“Katte wore, by order, a brown dress exactly like the Prince’s; the Prince is already brought down into a lower room to see Katte as he passes, (to see Katte die has been the royal order, but they smuggled that into abeyance) and Katte knows he shall see him.” [Besserer, the chaplain of the Garrison, quoted by Carlyle, describing the scene as they approached the Castle, says:—‘Here, after long wistful looking about, he did get sight of his beloved Jonathan at a window in the Castle, from whom, he, with politest and most tender expression, speaking in French, took leave, with no little emotion of sorrow.] “Pardonnez moi, mon cher Katte” cried Friedrich. “La mort est douce pour un si aimable Prince,” said Katte, and fared on; round some angle of the Fortress it appears; not in sight of Friedrich, who sank in a faint, and had seen his last glimpse of Katte in this world.’
Life of Frederick II., vol. 2, p. 489.
Frederick the Great
Frederick’s grief and despair were extreme for a time. Then his royal father found him a wife, in the Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick, whom he obediently married, but in whom he showed little interest—their meetings growing rarer and rarer till at last they became merely formal. Later, and after his accession, he spent most of his leisure time when away from the cares of war and political re-organisation, at his retreat at Sans-Souci, afar from feminine society (a fact which provoked Voltaire’s sarcasms), and in the society of his philosophic and military friends, to many of whom he was much attached. Von Kupffer has unearthed from his poems printed at Sans-Souci in 1750 the following, addressed to Count Von Kaiserlinck, a favorite companion, on whom he bestowed the by-name of Cesarion:—
“Cesarion, let us keep unspoiled
Our faith, and be true friends,
And pair our lives like noble Greeks,
And to like noble ends!
That friend from friend may never hide
A fault through weakness or thro’ pride,