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... "In Polish Preussen, lately the Seat of War, things look hideously waste; one sees nothing but women and a few children; it is said the people are mostly running away," owing to the Russian-Polish procedures there, in consequence of the blessed Election they have had. King August, whom your Majesty is not in love with, has prevailed at this rate of expense.
Ducal Preussen is sovereign, Cleve is at peace, Hinter-Pommern ours; this Elector has conquered much, but Silesia, and Vor-Pommern, and some other things he will have to do without. Louis XIV, it is thought, once offered to get him made King, but that he declined for the present. Orange was at last exchanged for the small Principality of Neufchatel in Switzerland, which is Prussia's ever since.
His Prussian Majesty has been maturing his plans, all this while; gathering moneys, getting lands ready. We saw him hanging Schlubhut in the autumn of 1731, who had peculated from said moneys; and surveying Preussen, under storms of thunder and rain on one occasion.
"I coomes vrom Halle, in Preussen. Vat isht your vaterland?" "Be yees a Jew?" "Nein I isht a goot Christian. Vilt you haf Yankee Tootle?" "Yankee T'under! Ye'll wake up the masther, and he'll be displais'd, else ye might work upon t'at tchune till the end of time. That I should hear it here, in my own liberary, and ould Ireland t'ree thousand laigues away!"
An idea prevails, in ill-informed circles, that our new Grand-Master Albert was no better than a kind of cheat; that he took this Grand-Mastership of Preussen; and then, in gayety of heart, surreptitiously pocketed Preussen for his own behoof.
In my coontry, efery mans isht obliget to be a soldier some time, and them t'at knows Latin can be made sergeants and corporals." "That is Prussia, is it?" "Ya Preussen, vere so late did reign de goot Koenig Wilhelm." "And is Latin much understood among you? I have heard that, in Hungary, most well-informed persons even speak the tongue." "In Charmany it isht not so.
Joachim Friedrich had already married his eldest Prince to the daughter of Albert Friedrich, Second Duke of Preussen, who it was by this time evident would be the last Duke there of his Line. Joachim Friedrich, having himself fallen a widower, did next year, though now counting fifty-six But it will be better if we explain first, a little, how matters now stood with Preussen.
As he drew in the reins, undecided, the cannonade suddenly redoubled in fury; the infantry fire blazed out with a new violence; above the terrific blast he heard trumpets sounding, and beneath it he felt the vibration of the earth; horses were neighing out beyond the smoke; a thousand voices rose in a far, hoarse shout: "Hurrah! Preussen!" The Prussian cavalry were charging the cannon.
The Swedes, in farther prosecution of their Louis-Fourteenth speculation, had invaded Preussen this time, and were doing sad havoc there. It was in the dead of winter, Christmas, 1678, more than four hundred miles off; and the Swedes, to say nothing of their other havoc, were in a case to take Konigsberg, and ruin Prussia altogether, if not prevented.
I , from the origins of the state to the death of the Great Elector, an able French presentation. There is an admirable old German biography of Frederick the Great's father, with copious extracts from the sources, by F. C. Forster, Friedrich Wilhelm I Koenig von Preussen, 3 vols.
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