bad
guidance has greatly deranged my affairs. It is not the Enemy, it
is your ill-judged measures that have done me all this mischief.
My Generals are inexcusable; either for advising you so ill, or in
permitting you to follow resolutions so unwise. Your ears are accustomed
to listen to the talk of flatterers only. Daun has not flattered
you;--behold the consequences. In this sad situation, nothing is left
for me but trying the last extremity. I must go and give battle; and if
we cannot conquer, we must all of us have ourselves killed.

"I do not complain of your heart; but I do of your incapacity, of your
want of judgment in not choosing better methods. A man who [like me;
mark the phrase, from such a quarter!] has but a few days to live need
not dissemble. I wish you better fortune than mine has been: and that
all the miseries and bad adventures you have had may teach you to
treat important things with more of care, more of sense, and more of
resolution. The greater part of the misfortunes which I now see to be
near comes only from you. You and your Children will be more overwhelmed
by them than I. Be persuaded nevertheless that I have always loved you,
and that with these sentiments I shall die. FRIEDRICH." [MAIN DE MAITRE,
p. 22.]

As the King went off to the Heights of Weissenberg, Zittau way, to
encamp there against the Austrians, that same evening, the Prince
did not answer this Letter,--except by asking verbally through
Lieutenant-Colonel Lentulus (a mute Swiss figure, much about the King,
who often turns up in these Histories), "for leave to return to Dresden
by the first escort."--"Depends on himself;--an escort is going this
night! answered Friedrich. And the Prince went accordingly; and, by two
stages, got into Dresden with his escort on the morrow. And had, not yet
conscious of it, quitted the Field of War altogether; and was soon about
to quit the world, and die, poor Prince. Died within a year, 12th June,
1758, at Oranienburg, beside his Family, where he had latterly been.
[Preuss, ii. 60 (ib. 78).]--Winterfeld was already gone, six months
before him; Goltz went, not long after him; the other Zittau Generals
all survived this War.

The poor Prince's fate, as natural, was much pitied; and Friedrich, to
this day, is growled at for "inhuman treatment" and so on. Into which
question we do not enter, except to say that Friedrich too had his
sorrows; and that probably his concluding words, "with these senti