139 I beg you labor at this affair. When one hates romantic heroines as heartily as I do, one dreads those timid virtues; and I had rather marry the greatest profligate21 in Berlin than a devotee with half a dozen bigots at her beck. If it were still possible to make her a Calvinist! But I doubt that. I will insist, however, that her grandmother have the training of her. What you can do to help me in this, my dear friend, I am persuaded you will do.I skip over it, he replied, laughing; and then began to talk of other things. He inquired,
ONE:It seemed to be the policy of Frederick to assume a very trifling, care-for-nothing air, as though he were engaged in very harmless childs play. He threw out jokes, and wrote ludicrous letters to M. Jordan and M. Algarotti. But behind this exterior disguise it is manifest that all the energies of his soul were aroused, and that, with sleepless vigilance, he was watching every event, and providing for every possible emergence.
ONE:In the mean time, on the 24th of January, Charles Albert, King of Bavaria, through the intrigues of the French minister and the diplomacy of Frederick, was chosen Emperor of Germany. This election Frederick regarded as a great triumph on his part. It was the signal defeat of Austria. Very few of the sons of Adam have passed a more joyless and dreary earthly pilgrimage than was the fortune of Charles Albert. At the time of his election he was forty-five years of age, of moderate stature, polished manners, and merely ordinary abilities. He was suffering from a complication of the most painful disorders. His previous life had been but a series of misfortunes, and during all the rest of his days he was assailed by the storms of adversity. In death alone he found refuge from a life almost without a joy.
welcome your challenge!!「あなたらしく」活躍できる場所がここにあります。
TWO:Upon reaching the neighborhood of Landshut, the king was surrounded by a troop of two thousand Protestant peasants. They begged permission of him to massacre the Catholics of those parts, and clear the country of them altogether. This animosity arose from the persecutions which the Protestants had suffered during the Austrian domination.
THREE:Queen Sophie, who still clung pertinaciously to the idea of the English match, was, of course, bitterly hostile to the nuptial alliance with Elizabeth. Indeed, the queen still adhered to the idea of the double English marriage, and exhausted all the arts of diplomacy and intrigue in the endeavor to secure the Princess Amelia for the Crown Prince, and to unite the Prince of Wales to a younger sister of Wilhelmina. Very naturally she cherished feelings of strong antipathy toward Elizabeth, who seemed to be the cause, though the innocent cause, of the frustration of her plans. She consequently spoke of the princess in the most contemptuous manner, and did every thing in her power to induce her son to regard her with repugnance. But nothing could change the inexorable will of the king. Early in March the doomed Princess Elizabeth, a beautiful, artless child of seventeen years, who had seen but little of society, and was frightened in view of the scenes before her, was brought to Berlin to be betrothed to the Crown Prince, whom she had never seen, of whom she could not have heard any very favorable reports, and from142 whom she had never received one word of tenderness. The wreck of happiness of this young princess, which was borne so meekly and uncomplainingly, is one of the saddest which history records. Just before her arrival, Fritz wrote to his sister as follows. The letter was dated Berlin, March 6, 1732:Sophie Dorothee tenderly loved her little Fritz, and, with a mothers fondness, endeavored to shield him, in every way in her power, from his fathers brutality. Wilhelmina also clung to her brother with devotion which nothing could disturb. Thus both mother and daughter incurred in some degree the hatred with which the father regarded his son. It will be remembered that the mother of Fritz was daughter of George I. of England. Her brother subsequently became George II. He had a son, Fred, about the age of Wilhelmina, and a daughter, Amelia, six months older than Fritz. The mother, Sophie Dorothee, had set her heart upon a double marriageof Wilhelmina with Fred,39 and of Fritz with Amelia. But many obstacles arose in the way of these nuptials.
I have been assured that you are an honest and pious clergyman, and a faithful minister of the Word of God. Since, therefore, you are going to Cüstrin, on account of the execution of111 Lieutenant Katte, I command you, after the execution, to pay a visit to the Prince Royal; to reason with him and to represent to him that whosoever abandons God is also abandoned by God; and that, when God has abandoned a man, and has taken away his grace from him, that man is incapable of doing what is good, and can only do what is evil. You will exhort him to repent, and to ask pardon for the many sins he has committed, and into which he has seduced others, one of whom has been just punished with death.Certainly I will fight. But do not flatter yourself about the result. A happy chance alone can help us. Go, in Gods name to Tangermünde. Wait there how destiny shall have disposed of us. I will reconnoitre the enemy to-morrow. Next day, if there is any thing to do, we will try it. If the enemy still holds to the Wine Hills of Frankfort, I shall not dare to attack him.A few days afterward, in an official document, she writes: I consent, since so many great and learned men will have it so. But long after I am dead, it will be known what this violating of all that was hitherto held sacred and just will give rise to.187I represented to him that perhaps it was not altogether prudent to print his Anti-Machiavel just at the time that the world might reproach him with having violated the principles he taught. He permitted me to stop the impression. I accordingly took a journey into Holland purposely to do him this trifling service. But the bookseller demanded so much money that his majesty, who was not in the bottom of his heart vexed to see210 himself in print, was better pleased to be so for nothing, than to pay for not being so. I could not avoid feeling some remorse at being concerned in printing this Anti-Machiavelian book at the very moment that the King of Prussia, who had a hundred millions in his coffers, was robbing the poor people of Liege of another, by the hand of the privy counselor Rambonet.35
