ifested, as soldiers and sons of
your Country. Hardly one among you but has distinguished himself by some
nobly memorable action: all these services to the State and me I know
well, and will never forget.

"I flatter myself, therefore, that in this case too nothing will be
wanting which the State has a right to expect of your valor. The hour is
at hand. I should think I had done nothing, if I left the Austrians in
possession of Silesia. Let me apprise you, then: I intend, in spite of
the Rules of Art, to attack Prince Karl's Army, which is nearly thrice
our strength, wherever I find it. The question is not of his numbers, or
the strength of his position: all this, by courage, by the skill of our
methods, we will try to make good. This step I must risk, or everything
is lost. We must beat the enemy, or perish all of us before his
batteries. So I read the case; so I will act in it.

"Make this my determination known to all Officers of the Army; prepare
the men for what work is now to ensue, and say that I hold myself
entitled to demand exact fulfilment of orders. For you, when I reflect
that you are Prussians, can I think that you will act unworthily? But if
there should be one or another who dreads to share all dangers with
me, he,"--continued his Majesty, with an interrogative look, and then
pausing for answer,--"can have his Discharge this evening, and shall not
suffer the least reproach from me."--Modest strong bass murmur; meaning
"No, by the Eternal!" if you looked into the eyes and faces of the
group. Never will Retzow Junior forget that scene, and how effulgently
eloquent the veteran physiognomies were.

"Hah, I knew it," said the King, with his most radiant smile, "none
of you would desert me! I depend on your help, then; and on victory
as sure."--The speech winds up with a specific passage: "The Cavalry
regiment that does not on the instant, on order given, dash full plunge
into the enemy, I will, directly after the Battle, unhorse, and make
it a Garrison regiment. The Infantry battalion which, meet with what
it may, shows the least sign of hesitating, loses its colors and its
sabres, and I cut the trimmings from its uniform! Now good-night,
Gentlemen: shortly we have either beaten the Enemy, or we never see one
another again."

An excellent temper in this Army; a rough vein of heroism in it, steady
to the death;--and plenty of hope in it too, hope in Vater Fritz. "Never
mind," the soldiers used to say, in J