nnet pardessus les moulins; je me prepare a tous
les evenements qui peuvent m'arriver. Que la fortune me soit
contraire ou favorable, cela ne m'abaissera ni m'enorgueillira; et
s'il faut perir, ce sera avec gloire et l'epee a la main."

The decisive day arrived--"le jour le plus decisif de ma fortune." The
night before the battle, the king said to the French ambassador--"Les
ennemis sont ou je les voulais, et je les attaque demain;" and on the
following day the battle of Hohenfriedberg was won. How Chasot
distinguished himself, we may learn from Frederic's own description:--

"Muse dis-moi, comment en ces moments
Chasot brilla, faisant voler des tetes,
De maints uhlans faisant de vrais squelettes,
Et des hussards, devant lui s'echappant,
Fandant les uns, les autres transpercant,
Et, maniant sa flamberge tranchante,
Mettait en fuite, et donnait l'epouvante
Aux ennemis effares et tremblants.
Tel Jupiter est peint arme du foudre,
Et tel Chasot reduit l'uhlan en poudre."

In his account of the battle, the king wrote:--

"Action inouie dans l'histoire, et dont le succes est du aux
Generaux Gessler et Schmettau, au Colonel Schwerin _et au brave
Major Chasot, dont la valeur et la conduite se sont fait connaitre
dans trois batailles egalement_."

And in his "Histoire de mon Temps," he wrote:--

"Un fait aussi rare, aussi glorieux, merite d'etre ecrit en
lettres d'or dans les fastes prussiens. Le General Schwerin, _le
Major Chasot_ et beaucoup d'officiers s'y firent un nom immortel."

How, then, is it that, in the later edition of Frederic's "Histoire de mon
Temps," the name of Chasot is erased? How is it that, during the whole of
the Seven Years' War, Chasot is never mentioned? M. de Schloezer gives us a
complete answer to this question, and we must say that Frederic did not
behave well to the _matador de sa jeunesse_. Chasot had a duel with a
Major Bronickowsky, in which his opponent was killed. So far as we can
judge from the documents which M. de Schloezer has obtained from Chasot's
family, Chasot had been forced to fight; but the king believed that he had
sought a quarrel with the Polish officer, and, though a court-martial
found him not guilty, Frederic sent him to the fortress of Spandau. This
was the first estrangement between Chasot and the king; and though after a
time he was received again at court, the friendship between the king and
the young nobleman who h