TWO:There are several letters still remaining which Lieutenant Katte wrote to his friends during those hours of anguish in which he was awaiting his death. No one can read them without compassionate emotion, and without execrating the memory of that implacable tyrant who so unjustly demanded his execution. The young man wrote to the king a petition containing the following pathetic plea:There seems to be no end to the complications and troubles of this royal family. It is said that Wilhelmina, to soothe her mother, treated her betrothed with great coldness; that her younger sister Charlotte fell deeply in love with the Prince of Baireuth, and endeavored to win him to herself; and that the prince himself, attracted by warmth on the one hand, and repelled by coldness on the other, was quite disposed to make the exchange.19 The king, irritated by these interminable annoyances, and the victim of chronic petulance and ill nature, recommenced his brutal treatment of his daughter.
FORE: I know not what I have written. My heart is torn in pieces. I feel that by dint of disquietude and alarms I am losing my senses. Oh, my dear, adorable brother, have pity on me. The least thing that concerns you pierces me to the heart. Might I die a thousand deaths provided you lived and were happy! I can say no more. Grief chokes me. I can only repeat that your fate shall be mine; being, my dear brother, yourFrederick therefore decided to march down the river twenty miles farther, to Lowen, where there was a good bridge. To favor the operation, Prince Leopold, with large divisions of the army and much of the baggage, was to cross the Neisse on pontoons at Michelau, a few miles above Lowen. Both passages were successfully accomplished, and the two columns effected a junction on the west side of the river on the 8th of April. The blockade of Brieg was abandoned, and its blockading force united with the general army.
Nunc at viverra risus. In euismod quam ac dictum varius.
Nunc at viverra risus.