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diff --git a/old/05frd10.txt b/old/05frd10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46351bf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/05frd10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3738 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 5 +#11 in our series by Thomas Carlyle +V5 of 21 + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Thompson <drthom@ihug.co.nz> + + + + + +Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia" + + + + +BOOK V. + +DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND WHAT ELEMENT IT FELL INTO. +1723-1726. + +Chapter I. + +DOUBLE-MARRIAGE IS DECIDED ON. + + +We saw George I. at Berlin in October, 1723, looking out upon his +little Grandson drilling the Cadets there; but we did not mention +what important errand had brought his Majesty thither. + +Visits between Hanover and Berlin had been frequent for a long +time back; the young Queen of Prussia, sometimes with her husband, +sometimes without, running often over to see her Father; who, even +after his accession to the English crown, was generally for some +months every year to be met with in those favorite regions of his. +He himself did not much visit, being of taciturn splenetic nature: +but this once he had agreed to return a visit they had lately made +him,--where a certain weighty Business had been agreed upon, +withal; which his Britannic Majesty was to consummate formally, by +treaty, when the meeting in Berlin took effect. His Britannic +Majesty, accordingly, is come; the business in hand is no other +than that thrice-famous "Double-Marriage" of Prussia with England; +which once had such a sound in the ear of Rumor, and still bulks +so big in the archives of the Eighteenth Century; which worked +such woe to all parties concerned in it; and is, in fact, a +first-rate nuisance in the History of that poor Century, as +written hitherto. Nuisance demanding urgently to be abated;-- +were that well possible at present. Which, alas, it is not, to any +great degree; there being an important young Friedrich +inextricably wrapt up in it, to whom it was of such vital or +almost fatal importance! Without a Friedrich, the affair could be +reduced to something like its real size, and recorded in a few +pages; or might even, with advantage, be forgotten altogether, and +become zero. More gigantic instance of much ado about nothing has +seldom occurred in human annals;--had not there been a Friedrich +in the heart of it. + +Crown-Prince Friedrich is still very young for +marriage-speculations on his score: but Mamma has thought good to +take matters in time. And so we shall, in the next ensuing parts +of this poor History, have to hear almost as much about Marriage +as in the foolishest Three-volume Novel, and almost to still less +purpose. For indeed, in that particular, Friedrich's young Life +may be called a ROMANCE FLUNG HELLS-OVER-HEAD;--Marriage being the +one event there, round which all events turn,--but turn in the +inverse or reverse way (as if the Devil were in them); not only +towards no happy goal for him or Mamma, or us, but at last towards +hardly any goal at all for anybody! So mad did the affair grow;-- +and is so madly recorded in those inextricable, dateless, chaotic +Books. We have now come to regions of Narrative, which seem to +consist of murky Nothingness put on boil; not land, or water, or +air, or fire, but a tumultuously whirling commixture of all the +four;--of immense extent too. Which must be got crossed, in some +human manner. Courage, patience, good reader! + + +QUEEN SOPHIE DOROTHEE HAS TAKEN TIME BY THE FORELOCK. + +Already, for a dozen years, this matter has been treated of. +Queen Sophie Dorothee, ever since the birth of her Wilhelmina, has +had the notion of it; and, on her first visit afterwards to +Hanover, proposed it to "Princess Caroline,"--Queen Caroline of +England who was to be, and who in due course was;--an excellent +accomplished Brandenburg-Anspach Lady, familiar from of old in the +Prussian Court: "You, Caroline, Cousin dear, have a little Prince, +Fritz, or let us call him FRED, since he is to be English; little +Fred, who will one day, if all go right, be King of England. He is +two years older than my little Wilhelmina: why should not they +wed, and the two chief Protestant Houses, and Nations, thereby be +united?" Princess Caroline was very willing; so was Electress +Sophie, the Great-Grandmother of both the parties; so were the +Georges, Father and Grandfather of Fred: little Fred himself was +highly charmed, when told of it; even little Wilhelmina, with her +dolls, looked pleasantly demure on the occasion. So it remained +settled in fact, though not in form; and little Fred (a florid +milk-faced foolish kind of Boy, I guess) made presents to his +little Prussian Cousin, wrote bits of love-letters to her; and all +along afterwards fancied himself, and at length ardently enough +became, her little lover and intended,--always rather a little +fellow:--to which sentiments Wilhelmina signifies that she +responded with the due maidenly indifference, but not in an +offensive manner. + +After our Prussian Fritz's birth, the matter took a still closer +form: "You, dear Princess Caroline, you have now two little +Princesses again, either of whom might suit my little Fritzchen; +let us take Amelia, the second of them, who is nearest his age?" +"Agreed!" answered Princess Caroline again. "Agreed!" answered all +the parties interested: and so it was settled, that the Marriage +of Prussia to England should be a Double one, Fred of Hanover and +England to Wilhelmina, Fritz of Prussia to Amelia; and children +and parents