For long months this prince of nineteen was imprisoned in absolute solitude, awaiting the doom of his merciless father. But the savage king had reserved still greater torture for the unfortunate Fritz. By the order of the king, Fritz, who also had been condemned to die, was brought down into a lower room of the fortress, and there compelled to witness the execution of Lieutenant Katte, his friend, whom the king had condemned as guilty of high treason. As Fritz was led into the lower apartment of the fortress, the curtains which concealed the window were drawn back, and Fritz, to his horror, beheld the scaffold draped in black placed directly before the window. The frantic young prince was in an agony of despair, and exclaimed, with eyes full of tears, “In the name of God, I beg you to stop the execution till I write to the king! I am ready to renounce all my rights to the crown if he will pardon Katte.” But the attendants knew the iron will of the merciless monarch, and his cries and tears were unheeded. As the condemned was led by the window to ascend the scaffold, Fritz cried out to him, in tones of deepest anguish, “Pardon me, my dear Katte, pardon me! Oh, that this should be what I have done for you!” “Death is sweet for a prince I love so well,” replied the heroic Katte with calm fortitude, and ascending the scaffold, the bloody execution was performed, while four grenadiers held Fritz with his face to the window so that he must perforce look upon the ghastly scene. But as Katte’s gory head rolled upon the scaffold, the prince fainted. When the poor tortured prince regained his consciousness, his misery plunged him into a fever, and in his wild delirium he sought to take his life. When the fever abated, he sank into hopeless despair, looking forward to nothing but a like horrible death. With strange inconsistency, the ferocious king, who could thus torture the body and mind of the prince, expressed the greatest anxiety for the salvation of his soul. It is not strange that the example of such a father staggered the faith of his son, and failing to see that the religion professed by his father was bigoted fanaticism instead of the religion of the pure and saving truths inculcated by a sinless Christ, the crown prince became in after-life an infidel. In accordance with a promise made by the king that his life should be spared if he would acknowledge his guilt, which word was brought to the lonely captive by Chaplain Müller, the crown prince took an oath of submission to the king, and soon after wrote this letter to his father:—