during the most solemn and impressive moment, she calmly took a pinch of
snuff, thereby drawing down on her careless head the displeasure of her
royal consort. Up to the hour of her death, Sophie Charlotte jested.
When dying she is said to have declined religious consolation on the
very true ground that she knew exactly what the parson would say, and it
was, therefore, not worth while to trouble him. "My funeral will give
the king a grand opportunity to enjoy a magnificent display," she
whispered. It did. Splendor-loving Frederick buried his wife with the
utmost pomp.

Sophie Charlotte left a son, afterward Frederick William I. of Prussia,
who married unfortunate Sophie Dorothea's daughter, also named, for her
mother; Sophie Dorothea. The world knows well through Carlyle and, also,
though one-sidedly, through the memoirs of Wilhelmine, sister of
Frederick the Great, the story of this union.

This second Sophie Dorothea was not a happy woman. The fate of her
imprisoned mother weighed heavily upon her. Secretly, she corresponded
with her mother, and did her best to set her free. Again, as in the case
of the Electress of Hanover, England furnished the life ambition of a
German princess. Sophie Dorothea ardently wished to effect a double
marriage between her two children, Frederick and Wilhelmine, and the son
and daughter of George II., then crown prince of England. Disappointment
at the failure of this project, embittered and shortened her life.

The tall grenadiers, the royal cane and the parsimony of Frederick
William and their effect upon his thoroughly subjugated family are
well-known. The intense brotherly and sisterly love that existed between
Frederick and Wilhelmine was cemented, verily, by a bond of affliction.
Hunger and blows were often the portion of these sensitive royal
children. Wilhelmine writes of their "summer vacation":

"We had a most sad life then. We were awakened at seven every morning by
the King's regiment, which exercised in front of the windows of our
rooms on the ground floor. The firing went on incessantly, piff, puff,
and lasted the whole morning. At ten we went to see our mother and
accompanied her into the room next the King's, where we sat and sighed
all the forenoon. Then came dinner time. The dinner consisted of six
small, badly cooked dishes, which had to suffice for twenty-four
persons, so that some had to be satisfied with the mere smell. At table
nothing else was talked of but eco