lived thenceforth in the constant understanding that +such, in due course of years, was to be the case, though nothing +yet was formally concluded by treaty upon it. [Pollnitz, <italic> +Memoiren, <end italic> ii. 193.] + +Queen Sophie Dorothee of Prussia was always eager enough for +treaty, and conclusion to her scheme. True to it, she, as needle +to the pole in all weathers; sometimes in the wildest weather, +poor lady. Nor did the Hanover Serene Highnesses, at any time, +draw back or falter: but having very soon got wafted across to +England, into new more complex conditions, and wider anxieties in +that new country, they were not so impressively eager as Queen +Sophie, on this interesting point. Electress Sophie, judicious +Great-Grandmother, was not now there: Electress Sophie had died +about a month before Queen Anne; and never saw the English Canaan, +much as she had longed for it. George I., her son, a taciturn, +rather splenetic elderly Gentleman, very foreign in England, and +oftenest rather sulky there and elsewhere, was not in a humor to +be forward in that particular business. + +George I. had got into quarrel with his Prince of Wales, Fred's +Father,--him who is one day to be George II., always a rather +foolish little Prince, though his Wife Caroline was Wisdom's self +in a manner:--George I. had other much more urgent cares than that +of marrying his disobedient foolish little Prince of Wales's +offspring; and he always pleaded difficulties, Acts of Parliament +that would be needed, and the like, whenever Sophie Dorothee came +to visit him at Hanover, and urge this matter. The taciturn, +inarticulately thoughtful, rather sulky old Gentleman, he had +weighty burdens lying on him; felt fretted and galled, in many +ways; and had found life, Electoral and even Royal, a deceptive +sumptuosity, little better than a more or less extensive "feast of +SHELLS," next to no real meat or drink left in it to the hungry +heart of man. Wife sitting half-frantic in the Castle of Ahlden, +waxing more and more into a gray-haired Megaera (with whom Sophie +Dorothee under seven seals of secrecy corresponds a little, and +even the Prince of Wales is suspected of wishing to correspond); +a foolish disobedient Prince of Wales; Jacobite Pretender people +with their Mar Rebellions, with their Alberoni combinations; +an English Parliament jangling and debating unmelodiously, whose +very language is a mystery to us, nothing but Walpole in dog-latin +to help us through it: truly it is not a Heaven-on-Earth +altogether, much as Mother Sophie and her foolish favorite, our +disobedient Prince of Wales, might long for it! And the Hanover +Tail, the Robethons, Bernstorfs, Fabrices, even the Blackamoor +Porters,--they are not beautiful either, to a taciturn Majesty of +some sense, if he cared about their doings or them. Voracious, +plunderous, all of them; like hounds, long hungry, got into a rich +house which has no master, or a mere imaginary one. "MENTERIS +IMPUDENTISSIME," said Walpole in his dog-latin once, in our Royal +presence, to one of these official plunderous gentlemen, "You tell +an impudent lie!"--at which we only laughed. [Horace Walpole, +<italic> Reminiscences of George I. and George II. <end italic> +(London, 1786.)] + +His Britannic Majesty by no means wanted sense, had not his +situation been incurably absurd. In his young time he had served +creditably enough against the Turks; twice commanded the +REICHS-Army in the Marlborough Wars, and did at least testify his +indignation at the inefficient state of it. His Foreign Politics, +so called, were not madder than those of others. Bremen and Verden +he had bought a bargain; and it was natural to protect them by +such resources as he had, English or other. Then there was the +World-Spectre of the Pretender, stretching huge over Creation, +like the Brocken-Spectre in hazy weather;--against whom how +protect yourself, except by cannonading for the Kaiser at Messina; +by rushing into every brabble that rose, and hiring the parties +with money to fight it out well? It was the established method in +that matter; method not of George's inventing, nor did it cease +with George. As to Domestic Politics, except it were to keep +quiet, and eat what the gods had provided, one does not find that +he had any.--The sage Leibnitz would very fain have followed him +to England; but, for reasons indifferently good, could never be +allowed. If the truth must be told, the sage Leibnitz had a wisdom +which now looks dreadfully like that of a wiseacre! In Mathematics +even,--he did invent the Differential Calculus, but it is certain +also he never could believe in Newton's System of the Universe, +nor would read the PRINCIPIA at all. For the rest, he was in +quarrel about Newton with the Royal Society here; ill seen, it is +probable, by this sage and the other. To the Hanover Official +Gentlemen devouring their English dead-horse, it did not appear +that his presence could be useful in these parts. [Guhrauer, +<italic> Gottfried Freiherr von Leibnitz, eine Biographie <end +italic> (Breslau, 1842); Ker of Kersland, <italic> Memoirs of +Secret Transactions <end italic> (London, 1727). + +Nor are the Hanover womankind his Majesty has about him, +quasi-wives or not, of a soul-entrancing character; far indeed +from that. Two in chief there are, a fat and a lean: the lean, +called "Maypole" by the English populace, is "Duchess of Kendal," +with excellent pension, in the English Peeragy; Schulenburg the +former German name of her; decidedly a quasi-wife (influential, +against her will, in that sad Konigsmark Tragedy, at Hanover long +since), who is fallen thin and old. "Maypole,"--or bare Hop-pole, +with the