In March, 1732, the crown prince was betrothed to Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of the duke of Bevern. The sufferings of this unhappy princess cannot now be related. The queen of Prussia received her with bitter hatred because this match would crush her cherished plans of marrying her son to Princess Amelia of England; and Fritz himself, forced to be betrothed against his will, treated her with utter neglect.
In June, 1733, the crown prince was married to Elizabeth, she being eighteen, and he twenty-one years of age.
Frederick I. of Prussia had reared a very magnificent palace in Berlin; and in spite of all his stinginess in his household, Frederick William added masses of silver to the ornamentation of this palace, for he prided himself on his army and his money, as giving him power and influence in Europe. He had stored away many barrels of money in the vaults of his palace, and as there do not seem to have been banking institutions in his realms in those days, he ordered vast quantities of silver to be wrought into chandeliers, mirror-frames, and balconies, which gave him a great reputation for wealth, and could at any time be converted into money. This hoarded wealth saved his son from ruin, when involved in after wars which exhausted his treasury.
The crown prince having married a niece of the emperor of Germany, and being also of age, his father lost much of his control over him. Frederick was now the rising sun, and his father the setting luminary. All the courts of Europe were anxious to gain the favor of the coming king of Prussia. The king allowed his son a petty income, but the crown prince borrowed large sums of money from the empress of Germany, from Russia, and from England, who were quite ready to supply his wants, being assured of payment when he should receive the throne. Fritz did not forget his sister Wilhelmina, but gave her money to relieve her wants. War now broke out between France and Germany, and Frederick William became an ally of the emperor.
The crown prince accompanied the king of Prussia to the siege of Philipsburg. The campaign continued for some time, but the prince saw little of active service. The king of Prussia being broken down in health by gout and intemperance, now became very ill, and was obliged to return home.
Though Frederick returned from this campaign neither socially nor morally improved, he had become very ambitious of high intellectual culture and of literary renown. He was now living at the village of Reinsburg, in a castle which the king had purchased and assigned to his son. He here gathered around him a number of scholarly men, and commenced and persevered in a severe course of study, devoting his mornings to his books, and the remainder of the day to recreation and music. The old king grumbled at his son’s studies and his recreations, but Frederick was now a full-grown man, whose heirship to the crown made him a power in Europe; and the snarling old king was confined to his room with dropsy and gout, growling away his last hours. The companions of Frederick’s hours of recreation were gay and profligate young men, who scoffed at religion and every virtue. No wonder that with such godless companions, and with such an inconsistent and irreligious example in his father, even while professing the most fanatical devotion to the church and religion, the mind of the talented young prince should have been turned into the wandering wilds of unbelief. Voltaire was at this time about forty years of age. His renown as a man of genius already filled Europe. Frederick became an ardent admirer of Voltaire, and a correspondence was commenced between them.
FREDERICK THE GREAT.
But now the grim old king of Prussia is forced to meet a still grimmer antagonist, who will not take “no” for an answer. He has fought the world, fought all human affections, fought all feelings of humanity, fought every good spirit within his heart except a brutal fanaticism, which he ignorantly and superstitiously called religion; fought gout, dropsy, and manifold complaints of the flesh; fought his wife, fought his children, tried to fight the devil, but ended in being his slave; but he cannot fight grim Death, which now clutches him in his ghastly grasp. But not to be outdone, even by this enemy, while the death-gurgle was even rattling in his throat, he solemnly abdicated in favor of his son Frederick, and with his fingers trembling with the chill of the grave, he signed the deed, and falling back, expired. So the obstinate old king was determined that his will, not death, should hand over the crown of Prussia, which he could no longer clutch with his own cruel hands.