ical purport only too clear: That Katte was a sworn
soldier, of the Gens-d'Armes even, or Body-guard of the Prussian
Majesty; and did nevertheless, in the teeth of his oath, "worship the
Rising Sun" when minded to desert; did plot and colleague with foreign
Courts in aid of said Rising Sun, and of an intended high crime against
the Prussian Majesty itself on Rising Sun's part; far from at once
revealing the same, as duty ordered Lieutenant Katte to do. That Katte's
crime amounts to high-treason (CRIMEN LOESOE MAJESTATIS); that the rule
is, FIAT JUSTITIA, ET PEREAT MUNDUS;--and that, in brief, Katte's doom
is, and is hereby declared to be, Death. Death by the gallows and hot
pincers is the usual doom of Traitors; but his Majesty will say in this
case, Death by the sword and headsman simply; certain circumstances
moving the royal clemency to go so far, no farther. And the
Court-Martial has straightway to apprise Katte of this same: and so
doing, "shall say, That his Majesty is sorry for Katte: but that it is
better he die than that justice depart out of the world." [Preuss, i.
44.]

This is the iron doom of Katte; which no prayer or influence of mortal
will avail to alter,--lest justice depart out of the world. Katte's
Father is a General of rank, Commandant of Konigsberg at this moment;
Katte's Grandfather by the Mother's side, old Fieldmarshal Wartensleben,
is a man in good favor with Friedrich Wilhelm, and of high esteem and
mark in his country for half a century past. But all this can effect
nothing. Old Wartensleben thinks of the Daughter he lost; for happily
Katte's Mother is dead long since. Old Wartensleben writes to Friedrich
Wilhelm; his mournful Letter, and Friedrich Wilhelm's mournful but
inexorable answer, can be read in the Histories; but show only what we
already know.

Katte's Mother, Fieldmarshal Wartensleben's Daughter, died in 1706;
leaving Katte only two years old. He is now twenty-six; very young for
such grave issues; and his fate is certainly very hard. Poor young
soul, he did not resist farther, or quarrel with the inevitable and
inexorable. He listened to Chaplain Muller of the Gens-d'Armes; admitted
profoundly, after his fashion, that the great God was just, and the poor
Katte sinful, foolish, only to be saved by miracle of mercy; and piously
prepared himself to die on these terms. There are three Letters of his
to his Grandfather, which can still be read, one of them in Wilhelmina's
Book, [Wil