leaves all stript; lean, long, hard;--though she once had +her summer verdures too; and still, as an old quasi-wife, or were +it only as an old article of furniture, has her worth to the royal +mind, Schulenburgs, kindred of hers, are high in the military +line; some of whom we may meet. + +Then besides this lean one, there is a fat; of whom Walpole +(Horace, who had seen her in boyhood) gives description. +Big staring black eyes, with rim of circular eyebrow, like a +coach-wheel round its nave, very black the eyebrows also; vast red +face; cheeks running into neck, neck blending indistinguishably +with stomach,--a mere cataract of fluid tallow, skinned over and +curiously dizened, according to Walpole's portraiture. +This charming creature, Kielmannsegge by German name, was called +"Countess of Darlington" in this country--with excellent pension, +as was natural. They all had pensions: even Queen Sophie Dorothee, +I have noticed in our State-Paper Office, has her small pension, +"800 pounds a year on the Irish Establishment:" Irish +Establishment will never miss such a pittance for our poor Child, +and it may be useful over yonder!--This Kielmannsegge, Countess of +Darlington was, and is, believed by the gossiping English to have +been a second simultaneous Mistress of his Majesty's; but seems, +after all, to have been his Half-Sister and nothing more. +Half-Sister (due to Gentleman Ernst and a Countess Platen of bad +Hanover fame); grown dreadfully fat; but not without shrewdness, +perhaps affection; and worth something in this dull foreign +country, mere cataract of animal oils as she has become. These Two +are the amount of his Britannic Majesty's resources in that +matter; resources surely not extensive, after all!-- + +His Britannic Majesty's day, in St. James's, is not of an +interesting sort to him; and every evening he comes precisely at a +certain hour to drink beer, seasoned with a little tobacco, and +the company of these two women. Drinks diligently in a sipping +way, says Horace; and smokes, with such dull speech as there may +be,--not till he is drunk, but only perceptibly drunkish; raised +into a kind of cloudy narcotic Olympus, and opaquely superior to +the ills of life; in which state he walks uncomplainingly to bed. +Government, when it can by any art be avoided, he rarely meddles +with; shows a rugged sagacity, where he does and must meddle: +consigns it to Walpole in dog-latin,--laughs at his "MENTIRIS." +This is the First George; first triumph of the Constitutional +Principle, which has since gone to such sublime heights among us, +--heights which we at last begin to suspect might be depths, +leading down, all men now ask: Whitherwards? A much-admired +invention in its time, that of letting go the rudder, or setting a +wooden figure expensively dressed to take charge of it, and +discerning that the ship would sail of itself so much more easily! +Which it will, if a peculiarly good seaboat, in certain kinds of +sea,--for a time. Till the Sinbad "Magnetic Mountains" begin to be +felt pulling, or the circles of Charybdis get you in their sweep; +and then what an invention it was!--This, we say, is the new +Sovereign Man, whom the English People, being in some perplexity +about the Pope aud other points, have called in from Hanover, to +walk before them in the ways of heroism, and by command and by +example guide Heavenwards their affairs and them. And they hope +that he will do it? Or perhaps that their affairs will go thither +of their own accord? Always a singular People!-- + +Poor George, careless of these ulterior issues, has always trouble +enough with the mere daily details, Parliamentary insolences, +Jacobite plottings, South-Sea Bubbles; and wishes to hunt, when he +gets over to Hanover, rather than to make Marriage-Treaties. +Besides, as Wilhelmina tells us, they have filled him with lies, +these Hanover Women and their emissaries: "Your Princess +Wilhelmina is a monster of ill-temper, crooked in the back and +what not," say they. If there is to be a Marriage, double or +single, these Improper Females must first be persuaded to consent. +[<italic> Memoires de Bareith. <end italic>] Difficulties enough. +And there is none to help; Friedrich Wilhelm cares little about +the matter, though he has given his Yes,--Yes, since you will. + +But Sophie Dorothee is diligent and urgent, by all opportunities; +--and, at length, in 1723, the conjuncture is propitious. +Domestic Jacobitism, in the shape of Bishop Atterbury, has got, +itself well banished; Alberoni and his big schemes, years ago they +are blown into outer darkness; Charles XII. is well dead, and of +our Bremen and Verden no question henceforth; even the Kaiser's +Spectre-Hunt, or Spanish Duel, is at rest for the present, and the +Congress of Cambrai is sitting, or trying all it can to sit: +at home or abroad, there is nothing, not even Wood's Irish +Halfpence, as yet making noise. And on the other hand, Czar Peter +is rumored (not without foundation) to be coming westward, with +some huge armament; which, whether "intended for Sweden" or not, +renders a Prussian alliance doubly valuable. + +And so now at last, in this favorable aspect of the stars, King +George, over at Herrenhausen, was by much management of his +Daughter Sophie's, and after many hitches, brought to the mark. +And Friedrich Wilhelm came over too; ostensibly to bring home his +Queen, but in reality to hear his Father-in-law's compliance to +the Double-Marriage,--for which his Prussian Majesty is willing +enough, if others are willing. Praised be Heaven, King George has +agreed to everything; consents, one propitious day (Autumn 1723, +day not otherwise dated),--Czar Peter's Armament, and