History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 6 | Page 9

built by charitable beggings of Franke,
which also still subsists. A reverend gentleman, very mournful of
visage, now sixty-four; and for the present, at Berlin, discoursing of
things eternal, in what Wilhelmina thinks a very lugubrious manner.
Well; but surely in a very serious manner! The shadows of death were
already round this poor Franke; and in a few weeks more, he had
himself departed. [Died 8th June, 1727.] But hear Wilhelmina, what
account she gives of her own and the young Grenadier-Major's
behavior on these mournful occasions. Seckendorf's dinners she
considers to be the cause; all spiritual, sorrows only an adjunct not
worth mentioning. It is certain enough.
"His Majesty began to become valetudinary; and the hypochondria
which tormented him rendered his humor very melancholy. Monsieur
Franke, the famous Pietist, founder of the Orphan-house at Halle
University, contributed not a little to exaggerate that latter evil. This
reverend gentleman entertained the King by raising scruples of
conscience about the most innocent matters. He condemned all
pleasures; damnable all of them, he said, even hunting and music. You
were to speak of nothing but the Word of God only; all other
conversation was forbidden. It was always he that carried on the
improving talk at table; where he did the office of reader, as if it had
been a refectory of monks. The King treated us to a sermon every
afternoon; his valet-de-chambre gave out a psalm, which we all sang;
you had to listen to this sermon with as much devout attention as if it
had been an apostle's. My Brother and I had all the mind in the world to
laugh; we tried hard to keep from laughing; but often we burst out.

Thereupon reprimand, with all the anathemas of the Church hurled out
on us; which we had to take with a contrite penitent air, a thing not easy
to bring your face to at the moment. In a word, this dog of a Franke [he
died within few months, poor soul, CE CHIEN DE FRANKE] led us
the life of a set of Monks of La Trappe.
"Such excess of bigotry awakened still more gothic thoughts in the
King. He resolved to abdicate the crown in favor of my Brother. He
used to talk, He would reserve for himself 10,000 crowns a year; and
retire with the Queen and his Daughters to Wusterhausen. There, added
he, I will pray to God; and manage the farming economy, while my
wife and girls take care of the household matters. You are clever, he
said to me; I will give you the inspection of the linen, which you shall
mend and keep in order, taking good charge of laundry matters.
Frederika [now thirteen, married to ANSPACH two years hence], who
is miserly, shall have charge of all the stores of the house. Charlotte
[now eleven, Duchess of BRUNSWICK by and by] shall go to market
and buy our provisions; and my Wife shall take charge of the little
children, [says Friedrich Wilhelm], and of the kitchen." [Little children
are: 1. Sophie Dorothee, now eight, who married Margraf of Schwedt,
and was unhappy; 2. Ulrique, a grave little soul of seven, Queen of
Sweden afterwards; 3. August Wilhelm, age now five, became Father
of a new Friedrich Wilhelm, who was King by and by, and produced
the Kings that still are; 4. Amelia, now four, born in the way we saw;
and 5. HENRI, still in arms, just beginning to walk. There will be a
Sixth and no more (son of this Sixth, a Berlin ROUE was killed, in
1806, at the Battle of Jena, or a day or two before); but the Sixth is not
yet come to hand.]
Poor Friedrich Wilhelm; what an innocent IDYLLIUM;--which cannot
be executed by a King. "He had even begun to work at an Instruction,
or Farewell Advice, for my Brother;" and to point towards various steps,
which alarmed Grumkow and Seckendorf to a high degree."
[Wilhelmina, Memoires de Bareith, i. 108.]
"Abdication," with a Crown-Prince ready to fall into the arms of
England, and a sudden finis to our Black-Art, will by no means suit

Seckendorf and Grumkow! Yet here is Winter coming; solitary
Wusterhausen, with the misty winds piping round it, will make matters
worse: something must be contrived; and what? The two, after study,
persuade Fieldmarshal Flemming over at Warsaw (August the Strong's
chief man, the Flemming of Voltaire's CHARLES XII.; Prussian by
birth, though this long while in Saxon service), That if he the
Fieldmarshal were to pay, accidentally, as it were, a little visit to his
native Brandenburg just now, it might have fine effects on those foolish
Berlin-Warsaw clouds that had risen. The Fieldmarshal, well affected
in such a case, manages the little visit, readily persuading