he, Grumkow, was a "scoundrel," so Dubourgay calls it,--which was one
undeniable truth offered there that day. But what can anything profit?
The Message is: "Whatever the answer now be from England, I will have
nothing to do with it. Negative, procrastinative, affirmative, to me
it shall be zero. You, Madam, have to choose, for Wilhelmina, between
Weissenfels and Schwedt; otherwise I myself will choose: and upon you
and her will alight Oranienburg, outer darkness, and just penalties of
mutiny against the Authority set over you by God and men. Weissenfels or
Schwedt: choose straightway." This is the King's message by these Three.

"You can inform the King," replied her Majesty, [Wilhelmina, i. 188.]
"that he will never make me consent to render my Daughter miserable; and
that, so long as a breath of life (UN SOUFFLE DE VIE) remains in me,
I will not permit her to take either the one or the other of those
persons." "Is that enough? For you, Sir," added her Majesty, turning to
Grumkow, "for you, Sir, who are the author of my misfortunes, may my
curse fall upon you and your house! You have this day killed me. But
I doubt not, Heaven will hear my prayer, and avenge these wrongs."
[Dubourgay, 28th January, 1730; Wilhelmina, i. 188 (who suppresses
the maledictory part).]--And herewith to a bed of sickness, as the one
refuge left!

Her Majesty does now, in fact, take to bed at Berlin; "fallen very ill,"
it would appear; which gives some pause to Friedrich Wilhelm till he
ascertain. "Poorly, for certain," report the Doctors, even Friedrich
Wilhelm's Doctor. The humane Doctors have silently given one another the
hint; for Berlin is one tempest of whispers about her Majesty's domestic
sorrows, "Poorly, for interesting reasons:--perhaps be worse before
she is better, your Majesty!"--"Hmph!" thinks Friedrich Wilhelm out at
Potsdam. And then the treacherous Ramen reports that it is all shamming;
and his Majesty, a Bear, though a loving one, is driven into wrath
again; and so wavers from side to side.

It is certain the Queen held, faster or looser, by her bed of sickness,
as a main refuge in these emergencies: the last shift of oppressed
womankind;--sanctioned by Female Parliament, in this instance. "Has had
a miscarriage!" writes Dubourgay, from Berlin gossip, at the beginning
of the business. Nay at one time she became really ill, to a dangerous
length; and his Majesty did not at first believe it; and then was like
to break his