the +questionable aspects in France, perhaps quickening his volitions a +little. Upon which Friedrich Wilhelm and Queen Sophie have +returned home, content in that matter; and expect shortly his +Britannic Majesty's counter-visit, to perfect the details, and +make a Treaty of it. + +His Britannic Majesty, we say, has in substance agreed to +everything. And now, in the silence of Nature, the brown leaves of +October still hanging to the trees in a picturesque manner, and +Wood's Halfpence not yet begun to jingle in the Drapier's Letters +of Dean Swift,--his Britannic Majesty is expected at Berlin. +At Berlin; properly at Charlottenburg a pleasant rural or suburban +Palace (built by his Britannic Majesty's late noble Sister, Sophie +Charlotte, "the Republican Queen," and named after her, as was +once mentioned), a mile or two Southwest of that City. There they +await King George's counter-visit. + +Poor Wilhelmina is in much trepidation about it; and imparts her +poor little feelings, her anticipations and experiences, in +readable terms:-- + +"There came, in those weeks, one of the Duke of Gloucester's +gentlemen to Berlin,"--DUKE OF GLOUCESTER is Fred our intended, +not yet Prince of Wales, and if the reader should ever hear of a +DUKE OF EDINBURGH, that too is Fred,--"Duke of Gloucester's +gentlemen to Berlin," says Wilhelmina: "the Queen had Soiree +(APPARTEMENT); he was presented to her as well as to me. He made +me a very obliging compliment on his Master's part; I blushed, and +answered only by a courtesy. The Queen, who had her eye on me, was +very angry I had answered the Duke's compliments in mere silence; +and rated me sharply (ME LAVA LA TETE D'IMPORTANCE) for it; and +ordered me, under pain of her indignation, to repair that fault +to-morrow. I retired, all in tears, to my room; exasperated +against the Queen and against the Duke; I swore I would never +marry him, would throw myself at the feet--" And so on, as young +ladies of vivacious temper, in extreme circumstances, are wont: +--did speak, however, next day, to my Hanover gentleman about his +Duke, a little, though in an embarrassed manner. Alas, I am yet +but fourteen, gone the 3d of July last: tremulous as aspen-leaves; +or say, as sheet-lightning bottled in one of the thinnest human +skins; and have no experience of foolish Dukes and affairs!-- + +"Meanwhile," continues Wilhelmina, "the King of England's time of +arrival was drawing nigh. We repaired, on the 6th of October, to +Charlottenburg to receive him. The heart of me kept beating, and I +was in cruel agitations. King George [my Grandfather, and Grand +Uncle] arrived on the 8th, about seven in the evening;"--dusky +shades already sinking over Nature everywhere, and all paths +growing dim. Abundant flunkies, of course, rush out with torches +or what is needful. "The King of Prussia, the Queen and all their +Suite received him in the Court of the Palace, the 'Apartments' +being on the ground-floor. So soon as he had saluted the King and +Queen, I was presented to him. He embraced me; and turning to the +Queen said to her, 'Your daughter is very big of her age!' He gave +the Queen his hand, and led her into her apartment, whither +everybody followed them. As soon as I came in, he took a light +from the table, and surveyed me from head to foot. I stood +motionless as a statue, and was much put out of countenance. +All this went on without his uttering the least word. Having thus +passed me in review, he addressed himself to my Brother, whom he +caressed much, and amused himself with, for a good while." +Pretty little Grandson this, your Majesty;--any future of history +in this one, think you? "I," says Wilhelmina, "took the +opportunity of slipping out;"--hopeful to get away; but could not, +the Queen having noticed. + +"The Queen made me a sign to follow her; and passed into a +neighboring apartment, where she had the English and Germans of +King George's Suite successively presented to her. After some talk +with these gentlemen, she withdrew; leaving me to entertain them, +and saying: 'Speak English to my Daughter; you will find she +speaks it very well.' I felt much less embarrassed, once the Queen +was gone; and picking up a little courage, I entered into +conversation with these English. As I spoke their language like my +mother-tongue, I got pretty well out of the affair, and everybody +seemed charmed with me. They made my eulogy to the Queen; told her +I had quite the English air, and was made to be their Sovereign +one day. It was saying a great deal on their part: for these +English think themselves so much above all other people, that they +imagine they are paying a high compliment when they tell any one +he has got English manners. + +"Their King [my Grandpapa] had got Spanish manners, I should say: +he was of an extreme gravity, and hardly spoke a word to anybody. +He saluted Madam Sonsfeld [my invaluable thrice-dear Governess] +very coldly; and asked her 'If I was always so serious, and if my +humor was of the melancholy turn?' 'Anything but that, Sire,' +answered the other: 'but the respect she has for your Majesty +prevents her from being as sprightly as she commonly is.' +He wagged his head, and answered nothing. The reception he had +given me, and this question, of which I heard, gave me such a +chill, that I never had the courage to speak to him,"--was merely +looked at with a candle by Grandpapa. + +"We were summoned to supper at last, where this grave Sovereign +still remained dumb. