THE ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE.
Objections to the British Alliance.--Obstinacy of the King.--
Wilhelmina’s Journal.--Policy of Frederick William and of George
II.--Letter from Fritz.--The Camp of Mühlberg.--The Plan of
Escape.--The Flight arrested.--Ungovernable Rage of the King.--
Endeavors to kill his Son.--Arrest and Imprisonment of Fritz.--
Terror of his Mother and Sister.--Wilhelmina imprisoned.
In the mean time Dr. Villa reached England. In conference with the
British cabinet, the members deemed it very desirable, at all events,
to effect the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Prussian
princess. The main consideration was that it would tend to detach
Prussia from Germany, and secure its alliance with England. It was
also a good Protestant match, and would promote the interests of
Protestantism. The king desired this marriage. But he was inflexible
in his resolve that both marriages should take place or neither.
The Prussian king was equally inflexible in his determination that,
while he would consent to one marriage, he would not consent to both.
Colonel Hotham, a man of good family and of some personal distinction,
was accordingly sent, as envoy extraordinary, to Berlin, to make new
efforts in favor of the double marriage.
The Queen of Prussia had recently given birth to another prince. She
was on a bed of languor. The king was somewhat mollified, and was
anxious to be relieved from these protracted difficulties. Colonel
Hotham reached the palace of Charlottenburg on the 2d of April, 1730,
and was graciously received by the king. The next day quite a splendid
dinner was given in honor of the British envoy. All the notables who
surrounded the table, the English and the Prussian, in accordance with
the degrading custom of those times, drank deeply. Hotham, in his
dispatch, without any apparent sense of shame, writes, “We all got
immoderately drunk.”
The object of Colonel Hotham’s mission was well known. The cordial
reception he had met from the king indicated that his message was not
an unwelcome one to his Prussian majesty. In the indecent hilarity of
the hour, it was assumed that the marriage contract between Wilhelmina
and the Prince of Wales was settled. Brains addled with wine gave birth
to stupid jokes upon the subject. “A German ducat was to be exchanged
for an English half guinea.” At last, in the semi-delirium of their
intoxication, one proposed as a toast, “To the health of Wilhelmina,
Princess of Wales.” The sentiment was received with uproarious jollity.
Though all the company were in the same state of silly inebriation,
neither the king nor the British ministers, Hotham and Dubourgay, for
a moment lost sight of their settled policy. The king remained firm
in his silent resolve to consent only to the marriage of Wilhelmina
and the Prince of Wales. Hotham and Dubourgay could not swerve from
the positive instructions which they had received, to insist upon
both marriages or neither. Thus, notwithstanding this bacchanal
jollification, neither party was disposed to swerve a hair’s breadth
from its fixed resolve, and the question was no nearer a settlement
than before.
Still, most of the courtly carousers did not comprehend this. And when
the toast to Wilhelmina as Princess of Wales was received with such
acclaim, they supposed that all doubt was at an end. The news flew
upon the wings of the wind to Berlin. It was late in the afternoon of
Monday, April 30. Wilhelmina writes:
“I was sitting quiet in my apartment, busy with work, and some one
reading to me, when the queen’s ladies rushed in, with a torrent of
domestics in their rear, who all bawled out, putting one knee to the
ground, that they were come to salute the Princess of Wales. I fairly
believed these poor people had lost their wits. They would not cease
overwhelming me with noise and tumult; their joy was so great they knew
not what they did. When the farce had lasted some time, they told me
what had occurred at the dinner.
“I was so little moved by it that I answered, going on with my work,
‘Is that all?’ which greatly surprised them. A while after, my sisters
and several ladies came to congratulate me. I was much loved, and I
felt more delighted at the proofs each gave me of that than at what had
occasioned their congratulations. In the evening I went to the queen’s.
You may readily conceive her joy. On my first entrance she called
me her dear Princess of Wales, and addressed Madam De Sonsfeld as
‘Miladi.’ This latter took the liberty of hinting to her that it would
be better to keep quiet; that the king, having yet given no notice of
this business, might be provoked at such demonstration, and that the
least trifle could still ruin all her hopes.”
