Frederick the Great and His Family [345]
as my father lived, you should have relieved yourself from it so soon as you were free; that is, so soon as you were king. But you preferred to continue in this unnatural connection, or rather you put the chains from your hands, and let them drag at your feet. Not to outrage the world by your divorce, you gave it the bad example of a wretched marriage. You made yourself free, and you made a slave of your poor wife, who has been a martyr to your humors and cruelty. You profaned the institution of marriage. You gave a bad and dangerous example to your subjects, and it has done its work. Look around in your land, sire. Everywhere you will see unhappy women who have been deserted by their husbands, and miserable men who have been dishonored by their faithless wives. Look at your own family. Our sister of Baireuth died of grief, and of the humiliation she endured from the mistress of her husband. Our brother, Augustus William, died solitary and alone. He withdrew in his grief to Oranienburg, and his wife remained in Berlin. She was not with him when he died; strangers received his last breath--strangers closed his eyes. Our sister of Anspach quarrelled with her husband, until finally she submitted, and made a friend of his mistress. And I, sire, I also stand before you with the brand of shame upon my brow. I also have been betrayed and deceived, and all this is your work. If the king mocks at the sacred duties of marriage, how can he expect that his family and subjects should respect them? It is the fashion in your land for husbands and wives to deceive one another, and it is you who have set this fashion."
"I have allowed you to finish, Henry," said the king, when the prince was at length silent. "I have allowed you to finish, but I have not heard your angry and unjust reproaches, I have only heard that my brother is unhappy, and it is, I know, natural for the unhappy to seek the source of their sorrows in others and not in themselves. I forgive all that you have said against me; but if you hold me responsible for the miserable consequences of the war, which kept the men at a distance for years and loosened family ties, that shows plainly that your judgment is unreliable, and that you cannot discriminate with justice. I did not commence this war heedlessly; I undertook it as a heavy burden. It has made an old man of me; it has eaten up my life before my time. I see all the evil results, and I consider it my sacred duty to bind up the wounds which it has inflicted on my country. I work for this object day and night; I give all of my energies to this effort; I have sacrificed to it all my personal inclinations. But I must be contented to bind up the wounds. I cannot make want disappear; I cannot immediately change sorrow into gladness."
"Ah, sire, you seek to avoid the subject, and to speak of the general unhappiness instead of my special grief. I call you to account, because you forced me to take a wife that I did not know--a wife who has made me the most miserable of men--a wife who has outraged my honor, and betrayed my heart. You gave me a wife who has robbed me of all I held dear on earth--of the wife I loved, and of the friend I trusted."
"Poor brother," said the king, gently, "you are enduring the torments from which I also suffered, before my heart became hardened as it now is. Yes, it is a fearful pain to be forced to despise the friend that you trusted--to be betrayed by those we have loved. I have passed through that grief. The man suffered deeply in me before his existence was merged in that of the king."
"Sire," said the prince, suddenly, "I have come to you to demand justice and punishment. You have occasioned the misery of my house, it is therefore your duty to alleviate it, as far as in you lies. I accuse my wife, the Princess Wilhelmina, of infidelity and treachery. I accuse Count Kalkreuth, who dares to love my wife, of being a traitor to your royal family. I demand your consent to my divorce from the princess, and to the punishment of the traitor. That is the satisfaction which I demand of your majesty
"I have allowed you to finish, Henry," said the king, when the prince was at length silent. "I have allowed you to finish, but I have not heard your angry and unjust reproaches, I have only heard that my brother is unhappy, and it is, I know, natural for the unhappy to seek the source of their sorrows in others and not in themselves. I forgive all that you have said against me; but if you hold me responsible for the miserable consequences of the war, which kept the men at a distance for years and loosened family ties, that shows plainly that your judgment is unreliable, and that you cannot discriminate with justice. I did not commence this war heedlessly; I undertook it as a heavy burden. It has made an old man of me; it has eaten up my life before my time. I see all the evil results, and I consider it my sacred duty to bind up the wounds which it has inflicted on my country. I work for this object day and night; I give all of my energies to this effort; I have sacrificed to it all my personal inclinations. But I must be contented to bind up the wounds. I cannot make want disappear; I cannot immediately change sorrow into gladness."
"Ah, sire, you seek to avoid the subject, and to speak of the general unhappiness instead of my special grief. I call you to account, because you forced me to take a wife that I did not know--a wife who has made me the most miserable of men--a wife who has outraged my honor, and betrayed my heart. You gave me a wife who has robbed me of all I held dear on earth--of the wife I loved, and of the friend I trusted."
"Poor brother," said the king, gently, "you are enduring the torments from which I also suffered, before my heart became hardened as it now is. Yes, it is a fearful pain to be forced to despise the friend that you trusted--to be betrayed by those we have loved. I have passed through that grief. The man suffered deeply in me before his existence was merged in that of the king."
"Sire," said the prince, suddenly, "I have come to you to demand justice and punishment. You have occasioned the misery of my house, it is therefore your duty to alleviate it, as far as in you lies. I accuse my wife, the Princess Wilhelmina, of infidelity and treachery. I accuse Count Kalkreuth, who dares to love my wife, of being a traitor to your royal family. I demand your consent to my divorce from the princess, and to the punishment of the traitor. That is the satisfaction which I demand of your majesty