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was wrong; +but I think he followed the proverb, which says, Better hold your +tongue than speak badly. At the end of the repast he felt +indisposed. The Queen would have persuaded him to quit table; +they bandied compliments a good while on the point; but at last +she threw down her napkin, and rose. The King of England naturally +rose too; but began to stagger; the King of Prussia ran up to help +him, all the company ran bustling about him; but it was to no +purpose: he sank on his knees; his peruke falling on one side, +and his hat [or at least his head, Madam!] on the other. +They stretched him softly on the floor; where he remained a good +hour without consciousness. The pains they took with him brought +back his senses, by degrees, at last. The Queen and the King [of +Prussia] were in despair all this while. Many have thought this +attack was a herald of the stroke of apoplexy which came by and +by,"--within four years from this date, and carried off his +Majesty in a very gloomy manner. + +"They passionately entreated him to retire now," continues +Wilhelmina; "but he would not by any means. He led out the Queen, +and did the other ceremonies, according to rule; had a very bad +night, as we learned underhand;" but persisted stoically +nevertheless, being a crowned Majesty, and bound to it. +He stoically underwent four or three other days, of festival, +sight-seeing, "pleasure" so called;--among other sights, saw +little Fritz drilling his Cadets at Berlin;--and on the fourth +day (12th October, 1723, so thinks Wilhelmina) fairly "signed the +Treaty of the Double-Marriage," English Townshend and the Prussian +Ministry having settled all things. [Wilhelmina, <italic> Memoires +de Bareith, <end italic> i. 83, 87,--In Coxe (<italic> Memoirs of +Sir Robert Walpole, <end italic> London, 1798), ii. 266, 272, 273, +are some faint hints, from Townshend, of this Berlin journey.] + +"Signed the Treaty," thinks Wilhelmina, "all things being +settled." Which is an error on the part of Wilhelmina. +Settled many or all things were by Townshend and the others: +but before signing, there was Parliament to be apprised, there +were formalities, expenditure of time; between the cup and the +lip, such things to intervene;--and the sad fact is, the +Double-Marriage Treaty never was signed at all!--However, all +things being now settled ready for signing, his Britannic Majesty, +next morning, set off for the GOHRDE again, to try if there were +any hunting possible. + +This authentic glimpse, one of the few that are attainable, of +their first Constitutional King, let English readers make the most +of. The act done proved dreadfully momentous to our little Friend, +his Grandson; and will much concern us! + +Thus, at any rate, was the Treaty of the Double-Marriage settled, +to the point of signing,--thought to be as good as signed. It was +at the time when Czar Peter was making armaments to burn Sweden; +when Wood's Halfpence (on behalf of her Improper Grace of Kendal, +the lean Quasi-Wife, "Maypole" or Hop-pole, who had run short of +money, as she often did) were about beginning to jingle in +Ireland; [Coxe (i. 216, 217, and SUPPLY the dates); Walpole to +Townshend, 13th October, 1723 (ib. ii. 275): <italic> "The +Drapier's Letters" <end italic> are of 1724.] when Law's Bubble +"System" had fallen, well flaccid, into Chaos again; when Dubois +the unutterable Cardinal had at length died, and d'Orleans the +unutterable Regent was unexpectedly about to do so,--in a most +surprising Sodom-and-Gomorrah manner. [2d December, 1723: +Barbier, <italic> Journal Historique du Regne de Louis XV. <end +italic> (Paris, l847), i. 192, 196; Lacretelle, <italic> Histoire +de France, 18me siecle; <end italic> &c.] Not to mention other +dull and vile phenomena of putrid fermentation, which were +transpiring, or sluttishly bubbling up, in poor benighted rotten +Europe here or there;--since these are sufficient to date the +Transaction for us; and what does not stick to our Fritz and his +affairs it is more pleasant to us to forget than to remember, of +such an epoch. + +Hereby, for the present, is a great load rolled from Queen Sophie +Dorothee's heart. One, and, that the highest, of her abstruse +negotiations, cherished, labored in, these fourteen years, she has +brought to a victorious issue,--has she not? Her poor Mother, once +so radiant, now so dim and angry, shut in the Castle of Ahlden, +does not approve this Double-Marriage; not she for her part;--as +indeed evil to all Hanoverian interests is now chiefly her good, +poor Lady; and she is growing more and more of a Megaera every +day. With whom Sophie Dorothee has her own difficulties and +abstruse practices; but struggles always to maintain, under +seven-fold secrecy, some thread of correspondence and pious +filial ministration wherever possible; that the poor exasperated +Mother, wretchedest and angriest of women, be not quite cut off +from the kinship of the living, but that some soft breath of pity +may cool her burning heart now and then. [In <italic> Memoirs of +Sophia Dorothea <end italic> (London, 1845), ii. 385, 393, are +certain fractions of this Correspondence, "edited" in an amazing +manner.] A dark tragedy of Sophie's, this; the Bluebeard Chamber +of her mind, into which no eye but her own must ever look. + + +PRINCESS AMELIA COMES INTO THE WORLD. + +In reference to Queen Sophie, and chronologically if not otherwise +connected with this Double-Marriage Treaty, I will mention one +other thing. Her Majesty had been in fluctuating health, all +summer; unaccountable symptoms turning up in her Majesty's +constitution, languors, qualms, especially a tendency to swelling +or increase of size, which had puzzled and alarmed her Doctors and +her. Friedrich Wilhelm, on conclusion of the Marriage-Treaty, had +been appointed to join his Father-in-law, Britannic