His mother was the daughter of George I. of England, and he hoped to
find at the English court the happiness that failed him at home. He
informed his sister of his purpose, saying that he intended to put it
into effect during a journey which his father was about to make, and in
which opportunities for flight would arise. Katte, he said, was in his
interest; Keith would join him; he had made with them all the
arrangements for his flight. His sister endeavored to dissuade him, but
in vain. His father's continued brutality, and particularly his use of
the cane, had made the poor boy desperate. He wrote to Lieutenant
Katte,--
"I am off, my dear Katte. I have taken such precautions that I have
nothing to fear. I shall pass through Leipsic, where I shall assume the
name of Marquis d'Ambreville. I have already sent word to Keith, who
will proceed direct to England. Lose no time, for I calculate on finding
you at Leipsic. Adieu, be of good cheer."
The king's journey took place. Frederick accompanied him, his mind full
of his projected flight. The king added to his resolution by
ill-treatment during the journey, and taunted him as he had often done
before, saying,--
"If my father had treated me so, I would soon have run away; but you
have no heart; you are a coward."
This added to the prince's resolution. He wrote to Katte at Berlin,
repeating to him his plans. But now the chapter of accidents, which have
spoiled so many well-laid plots, began. In sending this letter he
directed it "_via_ Nürnberg," but in his haste or agitation forgot to
insert Berlin. By ill luck there was a cousin of Katte's, of the same
name, at Erlangen, some twelve miles off. The letter was delivered to
and read by him. He saw the importance of its contents, and, moved by an
impulse of loyalty, sent it by express to the king at Frankfort.
Another accident came from Frederick's friend Keith being appointed
lieutenant, his place as page to the prince being taken by his brother,
who was as stupid as the elder Keith was acute. The royal party had
halted for the night at a village named Steinfurth. This the prince
determined to make the scene of his escape, and bade his page to call
him at four in the morning, and to have horses ready, as he proposed to
make an early morning call upon some pretty girls at a neighboring
hamlet. He deemed the boy too stupid to trust with the truth.
Young Keith managed to spoil all. Instead of waking the prince, he
called his valet, who was really a spy of the king's, and who,
suspecting something to be amiss, pretended to fall asleep again, while
heedfully watching. Frederick soon after awoke, put on a coat of French
cut instead of his uniform, and went out. The valet immediately roused
several officers of the king's suite, and told them his suspicions. Much
disturbed, they hurried after the prince.
After searching through the village, they found him at the horse-market
leaning against a cart. His dress added to their suspicions, and they
asked him respectfully what he was doing there. He answered sharply,
angry at being discovered.
"For God's sake, change your coat!" exclaimed Colonel Rochow. "The king
is awake, and will start in half an hour. What would be the consequence
if he were to see you in this dress?"
"I promise you that I will be ready before the king," said Frederick.
"I only mean to take a little turn."
While they were arguing, the page arrived with the horses. The prince
seized the bridle of one of them, and would have leaped upon it but for
the interference of those around him, who forced him to return to the
barn in which the royal party had found its only accommodation for that
night. Here he was obliged to put on his uniform, and to restrain his
anger.
During the day the valet and others informed the king of what had
occurred. He said nothing, as there were no proofs of the prince's
purpose. That night they reached Frankfort. Here the king received, the
next morning, the letter sent him by Katte's cousin. He showed it to two
of his officers, and bade them on peril of their heads to keep a close
watch on the prince, and to take him immediately to the yacht on which
the party proposed to travel the next day by water to Wesel.
The king embarked the next morning, and as soon as he saw the prince his
smothered rage burst into fury. He grasped him violently by the collar,
tore his hair out by the roots, and struck him in the face with the knob
of his stick till the blood ran. Only by the interference of the two
officers was the unhappy youth saved from more extreme violence.
His sword was taken from him, his effects were seized by the king, and
his papers burned by his valet before his face,--in which he did all
concerned "an important service."
At the request of his keepers the prince was taken to another yacht. On
reaching the bridge of boats at the entrance to Wesel, he begged
permission to land there, so that he might not be known. His keepers
acceded, but he was no sooner on land than he ran off at full speed. He
was stopped by a guard, whom the king had sent to meet him, and was
conducted to the town-house. Not a word was said to the king about this
attempt at flight.