The king, upon his return from Charlottenburg to Berlin, made no
allusion whatever in his family to the matter. In the court, however,
it was generally considered that the question, so far as Wilhelmina was
concerned, was settled. Hotham held daily interviews with the king, and
received frequent communications from the Prince of Wales, who appears
to have been very eager for the consummation of the marriage. Many of
these letters were shown to Wilhelmina. She was much gratified with the
fervor they manifested on the part of a lover who had never yet seen
her. In one of these letters the prince says: “I conjure you, my dear
Hotham, get these negotiations finished. I am madly in love (_amoureux
comme un fou_), and my impatience is unequaled.”
The question arises, Why was Frederick William so averse to the
marriage of Fritz with the Princess Amelia? Probably the real reason
was his rooted antipathy to his son, and his consequent unwillingness
to do any thing which would promote his interests or increase his
influence. His advisers strengthened him in this sentiment. The English
were very unpopular at Berlin. Their assumption of superiority over all
other peoples was a constant annoyance. The Prussian king said to his
confidential friends,
“If the English Princess Amelia come here as the bride of my son, she
will bring with her immense wealth. Accustomed to grandeur, she will
look contemptuously upon our simplicity. With her money she can dazzle
and bribe. I hate my son. He hates me. Aided by the gold of England,
my son can get up a party antagonistic to me. No! I will never, never
consent to his marrying the Princess Amelia. If he is never married it
is no matter. Fortunately I have other sons, and the succession will
not be disturbed.”[10]
The king had made many efforts to force his son to surrender his rights
of primogeniture, and to sign an act renouncing his claim to the
succession of the Prussian throne in favor of his next brother. His
only answer was, “Declare my birth illegitimate, and I will give up the
throne.” But the king could never consent to fix such a stain upon the
honor of his wife.
And why was George II. so averse to the single marriage of the Prince
of Wales to Wilhelmina? It is supposed that the opposition arose
simply from his own mulish obstinacy. He hated his brother-in-law, the
Prussian king. He was a weak, ill-tempered man; and having once said
“_Both marriages or none_,” nothing could induce him to swerve from
that position. In such a difficulty, with such men, there could be no
possible compromise.
George II. was far from popular in England. There was but little in the
man to win either affection or esteem. The Prince of Wales was also
daily becoming more disliked. He was assuming haughty airs. He was very
profligate, and his associates were mainly actresses and opera girls.
The Prussian minister at London, who was opposed to any matrimonial
connection whatever between the Prussian and the English court, watched
the Prince of Wales very narrowly, and wrote home quite unfavorable
reports respecting his character and conduct. He had searched out the
fact that Fritz had written to his aunt, Queen Caroline, pledging to
her his word “never to marry any body in the world except the Princess
Amelia of England, happen what will.” This fact was reported to the
king, greatly exciting his wrath.
To obviate the difficulty of the Crown Prince becoming the head of
a party in Berlin antagonistic to the king, the plan was suggested
of having him appointed, with his English princess, vice-regent of
Hanover. But this plan failed. Hotham now became quite discouraged. He
wrote home, on the 22d of April, that he had that day dined with the
king; that the Crown Prince was present, but dreadfully dejected, and
that great sympathy was excited in his behalf, as he was so engaging
and so universally popular. He evidently perceived some indications
of superiority in the Crown Prince, for he added, “If I am not much
mistaken, this young prince will one day make a very considerable
figure.”
After much diplomatic toil, the ultimatum obtained from Frederick
William was the ever inflexible answer: “1. The marriage of the Prince
of Wales to Wilhelmina I consent to. 2. The marriage of the Crown
Prince Frederick with the Princess Amelia must be postponed. I hope it
may eventually take place.”
Hotham, quite indignant, sent this dispatch, dated May 13, to London,
including with it a very earnest letter from the Crown Prince to his
uncle, in which Fritz wrote:
“The Crown Prince begs his Britannic majesty not to reject the king’s
proposals, whatever they may be, for his sister Wilhelmina’s sake. For,
though the Crown Prince is determined to lose his life sooner than
marry any body but the Princess Amelia, yet, if this negotiation were
broken off, his father would go to extremities to force him and his
sister into other engagements.”
The return mail brought back, under date of May 22, the stereotype
British answer: “Both marriages or none.” Just before the reception of
this reply, as Colonel Hotham was upon the eve of leaving Berlin, the
Crown Prince addressed to him, from Potsdam, the following interesting
letter:
“MONSIEUR,--I believe that it is of the last importance that
I should write to you, and I am very sad to have things to say
which I ought to conceal from all the earth. But one must take
that bad leap, and, reckoning you among my friends, I the more
easily resolve to open myself to you.
