon into the field, and in a few days was at the head of twenty-eight thousand men, beneath the walls of his capital, ready again to face the foe.

The thunderings of battle continued week after week, in unintermitted roar throughout nearly all of Germany.  Winter again came.  Frederic had suffered awfully during the campaign, but was still unsubdued.  The warfare was protracted even into the middle of the winter.  The soldiers, in the fields, wading through snow a foot deep, suffered more from famine, frost and sickness than from the bullet of the foe.  In the Austrian army four thousand died, in sixteen days of December, from the inclemency of the weather.  Thus terminated the campaign of 1759.

CHAPTER XXX.

MARIA THERESA.

From 1759 to 1780.

Desolations of War.—­Disasters of Prussia.—­Despondency of Frederic.—­ Death of the Empress Elizabeth.—­Accession of Paul III.—­Assassination of Paul III.—­Accession of Catharine.—­Discomfiture of the Austrians.—­ Treaty of Peace.—­Election of Joseph to the Throne of the Empire.—­Death of Francis.—­Character of Francis.—­Anecdotes.—­Energy of Maria Theresa.—­Poniatowski.—­Partition of Poland.—­Maria Theresa as a Mother.—­War With Bavaria.—­Peace.—­Death of Maria Theresa.—­Family of the Empress.—­Accession of Joseph II.—­His Character.

The spring of 1760 found all parties eager for the renewal of the strife, but none more so than Maria Theresa.  The King of Prussia was, however, in a deplorable condition.  The veteran army, in which he had taken so much pride, was now annihilated.  With despotic power he had assembled a new army; but it was composed of peasants, raw recruits, but poorly prepared to encounter the horrors of war.  The allies were marching against him with two hundred and fifty thousand men.  Frederic, with his utmost efforts, could muster but seventy-five thousand, who, to use his own language, “were half peasants, half deserters from the enemy, soldiers no longer fit for service, but only for show.”