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 DUROI 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 ***, let arrests be made out, and the scent as with sleuth-hounds be diligently followed on all sides; and Katte, stript of his uniform, be locked up in the grimmest manner.
Berlin, with the rumor of these things, is a much-agitated city.
Chapter VIII.
SEQUEL TO CROWN-PRINCE AND FRIENDS.
As for the Crown-Prince, prosecuting his circuitous route, he arrives safe at Mittenwalde; is lodged in the old Castle there, I think, for two nights (but the date, in these indexless Books, is blown away again), in a room bare of all things, with sentries at the door; and looks out, expecting Grumkow and the Officials to make assault on him. One of these Officials, a certain "Gerber, Fiscal General," who, as head of Prussian Fiscals (kind of Public Prosecutor, or supreme Essence of Bailiffs, Catchpoles and Grand-Juries all in one), wears a red cloak,--gave the Prince a dreadful start. Red cloak is the Berlin Hangman's or Headsman's dress; and poor Friedrich had the idea his end had summarily come in this manner. Soon seeing it was otherwise, his spirits recovered, perhaps rose by the shock.
He fronted Grumkow and the Officials, with a high, almost contemptuous look; answered promptly,--if possible, without lying, and yet without telling anything;--showed self-possession, pride;retorted sometimes, "Have you nothing more to ask?" Grumkow finding there was no way made into anything, not even into the secret of the Writingcase and the Royal Women's operations there, began at last, as Wilhelmina says, to hint, That in his Majesty's service there were means of bringing out the truth in spite of refractory humors; that there was a thing called the rack, not yet abolished in his Prussian Majesty's dominions! Friedrich owned afterwards, his blood ran cold. However, he put on a high look:
"A Hangman, such as you, naturally takes pleasure in talking of his tools and his trade: but on me they will not produce any effect. I have owned everything;--and almost regret to have done so. For it is not my part to stand questionings and bandy responses with a COQUIN COMME VOUS, scoundrel like you," reports Wilhelmina, [i. 280.] though we hope the actual term was slightly less candid!--Grumkow gathered his notes together; and went his ways, with the man in red cloak and the rest; thus finishing the scene in Mittenwalde. Mittenwalde, which we used to know long since, in our Wusterhausen rides with poor Duhan; little thinking what awaited us there one day.
Mittenwalde being finished, Friedrich, on Monday, 6th September, 1730, is sent forward to Custrin, a strong little town in a quiet Country, some sixty or seventy miles eastward of Berlin. On the evening of the 5th he finds himself lodged in a strong room of the Fortress there,--room consisting af bare walls lighted from far up; no furniture, not even the needfulest; everything indicating that the proud spirit and the iron laws shall here have their duel out at leisure, and see which is stronger.
His sword was taken from him at Wesel; sword, uniform, every mark of dignity, all are now gone: he is clad in brown prison-dress of the plainest cut and cloth; his diet is fixed at tenpence a day ("to be got from the cook's shop, six groschen for dinner, four for supper"); [Order, 14th September, 1730 (in Forster, i. 372).]