The next day Frederick was brought before his father, who was in a
raging passion.
"Why did you try to run away?" he furiously asked.
"Because," said Frederick, firmly, "you have not treated me like your
son, but like a base slave."
"You are an infamous deserter, and have no honor."
"I have as much as you," retorted the prince. "I have done no more than
I have heard you say a hundred times that you would do if you were in my
place."
This answer so incensed the old tyrant that he drew his sword in fury
from its scabbard, and would have run the boy through had not General
Mosel hastily stepped between, and seized the king's arm.
"If you must have blood, stab me," he said; "my old carcass is not good
for much; but spare your son."
These words checked the king's brutal fury. He ordered them to take the
boy away, and listened with more composure to the general, who entreated
him not to condemn the prince without a hearing, and not to commit the
unpardonable crime of becoming his son's executioner.
Events followed rapidly upon this discovery. Frederick contrived to
despatch a line in pencil to Keith. "Save yourself," he wrote; "all is
discovered." Keith at once fled, reached the Hague, where he was
concealed in the house of Lord Chesterfield, the English ambassador, and
when searched for there, succeeded in escaping to England in a
fishing-boat. He was hung in effigy in Prussia, but became a major of
cavalry in the service of Portugal.
Katte was less fortunate. He was warned in time to escape, and the
marshal who was sent to arrest him purposely delayed, but he lost
precious time in preparation, and was seized while mounting his horse.
His arrest filled the queen with terror. Numerous letters were in his
possession which had been written by herself and her daughter to the
prince royal. In these they had often spoken with great freedom of the
king. It might be ruinous should these letters fall into his hands.
Some friend sent the portfolio supposed to contain them to the queen. It
was locked, corded, and sealed. The trouble about the seal was overcome
by an old valet, who had found in the palace garden one just like it.
The portfolio was opened, and the queen's fears found to be correct. It
contained the letters, not less than fifteen hundred in all. They were
all hastily thrown into the fire,--too hastily, for many of them were
innocent of offence.
But it would not do to return an empty portfolio. The queen and her
daughter immediately began to write letters to replace the burned ones,
taking paper of each year's manufacture to prevent discovery. For three
days they diligently composed and wrote, and in that period fabricated
no less than six or seven hundred letters. These far from filled the
portfolio, but the queen packed other things into it, and then locked
and sealed it, so that no change in its appearance could be perceived.
This done, it was restored to its place.
We must hasten over what followed. On the king's return his first
greeting to his wife was, "Your good-for-nothing son is dead." He
immediately demanded the portfolio, tore it open, and carried away the
letters which had been so recently concocted. In a few minutes he
returned, and on seeing his daughter broke out into a fury of rage, his
eyes glaring, his mouth foaming.
"Infamous wretch!" he shouted; "dare you appear in my presence? Go keep
your scoundrel of a brother company."
He seized her as he spoke and struck her several times violently in the
face, one blow on the temple hurling her to the floor. Mad with rage, he
would have trampled on her had not the ladies present got her away. The
scene was a frightful one. The queen, believing her son dead, and
completely unnerved, ran wildly around the room, shrieking with agony.
The king's face was so distorted with rage as to be frightful to look
at. His younger children were around his knees, begging him with tears
to spare their sister. Wilhelmina, her face bruised and swollen, was
supported by one of the ladies of the court. Rarely had insane rage
created a more distressing spectacle.
In the end the king acknowledged that Frederick was still alive, but
vowed that he would have his head off as a deserter, and that
Wilhelmina, his confederate, should be imprisoned for life. He left the
room at length to question Katte, who was being brought before him,
harshly exclaiming as he did so, "Now I shall have evidence to convict
the scoundrel Fritz and that blackguard Wilhelmina. I shall find plenty
of reasons to have their heads off."
But we must hasten to the conclusion. Both the captives were tried by
court-martial, on the dangerous charge of desertion from the army. The
court which tried Frederick proved to be subservient to the king's will.
They pronounced sentence of death on the prince royal. Katte was
sentenced to imprisonment for life, on the plea that his crime had been
only meditated, not committed. The latter sentence did not please the
despot. He changed it himself from life imprisonment to death, and with
a refinement of cruelty ordered the execution to take place under the
prince's window, and within his sight.