George, at the +Gohrde, in some three weeks' time, and have a bout of hunting. +On the 8th of November, bedtime being come, he kissed his +Wilhelmina and the rest, by way of good-by; intending to start +very early on the morrow:--long journey (150 miles or so), to be +done all in one day. In the dead of the night, Queen Sophie was +seized with dreadful colics,--pangs of colic or who knows what;-- +Friedrich Wilhelm is summoned; rises in the highest alarm; +none but the maids and he at hand to help; and the colic, or +whatever it may be, gets more and more dreadful. + +Colic? O poor Sophie, it is travail, and no colic; and a clever +young Princess is suddenly the result! None but Friedrich Wilhelm +and the maid for midwives; mother and infant, nevertheless, doing +perfectly well. Friedrich Wilhelm did not go on the morrow, but +next day; laughed, ever and anon in loud hahas, at the part he had +been playing; and was very glad and merry. How the experienced +Sophie, whose twelfth child this is, came to commit such an +oversight is unaccountable; but the fact is certain, and made a +merry noise in Court circles. [Pollnitz, ii. 199; Wilhelmina, +i. 87, 88.] + +The clever little Princess, now born in this manner, is known +by name to idle readers. She was christened AMELIA; and we shall +hear of her in time coming. But there was, as the Circulating +Libraries still intimate, a certain loud-spoken braggart of the +histrionic-heroic sort, called Baron Trenck, windy, rash, and not +without mendacity, who has endeavored to associate her with his +own transcendent and not undeserved ill-luck; hinting the poor +Princess into a sad fame in that way. For which, it would now +appear, there was no basis whatever! Most condemnable Trenck;-- +whom, however, Robespierre guillotined finally, and so settled +that account and others. + +Of Sophie Dorothee's twelve children, including this Amelia, there +are now eight living, two boys, six girls; and after Amelia, two +others, boys, are successively to come: ten in all, who grew to be +men and women. Of whom perhaps I had better subjoin a List; +now that the eldest Boy and Girl are about to get settled in life; +and therewith close this Chapter. + + +FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S TEN CHILDREN. + +Marriage to Sophie Dorothee, 28th November, 1706. + +A little Prince, born 23d November, 1707, died in six months. +Then came, + l. FREDERIKA SOPHIE WILHELMINA, ultimately Margravine of +Baireuth, after strange adventures in the marriage-treaty way. +Wrote her <italic> Memoires <end italic> there, about 1744. +Of whom we shall hear much. Left a Daughter, her one child; +Daughter badly married, to "Karl reigning Duke of Wurtemberg" +(Poet Schiller's famous Serene Highness there), from whom she had +to separate, &c., with anger enough, by and by. + +After Wilhelmina in the Family series came a second Prince, who +died in the eleventh month. Then, 24th January, 1712, + 2. FRIEDRICH. + +After whom (1713) a little Princess, who died in few months. +And then, + 3. FREDERIKA LOUISA, born 28th September, 1714; age now about +nine. Margravine of Anspach, 30th May, 1729; Widow 1757. +Her one Son, born 1736, was the LADY-CRAVEN'S Anspach. +Frederika Louisa died 4th February, 1734. + 4. PHILIPPINA CHARLOTTE, born 13th of March, 1716; became +Duchess of Brunswick (her Husband was Eldest Brother of the +"Prince Ferdinand" so famous in England in the Seven-Years War); +her Son was the Duke who invaded France in 1792, and was +tragically hurled to ruin in the Battle of Jena, 1806. The Mother +lived till 1801; Widow since 1780. + +After whom, in 1717, again a little Prince, who died within two +years (our Fritz then seven,--probably the first time Death ever +came before him, practically into his little thoughts in this +world): then, + 5. SOPHIE DOROTHEE MARIA, born 25th January, 1719; Margravine of +Schwedt, 1734 (eldest Magraf of Schwedt, mentioned above as a +comrade of the Crown-Prince). Her life not very happy; she died +1765. Left no son (Brother-in-law succeeded, last of the Schwedt +MARGRAVES): her Daughter, wedded to Prince Friedrich Eugen, a +Prussian Officer, Cadet of Wurtemberg and ultimately Heir there, +is Ancestress of the Wurtemberg Sovereignties that now are, and +also (by one of HER daughters married to Paul of Russia) of all +the Czar kindred of our time. [Preuss, iv. 278; Erman, <italic> +Vie de Sophie Charlotte, <end italic> p. 2722.] + 6. LOUISA ULRIQUE, born 24th July, 1720; married Adolf +Friedrich, Heir-Apparent, subsequemly King of Sweden, 17th July, +1744; Queen (he having acceded) 6th April, 1751; Widow 1771; +died, at Stockholm, 16th July, 1782. Mother of the subsequent +Kings; her Grandson the DEPOSED> [OErtel, p. 83; Hubner, +tt. 91, 227.] + 7. AUGUST WILHELM, born 9th August, 1722; Heir-Apparent after +Friedrich (so declared by Friedrich, 30th June, 1744); Father of +the Kings who have since followed. He himself died, in sad +circumstances, as we shall see, 12th June, 1758. + 8. ANNA AMELIA, born 9th November, 1723,--on the terms we +have seen. + 9. FRIEDRICH HEINRICH LUDWIG, born l8th January, 1726;--the +famed Prince Henri, of whom we shall hear. + 10. AUGUST FERDINAND, born 23d May, 1730: a brilliant enough +little soldier under his Brother, full of spirit and talent, but +liable to weak health;--was Father of the "Prince Louis +Ferdinand," a tragic Failure of something considerable, who went +off in Liberalism, wit, in high sentiment, expenditure and +debauchery, greatly to the admiration of some persons; and at +length rushed desperate upon the Frenoh, and found his quietus +(10th October, 1806), four days before the Battle of Jena. + + + +Chapter II. + +A KAISER HUNTING SHADOWS. + +Treaty of Double-Marriage is ready for signing, once the needful +Parliamentary preludings are gone through; Treaty is signed, +thinks Wilhelmina,--forgetting the distance between cup and lip!