History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 07

The fact, of Arrest, and unknown mischief to the Prince, is taken for certain; but what may be the issues of it; who besides the Prince have been involved in it, especially who will be found to have been involved, is matter of dire guess to the three who are most interested here. Lieutenant Katte finds he ought to dispose of the Prince's effects which were intrusted to him; of the thousand gold Thalers in particular, and, beyond and before all, of the locked Writing-desk, in which lies the Prince's correspondence, the very Queen and Princess likely to be concerned in it! Katte despatches these two objects, the Money and the little Desk, in all secrecy, to Madam Finkenstein, as to the surest hand, with a short Note shadowing out what he thinks they are: Countess Finkenstein, old General von Finkenstein's Wife, and a second mother to the Prince, she, like her Husband, a sworn partisan of the Prince and his Mother, shall do with these precious and terrible objects what, to her own wise judgment, seems best.

Madam Finkenstein carries them at once, in deep silence, to the Queen. Huge dismay on the part of the Queen and Princess. They know too well what Letters may be there: and there is a seal on the Desk, and no key to it; neither must it, in time coming, seem to have been opened, even if we could now open it. A desperate pinch, and it must be solved. Female wit and Wilhelmina did solve it, by some pre-eminently acute device of their despair; [Wilhelmina, i. 253-257.] and contrived to get the Letters out: hundreds of Letters, enough to be our death if read, says Wilhelmina. These Letters they burnt; and set to writing fast as the pen would go, other letters in their stead. Fancy the mood of these two Royal Women, and the black whirlwind they were in. Wilhelmina's despatch was incredible; pen went at the gallop night and day: new letters, of old dates 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.—Time presses; his Majesty too, and the events, go at gallop. Here is a Letter from his Majesty, to a trusty Mistress of the Robes, or whatever she is; which, let it arrive through what softening media it likes, will complete the poor Queen's despair:—

"MY DEAR FRAU VON KAMECKE,—Fritz has attempted to desert. I have been under the necessity to have him arrested. I request you to tell my Wife of it in some good way, that the news may not terrify her. And pity an unhappy Father.

"FRIEDRICH WILHELM."

[No date: "ARRIVED" (from Wesel, we conclude), Sunday, "20th August," at the Palace of Berlin (Preuss, i. 42).]

The same post brought an order to the Colonel of the Gerns-d'Armes to put that Lieutenant Katte of his under close confinement:—we hope the thoughtless young fellow has already got out of the way? He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that; does not consider what danger he is in. This same Sunday, his Major met him on the street of Berlin; said, in a significant tone, "You still HERE, Katte!"—"I go this night," answered Katte; but he again put it off, did not go this night; and the order for his arrest did come in. On the morrow morning, Colonel Pannewitz, hoping now he was not there, went with the rhadamanthine order; and finding the unlucky fellow, was obliged to execute it. Katte lies in ward, awaiting what may be prepared for him.

Friedrich Wilhelm at Wesel has had rough passages with the Prince and others. On the Saturday evening, 12th August 1730, [Preuss, iv. 473; Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 6) says 13th, but WRONG.] his Majesty had the Culprit brought on shore, to the Commandant's House, for an interview. Culprit proving less remorseful than was expected, and evidently not confessing everything, a loud terrible scene ensued; which Friedrich Wilhelm, the unhappy Father, winded up by drawing his sword to run the unnatural Son through the body. Old General Mosel, Commandant of Wesel, sprang between them, "Sire, cut me to death, but spare your Son!" and the sword was got back to its scabbard; and the Prince lodged in a separate room, two sentries with fixed bayonets keeping watch over him. Friedrich Wilhelm did not see his face again for twelve months to come,—"twelve months and three days."

Military gentlemen of due grimness interrogated the Prince next evening, [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 5).] from a Paper drawn up by his Majesty in the interim. Prince confesses little: Did design to get across the Rhine to Landau; thence to Strasburg, Paris, in the strictest incognito; intended to volunteer there, thought he might take French service, profoundly incognito, and signalize himself in the Italian War (just expected to break out), which might have recovered him some favor from his Majesty: does not tell clearly where his money came from; shy extremely of elucidating Katte and Keith;—in fact, as we perceive, struggles against mendacity, but will not tell the whole truth. "Let him lie in ward, then; and take what doom the Laws have appointed for the like of him!" Divine Laws, are they not? Well, yes, your Majesty, divine and human;—or are there perhaps no laws but the human sort, completely explicit in this case? "He is my Colonel at least," thinks Friedrich Wilhelm, "and tried to desert and make others desert. If a rebellious Crown-Prince, breaking his Father's heart, find the laws still inarticulate; a deserting Colonel of the Potsdam Regiment finds them speak plain enough. Let him take the answer they give him?"

