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.
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