“The case is this: I am treated in an unheard of manner by the
king; and I know that there are terrible things in preparation
against me touching certain letters which I wrote last winter,
of which I believe you are informed. In a word, to speak frankly
to you, the real, secret reason why the king will not consent to
this marriage is, that he wishes to keep me on a low footing
constantly, and to have the power of driving me mad whenever the
whim takes him, throughout his life. Thus he will never give his
consent.
“For my own part, therefore, I believe it would be better to
conclude my sister’s marriage in the first place, and not even
to ask from the king any assurance in regard to mine, the rather
as his word has nothing to do with it. It is enough that I here
reiterate the promises which I have already made to the king, my
uncle, never to take another wife than his second daughter, the
Princess Amelia. I am a person of my word, and shall be able to
bring about what I set forth, provided that there is trust put in
me. I promise it to you. And now you may give your court notice
of it, and I shall manage to keep my promise. I remain yours
always.”
In June, 1730, Augustus, King of Poland, had one of the most
magnificent military reviews of which history gives any record. The
camp of Mühlberg, as it was called, was established upon an undulating
field, twelve miles square, on the right bank of the Elbe, a few
leagues below Dresden. It is hardly too much to say that all the beauty
and chivalry of Europe were gathered upon that field. Fabulous amounts
of money and of labor were expended to invest the scene with the utmost
sublimity of splendor. A military review had great charms for Frederick
William. He attended as one of the most distinguished of the invited
guests. The Crown Prince accompanied the king, as his father dared not
leave him behind. But Fritz was exposed to every mortification and
every species of ignominy which the ingenuity of this monster parent
could heap upon him.
In the presence of monarchs, of lords and ladies, of the highest
dignitaries of Europe, the young heir apparent to the throne of
Prussia, beautiful in person, high-spirited, and of superior genius,
was treated by his father with studied contumely and insult. Every
thing was done to expose him to contempt. He even openly flogged the
prince with his rattan. It would seem that the father availed himself
of this opportunity so to torture the sensibilities of his son as to
drive him to suicide. Professor Ranke writes:
“In that pleasure-camp of Mühlberg, where the eyes of many strangers
were directed to him, the Crown Prince was treated like a disobedient
boy, and at one time even with blows, to make him feel that he was
such. The enraged king, who never weighed the consequences of his
words, added mockery to his manual outrage. ‘Had I been so treated,’ he
said, ‘by my father, I would have blown my brains out. But this fellow
has no honor. He takes all that comes.’”
It would seem that if ever there were an excuse for suicide it was to
be found here. But what folly it would have been! Dark as these days
were, they led the prince to a crown, and to achievements of whose
recital the world will never grow weary. Fritz, goaded to madness,
again adopted the desperate resolve to attempt an escape. A young
Englishman, Captain Guy Dickens, secretary of the British embassador,
Dubourgay, had become quite the intimate friend of the Crown Prince.
They conferred together upon plans of escape. But the precautions
adopted by the father were such that no plan which they could devise
seemed feasible at that time. Fritz confided his thoughts to his
friend, Lieutenant Keith, at Berlin.
It is probable that the suspicions of the king were excited, for
suddenly he sent Lieutenant Keith to a garrison at Wesel, at a great
distance from Berlin, in a small Prussian province far down the
Rhine. The three had, however, concocted the following plan, to be
subsequently executed. Immediately after the return from Mühlberg the
king was to undertake a long journey to the Rhine. The Crown Prince,
as usual, was to be dragged along with him. In this journey they would
pass through Stuttgart, within a few miles of Strasbourg, which was on
the French side of the river. From Stuttgart the prince was to escape
in disguise, on fleetest horses, to Strasbourg, and thence proceed
to London. Colonel Hotham, who had accompanied the Prussian king to
the camp of Mühlberg, was apprised of all this by his secretary. He
immediately dispatched the secretary, on the 16th of June, to convey
the confidential intelligence to London.
