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Updated: May 5, 2025
Colonel Hordt, late of the Free-Corps HORDT, but captive since soon after the Kunersdorf time; and whose doleful quasi-infernal "twenty-five months and three days" in the Citadel of Petersburg have changed in one hour into celestial glories in the Court of that City; as readers shall themselves see anon.
COLONEL HORDT IS CAPTURED. "It was in that final marching of Soltikof to Lieberose that a distinguished Ex-Swede, Colonel Hordt, of the Free Corps HORDT, was taken prisoner. At Trebatsch; hanging on Soltikof's right flank on that occasion. Who, one day, had determined on a more considerable thing; that of cutting out Ziethen from the Sagan neighborhood.
An emblem of much that befell the poor Czar in his present high course of good intentions and headlong magnanimities! We return to Hordt: THE CZAR WEARS A PORTRAIT OF FRIEDRICH ON HIS FINGER. "Czar Peter never disguised his Prussian predilections. The other Foreign Ministers will perhaps be jealous; but I don't care! Supper at the English Embassy took place.
His Cossacks, under their Demikows, Romanzows; capable of no good fighting, but of endless incendiary mischief in the neighborhood; shoot far ahead into Prussian territory: Platen, Hordt with his Free-Corps, are beautifully sharp upon them; but many beatings avail little. Not to be checked by Platen's best diligence; not, in the end, by Platen and Dohna together.
As were the earlier Free-Corps, and indeed the subsequent, all and sundry, "except seven," whose names will not be interesting to you. Paid off, with or without remorse, such the exhaustion of finance; Kleist, Icilius, Count Hordt and others vainly repugning and remonstrating; the King himself inexorable as Arithmetic. "Can maintain 138,000 of regular, 12,000 of other sorts; not a man more!"
A very Semiramis, the Louis-Quatorze of those Northern Parts. 'Second Creatress of Russia, second Peter the Great in a sense. To me none of the loveliest objects; yet there are uglier, how infinitely uglier: object grandiose, if not great." We return to Friedrich and the Death of Catin. Colonel Hordt, I believe, was the first who credibly apprised Friedrich of the great Russian Event.
The first and principal is a respectable Ex-Swedish Gentleman, whom readers used to hear of; the Colonel Hordt above mentioned, once of the Free-Corps HORDT, but fallen Prisoner latterly; whose experiences and reports are all the more interesting to us, as Friedrich himself had specially to depend on them at present; and doubtless, in times long afterwards, now and then heard speech of them from Hordt.
'Twenty-five months and three days, your Majesty. 'Were you well treated? Hordt hesitated, knew not what to say; but, the Czar urging him, confessed, 'He had been always rather badly used; not even allowed to buy a few books to read. At which the Czarina was evidently shocked: 'CELA EST BIEN BARBARE! she exclaimed aloud.
WEDNESDAY, 6th JANUARY, 1762, Hordt's vacant Hades of an existence in the Citadel of Petersburg was broken by a loud sound: three minute-guns went off from different sides, close by; and then whole salvos, peal after peal: "Czarina gone overnight, Peter III. Czar in her stead!" said the Officer, rushing in to tell Hordt; to whom it was as news of resurrection from the dead.
By Hordt or by whomsoever, the instant Friedrich heard, by an authentic source, of the new Czar's Accession, Friedrich hastened to turn round upon him with the friendliest attitude, with arms as if ready to open; dismissing all his Russian Prisoners; and testifying, in every polite and royal way, how gladly he would advance if permitted.
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