Dumoulin, in the mean while, can make nothing of Keith, the runaway Lieutenant. Dumoulin, with his sagacious organ, soon came upon the scent of Keith; and has discovered these things about him: One evening, a week before his Majesty arrived, Sunday evening, 6th August, 1730, [RELATIO EX ACTIS: in Preuss, iv. 473.] Lieutenant Keith, doubtless smelling something, saddled his horse as above mentioned, decided to have a ride in the country this fine evening, and issued out at the Brunen Gate of Wesel. He is on the right bank of the Rhine; pleasant yellow fields on this hand and that. He ambles slowly, for a space; then gradually awakens into speed, into full speed; arrives, within a couple of hours, at Dingden, a Village in the Munster Territory, safe over the Prussian Border, by the shortest line: and from Dingden rides at more leisure, but without losing time, into the Dutch Overyssel region, straight towards the Hague. He must be in the Hague? said Dumoulin to the Official persons, on arriving there,—to Meinertshagen the Prussian Ambassador there, [Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 7).] and to Keppel, Dutch Official gentleman who was once Ambassador at Berlin. Prussian Ambassador applies, and again applies, in the highest quarters; but we fear they are slack. Dumoulin discovers that the man was certainly here; Keppel readily admits, He had Keith to dinner a few days ago: but where Keith now is, Keppel cannot form the least guess.

Dumoulin suspects he is with Lord Chesterfield, the English Ambassador here. A light was seen, for a night or two, in one of the garret-rooms of Lord Chesterfield's house,—probably Keith reading?—but Keith is not to be heard of, on inquiry there; and the very light has now gone out. The Colonel at least, distinguished English Lord is gone to England in these days; but his German Secretary is not gone: the House is inviolable, impregnable to Prussia. Who knows, in spite of the light going out, but Keith is still there, merely with a window shutter to screen him? One morning, it becomes apparent Keith is not there. One morning, a gentleman at the seaside is admiring Dutch fishing-skiffs, and how they do sail, "Pooh, Sir, that is nothing!" answers a man in multiplex breeches: "the other night I went across to England in one, with an Excellency's Messenger who could not wait!"—Truth is, the Chesterfield Secretary, who forbade lights, took the first good night for conveying Keith to Scheveningen and the seaside; where a Fisher-boat was provided for him; which carried him, frail craft as it was, safe across to England. Once there, the Authorities took pity on the poor fellow;—furnished the modicum of cash and help; sent him with Admiral Norris to assist the Portuguese, menaced with Spanish war at this time; among whom he gradually rose to be Major of Horse. Friedrich Wilhelm cited him by tap of drum three times in Wesel, and also in the Gazettes, native and Dutch; then, as he did not come, nailed an Effigy of him (cut in four, if I remember) on the gallows there; and confiscated any property he had. Keith had more pedigree than property; was of Poberow in Pommern; son of poor gentlefolks there. He sent no word of himself to Prussia, for the next ten years; so that he had become a kind of myth to many people; to his poor Mother among the rest, who has her tragical surmises about him. He will appear again; but not to much purpose. His Brother, the Page Keith, is packed into the Fusileer Regiment, at Wesel here; and there walks sentry, unheard of for the rest of his life. So much for the Keiths. [Preuss: Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden, pp. 330, 392.—See, on this and the other points, Pollnitz, Memoiren, ii. 352-374 (and correct his many blunders).]

Other difficulty there is as to the Prison of the Prince. Wesel is a strong Town; but for obvious reasons one nearer Berlin, farther from the frontier, would be preferable. Towards Berlin, however, there is no route all on Prussian ground: from these divided Cleve Countries we have to cross a bit of Hanover, a bit of Hessen-Cassel: suppose these Serene Highnesses were to interfere? Not likely they will interfere, answer ancient military men, of due grimness; at any rate, we can go a roundabout road, and they need not know! That is the method settled on; neighborhood of Berlin, clearly somewhere there, must be the place? Old Castle of Mittenwalde, in the Wusterhausen environs, let that be the first resting-point, then; Rochow, Waldau, and the Wesel Fusileer-Colonel here, sure men, with a trooper or two for escort, shall conduct the Prisoner. By Treuenbrietzen, by circuitous roads: swift, silent, steady,—and with vigilance, as you shall answer!—These preliminaries settled, Friedrich Wilhelm drives off homewards, black Care riding behind him. He reaches Berlin, Sunday, 27th August; finds a world gone all to a kind of doomsday with him there, poor gentleman.