-- +As to signing, or even to burning, and giving up the thought of +signing, alas, how far are we yet from that! Imperial +spectre-huntings and the politics of most European Cabinets will +connect themselves with that; and send it wandering wide enough,-- +lost in such a jungle of intrigues, pettifoggings, treacheries, +diplomacies domestic and foreign, as the course of true-love never +got entangled in before. + +The whole of which extensive Cabinet operations, covering square +miles of paper at this moment,--having nevertheless, after ten +years of effort, ended in absolute zero,--were of no worth even to +the managers of them; and are of less than none to any mortal now +or henceforth. So that the method of treating them becomes a +problem to History. To pitch them utterly out of window, and out +of memory, never to be mentioned in human speech again: this is +the manifest prompting of Nature;--and this, were not our poor +Crown-Prince and one or two others involved in them, would be our +ready and thrice-joyful course. Surely the so-called "Politics of +Europe" in that day are a thing this Editor would otherwise with +his whole soul, forget to all eternity! "Putrid fermentation," +ending, after the endurance of much mal-odor, in mere zero to you +and to every one, even to the rotting bodies themselves:--is there +any wise Editor that would connect himself with that? These are +the fields of History which are to be, so soon as humanly +possible, SUPPRESSED; which only Mephistopheles, or the bad Genius +of Mankind, can contemplate with pleasure. + +Let us strive to touch lightly the chief summits, here and there, +of that intricate, most empty, mournful Business,--which was +really once a Fact in practical Europe, not the mere nightmare of +an Attorney's Dream;--and indicate, so far as indispensable, how +the young Friedrich, Friedrich's Sister, Father, Mother, were +tribulated, almost heart-broken and done to death, by means of it. + + +IMPERIAL MAJESTY ON THE TREATY OF UTRECHT. + +Kaiser Karl VI., head of the Holy Romish Empire at this time, was +a handsome man to look upon; whose life, full of expense, +vicissitude, futile labor and adventure, did not prove of much use +to the world. Describable as a laborious futility rather. He was +second son of that little Leopold, the solemn little Herr in red +stockings, who had such troubles, frights, and runnings to and fro +with the sieging Turks, liberative Sobieskis, acquisitive Louis +Fourteenths; and who at length ended in a sea of futile labor, +which they call the Spanish Succession War. + +This Karl, second son, had been appointed "King of Spain" in that +futile business; and with much sublimity, though internally in an +impoverished condition, he proceeded towards Spain, landing in +England to get cash for the outfit;--arrived in Spain; and roved +about there as Titular-King for some years, with the fighting +Peterboroughs, Galways, Stahrembergs; but did no good there, +neither he nor his Peterboroughs. At length, his Brother Joseph, +Father Leopold's successor, having died, [17th April, 1711.] Karl +came home from Spain to be Kaiser. At which point, Karl would have +been wise to give up his Titular Kingship in Spain; for he never +got, nor will get, anything but futile labor from hanging to it. +He did hang to it nevertheless; and still, at this date of +George's visit and long afterwards, hangs,--with notable +obstinacy. To the woe of men and nations: punishment doubtless of +his sins and theirs!-- + +Kaiser Karl shrieked mere amazement and indignation, when the +English tired of fighting for him and it. When the English said to +their great Marlborough: "Enough, you sorry Marlborough! You have +beaten Louis XIV. to the suppleness of wash-leather, at our +bidding; that is true, and that may have had its difficulties: +but, after all, we prefer to have the thing precisely as it would +have been without any fighting. You, therefore, what is the good +of you? You are a--person whom we fling out like sweepings, now +that our eyesight returns, and accuse of common stealing. +Go and be--!" + +Nothing ever had so disgusted and astonished Kaiser Karl as this +treatment,--not of Marlborough, whom he regarded only as he would +have done a pair of military boots or a holster-pistol of superior +excellence, for the uses that were in him,--but of the Kaiser Karl +his own sublime self, the heart and focus of Political Nature; +left in this manner, now when the sordid English and Dutch +declined spending blood and money for him farther. "Ungrateful, +sordid, inconceivable souls," answered Karl, "was there ever, +since the early Christian times, such a martyr as you have now +made of me!" So answered Karl, in diplomatic groans and shrieks, +to all ends of Europe. But the sulky English and Allies, +thoroughly tired of paying and bleeding, did not heed him; +made their Peace of Utrecht [Peace of Utrecht, 11th April, 1713; +Peace of Rastadt (following upon the Preliminaries of Baden), +6th March, 1714.] with Louis XIV., who was now beaten supple; +and Karl, after a year of indignant protests and futile attempts +to fight Louis on his own score, was obliged to do the like. +He has lost the Spanish crown; but still holds by the shadow of +it; will not quit that, if he can help it. He hunts much, digests +well; is a sublime Kaiser, though internally rather poor, carrying +his head high; and seems to himself, on some sides of his life, a +martyred much-enduring man. + + +IMPERIAL MAJESTY HAS