intellectual excellence, although he patronizes literary lions. He is
incapable of any sacrifice except for his troops, who worship him, since
their interests are identical with his own. In the camp or in the field
he spends his time, amusing himself occasionally with the society of
philosophers as cynical as himself. He has dreams and visions of
military glory, which to him is the highest and greatest on this earth,
Charles XII. being his model of a hero.

With such views he enters upon a memorable career. His first important
public act as king is the seizure of part of the territory of the Bishop
of Liege, which he claims as belonging to Prussia. The old bishop is
indignant and amazed, but is obliged to submit to a robbery which
disgusts Christendom, but is not of sufficient consequence to set it
in a blaze.

The next thing he does, of historical importance, is to seize Silesia, a
province which belongs to Austria, and contains about twenty thousand
square miles,--a fertile and beautiful province, nearly as large as his
own kingdom; it is the highest table-land of Germany, girt around with
mountains, hard to attack and easy to defend. So rapid and secret are
his movements, that this unsuspecting and undefended country is overrun
by his veteran soldiers as easily as Louis XIV. overran Flanders and
Holland, and with no better excuse than the French king had. This
outrage was an open insult to Europe, as well as a great wrong to Maria
Theresa,--supposed by him to be a feeble woman who could not resent the
injury. But in this woman he found the great enemy of his life,--a
lioness deprived of her whelps, whose wailing was so piteous and so
savage that she aroused Europe from lethargy, and made coalitions which
shook it to its centre. At first she simply rallied her own troops, and
fought single-handed to recover her lost and most valued province. But
Frederic, with marvellous celerity and ability, got possession of the
Silesian fortresses; the bloody battle of Mollwitz (1741) secured his
prey, and he returned in triumph to his capital, to abide the issue
of events.

It is not easy to determine whether this atrocious crime, which
astonished Europe, was the result of his early passion for military
glory, or the inauguration of a policy of aggression and aggrandizement.
But it was the signal of an explosion of European politics which ended
in one of the most bloody wars of modern times. "It was," says Carlyle,
"the little