Fritz had now so seriously offended his father, that the king openly exposed him to contempt. He even flogged the prince with his rattan in the presence of others; and the young heir-apparent to the throne of Prussia, beautiful in person, high-spirited, and of superior genius, was treated by his father with studied insult, even in the presence of monarchs, of lords and ladies, of the highest dignitaries of Europe; and after raining blows upon his head, he exclaimed in diabolical wrath, as if desirous of goading his son to suicide: “Had I been so treated by my father, I would have blown my brains out. But this fellow has no honor. He takes all that comes.”
But at last Fritz decided not to take longer all that came, and so he prepared for flight. On the 15th of July, 1730, the king of Prussia set out with a small train, accompanied by Fritz, to take a journey to the Rhine. When near Augsburg, Fritz wrote to Lieutenant Katte, one of his profligate friends, 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. Just after midnight the prince stole out to meet his valet, who had been commanded to bring some horses to the village green. But as Keith, the valet, appeared with the horses, he was accosted by one of the king’s guard; and the prince, although disguised with a red overcoat, was recognized and forced to withdraw to his own quarters and give up the attempt for that time. The king was informed of these things, and now the poor prince was put in the care of three of the guard, and they were informed if the prince was allowed to escape, death would be their doom. Upon the king’s arrival at Wesel, he ordered his culprit son to be brought before him. A terrible scene ensued. As the king would give no assurance that his friends who had aided him should be pardoned, the crown prince evaded all attempts to extort from him confessions which would implicate them. “Why,” asked the king, furiously, “did you attempt to desert?”
“I wished to escape,” the prince boldly replied, “because you did not treat me like a son, but like an abject slave.”
“You are a cowardly deserter,” the father exclaimed, “devoid of all feelings of honor.”
“I have as much honor as you have,” the son replied; “and I have only done that which I have heard you say a hundred times you would have done yourself, had you been treated as I have been.”
The infuriated king was now beside himself with rage. He drew his sword and seemed upon the point of thrusting it through the heart of his son, when General Mosel threw himself before the king, exclaiming, “Sire, you may kill me, but spare your son.” The prince was then placed in a room where two sentries watched over him with fixed bayonets. As the prince had held the rank of colonel in the army, his unjust father declared he was a deserter, and merited death. Frederick William, whose brutal cruelty exceeds our powers of belief, then sent a courier with the following despatch to his wife:—
“I have arrested the rascal Fritz. I shall treat him as his crime and his cowardice merit. He has dishonored me and all my family. So great a wretch is no longer worthy to live.”
His Majesty is in a flaming rage. He arrests, punishes, and banishes where there is trace of co-operation with deserter Fritz and his schemes. It is dangerous to have spoken kindly to the crown prince, or even to have been spoken to by him. Doris Ritter, a young girl who was a good musician, and whom the unfortunate Fritz had presented with music and sometimes joined in her singing in the presence of the girl’s mother, is condemned to be publicly whipped through the streets by the beadle, and to be imprisoned for three years, forced to the hard labor of beating hemp. The excellent tutor of the crown prince is banished, the accusation against him being that he had introduced French literature to the prince, which had caused him to imbibe infidel notions. The wicked old king never seemed to think that his own brutal conduct might have influenced the prince to be indifferent to the religion which he hypocritically professed to believe, but so poorly practised.
Meanwhile the crown prince was conveyed from Wesel to the castle of Mittenwalde, where he was imprisoned in a room without furniture or bed. Here Grumkow, one of the king’s ministers, was sent to interrogate him. Though the cruel old minister threatened the rack of torture to force him to confess, Fritz had the nerve to reply:—