In the early hours of 14 October 1799, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of Prussia, gave birth to a daughter named Frederica.
The little girl was their fifth child, although their eldest daughter had been stillborn. Louise had given birth in Potsdam.
Frederica was baptised on 8 November and given the additional names Augusta Carolina Amelia.1
Tragically, little Frederica died at the age of six months on 30 March 1800 of whooping cough.2 She was interred in the Berliner Dom. Her younger sister, Alexandrine, would later also receive Frederica as one of her names.
Louise wrote to her sister Therese, “How could you have doubted for a moment that I would keep you from your duties? My maternal instinct won out as soon as I read your reasons, and the sister gladly stands by the children. Stay, dearest Therese, with your dear children, care for them, nurture them, and when you are happy through the fulfilment of your duties, remember that I did not prevent you from enjoying these blissful feelings. I confess to you, however, my weakness, that yesterday, when I received and read your letter (in Charlottenburg at the time), a few tears flowed for the beautifully dreamt dream. Call it selfishness, but call it love too, for truly, I love you! And it costs me no small thing to completely suppress the thought of not seeing you, having nurtured the hope of our union for so long and with such concern I send a thousand wishes to heaven for your well-being, for the moral well-being of your Therese, and for the strengthening of your little Sophie. My angels are well, and God, I hope, will preserve my little cloverleaf for me. I cannot forget my poor little angel, who lives in higher spheres, and all the afflicted hearts, of which there are thousands in Berlin and which increase daily, also increase my pain. Ah! It is very hard to lose a child.
I was in a pitiable state, I swear to you. My tears, which were righteous, suddenly stopped with fright when I found my husband one morning with a high fever and very ill. At night I wept, by day at his bedside I smiled, to give the suffering man courage to bear his sorrow on the most beautiful summer days. It is particularly poignant that we both mourned on the same days, for on the 30th [of March] I lost my angel; her agony lasted from eight until six in the evening, when the angel passed away and now awaits me in better spheres and with a more enlightened mind. God grant, dear Therese, that your fear is now over, and that your maternal heart may devote itself entirely to hope. Now may Providence protect you from disappointed hope, for I have felt it completely in its joy and horror.”3
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