I am his Son. This
morning I came into his room as usual; at the first sight of me," or
at the first passage of Kalkstein-dialogue with me, "he sprang forward,
seized me by the collar, and struck me a shower of cruel blows with his
rattan. I tried in vain to screen myself, he was in so terrible a rage,
almost out of himself; it was only weariness," not my superior strength,
"that made him give up."

"I am driven to extremity. I have too much honor to endure such
treatment; and I am resolved to put an end to it in one way or another."
[Wilhelmina, i. 175.]

Is not this itself sufficiently tragical? Not the first stroke he had
got, we can surmise; but the first torrent of strokes, and open beating
like a slave;--which to a proud young man and Prince, at such age, is
indeed INtolerable. Wilhelmina knows too well what he meaus by "ending
it in one way or another;" but strives to reassure Mamma as to its
meaning "flight," or the like desperate resolution. "Mere violence of
the moment," argues Wilhelmina; terribly aware that it is deeper-rooted
than that.

Flight is not a new idea to the Crown-Prince; in a negative form we have
seen it present in the minds of by-standers: "a Crown-Prince determined
NOT to fly," whispered they. [Dubourgay (9th August, 1729), supra, p.
129.] Some weeks ago, Wilhelmina writes: "The King's bad treatments
began again on his reappearance" at Potsdam after the Hunting; "he never
saw my Brother without threatening him with his cane. My Brother told me
day after day, He would endure everything from the King, only not blows;
and that if it ever came to such extremity, he would be prepared to
deliver himself by running off." And here, it would seem, the extremity
has actually come.

Wilhelmina, pitying her poor Brother, but condemning him on many points,
continues: [i. 173, 174.] "Lieutenant Keith," that wild companion of
his, "had been gone some time, stationed in Wesel with his regiment."
Which fact let us also keep in mind. "Keith's departure had been a great
joy to me; in the hope my Brother would now lead a more regular life:
but it proved quite otherwise. A second favorite, and a much more
dangerous, succeeded Keith. This was a young man of the name of Katte,
Captain-Lieutenant in the regiment GENS-D'ARMES. He was highly connected
in the Army; his Mother had been a daughter of Feldmarschall Graf von
Wartensleben,"--a highest dignitary of the last generation. Katte's
Father, now a General of