SCENE AT BERLIN ON MAJESTY'S ARRIVAL

On Sunday evening, 27th August, 1730, his Majesty, who had rested overnight at Potsdam from his rapid journey, drove into Berlin between four and five in the afternoon. Deserter Fritz is following, under escort of his three military gentlemen, at a slower rate and by circuitous routes, so as to avoid the territories of Hanover and Hessen,—towards Mittenwalde in the Wusterhausen neighborhood. The military gentlemen are vigilant as Argus, and, though pitying the poor Prince, must be rigorous as Rhadamanthus. His attempts at escape, of which tradition mentions more than one, they will not report to Papa, nor even notice to the Prince himself; but will take care to render futile, one and all: his Majesty may be secure on that score.

The scenes that follow are unusual in royal history; and having been reported in the world with infinite noise and censure, made up of laughter and horror, it will behoove us to be the more exact in relating them as they actually befell. Very difficult to pull, out of that ravelled cart-load of chaotic thrums, here a thread and there a thread, capable of being brought to the straight state, and woven into legible narrative! But perhaps, by that method the mingled laughter and horror will modify itself a little. What we can well say is, that pity also ought not to be wanting. The next six months were undoubtedly by far the wretchedest of Friedrich Wilhelm's life. The poor King, except that he was not conscious of intending wrong, but much the reverse, walked in the hollow night of Gehenna, all that while, and was often like to be driven mad by the turn things had taken.

Here is scene first: Wilhelmina reports his Majesty's arrival that Sunday afternoon, to the following effect; she was present in the adventure, and not a spectatress only:—

"The Queen was alone in his Majesty's Apartment, waiting for him as he approached. At sight of her, in the distance, he called out: 'Your losel of a Son (VOTRE INDIGNE FILS) has ended at last; you have done with HIM,' or words to that effect. 'What,' cried the Queen, 'you have had the barbarity to kill him?' 'Yes, I tell you,—but where is the sealed Desk?' The Queen went to her own Apartment to fetch it; I ran in to her there for a moment: she was out of herself, wringing her hands, crying incessantly, and said without ceasing: 'MON DIEU, MON FILS (O God, my Son)!' Breath failed me; I fell fainting into the arms of Madame de Sonsfeld."—The Queen took away the Writing-case; King tore out the letters, and went off; upon which the Queen came down again to us.

"We learned from some attendant that, at least, my Brother was not dead. The King now came back. We all ran to kiss his hands; but me he no sooner noticed than rage and fury took possession of him. He became black in the face, his eyes sparkling fire, his mouth foaming. 'Infamous CANAILLE,' said he; 'darest thou show thyself before me? Go, keep thy scoundrel of a Brother company!' And so saying, he seized me with one hand, slapping me on the face with the other,'—clenched as a fist (POING),—'several blows; one of which struck me on the temple, so that I fell back, and should have split my head against a corner of the wainscot, had not Madame de Sonsfeld caught me by the head-dress and broken the fall. I lay on the ground without consciousness. The King, in a frenzy, was for striking me with his feet; had not the Queen, my Sisters, and the rest, run between, and those who were present prevented him. They all ranked themselves round me, which gave Mesdames de Kamecke and Sonsfeld time to pick me up. They put me in a chair in the embrasure of a window; threw water on 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 kept shrieking, her firmness had quite left her: she wrung her hands, and ran in despair up and down the room. The King's face was so disfigured with rage, it was frightful to look upon. The little ones were on their knees, begging for me,"—[Wilhelmina, i. 265-267.]—poor little beings, what a group: Amelia, the youngest girl, about six; Henri, in his bits of trousers, hardly over four!—For the rest, I perceive, this room was on the first or a lower floor, and such noises were very audible. The Guard had turned out at the noise; and a crowd was collecting to see and hear: "Move on! Move on!"