On the 5th of November, 1730, Frederick, wearing a coarse prison dress,
was conducted from his cell in the fortress of Cüstrin to a room on the
lower floor, where the window-curtains, let down as he entered, were
suddenly drawn up. He saw before him a scaffold hung with black, which
he believed to be intended for himself, and gazed upon it with
shuddering apprehension. When informed that it was intended for his
friend, his grief and pain became even more acute. He passed the night
in that room, and the next morning was conducted again to the window,
beneath which he saw his condemned friend, accompanied by soldiers, an
officer, and a minister of religion.
"Oh," cried the prince, "how miserable it makes me to think that I am
the cause of your death! Would to God I were in your place!"
"No," replied Katte; "if I had a thousand lives, gladly would I lay them
down for you."
Frederick swooned as his friend moved on. In a few minutes afterwards
Katte was dead. It was long before the sorrowing prince recovered from
the shock of that cruel spectacle.
Whether the king actually intended the execution of his son is
questioned. As it was, earnest remonstrances were addressed to him from
the Kings of Sweden and Poland, the Emperor of Germany, and other
monarchs. He gradually recovered from the insanity of his rage, and, on
humble appeals from his son, remitted his sentence, requiring him to
take a solemn oath that he was converted from his infidel beliefs, that
he begged a thousand pardons from his father for his crimes, and that
he repented not having been always obedient to his father's will.
This done, Frederick was released from prison, but was kept under
surveillance at Cüstrin till February, 1732, when he was permitted to
return to Berlin. He had been there before on the occasion of his
sister's marriage, in November, 1731, the poor girl gladly accepting
marriage to a prince she had never seen as a means of escape from a king
of whom she had seen too much. With this our story ends. Father and son
were reconciled, and lived to all appearance as good friends until 1740,
when the old despot died, and Frederick succeeded him as king.
_VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT._
Voltaire, who was an adept in the art of making France too hot to hold
him, had gone to Prussia, as a place of rest for his perturbed spirit,
and, in response to the repeated invitations of his ardent admirer,
Frederick the Great. It was a blunder on both sides. If they had wished
to continue friends, they should have kept apart. Frederick was
autocratic in his ways and thoughts; Voltaire embodied the spirit of
independence in thought and speech. The two men could no more meet
without striking fire than flint and steel. Moreover, Voltaire was
normally satirical, restless, inclined to vanity and jealousy, and that
terrible pen of his could never be brought to respect persons and
places. With a martinet like Frederick, the visit was sure to end in a
quarrel, despite the admiration of the prince for the poet.
Frederick, though a German king, was French in his love for the Gallic
literature, philosophy, and language. He cared little for German
literature--there was little of it in his day worth caring for--and
always wrote and spoke in French, while French wits and thinkers who
could not live in safety in straitlaced Paris, gained the amplest scope
for their views in his court. Voltaire found three such emigrants
there, Maupertuis, La Mettrie, and D'Arnaud. He was received by them
with enthusiasm, as the sovereign of their little court of free thought.
Frederick had given him a pension and the post of chamberlain,--an
office with very light duties,--and the expatriated poet set himself out
to enjoy his new life with zest and animation.
"A hundred and fifty thousand victorious soldiers," he wrote to Paris,
"no attorneys, opera, plays, philosophy, poetry, a hero who is a
philosopher and a poet, grandeur and graces, grenadiers and muses,
trumpets and violins, Plato's symposium, society and freedom! Who would
believe it? It is all true, however."
"It is Cæsar, it is Marcus Aurelius, it is Julian, it is sometimes Abbé
Chaulieu, with whom I sup," he further wrote; "there is the charm of
retirement, there is the freedom of the country, with all those little
delights which the lord of a castle who is a king can procure for his
very obedient humble servants and guests. My own duties are to do
nothing. I enjoy my leisure. I give an hour a day to the King of Prussia
to touch up a bit his works in prose and verse; I am his grammarian, not
his chamberlain ... Never in any place in the world was there more
freedom of speech touching the superstitions of men, and never were they
treated with more banter and contempt. God is respected, but all they
who have cajoled men in His name are treated unsparingly."
