At Geldern, in the pressure of business next day, his Majesty got word from Wesel, that Lieutenant Keith was not now to be found in Wesel. "Was last seen there (that we can hear of) certain hours before your Majesty's All-gracious Order arrived. Had saddled his own horse; came ambling through the Brunen Gate, 'going out to have a ride,' he said; and did not return."—"Keith gone, scandalous Keith, whom I pardoned only few weeks ago; he too is in the Plot! Will the very Army break its oath, then?" His Majesty bursts into fire and flame, at these new tidings; orders that Colonel Dumoulin (our expertest rogue-tracer) go instantly on the scent of Keith, and follow him till found and caught. Also, on the other hand, that the Crown-Prince be constituted prisoner; sail down to Wesel, prisoner in his Yacht, and await upon the Rhine there his Majesty's arrival. Formidable omens, it is thought.
His Majesty, all business done in Geldern, drives across to Wesel; can see Fritz's Yacht waiting duly in the River, and black Care hovering over her. It is on the evening of the 12th of August, 1730. And so his Majesty ends this memorable Tour into the Reich; but has not yet ended the gloomy miseries, for himself and others, which plentifully sprung out of that.
Chapter VII. — CATASTROPHE, AND MAJESTY, ARRIVE IN BERLIN.
At Berlin dark rumors of this intended flight, and actual Arrest of the Crown-Prince, are agitating all the world; especially Lieutenant Katte, and the Queen and Wilhelmina, as we may suppose. The first news of it came tragically on the young Princess. [Apparently some rumor FROM FRANKFURT, which she confuses in her after-memory with the specific news FROM WESEL; for her dates here, as usual, are all awry (Wilhelmina, i. 246; Preuss, i. 42, iv. 473; Seckendorf, in Forster, iii. 6).]
"Mamma had given a ball in honor of Papa's Birthday,"—Tuesday, 15th August, 1730;—and we were all dancing in the fine saloons of Monbijou, with pretty intervals in the cool boscages and orangeries of the place: all of us as happy as could be; Wilhelmina, in particular, dancing at an unusual rate. "We recommenced the ball after supper. For six years I had not danced before; it was new fruit, and I took my fill of it, without heeding much what was passing. Madame Bulow, who with others of them had worn long faces all night, pleading 'illness' when one noticed it, said to me several times: 'It is late, I wish you had done,'—'EH, MON DIEU!' I answered, 'let me have enough of dancing this one new time; it may be long before it comes again.'—'That may well be!' said she. I paid no regard, but continued to divert myself. She returned to the charge half an hour after: 'Will you end, then!' said she with a vexed air: 'you are so engaged, you have eyes for nothing.'—'You are in such a humor,' I replied, 'that I know not what to make of it.'—'Look at the Queen, then, Madam; and you will cease to reproach me!' A glance which I gave that way filled me with terror. There sat the Queen, paler than death, in a corner of the room, in low conference with Sonsfeld and Countess Finkenstein. As my Brother was most in my anxieties, I asked, If it concerned him? Bulow shrugged her shoulders, answering, 'I don't know at all!' A moment after, the Queen gave Good-night; and got into her carriage with me,—speaking no word all the way to the Schloss; so that I thought my Brother must be dead, and I myself took violent palpitations, and Sonsfeld, contrary to orders, had at last to tell me in the course of the night." Poor Wilhelmina, and poor Mother of Wilhelmina!
The fact, of Arrest, and unknown mischief to the Prince, is taken for certain; but what may be the issues of it; who besides the Prince have been involved in it, especially who will be found to have been involved, is matter of dire guess to the three who are most interested here. Lieutenant Katte finds he ought to dispose of the Prince's effects which were intrusted to him; of the thousand gold Thalers in particular, and, beyond and before all, of the locked Writing-desk, in which lies the Prince's correspondence, the very Queen and Princess likely to be concerned in it! Katte despatches these two objects, the Money and the little Desk, in all secrecy, to Madam Finkenstein, as to the surest hand, with a short Note shadowing out what he thinks they are: Countess Finkenstein, old General von Finkenstein's Wife, and a second mother to the Prince, she, like her Husband, a sworn partisan of the Prince and his Mother, shall do with these precious and terrible objects what, to her own wise judgment, seems best.
Madam Finkenstein carries them at once, in deep silence, to the Queen. Huge dismay on the part of the Queen and Princess. They know too well what Letters may be there: and there is a seal on the Desk, and no key to it; neither must it, in time coming, seem to have been opened, even if we could now open it. A desperate pinch, and it must be solved. Female wit and Wilhelmina did solve it, by some pre-eminently acute device of their despair; [Wilhelmina, i. 253-257.] and contrived to get the Letters out: hundreds of Letters, enough to be our death if read, says Wilhelmina. These Letters they burnt; and set to writing fast as the pen would go, other letters in their stead. Fancy the mood of these two Royal Women, and the black whirlwind they were in. Wilhelmina's despatch was incredible; pen went at the gallop night and day: new letters, of old dates and of no meaning, are got into the Desk again; the Desk closed, without mark of injury, and shoved aside while it is yet time.—Time presses; his Majesty too, and the events, go at gallop. Here is a Letter from his Majesty, to a trusty Mistress of the Robes, or whatever she is; which, let it arrive through what softening media it likes, will complete the poor Queen's despair:—
"MY DEAR FRAU VON KAMECKE,—Fritz has attempted to desert. I have been under the necessity to have him arrested. I request you to tell my Wife of it in some good way, that the news may not terrify her. And pity an unhappy Father.
"FRIEDRICH WILHELM."