"The King had now changed his tune: he admitted that my Brother was still alive; but vowed horribly 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;—also of having an intrigue of love with Katte, to whom, he said, I had borne several children." The timid Gouvernante flamed up at this unheard-of insult: "'That is not true,' said she, fiercely; 'whoever has told your Majesty such a thing has told a lie!' 'Oh, spare my Brother, and I will marry the Duke of Weissenfels,' whimpered I; but in the great noise he did not hear; and while I strove to repeat it louder, Sonsfeld clapt her handkerchief on my face.

"Hustling aside to get rid of the handkerchief, I saw Katte crossing the Square. Four soldiers were conducting him to the King; trunks, my Brother's and his own, sealed, were coming on in the rear. Pale and downcast, he took off his hat to salute me,"—poor Katte, to me always so prostrate in silent respect, and now so unhappy! A moment after, the King, hearing he was come, went out exclaiming, 'Now I shall have proof about the scoundrel Fritz and the offscouring (CANAILLE) Wilhelmina; clear proofs to cut the heads off them.'"—The two Hofdames again interfered; and one of them, Kamecke it was, rebuked him; told him, in the tone of a prophetess, To take care what he was doing. Whom his Majesty gazed into with astonishment, but rather with respect than with anger, saying, "Your intentions are good!"

And so his Majesty flung out, seeking Katte; and vanished: Wilhelmina saw no more of him for about a year after; being ordered to her room, and kept prisoner there on low diet, with sentries guarding her doors, and no outlook but the worst horror her imagination pleased to paint.

This is the celebrated assault of paternal Majesty on Wilhelmina; the rumor of which has gone into all lands, exciting wonder and horror, but could not be so exact as this account at first hand. Naturally the crowd of street-passengers, once dispersed by the Guard, carried the matter abroad, and there was no end of sympathetic exaggerations. Report ran in Berlin, for example, that the poor Princess was killed, beaten or trampled to death; which we clearly see she was not. Voltaire, in that mass of angry calumnies, very mendacious indeed, which he calls VIE PRIVEE DU ROI DE PRUSSE, mentions the matter with emphasis; and says farther, The Princess once did him (Voltaire) the "honor to show him a black mark she carried on her breast ever after;"—which is likelier to be false than true. Captain Guy Dickens, the Legationary Captain, who seems a clear, ingenuous and ingenious man, and of course had access to the highest circles of refined rumor, reports the matter about ten days after, with several errors, in this manner:—

"BERLIN, 5th SEPTEMBER, 1730. Four or five days ago [by the Almanac nine, and directly on his Majesty's return, which Dickens had announced a week ago without that fact attached], the King dreadfully ill-treated Wilhelmina in bed [not in bed at all]; whole Castle (SCHLOSS or Palace) was alarmed; Guard turned out,"—to clear away the crowd, as we perceive. Not properly a crowd, such was not permissible there: but a stagnation of the passers-by would naturally ensue on that esplanade; till the Guard turned out, and indicated with emphasis, "Move on!" Dickens hears farther that "the Queen fares no better;"—such is the state of rumor in Berlin at present.

Poor Katte had a hard audience of it too. He fell at Friedrich Wilhelm's feet; and was spurned and caned;—for the rest, beyond what was already evident, had little or nothing to confess: Intention of flight and of accompanying in flight very undeniable; although preliminaries and ulterior conditions of said flight not perfectly known to Katte; known only that the thought of raising trouble in foreign Courts, or the least vestige of treason against his Majesty, had not entered even into their dreams. A name or two of persons who had known, or guessed, of these operations, is wrung from Katte;—name of a Lieutenant Spaen, for one; who, being on guard, had admitted Katte into Potsdam once or twice in disguise:—for him and for the like of him, of whatever rank or whichever sex, let arrests be made out, and the scent as with sleuth-hounds be diligently followed on all sides; and Katte, stript of his uniform, be locked up in the grimmest manner. Berlin, with the rumor of these things, is a much-agitated city.

Chapter VIII. — SEQUEL TO CROWN-PRINCE AND FRIENDS

As for the Crown-Prince, prosecuting his circuitous route, he arrives safe at Mittenwalde; is lodged in the old Castle there, I think, for two nights (but the date, in these indexless Books, is blown away again), in a room bare of all things, with sentries at the door; and looks out, expecting Grumkow and the Officials to make assault on him. One of these Officials, a certain "Gerber, Fiscal General," who, as head of Prussian Fiscals (kind of Public Prosecutor, or supreme Essence of Bailiffs, Catchpoles and Grand-Juries all in one), wears a red cloak,—gave the Prince a dreadful start. Red cloak is the Berlin Hangman's or Headsman's dress; and poor Friedrich had the idea his end had summarily come in this manner. Soon seeing it was otherwise, his spirits recovered, perhaps rose by the shock.

