"I foresee I shall not be able to write again for perhaps six weeks; which fails not to be a sorrow to me; but I entreat you to be calm during these turbulent affairs, and to wait with patience the month of December; paying no regard to the Nurnberg newspapers, nor to those of the Reich, which are totally Austrian.
"I am as tired as a dog. I embrace you with my whole heart; being with the most perfect affection, my dearest sister, your
"Frederick."
Having had a success, he writes (November 5, 1757) to inform her of it, and concludes:—
"You, my dear sister, my good, my divine and affectionate sister, who deign to interest yourself in the fate of a brother who adores you, deign also to share in my joy. The instant I have time I will tell you more. I embrace you with my whole heart. Adieu!
"F."
The last year of her life closed very gloomily for the Margravine. Notwithstanding some successes the chances were fearfully against her brother, and his reverses were great. She ardently longed for peace, as well for the sake of the country as for that of her brother, and she would willingly have sacrificed her life for it. Writing to Voltaire on 2nd January, 1758, she says: "Thank Heaven we have finished the most fatal of years. You say so many kind things in reference to the present one, that they form one reason the more for my gratitude. I wish you everything that can make you perfectly happy. As regards myself, I leave my fate to destiny. We often form desires which would be very prejudicial if accomplished, therefore I form no more. If anything in the world could satisfy my desires, it would be peace; I think as you do about war, and we have quite a third who certainly thinks as we do. But can we always act up to what we think? Is it not necessary to submit to many prejudices established since the world began?"
As the year advanced the health of the Margravine visibly declined. Whilst her enfeebled frame was at Baireuth her heart was with her brother, bleeding at every fresh reverse. Frederick in a letter to his brother, alluding to her prostrate condition, says: "What you write to me of my sister of Baireuth makes me tremble! Next to our Mother, she is what I have the most tenderly loved in this world. She is a sister who has my heart and all my confidence; and whose character is of price beyond all the crowns in this universe. From my tenderest years, I was brought up with her; you can conceive how there reigns between us that indissoluble bond of mutual affection and attachment for life, which, in all other cases, were it only for disparity of ages, is impossible. Would to Heaven I might die before her—and that this terror itself don't take away my life without my actually losing her."
The Margravine's last letter was, we are told, written on the 18th July, 1758, with trembling hand "almost illegible." Replying, the King says: "O you, the dearest of my family, you, whom I have most at heart of all in this world—for the sake of whatever is most precious to you, preserve yourself; and let me have at least the consolation of shedding my tears in your bosom!"
The last letter from Voltaire to the Margravine is dated the 27th September, 1758, in which he urges her to consult the celebrated physician Tronchin. But the suggestion was too late or of no avail. "Wilhelmina, who had ever been so ready with her pen, was no longer able to use it, not even to bid a last farewell to her friend. Yet, in token of how much her thoughts were with him, she sent him her picture a fortnight before her end, as a last message of friendship and gratitude. Soon her spirit would fathom the great mysteries which had occupied her during her life. Who is there who would not believe in affection's double sight? In the same night, at the same hour in which her brother suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Austrians at Hochkirch, Wilhelmina breathed her last, on the 14th October, 1758. Her last words, her last thoughts were for the happiness and welfare of the King. She desired to have her brother's letters buried with her. This wish was, however, not fulfilled. At her especial request the funeral oration to be held at her grave was to contain but little mention of herself, the vanity of all human things being made the chief subject of it. She was buried according to her instructions, in the simplest and quietest manner, in the chapel of the Castle of Baireuth."[4]