food to be cut for him, no knife allowed. Room is to be opened, morning, noon and evening, "on the average not above four minutes each time;" lights, or single tallow-light, to be extinguished at seven P.M. Absolute solitude; no flute allowed, far from it;no books allowed, except the Bible and a Prayer-Book,--or perhaps Noltenius's MANUAL, if he took a hankering for it. There, shut out from the babble of fools, and conversing only with the dumb Veracities, with the huge inarticulate meanings of Destiny, Necessity and Eternity, let the fool of a Fritz bethink himself, if there is any thought in him! There, among the Bogs of the Oder, the very sedges getting brown all round him, and the very curlews flying off for happier climes, let him wait, till the question of his doom, rather an abstruse question, ripen in the royal breast.
As for Wilhelmina, she is close prisoner in her apartments in the Berlin Palaoe, sentries pacing at every outlet, for many months to come. Wilhelmina almost rather likes it, such a dog of an existence has she had hitherto, for want of being well let alone.
She plays, reads; composes music; smuggles letters to and from Mamma,--one in Pencil, from my Brother even, O Heavens! Wilhelmina weeps, now and then, with her good Sonsfeld; hopes nevertheless there will be some dawn to this RAGNAROK, or general "twilight of the gods." Friedrich Wilhelm, convinced that England has had a hand in this treason, signifies officially to his Excellency Captain Dickens, That the English negotiationa are concluded;that neither in the way of Single-Marriage nor of Double-Marriage will he have anything more to do with England. "Well," answers England, "who can help it? Negotiation was not quite of our seeking. Let it so end!" [Dickens's Despatch, 25th September, 1730; and Harrington's Answer to it, of 6th October: Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 9), 23d September.]--Nay at dinner one day (Seckendorf reports, while Fritz was on the road to Custrin) he proposes the toast, "Downfall of England!" [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 11).] and would have had the Queen drink it;who naturally wept, but I conjecture could not be made to drink.
Her Majesty is a weeping, almost broken-hearted woman; his Majesty a raging, almost broken-hearted man. Seckendorf and Grumkow are, as it were, too victorious; and now have their apprehensions on that latter score. But they look on with countenanoes well veiled, and touch the helm judiciously in Tobacco-Parliament, intent on the nearest harbor of refuge.
Her Majesty nevertheless steadily persists; merely sinks deeper out of sight with her English schemes; ducking till the wave go by. Messages, desperate appeals still go, through Mamsell Bulow, Wilhelmina's Hofdame, and other channels; nay Wilhelmina thinks there were still intentions on the part of England, and that the non-fulfilment of them at the last moment turned on accident;English "Courier arrived some hours too late," thinks Wilhelmina.
[Wilhelmina (i. 369, 384), and Preuss and others after her.]
But that is a mistake. The negotiation, in spite of her Majesty's endeavors, was essentially out; England, after such a message, could not, nor did, stir farther in the matter.
In that Writing-case his Majesty found what we know; nothing but mysterious effects of female art, and no light whatever. It is a great source of wrath and of sorrow to him, that neither in the Writing-case, nor in Katte's or the Prince's so-called "Confessions," can the thing be seen into. A deeper bottom it must have, thinks his Majesty, but knows not what or where. To overturn the Country, belike; and fling the Kaiser, and European Balance of Power, bottom uppermost? Me they presumably meant to poison! he tells Seckendorf one day. [Dickens's Despatch, 16th September, 1730.] Was ever Father more careful for his children, soul and body? Anxious, to excess, to bring them up in orthodox nurture and admonition: and this is how they reward me, Herr Feldzeugmeister!
"Had he honestly confessed, and told me the whole truth, at Wesel, I would have made it up with him quietly there. But now it must go its lengths; and the whole world shall be judge between us."[Seckendorf (Forster, ubi supra), 23d September.]
His Majesty is in a flaming height. He arrests, punishes and banishes, where there is trace of cooperation or connection with Deserter Fritz and his schemes. The Bulows, brother and sister, brother in the King's service, sister in Wilhelmina's, respectable goldstick people, originally of Hanover, are hurled out to Lithuania and the world's end: let them live in Memel, and repent as they can. Minister Knyphausen, always of English tendencies, he, with his Wife,--to whom it is specially hard, while General Schwerin, gallant witty Kurt, once of Mecklenburg, stays behind,--is ordered to disappear, and follow his private rural business far off; no minister, ever more. The Lieutenant Spaen of the Giant Regiment, who kept false watch, and did not tell of Katte, gets cashiering and a year in Spandau. He wandered else-whither, and came to something afterwards, poor Spaen. [Preuss, i. 63, 66.]
Bookseller Hanau with this bad Fritz's Books: To Memel with him also; let him deal in more orthodox kinds of Literature there.