Sur ta cendre adorée, il jetterait des fleurs Du haut de son char de victoire; Et les mains de la paix, et les mains de la gloire Se joindraient pour sècher ses pleurs.
Sa voix célèbrerait ton amitie fidèle, Les échos de Berlin répondraient à ses chants; Ah! j'impose silence à mes tristes accents, Ils n'appartient qu'à lui de te rendre immortelle.
While Wilhelmina's devotion to her brother was absorbing and self-sacrificing, her friendship to Voltaire was constant and faithful. And may we not hope that he felt the benefit of a contact with her more than even appears? One of her letters to him contains in a few words a statement of the simple Christian faith that was hers:--"I pity," she says, "your blindness only to believe in one God and to deny Jesus."
Frederick had erected in his garden at Sans-Souci a temple in memory of his sister dedicated to "Friendship." Although his life was darkened by her loss, his subsequent victories and final conquest, and the peaceful evening of his life, justified the belief she always had in his greatness and ultimate success.
The Margravine had one child only, the Princess Elizabeth Frederike Sophie, who afterwards became Duchess of Wurtemburg. Writing of her, Voltaire says that she was the most beautiful child in Europe, that he should have recognised her without warning, that she had the turn of her mother's face with Frederick's eyes. As this lady died childless the Margravine lives only "in minds made better" by her life; but we cannot doubt that in many ways her influence still lives, and that the intellectual life of Germany owes much to her bright and stimulating example.
However surely it may be the inevitable lot of small Nationalities to become merged in larger and neighbouring Empires, we cannot but sympathise with their yearnings for independence. We instinctively admire the patriotic devotion of their noblest sons, who, at the call of duty, or what they believe to be such, arise as avengers of their country's wrongs, too frequently only to die in her service.
The history of Hungary is tragic, and her lot is sad. As an Austrian dependency Hungary has from time to time possessed a powerful internal government, only to have her growing liberties curtailed and her aspirations crushed, and the proceedings of her Senate disregarded by despotic sovereigns.