FORE:From seven till nine Duhan takes him on history; at nine oclock comes Noltenius (a clergyman from Berlin) with the Christian religion till a quarter to eleven. Then Fritz rapidly washes his face with water, his hands with soap and water; clean shirt; powders and puts on his coat. At eleven oclock he comes to the king, dines with him at twelve, and stays till two.
FORE:Again, on the 5th of July, he wrote: I write to apprise you, my dear sister, of the new grief that overwhelms us. We have no longer a mother. This loss puts the crown on my sorrows. I am obliged to act, and have not time to give free course to my tears. Judge, I pray you, of the situation of a feeling heart put to so severe a trial. All losses in the world are capable of being remedied, but those which death causes are beyond the reach of hope.
FORE:On the 29th of July the king joined his brother Henry at Sagan, on the Bober, about sixty miles above or south of Frankfort.480 The marches which had been effected by the king and his brother were the most rapid which had then ever been heard of. Greatly perplexed by the inexplicable movements of the Russians, the king pressed on till he effected a junction with the remnant of Wedells defeated army, near Müllrose, within twelve miles of Frankfort. He reached this place on the 3d of August. To Count Finckenstein he wrote:
THREE:While on this journey to Holland the Crown Prince was one day dining with a prince of Lippe-Bückeburg. Freemasonry became one of the topics of conversation at the table. King Frederick William denounced the institution in his usual style of coarse vituperation, as tomfoolery, atheism, and every thing else that was bad. But the Prince of Bückeburg, himself a mason and a very gentlemanly man, defended the craft with such persuasive eloquence as quite captivated the Crown Prince. After dinner the prince took him secretly aside, conversed with him more fully upon the subject, expressed his admiration of the system, and his wish to be admitted into the fraternity: But it was necessary carefully to conceal the step from the irate king. Arrangements were immediately made to assemble at Brunswick a sufficient number of masons from Hamburg, where the Crown Prince, on his return, could be received in a secret meeting into the mystic brotherhood.
THREE:My brother arrived on the 5th of October. He seemed to me in ill humor. To break off conversation with me, he said that he had to write to the king and queen. I ordered him pen and162 paper. He wrote in my room, and spent more than a good hour in writing a couple of letters of a line or two each. He then had all the court, one after another, introduced to him; said nothing to any of them; looked merely with a mocking air at them; after which we went to dinner.
