way through the Austrians, who
were in an equal state of disorder and had taken the heights, rushed
into his presence. Zieten had often excited the King's ridicule by his
practice of brandishing his sabre over his head in sign of the cross,
as an invocation for the aid of Heaven before making battle; but now,
deeply moved, he embraced his deliverer, whose work was seen at break of
day. The Austrians were in full retreat. This bloody action, by which
the Prussian monarchy was saved, took place on November 3, 1760.

George II, King of England, expired during this year. His grandson,
George III, the son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, who had preceded his
father to the tomb, at first declared in favor of Prussia, and fresh
subsidies were voted to her monarch by the English Parliament, which at
the same time expressed "its deep admiration of his unshaken fortitude
and of the inexhaustible resources of his genius." Female influence,
however, erelong placed Lord Bute in Pitt's stead at the helm of state,
and the subsidies so urgently demanded by Prussia were withdrawn.

The Duke of Brunswick was, meanwhile, again victorious at Billinghausen
over the French, and covered the King on that side. On the other hand,
the junction of the Austrians with the Russians was effected in 1761;
the allied army amounted in all to one hundred thirty thousand men, and
Frederick's army, solely consisting of fifty thousand, would in all
probability have again been annihilated had he not secured himself
behind the fortress of Schweidnitz, in the strong position at
Bunzelwitz. Butterlin, the Russian general, was moreover little inclined
to come to an engagement on account of the illness of the Empress and
the favor with which Frederick was beheld by the successor to the
throne. It was in vain that Laudon exerted all the powers of eloquence;
the Russians remained in a state of inactivity and finally withdrew.

Laudon avenged himself by unexpectedly taking Schweidnitz under the eyes
of the King by a clever _coup-de-main_, and had not a heroic Prussian
artilleryman set fire to a powder-magazine, observing as he did so, "All
of ye shall not get into the town!" and blown himself with an immense
number of Austrians into the air, he would have made himself master of
this important stronghold almost without losing a man. Frederick
retreated upon Breslau.

The Empress Elizabeth expired in the ensuing year, 1762, and was
succeeded by Peter III, who instan