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.