THREE: My dearest Sister,I am in despair that I can not satisfy158 my impatience and my duty, to throw myself at your feet this day. But, alas! dear sister, it does not depend upon me. We poor princes are obliged to wait here till our generals come up. We dare not go along without them. They broke a wheel in Gera. Hearing nothing of them since, we are absolutely forced to wait here. Judge in what a mood I am, and what sorrow must be mine. Express order not to go by Baireuth or Anspach. Forbear, dear sister, to torment me on things not depending on myself at all.My brother arrived on the 5th of October. He seemed to me in ill humor. To break off conversation with me, he said that he had to write to the king and queen. I ordered him pen and162 paper. He wrote in my room, and spent more than a good hour in writing a couple of letters of a line or two each. He then had all the court, one after another, introduced to him; said nothing to any of them; looked merely with a mocking air at them; after which we went to dinner.
THREE:The Saxons, much irritated, were rather more disposed to thwart his plans than to co-operate in them. The Austrian horsemen were vigilant, pouncing upon every unprotected detachment. Frederick marched for the capture of Brünn, the strongest fortress in Moravia. It had a garrison of seven thousand men, under the valiant leader Roth. To arrest the march of Frederick, and leave him shelterless on the plains, the Austrian general laid sixteen villages in ashes. The poor peasantsmen, women, and childrenfoodless and shelterless, were thus cast loose upon the drifted fields. Who can gauge such woes?
THREE:I have been unhappy all my life, and I think it is my destiny to continue so. One must be patient, and take the time as it comes. Perhaps a sudden tract of good fortune, on the back of all the chagrins I have encountered since I entered this world, would have made me too proud. I have suffered sufficiently, and I will not engage myself to extend my miseries into future times. I have still resources. A pistol-shot can deliver me from my sorrows and my life, and I think a merciful God would not damn me for that, but, taking pity on me, would, in exchange for a life of wretchedness, grant me salvation. This is whitherward despair can lead a young person whose blood is not so quiescent as if he were seventy.
TWO:The king was by no means pleased with the costly luxuries with which his son was surrounding himself. But he had, in a very considerable degree, lost his control over the Crown Prince. Frederick was now twenty-one years of age. He had married the niece of the Emperor of Germany. The emperor had probably once saved his life, and was disposed particularly to befriend him, that he might secure his alliance when he should become King of Prussia. Frederick was now the rising sun, and his father the setting luminary. All the courts in Europe were interested in winning the regards of the Crown Prince.Her sisters were now permitted occasionally to visit her, and her situation became somewhat ameliorated. On the 10th of May Wilhelmina received a letter from her mother which caused her to wring her hands in anguish. It informed her that the next day a deputation was to call upon her from the king, to insist upon her giving her consent to marry the Prince of Baireuth.