Montesquieu and Voltaire. Frederic wrote sarcastic
verses on the gifts, the giver, and the receiver. But the public wanted
no prompter; and a universal roar of laughter from Petersburg to Lisbon
reminded the Vatican that the age of crusades was over.

The fourth campaign, the most disastrous of all the campaigns of this
fearful war, had now opened. The Austrians filled Saxony and menaced
Berlin. The Russians defeated the King's generals on the Oder,
threatened Silesia, effected a junction with Laudohn, and entrenched
themselves strongly at Kunersdorf. Frederic hastened to attack them. A
great battle was fought. During the earlier part of the day everything
yielded to the impetuosity of the Prussians, and to the skill of their
chief. The lines were forced. Half the Russian guns were taken. The
King sent off a courier to Berlin with two lines, announcing a complete
victory. But in the meantime, the stubborn Russians, defeated yet
unbroken, had taken up their stand in an almost impregnable position, on
an eminence where the Jews of Frankfort were wont to bury their dead.
Here the battle recommenced. The Prussian infantry, exhausted by six
hours of hard fighting under a sun which equalled the tropical heat,
were yet brought up repeatedly to the attack, but in vain. The King led
three charges in person. Two horses were killed under him. The officers
of his staff fell all round him. His coat was pierced by several
bullets. All was in vain. His infantry was driven back with frightful
slaughter. Terror began to spread fast from man to man. At that moment
the fiery cavalry of Laudohn, still fresh, rushed on the wavering ranks.
Then followed a universal rout. Frederic himself was on the point of
falling into the hands of the conquerors, and was with difficulty saved
by a gallant officer, who, at the head of a handful of Hussars, made
good a diversion of a few minutes. Shattered in body, shattered in mind,
the King reached that night a village which the Cossacks had plundered;
and there, in a ruined and deserted farmhouse, flung himself on a heap
of straw. He had sent to Berlin a second dispatch very different from
his first: "Let the royal family leave Berlin. Send the archives to
Potsdam. The town may make terms with the enemy."

The defeat was, in truth, overwhelming. Of fifty thousand men who had
that morning marched under the black eagles, not three thousand remained
together. The King bethought him again of his corrosive sub