At the close of these festivities at Mühlberg Frederick William and
his suite took boat down the River Elbe to his hunting palace at
Lichtenberg. Here they killed, in a grand hunting bout, a thousand
animals, boars and deer. The Crown Prince, dishonored by insults
which he could not revenge, and stung to the quick by innumerable
humiliations, followed, dejected, like a guarded captive, in the train
of his father. The unhappy prince had but just returned to his garrison
at Potsdam, where spies ever kept their eyes vigilantly upon him, when
his friend, Captain Guy Dickens, brought him the answer, returned from
London, to the confidential communication of the Crown Prince to his
uncle, the British king. The substance of the document was as follows:
“Mr. Guy Dickens may give to the prince the assurance of the deep
compassion which the king feels in view of the sad condition in which
the prince finds himself, and of the sincere desire of his majesty to
aid, by all the means in his power, to extricate him. While waiting
the result of some negotiations now on foot, his majesty is of the
opinion that it would be best for the prince to defer for a time his
present design; that the present critical state of affairs in Europe
do not present a favorable opportunity for the execution of the
contemplated plan; that the idea of retiring to France demands very
careful deliberation; and that there is not time now to ascertain how
such a step would be regarded by the French court, which his majesty
would think to be essential before he advise a prince so dear to him to
withdraw to that country.”
Soon after this, Colonel Hotham, having received a gross insult from
the king, demanded his passports. The English embassador had presented
the king with a document from his court. Frederick William angrily
threw the paper upon the floor, exclaiming, “I have had enough of those
things!” and, turning upon his heel, left the room. Colonel Hotham, a
high-bred English gentleman, could not brook such an indignity, not
only to himself, but to his sovereign. The passionate king had scarcely
left the apartment before he perceived the impolicy of his conduct. He
tried to make amends. But Colonel Hotham, justly regarding it as an
insult to his court, persisted in demanding his passports, and returned
to London. The Crown Prince in vain begged Colonel Hotham to remain.
Very properly he replied that the incivility was addressed to his king,
and that it was for him only to judge what satisfaction was due for the
indignity offered.
All negotiation in reference to the marriages was now apparently at an
end. Lieutenant Katte remained at Potsdam. In the absence of Lieutenant
Keith he became more than ever the friend and confidant of the Crown
Prince. Wilhelmina, aware of the dissipated character of Katte, mourned
over this intimacy. The king was very much annoyed by the blunder of
which he himself had been guilty in insulting the court of England in
the person of its embassador. He declared, in his vexation, that he
would never again treat in person with a foreign minister; that his hot
temper rendered it unsafe for him to do so.
He informed Wilhelmina that the question of her marriage with the
Prince of Wales was now settled forever, and that, as she declined
taking the Duke of Weissenfels for a husband, she might prepare to
retire to the abbey of Hereford, a kind of Protestant nunnery for
ladies of quality, who, for any reason, wished to be buried from
the world. He mercilessly resolved to make her the abbess of this
institution. This living burial was almost the last situation to suit
the taste of Wilhelmina. The king was in the worst possible humor. “He
bullies and outrages his poor Crown Prince almost worse than ever.
There have been rattan showers hideous to think of, descending this
very week (July, 1730) on the fine head and far into the high heart of
a royal young man, who can not in the name of manhood endure, and must
not in the name of sonhood resist, and vainly calls to all the gods to
teach him what he shall do in this intolerable, inextricable state of
affairs.”[11]
As soon as Hotham had left Berlin the Crown Prince held a secret
midnight interview with Captain Dickens and Lieutenant Katte, to devise
some new plan of escape during the journey to the Rhine, which was to
commence in a few days. He made arrangements to leave all his private
papers with Katte, provided himself with a large gray overcoat as a
partial disguise, and, with much difficulty, obtained about a thousand
ducats to defray his expenses. Lieutenant Keith was at Wesel. He was
written to with the utmost secrecy, as he might be able to render
efficient aid, could the Crown Prince reach him.
On Saturday, the 15th of July, 1730, the king, with a small train,
which really guarded Fritz, set out at an early hour from Potsdam on
this memorable journey. Three reliable officers of the king occupied
the same carriage with Fritz, with orders to keep a strict watch over
him, and never to leave him alone. Thus, throughout the journey,
one of his guards sat by his side, and the other two on the seat
facing him. The king was not a luxurious traveler. He seemed to covet
hardship and fatigue. Post-horses were provided all along the route.