He fronted Grumkow and the Officials, with a high, almost contemptuous look; answered promptly,—if possible, without lying, and yet without telling anything;—showed self-possession, pride; retorted sometimes, "Have you nothing more to ask?" Grumkow finding there was no way made into anything, not even into the secret of the Writingcase and the Royal Women's operations there, began at last, as Wilhelmina says, to hint, That in his Majesty's service there were means of bringing out the truth in spite of refractory humors; that there was a thing called the rack, not yet abolished in his Prussian Majesty's dominions! Friedrich owned afterwards, his blood ran cold. However, he put on a high look: "A Hangman, such as you, naturally takes pleasure in talking of his tools and his trade: but on me they will not produce any effect. I have owned everything;—and almost regret to have done so. For it is not my part to stand questionings and bandy responses with a COQUIN COMME VOUS, scoundrel like you," reports Wilhelmina, [i. 280.] though we hope the actual term was slightly less candid!—Grumkow gathered his notes together; and went his ways, with the man in red cloak and the rest; thus finishing the scene in Mittenwalde. Mittenwalde, which we used to know long since, in our Wusterhausen rides with poor Duhan; little thinking what awaited us there one day.

Mittenwalde being finished, Friedrich, on Monday, 6th September, 1730, is sent forward to Custrin, a strong little town in a quiet Country, some sixty or seventy miles eastward of Berlin. On the evening of the 5th he finds himself lodged in a strong room of the Fortress there,—room consisting af bare walls lighted from far up; no furniture, not even the needfulest; everything indicating that the proud spirit and the iron laws shall here have their duel out at leisure, and see which is stronger.

His sword was taken from him at Wesel; sword, uniform, every mark of dignity, all are now gone: he is clad in brown prison-dress of the plainest cut and cloth; his diet is fixed at tenpence a day ("to be got from the cook's shop, six groschen for dinner, four for supper"); [Order, 14th September, 1730 (in Forster, i. 372).] food to be cut for him, no knife allowed. Room is to be opened, morning, noon and evening, "on the average not above four minutes each time;" lights, or single tallow-light, to be extinguished at seven P.M. Absolute solitude; no flute allowed, far from it; no books allowed, except the Bible and a Prayer-Book,—or perhaps Noltenius's MANUAL, if he took a hankering for it. There, shut out from the babble of fools, and conversing only with the dumb Veracities, with the huge inarticulate meanings of Destiny, Necessity and Eternity, let the fool of a Fritz bethink himself, if there is any thought in him! There, among the Bogs of the Oder, the very sedges getting brown all round him, and the very curlews flying off for happier climes, let him wait, till the question of his doom, rather an abstruse question, ripen in the royal breast.

As for Wilhelmina, she is close prisoner in her apartments in the Berlin Palace, sentries pacing at every outlet, for many months to come. Wilhelmina almost rather likes it, such a dog of an existence has she had hitherto, for want of being well let alone. She plays, reads; composes music; smuggles letters to and from Mamma,—one in Pencil, from my Brother even, O Heavens! Wilhelmina weeps, now and then, with her good Sonsfeld; hopes nevertheless there will be some dawn to this RAGNAROK, or general "twilight of the gods." Friedrich Wilhelm, convinced that England has had a hand in this treason, signifies officially to his Excellency Captain Dickens, That the English negotiations are concluded; that neither in the way of Single-Marriage nor of Double-Marriage will he have anything more to do with England. "Well," answers England, "who can help it? Negotiation was not quite of our seeking. Let it so end!" [Dickens's Despatch, 25th September, 1730; and Harrington's Answer to it, of 6th October: Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 9), 23d September.]—Nay at dinner one day (Seckendorf reports, while Fritz was on the road to Custrin) he proposes the toast, "Downfall of England!" [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 11).] and would have had the Queen drink it; who naturally wept, but I conjecture could not be made to drink. Her Majesty is a weeping, almost broken-hearted woman; his Majesty a raging, almost broken-hearted man. Seckendorf and Grumkow are, as it were, too victorious; and now have their apprehensions on that latter score. But they look on with countenances well veiled, and touch the helm judiciously in Tobacco-Parliament, intent on the nearest harbor of refuge.