ssault of paternal Majesty on Wilhelmina; the
rumor of which has gone into all lands, exciting wonder and horror, but
could not be so exact as this account at first hand. Naturally the crowd
of street-passengers, once dispersed by the Guard, carried the matter
abroad, and there was no end of sympathetic exaggerations. Report ran
in Berlin, for example, that the poor Princess was killed, beaten or
trampled to death; which we clearly see she was not. Voltaire, in that
mass of angry calumnies, very mendacious indeed, which he calls VIE
PRIVEE DU ROI DE PRUSSE, mentions the matter with emphasis; and says
farther, The Princess once did him (Voltaire) the "honor to show him a
black mark she carried on her breast ever after;"--which is likelier to
be false than true. Captain Guy Dickens, the Legationary Captain, who
seems a clear, ingenuous and ingenious man, and of course had access to
the highest circles of refined rumor, reports the matter about ten days
after, with several errors, in this manner:--

"BERLIN, 5th SEPTEMBER, 1730. Four or five days ago [by the Almanac
nine, and directly on his Majesty's return, which Dickens had announced
a week ago without that fact attached], the King dreadfully ill-treated
Wilhelmina in bed [not in bed at all]; whole Castle (SCHLOSS or
Palace) was alarmed; Guard turned out,"--to clear away the crowd, as we
perceive. Not properly a crowd, such was not permissible there: but a
stagnation of the passers-by would naturally ensue on that esplanade;
till the Guard turned out, and indicated with emphasis, "Move on!"
Dickens hears farther that "the Queen fares no better;"--such is the
state of rumor in Berlin at present.

Poor Katte had a hard audience of it too. He fell at Friedrich Wilhelm's
feet; and was spurned and caned;--for the rest, beyond what was already
evident, had little or nothing to confess: Intention of flight and
of accompanying in flight very undeniable; although preliminaries and
ulterior conditions of said flight not perfectly known to Katte; known
only that the thought of raising trouble in foreign Courts, or the least
vestige of treason against his Majesty, had not entered even into their
dreams. A name or two of persons who had known, or guessed, of these
operations, is wrung from Katte;--name of a Lieutenant Spaen, for one;
who, being on guard, had admitted Katte into Potsdam once or twice
in disguise:--for him and for the like of him, of whatever rank
or whichever sex, l