The meteoric train rushed along, scarcely stopping for food or sleep,
but occasionally delayed by business of inspection, until it reached
Anspach, where the king’s beautiful daughter, then but sixteen years of
age, resided with her uncongenial husband. Here the Crown Prince had
some hope of escape. He endeavored to persuade his brother-in-law, the
young Marquis of Anspach, to lend him a pair of saddle-horses, and to
say nothing about it. But the characterless young man, suspecting his
brother, and dreading the wrath of his terrible father-in-law, refused,
with many protestations of good-will.
When near Augsburg, Fritz wrote a letter to Lieutenant Katte, stating
that he should embrace the first opportunity to escape to the Hague;
that there he should assume the name of the Count of Alberville. He
wished Katte to join him there, and to bring with him the overcoat and
the one thousand ducats which he had left in his hands. On Thursday,
August 3d, the royal party reached the little hamlet of Steinfurth, not
far from the Rhine. Here, as was not unfrequently the case, they slept
in barns, carefully swept and prepared for them. The usual hour of
starting was three o’clock in the morning.
Just after midnight, the prince, seeing his associates soundly asleep,
cautiously rose, dressed, and crept out into the open air. He had
secretly made arrangements with his valet, a brother of Lieutenant
Keith, to meet him with some horses on the village green. He reached
the green. His valet soon appeared with the horses. Just at that
moment, one of his guard, Rochow, who had been aroused by a servant
whom he had left secretly on the watch, came forward through the gloom
of the night, and, sternly addressing Keith, inquired, “Sirrah, what
are you doing with those horses?” With much self-possession Keith
replied, “I am getting the horses ready for the hour of starting.” “His
majesty,” Rochow replied, “does not start till five o’clock. Take the
horses directly back to the stable.”
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT ARRESTED.]
Keith, trembling in every limb, returned to the stable. Though Rochow
pretended not to suspect any attempt at escape, it was manifestly
pretense only. The prince had provided himself with a red overcoat as
a disguise to his uniform, the gray one having been left with Katte
at Potsdam. As Fritz was returning to the barn with Rochow, wearing
this suspicious garment, they met the minister Seckendorf, whom Fritz
and his mother thoroughly hated as one of the counselors of the king.
Very coolly and cuttingly Rochow inquired of Seckendorf, “How do you
like his royal highness in the red overcoat?” It was a desperate game
these men were playing; for, should the king suddenly die, Fritz would
surely inherit the crown, and they would be entirely at his mercy.
All hope of escape seemed now to vanish, and the prince was quite in
despair.
The king was doubtless informed of all that had occurred. They reached
Manheim the next night. Keith was so terrified, fearing that his life
would be the penalty, that he there threw himself upon his knees
before the king, confessing all, and imploring pardon. The king, in
tones of intense agitation, informed the vigilance trio that death
would be their inevitable doom if they allowed the prince to escape.
Thus far the prince had been nominally free. Those who occupied the
carriage with him--Rochow, Waldau, and Buddenbrock--had assumed to
be merely his traveling companions. Their office of guardship had been
scrupulously concealed. But henceforth he was regarded and treated as a
culprit in the custody of his jailers.
The king, smothering his wrath, did not immediately seek an
interview with his son. But the next day, encountering him, he said,
sarcastically, “Ah! you are still here, then; I thought that by this
time you would have been in Paris.” The prince, somewhat emboldened by
despair, ventured to reply, “I certainly could have been there had I
wished it.”
At Frankfort-on-the-Main the party were to take boats to descend the
river. The prince was informed that the king had given express orders
that he should not be permitted to enter the town, but that he should
be conducted immediately to one of the royal yachts. Here the king
received an intercepted letter from the Crown Prince to Lieutenant
Katte. Boiling with indignation, he stalked on board the yacht, and
assailed his captive son in the coarsest and most violent language of
abuse. In the frenzy of his passion he seized Fritz by the collar,
shook him, hustled him about, tore out handfuls of hair, and thrust his
cane into his face, causing the blood to gush from his nose. “Never
before,” exclaimed the unhappy prince, pathetically, “did a Brandenburg
face suffer the like of this.”
The king then, having ordered his guard to watch him with the utmost
vigilance, assuring them that their heads should answer for it if
they allowed him to escape, sent his son to another boat. He was
prevailed upon to do so, as no one could tell to what length the king’s
ungovernable passions might lead him.
