History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 01Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 01
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, as we hinted, did not live to see this
marriage which she had forecast in her maternal heart. She died, rather
suddenly, in 1705, [1st February (Erman, p. 241; Forster, i. 114): born,
20th October, 1666; wedded, 28th September 1684; died, 1st February,
1705.] at Hanover, whither she had gone on a visit; shortly after
parting with this her one boy and child, Friedrich Wilhelm, who is then
about seventeen; whom she had with effort forced herself to send abroad,
that he might see the world a little, for the first time. Her sorrow
on this occasion has in it something beautiful, in so bright and gay
a woman: shows us the mother strong in her, to a touching degree. The
rough cub, in whom she noticed rugged perverse elements, "tendencies
to avarice," and a want of princely graces, and the more brilliant
qualities in mind and manner, had given her many thoughts and some
uneasy ones. But he was evidently all she had to love in the world;
a rugged creature inexpressibly precious to her. For days after his
departure, she had kept solitary; busied with little; indulging in
her own sad reflections without stint. Among the papers she had been
scribbling, there was found one slip with a HEART sketched on it, and
round the heart "PARTI" (Gone): My heart is gone!--poor lady, and after
what a jewel! But Nature is very kind to all children and to all mothers
that are true to her.
Sophie Charlotte's deep sorrow and dejection on this parting was the
secret herald of fate to herself. It had meant ill health withal, and
the gloom of broken nerves. All autumn and into winter she had felt
herself indefinitely unwell; she determined, however, on seeing Hanover
and her good old Mother at the usual time. The gloomy sorrow over
Friedrich Wilhelm had been the premonition of a sudden illness which
seized her on the road to Hanover, some five months afterwards, and
which ended fatally in that city. Her death was not in the light style
Friedrich her grandson ascribes to it; [_ Memoires de Brandebourg _
(Preuss's Edition of _ OEuvres, _ Berlin, 1847 et seqq.), i. 112.] she
died without epigram, and though in perfect simple courage, with the
reverse of levity.
Here, at first hand, is the specific account of that event; which, as it
is brief and indisputable, we may as well fish from the imbroglios, and
render legible, to counteract such notions, and illuminate for moments
an old scene of things. The writing, apparently a quite private piece,
is by "M. de la Bergerie, Pastor of the French Church at Hanover,"
respectable Edict-of-Nantes gentleman, who had been called in on the
occasion;--gives an authentic momentary picture, though a feeble and
vacant one, of a locality at that time very interesting to Englishmen.
M. de la Bergerie privately records:--
"The night between the last of January and the first of February, 1705,
between one and two o'clock in the morning, I was called to the Queen of
Prussia, who was then dangerously ill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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