On the 20th of June, Voltaire dressed himself in disguise, and, with a companion, M. Coligny, entered a hackney-coach, and ordered the driver to leave the city by the main gate. M. Freytag was immediately informed of this by his spies. With mounted men he commenced the pursuit, overtook the carriage as it was delayed a moment at the gate, and arrested the fugitive in the kings name. Voltaires eyes sparkled with fury, and he raved insanely. The scene gathered a crowd, and Voltaire was taken by a guard of soldiers to another inn, The Billy-Goat, as the landlord of the Golden Lion refused any longer to entertain so troublesome a guest.
The king then, having ordered his guard to watch him with the utmost vigilance, assuring them that their heads should answer for it if they allowed him to escape, sent his son to another boat. He was prevailed upon to do so, as no one could tell to what length the kings ungovernable passions might lead him.
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Had the Prussian troops been placed on those heights, behind that formidable array of ramparts, and palisades, and abatis, they could with ease have repelled the assaults of three or four times their number. But now they were to undertake the desperate enterprise of advancing to the assault under the greatest disadvantages, with one to attack where there were two to defend. Frederick rapidly advanced from crossing the stream, and the same evening, Saturday, August 11th, encamped at Bischofsee, at the distance of about two miles to the northeast of the intrenched camp of his foes. The king, accompanied by a small escort, rode forward to the knolls of Trettin, and anxiously surveyed with his glass the fearful array of his foes in their long, compact, well-defended lines, arranged in an elongated irregular parallelogram.Frederick was indignant. Scornfully he rejected the proposal, saying, Such a paltry sum might with propriety, perhaps, be offered to a petty duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, but it is not suitable to make such a proposition to the King of Prussia.a a. Austrian Army, b b. Prussian Army. c. Ziethens Hussars. d. Nadastis Hussars. e. The Oak Wood.On the morning of the 9th of November Frederick set out for Berlin, visiting Glogau by the way. On the 11th he entered Berlin, where he was received by the whole population with enthusiastic demonstrations of joy. For a short time he probably thought that through guile he had triumphed, and that his troubles were now at an end. But such victories, under the providence of God, are always of short duration. Frederick soon found that his troubles had but just begun. He had entered295 upon a career of toil, care, and peril, from which he was to have no escape until he was ready to sink into his grave.