The royal yachts glided down the Main to the Rhine, and thence down the
Rhine to Wesel. Probably a heavier heart than that of the prince never
floated upon that world-renowned stream. Lost in painful musings, he
had no eye to gaze upon the picturesque scenes of mountain, forest,
castle, and ruins through which they were gliding. At Bonn he had an
interview with Seckendorf, whose influence was great with his father,
and whom he hoped to interest in his favor. To him he said,
“I intended to have escaped at Steinfurth. I can not endure the
treatment which I receive from my father--his abuse and blows. I
should have escaped long ago had it not been for the condition in which
I should have thus left my mother and sister. I am so miserable that I
care but little for my own life. My great anxiety is for those officers
who have been my friends, and who are implicated in my attempts. If
the king will promise to pardon them, I will make a full confession
of every thing. If you can help me in these difficulties, I shall be
forever grateful to you.”
It is probable that even Seckendorf was somewhat moved by this pathetic
appeal. Fritz succeeded in sending a letter to the post-office,
addressed to Lieutenant Keith at Wesel, containing simply the words
“_Sauvez vous; tout est decouvert_” (Save yourself; all is found out).
Keith received the letter but an hour or so before a colonel of gens
d’armes arrived to arrest him. Seckendorf had an interview with the
king, and seems to have endeavored to mitigate his wrath. He assured
the infuriate monarch of his son’s repentance, and of his readiness to
make a full confession if his father would spare those who had been led
by their sympathies to befriend him. The unrelenting father received
this message very sullenly, saying that he had no faith that his son
would make an honest confession, but that he would see what he had to
say for himself.
At Geldern, when within a few miles of Wesel, the king’s wrath flamed
up anew as he learned that Lieutenant Keith had escaped. The imperiled
young officer, warned of his danger, had saddled his horse as if for an
evening ride in the country. He passed out at one of the gates of the
city, and, riding gently till darkness came, he put spurs to his horse
and escaped to the Hague. Here, through the friendly offices of Lord
Chesterfield, the British embassador, he embarked for England. The
authorities there received him kindly, and he entered the British army.
For ten years he was heard of no more. The king dispatched officers in
pursuit of the fugitive, and redoubled the vigilance with which Fritz
was guarded.
Upon the king’s arrival at Wesel he ordered his culprit son to be
brought on shore and to be arraigned before him. It was Saturday
evening, August 12, 1730. A terrible scene ensued. The despairing Crown
Prince, tortured by injustice, was not disposed to humble himself
before his father. Receiving no assurance that his friends would
be pardoned, he evaded all attempts to extort from him confessions
which would implicate them. General Mosel alone was present at this
examination.
“Why,” asked the king, furiously, “did you attempt to desert?”
“I wished to escape,” the prince boldly replied, “because you did not
treat me like a son, but like an abject slave.”
“You are a cowardly deserter,” the father exclaimed, “devoid of all
feelings of honor.”
“I have as much honor as you have,” the son replied; “and I have only
done that which I have heard you say a hundred times you would have
done yourself had you been treated as I have been.”
The wrath of the king was now ungovernable. He drew his sword,
threatening to thrust it through the heart of his son, and seemed upon
the point of doing so, when General Mosel threw himself before the
king, exclaiming, “Sire, you may kill me, but spare your son.”[12]
The prince was withdrawn, and placed in a room where two sentries
watched over him with fixed bayonets. The king malignantly assumed that
the prince, being a colonel in the army and attempting to escape, was a
_deserter_, whose merited doom was death. General Mosel urged the king
not to see his son again, as his presence was sure to inflame his anger
to so alarming a pitch. The father did not again see him for a year and
three days.
A stern military commission was, however, appointed to interrogate the
prince from questions drawn up by the king. The examination took place
the next day. The prince confessed that it was his intention to cross
the Rhine at the nearest point, and to repair to Strasbourg, in France.
There he intended to enlist incognito as a volunteer in the French
army. He refused to tell how he obtained his money, or to make any
revelations which would implicate his friends Katte and Keith.
[Illustration: FREDERICK WILLIAM ENRAGED.]
As this report was made to the king, he exclaimed, angrily, “Let him
lie in ward, then, and await the doom which the laws adjudge to him. He
is my colonel. He has attempted to desert. He has endeavored to induce
others to desert with him. The law speaks plainly enough as to the
penalty for such crimes.”
