Truly has a well-known English writer said: "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned." Madame von Platen verified this in the desperate means she employed to bring down her victim. Armed with the warrant bearing the elector's signature, she proceeded to the soldiers' quarters and demanded a guard of four or five men to do something that she would explain to them. She led them to the Hall of Knights, through which Kônigsmark was obliged to pass, when he left the princess's apartment, and there, after bribing each man with a handful of gold pieces, gave her instructions.
They were to arrest a criminal whose person was minutely described, and he was on no account to be permitted to escape. If he used violence he was to be slain on the spot, and the men were not only provided with weapons for that purpose, but several bottles of wine to enable them to "screw their courage to the sticking-place." They promised to obey, and Madame von Platen left them.
In the Hall of Knights was one of those enormous white porcelain stoves, reaching from the floor to the ceiling, that every one who has visited Germany must have seen. Behind this the soldiers ensconced themselves. Just as the tower { 043}clock struck twelve, Kônigsmark approached, unsuspicious of danger, and had just passed the stove when he was seized from behind. He drew his sword and tried to defend himself, but what chance had one man against four well-armed ones? After a little skirmishing, a powerful stroke from an old-fashioned battle-axe, in the hands of one of the guards, felled him to the floor. With his last breath the wounded man faintly said, "Spare the innocent princess," and expired.
The matter was hushed up, and no one, excepting those engaged in the crime, knew what had become of the handsome, accomplished Philip von Kônigsmark. Some years later his body was found under the floor of one of the rooms just off the hall in which the murder took place.
Of course Sophia Dorothea was kept in ignorance of the assassination. She was depending upon Kônigsmark to complete the arrangements for her escape to Paris, and wondered what could have become of him. She asked no questions, and would have received no satisfaction if she had done so; for those who knew would have given her no information, and those who were not in the secret wondered almost as much as she did. Suddenly suspense gave place to alarm when she heard that all the papers belonging to the murdered man had been seized and carried to the elector for examination. Her notes regarding her intended escape were, of course, among them. No wonder she was alarmed!