"No answer?"--and January has not ended till a new Deputation of the same Three Gentlemen, Finkenstein, Borck, Grumkow, again waits on the Queen, for whom there is now this other message.
"Wednesday, 25th January, 1730," so Dubourgay dates it;so likewise Wilhelmina, right for once: "a day I shall never forget," adds she.
Finkenstein and Borck, merciful persons, and always of the English party, were again profoundly sorry. Borck has a blaze of temper in him withal; we hear he apprised Grumkow, at one point of the dialogue, that he, Grumkow, was a "scoundrel," so Dubourgay calls it,--which was one undeniable truth offered there that day.
But what can anything profit? The Message is: "Whatever the answer now be from England, I will have nothing to do with it.
Negative, procrastinative, affirmative, to me it shall be zero.
You, Madam, have to choose, for Wilhelmina, between Weissenfels and Schwedt; otherwise I myself will choose: and upon you and her will alight Oranienburg, outer darkness, and just penalties of mutiny against the Authority set over you by God and men.
Weissenfels or Schwedt: choose straightway." This is the King's message by these Three.
"You can inform the King," replied her Majesty, [Wilhelmina, i. 188.] "that he will never make me consent to render my Daughter miserable; and that, so long as a breath of life (UN SOUFFLE DEVIE) remains in me, I will not permit her to take either the one or the other of those persons." Is that enough? "For you, Sir,"added her Majesty, turning to Grumkow, "for you, Sir, who are the author of my misfortunes, may my curse fall upon you and your house! You have this day killed me. But I doubt not, Heaven will hear my prayer, and avenge these wrongs." [Dubourgay, 28th January, 1730; Wilhelmina, i. 188 (who suppresses the maledictory part).]--And herewith to a bed of sickness, as the one refuge left!
Her Majesty does now, in fact, take to bed at Berlin; "fallen very ill," it would appear; which gives some pause to Friedrich Wilhelm till he ascertain. "Poorly, for certain," report the Doctors, even Friedrich Wilhelm's Doctor. The humane Doctors have silently given one another the hint; for Berlin is one tempest of whispers about her Majesty's domestic sorrows, "Poorly, for interesting reasons:
--perhaps be worse before she is better, your Majesty!"--"Hmph!"thinks Friedrich Wilhelm out at Potsdam. And then the treacherous Ramen reports that it is all shamming; and his Majesty, a Bear, though a loving one, is driven into wrath again; and so wavers from side to side.
It is certain the Queen held, faster or looser, by her bed of sickness, as a main refuge in these emergencies: the last shift of oppressed womankind;--sanctioned by Female Parliament, in this instance. "Has had a miscarriage!" writes Dubourgay, from Berlin gossip, at the beginning of the business. Nay at one time she became really ill, to a dangerous length; and his Majesty did not at first believe it; and then was like to break his heart, poor Bear; aud pardoned Wilhelmina and even Fritz, at the Mother's request,--till symptoms mended again. [Wilhelmina, i. 207.]
JARNI-BLEU, Herr Seckendorf, "Grumkow serves us honorably (DIENETEHRLICH)"--does not he!--Ambiguous bed of sickness, a refuge in time of trouble, did not quite terminate till May next, when her Majesty's time came; a fine young Prince the result; [23d May, 1730, August Ferdinand; her last child.] and this mode of refuge in trouble ceased to be necessary.
WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS THIRD:
MAJESTY HIMSELF WILL CHOOSE, THEN.
Directly on the back of that peremptory act of disobedience by the womankind on Wednesday last, Friedrich Wilhelm came to Berlin himself. He stormfully reproached his Queen, regardless of the sick-bed; intimated the infallible certainty, That Wilhelmina nevertheless would wed without delay, and that either Weissenfels or Schwedt would be the man. And this said, he straightway walked out to put the same in execution.
Walked, namely, to the Mother Margravine of Schwedt, the lady in high colors, Old Dessauer's Sister; and proposed to her that Wilhelmina should marry her Son.--"The supreme wish of my life, your Majesty," replied she of the high colors: "But, against the Princess's own will, how can I accept such happiness? Alas, your Majesty, I never can!"--and flatly refused his Majesty on those terms: a thing Wilhelmina will ever gratefully remember of her.
[Wilhelmina, i. 197.]
So that the King is now reduced to Weissenfels; and returns still more indignant to her Majesty's apartment. Weissenfels, however, it shall be; and frightful rumors go that he is written to, that he is privately coming, and that there will be no remedy.
[Wilhelmina, i. 197.] Wilhelmina, formerly almost too florid, is gone to a shadow; "her waist hardly half an ell;" worn down by these agitations. The Prince and she, if the King see either of them,--it is safer to run, or squat behind screens.
HOW FRIEDRICH PRINCE OF BAIREUTH CAME TO BE THE MAN, AFTER ALL.
In this high wind of extremity, the King now on the spot and in such temper, Borck privately advises, "That her Majesty bend a little,--pretend to give up the English connection, and propose a third party, to get rid of Weissenfels."--"What third party, then?"--"Well, there is young Brandenburg-Culmbach, for example, Heir-Apparent of Baireuth; Friedrich, a handsome enough young Prince, just coming home from the Grand Tour, we hear; will have a fine Territory when his Father dies: age is suitable; old kinship with the House, all money-quarrels settled eight or ten years ago:
why not him?"--"Excellent!" said her Majesty; and does suggest him to the King, in the next Schwedt-Weissenfels onslaught.