“Infamous wretch!” he shouted; “dare you appear in my presence?  Go keep your scoundrel of a brother company.”

He seized her as he spoke and struck her several times violently in the face, one blow on the temple hurling her to the floor.  Mad with rage, he would have trampled on her had not the ladies present got her away.  The scene was a frightful one.  The queen, believing her son dead, and completely unnerved, ran wildly around the room, shrieking with agony.  The king’s face was so distorted with rage as to be frightful to look at.  His younger children were around his knees, begging him with tears to spare their sister.  Wilhelmina, her face bruised and swollen, was supported by one of the ladies of the court.  Rarely had insane rage created a more distressing spectacle.

In the end the king acknowledged that Frederick was still alive, but vowed that he would have his head off as a deserter, and that Wilhelmina, his confederate, should be imprisoned for life.  He left the room at length to question Katte, who was being brought before him, harshly exclaiming as he did so, “Now I shall have evidence to convict the scoundrel Fritz and that blackguard Wilhelmina.  I shall find plenty of reasons to have their heads off.”

But we must hasten to the conclusion.  Both the captives were tried by court-martial, on the dangerous charge of desertion from the army.  The court which tried Frederick proved to be subservient to the king’s will.  They pronounced sentence of death on the prince royal.  Katte was sentenced to imprisonment for life, on the plea that his crime had been only meditated, not committed.  The latter sentence did not please the despot.  He changed it himself from life imprisonment to death, and with a refinement of cruelty ordered the execution to take place under the prince’s window, and within his sight.

On the 5th of November, 1730, Frederick, wearing a coarse prison dress, was conducted from his cell in the fortress of Cuestrin to a room on the lower floor, where the window-curtains, let down as he entered, were suddenly drawn up.  He saw before him a scaffold hung with black, which he believed to be intended for himself, and gazed upon it with shuddering apprehension.  When informed that it was intended for his friend, his grief and pain became even more acute.  He passed the night in that room, and the next morning was conducted again to the window, beneath which he saw his condemned friend, accompanied by soldiers, an officer, and a minister of religion.

“Oh,” cried the prince, “how miserable it makes me to think that I am the cause of your death!  Would to God I were in your place!”

“No,” replied Katte; “if I had a thousand lives, gladly would I lay them down for you.”

Frederick swooned as his friend moved on.  In a few minutes afterwards Katte was dead.  It was long before the sorrowing prince recovered from the shock of that cruel spectacle.