It was, in short, an Eden for a free-thinker; but an Eden with its
serpent, and this serpent was the envy, jealousy, and unrestrainable
satiric spirit of Voltaire. There was soon trouble between him and his
fellow-exiles. He managed to get Arnaud exiled from the country, and
gradually a coolness arose between him and Maupertuis, whom Frederick
had made president of the Berlin Academy. There were other quarrels and
complications, and Voltaire grew disgusted with the occupation of what
he slyly called "buck-washing" the king's French verses,--poor affairs
they were. Step by step he was making Berlin as hot as he had made
Paris. The new Adam was growing restless in his new Paradise. He wrote
to his niece,--
"So it is known by this time in Paris, my dear child, that we have
played the 'Mort de Cæsar' at Potsdam, that Prince Henry is a good
actor, has no accent, and is very amiable, and that this is the place
for pleasure? All this is true, but--The king's supper parties are
delightful; at them people talk reason, wit, science; freedom prevails
thereat; he is the soul of it all; no ill-temper, no clouds, at any rate
no storms; my life is free and well occupied,--but--Opera, plays,
carousals, suppers at Sans Souci, military manoeuvres, concerts, studies,
readings,--but--The city of Berlin, grand, better laid out than Paris;
palaces, play-houses, affable queens, charming princesses, maids of
honor beautiful and well-made, the mansion of Madame de Tyrconnel always
full and sometimes too much so,--but--but--My dear child, the weather
is beginning to settle down into a fine frost."
Voltaire brought the frost. He got into a disreputable quarrel with a
Jew, and meddled in other affairs, until something very like a quarrel
arose between him and Frederick. The king wrote him a severe letter of
reprimand. The poet apologized. But immediately afterwards his
irrepressible spirit of mischief broke out in a new place. It was his
ill-humor with Maupertuis which now led him astray. He wrote a pamphlet,
full of wit and as full of bitterness, called "La diatribe du docteur
Akakia," so evidently satirizing Maupertuis that the king grew furious.
It was printed anonymously, and circulated surreptitiously in Berlin,
but a copy soon fell into Frederick's hand, who knew at once that but
one man in the kingdom was capable of such a production. He wrote so
severely to Voltaire that the malicious satirist was frightened and gave
up the whole edition of the pamphlet, which was burnt before his eyes in
the king's own closet, though Frederick could not help laughing at its
wit.
But Voltaire's daring was equal to a greater defiance than Frederick
imagined. Despite the work of the flames, a copy of the diatribe found
its way to Paris, was printed there, and copies of it made their way
back to Prussia by mail. Everybody was reading it, everybody laughing,
people fought for copies of the satire, which spread over Europe. The
king, enraged by this treacherous disobedience, as he deemed it,
retorted on Voltaire by having the pamphlet burned in the Place d'Armes.
This brought matters to a crisis. The next day Voltaire sent his
commissions and orders back to Frederick; the next, Frederick returned
them to him. He was bent on leaving Prussia at once, but wished to do it
without a quarrel with the king.
"I sent the Solomon of the North," he wrote to Madame Denis, "for his
present, the cap and bells he gave me, with which you reproached me so
much. I wrote him a very respectful letter, for I asked him for leave to
go. What do you think he did? He sent me his great factotum, Federshoff,
who brought me back my toys; he wrote me a letter saying that he would
rather have me to live with than Maupertuis. What is quite certain is
that I would rather not live with either the one or the other."
In truth, Frederick could not bear to lose Voltaire. Vexed as he was
with him, he was averse to giving up that charming conversation from
which he had derived so much enjoyment. Voltaire wanted to get away;
Frederick pressed him to stay. There was protestation, warmth, coolness,
a gradual breaking of links, letters from France urging the poet to
return, communications from Frederick wishing him to remain, and a
growing attraction from Paris drawing its flown son back to that centre
of the universe for a true Frenchman.
At length Frederick yielded; Voltaire might go. The poet approached him
while reviewing his troops.
"Ah! Monsieur Voltaire," said the king, "so you really intend to go
away?"
"Sir, urgent private affairs, and especially my health, leave me no
alternative."
"Monsieur, I wish you a pleasant journey."
