When near Augsburg, Fritz wrote a letter to Lieutenant Katte, stating that he should embrace the first opportunity to escape to the Hague; that there he should assume the name of the Count of Alberville. He wished Katte to join him there, and to bring with him the overcoat and the one thousand ducats which he had left in his hands. On Thursday, August 3d, the royal party reached the little hamlet of Steinfurth, not far from the Rhine. Here, as was not unfrequently the case, they slept in barns, carefully swept and prepared for them. The usual hour of starting was three o’clock in the morning.
Just after midnight, the prince, seeing his associates soundly asleep, cautiously rose, dressed, and crept out into the open air. He had secretly made arrangements with his valet, a brother of Lieutenant Keith, to meet him with some horses on the village green. He reached the green. His valet soon appeared with the horses. Just at that moment, one of his guard, Rochow, who had been aroused by a servant whom he had left secretly on the watch, came forward through the gloom of the night, and, sternly addressing Keith, inquired, “Sirrah, what are you doing with those horses?” With much self-possession Keith replied, “I am getting the horses ready for the hour of starting.” “His majesty,” Rochow replied, “does not start till five o’clock. Take the horses directly back to the stable.”
THE FLIGHT ARRESTED.
Keith, trembling in every limb, returned to the stable. Though Rochow pretended not to suspect any attempt at escape, it was manifestly pretense only. The prince had provided himself with a red overcoat as a disguise to his uniform, the gray one having been left with Katte at Potsdam. As Fritz was returning to the barn with Rochow, wearing this suspicious garment, they met the minister Seckendorf, whom Fritz and his mother thoroughly hated as one of the counselors of the king. Very coolly and cuttingly Rochow inquired of Seckendorf, “How do you like his royal highness in the red overcoat?” It was a desperate game these men were playing; for, should the king suddenly die, Fritz would surely inherit the crown, and they would be entirely at his mercy. All hope of escape seemed now to vanish, and the prince was quite in despair.
The king was doubtless informed of all that had occurred. They reached Manheim the next night. Keith was so terrified, fearing that his life would be the penalty, that he there threw himself upon his knees before the king, confessing all, and imploring pardon. The king, in tones of intense agitation, informed the vigilance trio that death would be their inevitable doom if they allowed the prince to escape. Thus far the prince had been nominally free. Those who occupied the carriage with him—Rochow, Waldau, and Buddenbrock—had assumed to be merely his traveling companions. Their office of guardship had been scrupulously concealed. But henceforth he was regarded and treated as a culprit in the custody of his jailers.
The king, smothering his wrath, did not immediately seek an interview with his son. But the next day, encountering him, he said, sarcastically, “Ah! you are still here, then; I thought that by this time you would have been in Paris.” The prince, somewhat emboldened by despair, ventured to reply, “I certainly could have been there had I wished it.”
At Frankfort-on-the-Main the party were to take boats to descend the river. The prince was informed that the king had given express orders that he should not be permitted to enter the town, but that he should be conducted immediately to one of the royal yachts. Here the king received an intercepted letter from the Crown Prince to Lieutenant Katte. Boiling with indignation, he stalked on board the yacht, and assailed his captive son in the coarsest and most violent language of abuse. In the frenzy of his passion he seized Fritz by the collar, shook him, hustled him about, tore out handfuls of hair, and thrust his cane into his face, causing the blood to gush from his nose. “Never before,” exclaimed the unhappy prince, pathetically, “did a Brandenburg face suffer the like of this.”
The king then, having ordered his guard to watch him with the utmost vigilance, assuring them that their heads should answer for it if they allowed him to escape, sent his son to another boat. He was prevailed upon to do so, as no one could tell to what length the king’s ungovernable passions might lead him.
The royal yachts glided down the Main to the Rhine, and thence down the Rhine to Wesel. Probably a heavier heart than that of the prince never floated upon that world-renowned stream. Lost in painful musings, he had no eye to gaze upon the picturesque scenes of mountain, forest, castle, and ruins through which they were gliding. At Bonn he had an interview with Seckendorf, whose influence was great with his father, and whom he hoped to interest in his favor. To him he said,