“Woe to you if I do this—woe to you if I listen to your bold, insane demand!” Stepping before the prince, and fixing his eye upon him, he said: “You have acted not like a Prussian, not like a general of Prussian troops, but like an enemy—like an ally of Austria and of France, who sought only for means to destroy the Prussian army and put an end to this war. I know that it never had your approval, because directed against your beloved France.”
“Ah, my brother, you distrust me!” cried the prince, fiercely.
“Yes, I distrust you,” said the king, eagerly—“I distrust you, and you merit it! You have just said that this was an important hour between us. Well, then, it shall be so. I accept this strife of words which you have the audacity to offer me. This was not cautiously, not wisely done, on your part. You yourself have armed me—my weapons are sharp. I have suffered much during my whole life because of you, my brother. This began even in the days of our childhood, and will, as it appears, follow me to the grave. You were the favorite of my father, and I remember well that he one day proposed to me to relinquish the throne in your favor. I withstood him. I did not pay for this opposition with my life, but with my life’s happiness. I will not account this against you; perhaps you were innocent; but it appears to me you have not forgotten our father’s wish—that you look upon me as a usurper, who has robbed you of your throne. You act as if you had the right to measure and criticise all my undertakings, and to make yourself a judge over me. I undertook this war with the conviction of my right and my royal duty. You dared to protest against it. You dared, in the presence of my generals, to speak of your claims and the claims of your children! Oh, sir, you were already thinking of the time when you would lay my head in the vault and walk over my dead body to a throne! In that hour you stood no longer by my side as my subject, as my brother, as my friend, but as an ambitious prince royal, who hates his king who keeps him from his crown, and who is hated of the king because he reminds him of his death! And during no moment since then could you have denied this hatred.”
“Oh, my brother!” said the prince, painfully, “your own hatred has blinded you and made you unjust. I have always loved and admired you, even when I did not approve of your undertakings.”
“And yet it was you, you alone,” said the king, hastily, “who dared, after the fatal disaster of Collin, to utter loud cries of grief and despair. When my courier brought to you and the generals and the army the mournful news of the lost battle of Collin, in place of strengthening and encouraging my warriors—consoling and inspiring them with confidence in their royal leader—you dared, in the presence of all my generals, to cry and whimper, not over destiny, not over the inconstancy of fortune, but over the conduct of your brother and your king. In place of justifying me to my silent and cast-down generals, you accused me boldly, and made my misfortune my crime.” [Footnote: Betzow’s “Characteristics of Frederick.”]
“It is true,” murmured the prince, “distress and grief overcame me and robbed me of my reason.”
“Even because you were so wise and bold a warrior,” said the king, with a cold smile, “I wished to give you an opportunity to prove your genius to my whole people, whose sovereign you will one day be. Because you wept and clamored before say generals over my faults as a leader, I wished you to prove to them that you were capable of commanding and bringing good out of evil. I trusted you with my third army corps—I expected it to retreat safely and surely under your command, after I had almost led it to destruction in a bloody, disastrous battle. I gave you the opportunity to make yourself a god in the eyes of my soldiers, a glorious model to my generals. What use have you made of these advantages? You bring me crippled, hungry, desperate soldiers! You bring me generals covered with shame, and blushing over their guilt. If I should deal with them as they deserved, I would give them over to a courtmartial and they would be condemned.”
“And still I am not conscious of any fault,” said the prince. “I dare to say fate was against me, and that I am wholly innocent.”
“And I repeat to you your conduct has been that of an ally of France, who wished destruction to the Prussians, and to close this hated war!”
“If that were so, I would be a traitor!” said the prince.