This was enough for Voltaire; in an hour he was in his carriage and on
the road to Leipsic. He thought he was done for the rest of his life
with the "exactions" and "tyrannies" of the King of Prussia. He was to
experience some more of them before he left the land. Frederick bided
his time.
It was on March 26, 1753, that Voltaire left Potsdam. It was two months
afterwards before he reached Frankfort. He had tarried at Leipsic and at
Gotha, engaged in the latter place on a dry chronicle asked for by the
duchess, entitled "The Annals of the Empire." During this time also, in
direct disregard of a promise he had made Frederick, there appeared a
supplement to "Doctor Akakia," more offensive than the main text. It was
followed by a virulent correspondence with Maupertuis. Voltaire was
filling up the vials of wrath of the king.
On May 31 he reached Frankfort. Here the blow fell. There occurred an
incident which has become famous in literary history, and which, while
it had some warrant on Frederick's side, tells very poorly for that
patron of literature. No unlettered autocrat could have acted with less
regard to the rights and proprieties of citizenship.
"Here is how this fine adventure came about," writes Voltaire. "There
was at Frankfort one Freytag, who had been banished from Dresden and had
become an agent for the King of Prussia....He notified me, on behalf of
his Majesty, that I was not to leave Frankfort till I had restored the
valuable effects I was carrying away from his Majesty.
"'Alack, sir, I am carrying away nothing from that country, if you
please, not even the smallest regret. What, pray, are those jewels of
the Brandenburg crown that you require?'
"'It be, sir,' replied Freytag, 'the work of _poeshy_ of the king, my
gracious master.'
"'Oh, I will give him back his prose and verse with all my heart,'
replied I, 'though, after all, I have more than one right to the work.
He made me a present of a beautiful copy printed at his expense.
Unfortunately, the copy is at Leipsic with my other luggage.'
"Then Freytag proposed to me to remain at Frankfort until the treasure
which was at Leipsic should have arrived; and he signed an order for
it."
The volume which Frederick wanted he had doubtless good reason to
demand, when it is considered that it was in the hands of a man who
could be as malicious as Voltaire. It contained a burlesque and
licentious poem, called the "Palladium," in which the king scoffed at
everybody and everything in a manner he preferred not to make public.
Voltaire in Berlin might be trusted to remain discreet. In Paris his
discretion could not be counted on. Frederick wanted the poem in his
own hands.
There was delay in the matter; references to Frederick and returns; the
affair dragged on slowly. The package arrived. Voltaire, agitated at his
detention, ill and anxious, wanted to get away, in company with Madame
Denis, who had just joined him. Freytag refused to let him go. Very
unwisely, the poet determined to slip away, imagining that in a "free
city" like Frankfort he could not be disturbed. He was mistaken. The
freedom of Frankfort was subject to the will of Frederick. The poet
tells for himself what followed.
"The moment I was off, I was arrested, I, my secretary and my people; my
niece is arrested; four soldiers drag her through the mud to a
cheesemonger's named Smith, who had some title or other of privy
councillor to the King of Prussia; my niece had a passport from the King
of France, and, what is more, she had never corrected the King of
Prussia's verses. They huddled us all into a sort of hostelry, at the
door of which were posted a dozen soldiers; we were for twelve days
prisoners of war, and we had to pay a hundred and forty crowns a day."
Voltaire was furious; Madame Denis was ill, or feigned to be; she wrote
letter after letter to Voltaire's friends in Prussia, and to the king
himself. The affair was growing daily more serious. Finally the city
authorities themselves, who doubtless felt that they were not playing a
very creditable part, put an end to it by ordering Freytag to release
his prisoner. Voltaire, set free, travelled leisurely towards France,
which, however, he found himself refused permission to enter. He
thereupon repaired to Geneva, and thereafter, freed from the patronage
of princes and the injustice of the powerful, spent his life in a land
where full freedom of thought and action was possible.
As for the worthy Freytag, he felicitated himself highly on the way he
had handled that dabbler in _poeshy_. "We would have risked our lives
rather than let him get away," he wrote; "and if I, holding a council of
war with myself, had not found him at the barrier but in the open
country, and he had refused to jog back, I don't know that I shouldn't
have lodged a bullet in his head. To such a degree had I at heart the
letters and writing of the king."
The too trusty agent did not feel so self-satisfied on receiving the
opinion of the king.