[Illustration: EUROPE 1740 _G. P. Putnam’s Sons. London, & New York._] It is, however, on his journey to Wesel, his Rhenish capital, that he reveals most clearly how the Crown Prince has changed into the King. Wilhelmina had found him of late so careless, even so uncivil, a correspondent that the news of his coming to Baireuth prostrated her with joy. He seemed to her so altered in countenance and developed in form that, just as after his imprisonment at Cüstrin, she hardly recognised him. But a less welcome change was only too perceptible. Wilhelmina found her brother’s caresses forced, his conversation trivial, their sister, the Margravine of Ansbach, more favoured than herself. The remainder of the journey proved that Frederick at least remained true to the French. At Frankfort he disguised himself for a flying visit to Strasburg. There his little party put up at an inn, sent the landlord to invite officers to their table, and visited the theatre. The mask was penetrated by a runaway Prussian whose tall brother had been kidnapped for the army and who recognised the son of his former King. The greatest pleasure of all came last. At Wesel, besides dealing with the affair of Herstal, which will be described in the next chapter, Frederick for the first time paid homage in person to Voltaire. At the end of October Wilhelmina visited Berlin, but her brother welcomed her coldly. She found abundant proofs that he had become inscrutable. She describes in her _Memoirs_ how the Queen Mother had shut herself up, equally astonished and mortified at her complete exclusion from affairs of State. “Some complained of the little care he had to reward those who had been attached to him as prince royal; others, of his avarice, which they said surpassed that of the late King; others of his passions; others again of his suspicions, of his mistrust, of his pride, and of his dissimulation.” This criticism from an unwonted quarter may possibly be explained away. It has been suggested that the King’s treatment of his sister at Baireuth was due to the same policy of repelling every possible claimant to influence his policy, which may be held to excuse the snubs inflicted upon Dessau and Schulenburg and the dignified exile of Frederick’s mother and wife. His conduct at Rheinsberg, whither Wilhelmina followed him, does not admit of the same excuse. “The little spare time that he had,” she complains, “was spent in the company of wits or men of letters. Such were Voltaire, Maupertuis, Algarotti, and Jordan. I saw the King but seldom. I had no ground for being satisfied with our interviews. The greater part of them was spent either in embarrassed words of politeness or in outrageous witticisms on the bad state of the Margrave’s finances; indeed he often ridiculed him and the princes of the empire, which I felt very much.” [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV THE SILESIAN ADVENTURE, 1740–1742