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He remained in Breslau the better part of five years, studying life in new phases, gathering a library, which, as commonly happens, he afterwards sold at great loss, and writing his Minna and his Laocooen. He accompanied Tauentzien to the siege of Schweidnitz, where Frederick was present in person.
'Speedy oneself; speedy and fiery! thinks Loudon: 'by violence of speed, of bullying and bombardment, perhaps we can still do it! And Loudon tried all these things to a high stretch; but found in Tauentzien the wrong man.
When in the year 1806 the Prussian Generals, Prince Louis at Saalfeld, Tauentzien on the Dornberg near Jena, Grawert before and Ruechel behind Kappellendorf, all threw themselves into the open jaws of destruction in the oblique order of Frederick the Great, and managed to ruin Hohenlohe's Army in a way that no Army was ever ruined, even on the field of battle, all this was done through a manner which had outlived its day, together with the most downright stupidity to which methodicism ever led.
Lessing, who, in opposition to Klopstock and Gleim, was fond of casting off his personal dignity, because he was confident that he could at any moment grasp and take it up again, delighted in a dissipated life in taverns and the world, as he always needed a strong counterpoise to his powerfully laboring interior; and for this reason, also, he had joined the suite of Gen. Tauentzien.
"Next morning Loudon sends a private messenger of conciliatory tone: 'Any terms your Excellency likes to name. Only spare me the general massacre, and child in the mother's womb! From all which Tauentzien infers that you are probably short of ammunition; and that his outlooks are improving.
Tauentzien he chose; D'O was Fouquet's choice, not his; Zastrow he did choose; Heyde he had by accident; of Heyde he had never heard till the defence of Colberg began to be a world's wonder. And in regard to his Garrisons, it is indisputable they were often left palpably defective in quantity and quality; and, more than once, fatally gave way at the wrong moment.
His cunctatory Henri, by this winged march, when the moment came, what a service has he done! Tauentzien's behavior, also, has been superlative at Breslau; and was never forgotten by the King. A very brave man, testifies Lessing of him; true to the death: "Had there come but three, to rally with the King under a bush of the forest, Tauentzien would have been one."
"THURSDAY, 31st, Loudon, who has two bridges over Oder, and the Town begirt all round, summons Tauentzien in an awful sounding tone: 'Consider, Sir: no defence possible; a trading Town, you ought not to attempt defence of it: surrender on fair terms, or I shall, which God forbid, be obliged to burn you and it from the face of the world! 'Pooh, pooh, answers Tauentzien, in brief polite terms; 'you yourselves had no doubt it was a Garrison, when we besieged you here, on the heel of Leuthen; had you?
Nine years later, he gave as a reason for not wishing to stay long in Brunswick, "Not that I do not like Brunswick, but because nothing comes of being long in a place which one likes." Whatever the reason, Leasing, in 1760, left Berlin for Breslau, where the post of secretary had been offered him under Frederick's tough old General Tauentzien.
Not all our Artillery can silence that Front-fire; not in a single place can Thirty stupid Miners get into the Fort. To-day and yesterday the King spoke neither to General Tauentzien nor to Major Lefebvre; Lieutenant-Colonel von Anhalt had to give all the Orders." An electric kind of day! The weather is becoming wet.
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