"_16th October, 1757._
"Overwhelmed by sufferings of mind and body, I am able only to
write a little letter. You will find one enclosed herewith which
will reward you a hundred-fold for my brevity. Our situation is
always the same. A grave is the extent of our view. Although
everything seems lost, things remain to us which cannot be taken
away; they are fortitude and the sentiments of the heart. Be
persuaded of our gratitude, and of all the sentiments which you
deserve by your attachment and way of thinking, worthy of a true
philosopher.
"WILHELMINA."
The following letter from Frederick crossed the previous one from his
sister:--
"_Eilenburg, 17th October, 1757._
"MY DEAREST SISTER,--What is the good of philosophy unless we
employ it in the disagreeable moments of life? It is then, my dear
sister, that courage and firmness avail us.
"I am now in motion; and having once got into that, you may
calculate I shall not think of sitting down again, except under
improved omens. If outrage irritates even cowards, what will it do
to hearts that have courage?
"I foresee I shall not be able to write again for perhaps six
weeks; which fails not to be a sorrow to me; but I entreat you to
be calm during these turbulent affairs, and to wait with patience
the month of December; paying no regard to the Nurnberg
newspapers, nor to those of the Reich, which are totally Austrian.
"I am as tired as a dog. I embrace you with my whole heart; being
with the most perfect affection, my dearest sister, your
"FREDERICK."
Having had a success, he writes (November 5, 1757) to inform her of
it, and concludes:--
"You, my dear sister, my good, my divine and affectionate sister,
who deign to interest yourself in the fate of a brother who adores
you, deign also to share in my joy. The instant I have time I will
tell you more. I embrace you with my whole heart. Adieu!
"F."
The last year of her life closed very gloomily for the Margravine.
Notwithstanding some successes the chances were fearfully against her
brother, and his reverses were great. She ardently longed for peace,
as well for the sake of the country as for that of her brother, and
she would willingly have sacrificed her life for it. Writing to
Voltaire on 2nd January, 1758, she says: "Thank Heaven we have
finished the most fatal of years. You say so many kind things in
reference to the present one, that they form one reason the more for
my gratitude. I wish you everything that can make you perfectly happy.
As regards myself, I leave my fate to destiny. We often form desires
which would be very prejudicial if accomplished, therefore I form no
more. If anything in the world could satisfy my desires, it would be
peace; I think as you do about war, and we have quite a third who
certainly thinks as we do. But can we always act up to what we think?
Is it not necessary to submit to many prejudices established since the
world began?"
As the year advanced the health of the Margravine visibly declined.
Whilst her enfeebled frame was at Baireuth her heart was with her
brother, bleeding at every fresh reverse. Frederick in a letter to his
brother, alluding to her prostrate condition, says: "What you write to
me of my sister of Baireuth makes me tremble! Next to our Mother, she
is what I have the most tenderly loved in this world. She is a sister
who has my heart and all my confidence; and whose character is of
price beyond all the crowns in this universe. From my tenderest years,
I was brought up with her; you can conceive how there reigns between
us that indissoluble bond of mutual affection and attachment for life,
which, in all other cases, were it only for disparity of ages, is
impossible. Would to Heaven I might die before her--and that this
terror itself don't take away my life without my actually losing her."
The Margravine's last letter was, we are told, written on the 18th
July, 1758, with trembling hand "almost illegible." Replying, the King
says: "O you, the dearest of my family, you, whom I have most at heart
of all in this world--for the sake of whatever is most precious to
you, preserve yourself; and let me have at least the consolation of
shedding my tears in your bosom!"
The last letter from Voltaire to the Margravine is dated the 27th
September, 1758, in which he urges her to consult the celebrated
physician Tronchin. But the suggestion was too late or of no avail.
"Wilhelmina, who had ever been so ready with her pen, was no longer
able to use it, not even to bid a last farewell to her friend. Yet, in
token of how much her thoughts were with him, she sent him her picture
a fortnight before her end, as a last message of friendship and
gratitude. Soon her spirit would fathom the great mysteries which had
occupied her during her life. Who is there who would not believe in
affection's double sight? In the same night, at the same hour in which
her brother suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Austrians
at Hochkirch, Wilhelmina breathed her last, on the 14th October, 1758.
Her last words, her last thoughts were for the happiness and welfare
of the King. She desired to have her brother's letters buried with
her. This wish was, however, not fulfilled. At her especial request
the funeral oration to be held at her grave was to contain but little
mention of herself, the vanity of all human things being made the
chief subject of it. She was buried according to her instructions, in
the simplest and quietest manner, in the chapel of the Castle of
Baireuth."[4]
[4] "The Margravine of Baireuth and Voltaire." By H.R.H.
Princess Christian, p. 126.
The King's sorrow, on receiving the intelligence of his sister's
death, was uncontrollable. The friend, the confidant, the consolation
of his life was gone in his darkest hour, when he seemed to have the
most need of her sound advice and sustaining comfort. "How," says he,
"can I make up for the loss which everything warns me of; how can I
replace this beloved and adorable sister, who has loved me so dearly?
How could I believe that she, to whom, since my earliest youth, I have
confided my every thought, should so soon be taken from me?" He made a
pathetic appeal to Voltaire to write something in her memory, and, not
being satisfied with one effort, he writes:--"For what I have asked of
you, I assure you I have very much at heart; be it prose, be it verse,
it is all the same to me. A monument is necessary to commemorate that
virtue so pure, so rare, which has not been sufficiently generally
known. If I was persuaded I could write adequately myself, I would
charge no one with it; but as you are certainly the first of our age,
I can address myself only to you."