In the mean time, the queen and Wilhelmina, at Berlin, unconscious of
the dreadful tidings they were soon to receive, were taking advantage
of the absence of the king in seeking a few hours of social enjoyment.
They gave a ball at the pretty little palace of Monbijou, on the banks
of the Spree, a short distance out from Berlin. In the midst of the
entertainment the queen received, by a courier, the following dispatch
from Frederick William:
“I have arrested the rascal Fritz. I shall treat him as his crime and
his cowardice merit. He has dishonored me and all my family. So great a
wretch is no longer worthy to live.”
Wilhelmina, in the following graphic narrative, describes the scene:
“Mamma had given a ball in honor of papa’s birthday. We recommenced the
ball after supper. For six years I had not danced before. It was new
fruit, and I took my fill of it, without heeding much what was passing.
Madam Bulow, who, with others, had worn long faces all night, pleading
illness when one noticed it, said to me several times,
“‘It is late. I wish you had done.’
“‘Oh dear me!’ I exclaimed; ‘do let me have enough of dancing this one
new time. It may be long before it comes again.’
“She returned to me an hour after, and said, with a vexed air, ‘Will
you end, then? You are so engaged you have eyes for nothing.’
“I replied, ‘You are in such a humor I know not what to make of it.’
“‘Look at the queen, then,’ she added, ‘and you will cease to reproach
me.’
“A glance which I gave that way filled me with terror. There sat the
queen, in a corner of the room, paler than death, in low conference
with Madam Sonsfeld and Countess Finckenstein. As my brother was most
in my anxieties, I asked if it concerned him. Madam Bulow shrugged her
shoulders, answering, ‘I do not know at all.’”
They repaired to the carriage, which was immediately ordered. Not a
word was spoken until they reached the palace. Wilhelmina did not
venture to ask any questions. Fearing that her brother was dead, she
was in terrible trepidation. Having arrived at the palace, Madam
Sonsfeld informed her of the contents of the dispatch.
[Illustration: DESTROYING THE LETTERS.]
The next morning they learned that Lieutenant Katte had been arrested.
All the private papers of Fritz were left, under Katte’s charge, in
a small writing-desk. These letters would implicate both the mother
and the daughter. They were terror-stricken. Count Finckenstein, who
was in high authority, was their friend. Through him, by the aid of
Madam Finckenstein, they obtained the desk. It was locked and sealed.
Despair stimulated their ingenuity. They succeeded in getting the
letters. To destroy them and leave nothing in their place would only
rouse to greater fury the suspicion and rage of the king. The letters
were taken out and burned. The queen and Wilhelmina immediately set
to work writing new ones, of a very different character, with which
to replace them. For three days they thus labored almost incessantly,
writing between six and seven hundred letters. They were so careful to
avoid any thing which might lead to detection that paper was employed
for each letter bearing the date of the year in which the letter was
supposed to be written. “Fancy the mood,” writes Carlyle, “of these
two royal women, and the black whirlwind they were in. Wilhelmina’s
dispatch was incredible. Pen went at the gallop night and day. New
letters of old date and of no meaning are got into the desk again, the
desk closed without mark of injury, and shoved aside while it is yet
time.”
Wesel was the fortress of a small province belonging to Prussia, on the
Rhine, many leagues from Berlin. The intervening territory belonged
to Hanover and Hesse Cassel. The king ordered his captive son to be
taken, under a strong guard, by circuitous roads, so as not to attract
attention, to the castle of Mittenwalde, near Berlin. The king then
started for home, probably as wretched as he was making every body
about him. After a very rapid journey, he reached Berlin late in the
afternoon of Sunday, the 27th of August, 1730. It was the evening after
the fabrication of the letters had been completed. We give, from the
graphic pen of Wilhelmina, the account of the king’s first interview
with his family:
“The queen was alone, in his majesty’s apartment, waiting for him as he
approached. As soon as he saw her at the end of the suite of rooms, and
long before he arrived in the one where she was, he cried out, ‘Your
unworthy son has at last ended himself. You have done with him.’
“‘What!’ cried the queen, ‘have you had the barbarity to kill him?’
“‘Yes, I tell you,’ the king replied; ‘but I must have his
writing-case.’ For he had already informed himself that it was in the
queen’s possession.
