ONE:You will now recall to mind what passed a year and a day agohow scandalously you behaved, and what a godless enterprise you undertook. As I have had you about me from the beginning, and must know you well, I did all in the world that was in my power, by kindness and by harshness, to make an honorable man of you. As I rather suspected your evil purposes, I treated you in the harshest and sharpest way in the Saxon camp, in hopes you would consider yourself, and take another line of conduct; would confess your faults to me, and beg forgiveness. But all in vain. You grew ever more stiff-necked. You thought to carry it through with your headstrong humor. But hark ye, my lad! if thou wert sixty or seventy instead of eighteen, thou couldst not cross my resolutions. And as up to this date I have managed to sustain myself against any comer, there will be methods found to bring thee to reason too.This, however, stirred up great strife in Poland. The nobles were roused. Scenes of confusion ensued. The realm was plunged into a state of anarchy. Frederick, being in cordial co-operation with the czarina in all her measures, instructed his minister in Warsaw to follow her policy in every particular. It has generally been supposed that Frederick was the first to propose the banditti division of the kingdom of Poland between Prussia, Russia, and Austria by means of their united armies. This is not certain. But, whoever may have at first made the suggestion, it is very certain that Frederick cordially and efficiently embarked in the enterprise.178
TWO: Should this hope fail me, you will allow that it would be too hard to crawl at the feet of a company of traitors to whom successful crimes have given the advantage to prescribe the law to me. If I had followed my own inclinations I should have put an end to myself at once after that unfortunate battle which I lost. But I felt that this would be weakness, and that it behooved me to repair the evil which had happened. But no sooner had I hastened this way to face new enemies than Winterfield was beaten and killed near Gorlitz; than the French entered the heart of my states; than the Swedes blockaded Stettin. Now there is nothing effective left for me to do. There are too many enemies. Were I even to succeed in beating two armies, the third would crush me. As for you, my incomparable sister, I have not the heart to turn you from your resolves. We think alike, and I can not condemn in you the sentiments which I daily entertain. Life has been given us as a benefit. When it ceases to be such I have nobody left in this world to attach me to it but you. My friends, the relations I loved most, are in the grave. In short, I have lost every thing. If you take the resolution which I have taken, we end together our misfortunes and our unhappiness.
ONE:The unhappy Crown Prince was in an agony of despair. Again and again he frantically exclaimed, In the name of God, I beg you to stop the execution till I write to the king! I am ready to renounce all my rights to the crown if he will pardon Katte! As the condemned was led by the window to ascend the scaffold, Fritz cried out to him, in anguish as intense as a generous heart can endure, Pardon me, my dear Katte, pardon me! Oh that this should be what I have done for you!
TWO:The next morning the princess received the following cruel epistle from her mother:
ONE:General Neipperg, in his account of the interview, writes, in reference to Frederick: He is a very spirited young king. He will not stand contradiction; but a great deal may be made of him if you seem to adopt his ideas, and honor him in a delicate, dexterous way. He did not in the least hide his engagements with France, Bavaria, Saxony. But he would really, so far as I could judge, prefer friendship with Austria on the given terms. He seems to have a kind of pique at Saxony, and manifests no favor for the French and their plans.Still Wusterhausen was but a hunting-lodge, which was occupied by the king only during a few weeks in the autumn. Fritz had many playmateshis brothers and sisters, his cousins, and the children of General Finkenstein. To most boys, the streams, and groves, and ponds of Wusterhausen, abounding with fish and all kinds of game, with ponies to drive and boats to row, with picturesque walks and drives, would have been full of charms. But the tastes of Fritz did not lie in that direction. He does not seem to have become strongly attached to any of his young companions, except to his sister Wilhelmina. The affection and confidence which united their hearts were truly beautiful. They encountered together some of the severest of lifes trials, but heartfelt sympathy united them. The nickname which these children gave their unamiable father was Stumpy.
TWO:After half an hour of rapid and terrific fire, the Prussian troops were ordered to advance and storm the works of the foe on the Mühlberg Hill. Like wolves in the chase, these men of iron nerves rushed forward through torrents of grape-shot and musket-shot, which covered their path with the dead. In ten minutes they were in possession of the hill-top, with all its batteries. The left wing of the Russian army was thrown into a maelstrom whirl of disorder and destruction. One hundred and eighty of the artillery pieces of the enemy fell into the hands of the victors.