rds which you have
the audacity to offer me. This was not cautiously, not wisely done,
on your part. You yourself have armed me--my weapons are sharp. I have
suffered much during my whole life because of you, my brother. This
began even in the days of our childhood, and will, as it appears, follow
me to the grave. You were the favorite of my father, and I remember well
that he one day proposed to me to relinquish the throne in your favor. I
withstood him. I did not pay for this opposition with my life, but with
my life's happiness. I will not account this against you; perhaps you
were innocent; but it appears to me you have not forgotten our father's
wish--that you look upon me as a usurper, who has robbed you of your
throne. You act as if you had the right to measure and criticise all my
undertakings, and to make yourself a judge over me. I undertook this war
with the conviction of my right and my royal duty. You dared to protest
against it. You dared, in the presence of my generals, to speak of
your claims and the claims of your children! Oh, sir, you were already
thinking of the time when you would lay my head in the vault and walk
over my dead body to a throne! In that hour you stood no longer by my
side as my subject, as my brother, as my friend, but as an ambitious
prince royal, who hates his king who keeps him from his crown, and who
is hated of the king because he reminds him of his death! And during no
moment since then could you have denied this hatred."

"Oh, my brother!" said the prince, painfully, "your own hatred has
blinded you and made you unjust. I have always loved and admired you,
even when I did not approve of your undertakings."

"And yet it was you, you alone," said the king, hastily, "who dared,
after the fatal disaster of Collin, to utter loud cries of grief and
despair. When my courier brought to you and the generals and the
army the mournful news of the lost battle of Collin, in place of
strengthening and encouraging my warriors--consoling and inspiring them
with confidence in their royal leader--you dared, in the presence of
all my generals, to cry and whimper, not over destiny, not over the
inconstancy of fortune, but over the conduct of your brother and your
king. In place of justifying me to my silent and cast-down generals, you
accused me boldly, and made my misfortune my crime." [Footnote: Betzow's
"Characteristics of Frederick."]

"It is true," murmured the prince, "distress and grief