“The queen went to her own apartment to fetch it. I ran in to her there
for a moment. She was out of her senses, wringing her hands, crying
incessantly, and exclaiming, ‘O God, my son, my son!’ Breath failed me.
I fell fainting into the arms of Madam Sonsfeld. The queen took the
writing-desk to the king. He immediately broke it open and tore out
the letters, with which he went away. The queen came back to us. We
were comforted by the assurance, from some of the attendants, that my
brother at least was not dead.
“Pretty soon the king came back, and we, his children, ran to pay our
respects to him, by kissing his hands. But he no sooner noticed me than
rage and fury took possession of him. He became black in the face, his
eyes sparkling fire, his mouth foaming. ‘Infamous wretch!’ said he,
‘dare you show yourself before me? Go and keep your scoundrel brother
company.’
“So saying, he seized me with one hand, striking me several blows in
the face with the other fist. One of the blows struck me on the temple,
so that I fell back, and should have split my head against a corner of
the wainscot had not Madam Sonsfeld caught me by the head-dress and
broken the fall. I lay on the floor without consciousness. The king, in
his frenzy, proceeded to kick me out of a window which opened to the
floor. The queen, my sisters, and the rest, ran between, preventing
him. They all ranged themselves around me, which gave Mesdames De
Kamecke and Sonsfeld time to pick me up. They put me in a chair in an
embrasure of a window. Madam Sonsfeld supported my head, which was
wounded and swollen with the blows I had received. They threw water
upon my face to bring me to life, which care I lamentably reproached
them with, death being a thousand times better in the pass things had
come to. The queen was shrieking. Her firmness had entirely abandoned
her. She ran wildly about the room, wringing her hands in despair.
My brothers and sisters, of whom the youngest was not more than four
years old, were on their knees begging for me. The king’s face was so
disfigured with rage that it was frightful to look upon.
“The king now admitted that my brother was still alive, but vowed
horribly that he would put him to death, and lay me fast within four
walls for the rest of my life. He accused me of being the prince’s
accomplice, whose crime was high treason. ‘I hope now,’ he said,
‘to have evidence enough to convict the rascal Fritz and the wretch
Wilhelmina, and to cut their heads off. As for Fritz, he will always,
if he lives, be a worthless fellow. I have three other sons, who will
all turn out better than he has done.’
“‘Oh, spare my brother,’ I cried, ‘and I will marry the Duke of
Weissenfels.’ But in the great noise he did not hear me. And while I
strove to repeat it louder, Madam Sonsfeld clapped her handkerchief
on my mouth. Pushing aside to get rid of the handkerchief, I saw Katte
crossing the square. Four soldiers were conducting him to the king. My
brother’s trunks and his were following in the rear. Pale and downcast,
he took off his hat to salute me. He fell at the king’s feet imploring
pardon.”
[Illustration: WILHELMINA IMPRISONED.]
The king kicked him, and struck him several heavy blows with his cane.
He was hit repeatedly in the face, and blood gushed from the wounds.
With his own hands the king tore from Katte’s breast the cross of the
Order of Saint John. After this disgraceful scene the interrogatory
commenced. Katte confessed all the circumstances of the prince’s
intended escape, but denied that there had been any design against the
king or the state. His own and the prince’s letters were examined,
but nothing was found in them to criminate either. Katte was then
remanded to prison. Wilhelmina, after receiving the grossest possible
insults from her father, who accused her, in coarsest terms, of being
the paramour of Lieutenant Katte, was ordered to her room. Two sentries
were placed at her door, and directions were given that she should be
fed only on prison fare.
“Tell your unworthy daughter,” said the king to the queen, “that her
room is to be her prison. I shall give orders to have the guard there
doubled. I shall have her examined in the most rigorous manner, and
will afterward have her removed to some fit place, where she may repent
of her crimes.”
The whole city of Berlin was agitated by the rumor of these events.
The violent scene in the palace had taken place in an apartment on the
ground floor. The loud and angry tones of the king, the shrieks of the
queen, the cries of the children, the general clamor, had so attracted
the attention of the passers-by that a large crowd had assembled before
the windows. It was necessary to call out the guard to disperse them.
Difficult as it was to exaggerate outrages so infamous, still they were
exaggerated. The report went to all foreign courts that the king, in
his ungovernable rage, had knocked down the Princess Wilhelmina and
trampled her to death beneath his feet.