Princes of Prussia
(Zeepvat, Queen Victoria's Family)
(Brigitte:worlroot.clicktorn.com)
On June 4 1866, Vicky's husband, Crown Prince Frederick went to the front during the Austro Prussian War. Two-year-old Sigismund had been a little fretful and Vicky tought it was because theeting. He hadn't slept well neither eat. Twenty four hours later the discomfort had increased and the boy was so weak that he couldn't stand by himself. Most of the German doctors were at the front so Vicky had no other choice than to consult an incompetent practitioner. Five days later little Sigismund was in convulsions and died on June 18; he had had meningitis. Vicky wrote her mother: "On to see it suffer so cruelly, to see it die and hear its last pitious cry was an agony I cannot describe, it haunts me night and day". Crown Prince Frederick was advised of his son's death but he answered he was in the "service of the fatherland" and he could not leave his post. Vicky did not understand his husband's position and she was angry with him. Sigismund had been her favourite son and his death was a great pain for her. She even patheticly placed a waxed image of her son into his crib with his shoes by one side.
Sigismund was not the only son Vicky lost in childhood. On February 10, 1868, her sixth child and fourth son was born and he was named Waldemar. The new born occupied his dead brother's place in his mother's heart. Waldemar was the more charming of Vicky's children. "He is such a dear child", Vicky wrote to her mother, "and altough rather more spirited than is easy to manage, he is so trustworthy and honest...If Heaven spares him I am sure he will be liked and trusted everywhere".
In March 1879, Waldemar became ill with diphteria, the same disease that had killed Vicky's sister Alice last year, so Vicky was very worried about her son. She wrote to her mother: "I do all I can for him, feed him, look to his throat..You can imagine my anxiety, and who and what are continually in my thoughts...I have washed him today with hot vinegar and water, and changed his linene and his shirt, popping it all into a pail of carbolic acid...The doctors feel quite cheerful about him, but of course all cause of anxiety is not yet over". Around nine o'clock on the evening of March 27, Waldemar's breathing got worse and he died after midnight.
The tombs of both children are in the Church of Peace in Postdam; they are two white marble sepulcres, under a dome, partially painted by Vicky herself, with angels and with the inscription: "Let the little children come unto me".
Pakula, Hannah, An Uncommon Woman
Zeepvat, Charlotte: Queen Victoria's Family
