The Margravine's last letter was, we are told, written on the 18th July, 1758, with trembling hand "almost illegible." Replying, the King says: "O you, the dearest of my family, you, whom I have most at heart of all in this world--for the sake of whatever is most precious to you, preserve yourself; and let me have at least the consolation of shedding my tears in your bosom!" The last letter from Voltaire to the Margravine is dated the 27th September, 1758, in which he urges her to consult the celebrated physician Tronchin. But the suggestion was too late or of no avail. "Wilhelmina, who had ever been so ready with her pen, was no longer able to use it, not even to bid a last farewell to her friend. Yet, in token of how much her thoughts were with him, she sent him her picture a fortnight before her end, as a last message of friendship and gratitude. Soon her spirit would fathom the great mysteries which had occupied her during her life. Who is there who would not believe in affection's double sight? In the same night, at the same hour in which her brother suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Austrians at Hochkirch, Wilhelmina breathed her last, on the 14th October, 1758. Her last words, her last thoughts were for the happiness and welfare of the King. She desired to have her brother's letters buried with her. This wish was, however, not fulfilled. At her especial request the funeral oration to be held at her grave was to contain but little mention of herself, the vanity of all human things being made the chief subject of it. She was buried according to her instructions, in the simplest and quietest manner, in the chapel of the Castle of Baireuth."[4] [4] "The Margravine of Baireuth and Voltaire." By H.R.H. Princess Christian, p. 126. The King's sorrow, on receiving the intelligence of his sister's death, was uncontrollable. The friend, the confidant, the consolation of his life was gone in his darkest hour, when he seemed to have the most need of her sound advice and sustaining comfort. "How," says he, "can I make up for the loss which everything warns me of; how can I replace this beloved and adorable sister, who has loved me so dearly? How could I believe that she, to whom, since my earliest youth, I have confided my every thought, should so soon be taken from me?" He made a pathetic appeal to Voltaire to write something in her memory, and, not being satisfied with one effort, he writes:--"For what I have asked of you, I assure you I have very much at heart; be it prose, be it verse, it is all the same to me. A monument is necessary to commemorate that virtue so pure, so rare, which has not been sufficiently generally known. If I was persuaded I could write adequately myself, I would charge no one with it; but as you are certainly the first of our age, I can address myself only to you." In response to this appeal, Voltaire wrote the following ode:--