GOT HAPPILY WEDDED. + +Kaiser Karl, soon after the time of going to Spain had decided +that a Wife would be necessary. He applied to Caroline of Anspach, +now English Princess of Wales, but at that time an orphaned +Brandenburg-Anspach Princess, very Beautiful, graceful, gifted, +and altogether unprovided for; living at Berlin under the +guardianship of Friedrich the first King. Her young Mother had +married again,--high enough match (to Kur-Sachsen, elder Brother +of August the Strong, August at that time without prospects of the +Electorate);--but it lasted short while: Caroline's Mother and +Saxon Stepfather were both now, long since, dead. So she lived at +Berlin brilliant though unportioned;--with the rough cub Friedrich +Wilhelm much following her about, and passionately loyal to her, +as the Beast was to Beauty; whom she did not mind except as a cub +loyal to her; being five years older than he. [Forster, i. 107.] +Indigent bright Caroline, a young lady of fine aquiline features +and spirit, was applied for to be Queen of Spain; wooer a handsome +man, who might even be Kaiser by and by. Indigent bright Caroline +at once answered, No. She was never very orthodox in Protestant +theology; but could not think of taking up Papistry for +lucre's and ambition's sake: be that always remembered on +Caroline's behalf. + +The Spanish Majesty next applied at Brunswick Wolfenbuttel; +no lack of Princesses there: Princesa Elizabeth, for instance; +Protestant she too, but perhaps not so squeamish? Old Anton +Ulrich, whom some readers know for the idle Books, long-winded +Novels chiefly, which he wrote, was the Grandfather of this +favored Princess; a good-natured old gentleman, of the idle +ornamental species, in whose head most things, it is likely, were +reduced to vocables, scribble and sentimentality; and only a +steady internal gravitation towards praise and pudding was +traceable as very real in him. Anton Ulrich, affronted more or +less by the immense advancement of Gentleman Ernst and the +Hanoverian or YOUNGER Brunswick Line, was extremely glad of the +Imperial offer; and persuaded his timid Grand-daughter, ambitious +too, but rather conscience-stricken, That the change from +Protestant to Catholic, the essentials being so perfectly +identical in both, was a mere trifle; that he himself, old as he +was, would readily change along with her, so easy was it. +Whereupon the young Lady made the big leap; abjured her religion; +[1st May, 1707, at Bamberg.]--went to Spain as Queen (with sad +injury to her complexion, but otherwise successfully more or +less);--and sits now as Empress beside her Karl VI. in a grand +enough, probably rather dull, but not singularly unhappy manner. + +She, a Brunswick Princess, with Nephews and Nieces who may concern +us, is Kaiserinn to Kaiser Karl: for aught I know of her, a kindly +simple Wife, and unexceptionable Sovereign Majesty, of the sort +wanted; whom let us remember, if we meet her again one day. I add +only of this poor Lady, distinguished to me by a Daughter she had, +that her mind still had some misgivings about the big leap she had +made in the Protestant-Papist way. Finding Anton Ulrich still +continue Protestant, she wrote to him out of Spain:--"Why, O +honored Grandpapa, have you not done as you promised? Ah, there +must be a taint of mortal sin in it, after all!" Upon which the +absurdly situated old Gentleman did change his religion; and is +marked as a Convert in all manner of Genealogies and Histories;-- +truly an old literary gentleman ducal and serene, restored to the +bosom of the Church in a somewhat peculiarly ridiculous manner. +{Michaelis, i. 131.]--But to return. + + +IMPERIAL MAJESTY AND THE TERMAGANT OF SPAIN. + +Ever after the Peace of Utrecht, when England and Holland declined +to bleed for him farther, especially ever since his own Peace of +Rastadt made with Louis the year after Kaiser Karl had utterly +lost hold of the Crown of Spain; and had not the least chance to +clutch that bright substance again. But he held by the shadow of +it, with a deadly Hapsburg tenacity; refused for twenty years, +under all pressures, to part with the shadow: "The Spanish +Hapsburg Branch is dead; whereupon do not I, of the Austrian +Branch, sole representative of Kaiser Karl the Fifth, claim, by +the law of Heaven, whatever he possessed in Spain, by law of +ditto? Battles of Blenheim of Malplaquet, Court-intrigues of Mrs. +Masham and the Duchess: these may bring Treaties of Utrecht, and +what you are pleased to call laws of Earth;--but a Hapsburg Kaiser +knows higher laws, if you would do a thousand Utrechts; and by +these, Spain is his!" + +Poor Kaiser Karl: he had a high thought in him really though a +most misguided one. Titular King of Men; but much bewildered into +mere indolent fatuity, inane solemnity, high sniffing pride +grounded on nothing at all; a Kaiser much sunk in the sediments of +his muddy Epoch. Sure enough, he was a proud lofty solemn Kaiser, +infinitely the gentleman in air and humor; Spanish gravities, +ceremonials, reticences;--and could, in a better scene, have +distinguished himself by better than mere statuesque immovability +of posture, dignified endurance of ennui, and Hapsburg tenacity in +holding the grip. It was not till 1735, after tusslings and +wrenchings beyond calculation, that he would consent to quit +the Shadow of the Crown of Spain; and let Europe BE at peace +on that score. + +The essence of what is called the European History of this Period, +such History as a Period sunk dead in spirit, and alive only in +stomach, can have, turns all on Kaiser Karl, and these his +clutchings at shadows. Which makes a very sad, surprising History +indeed; more worthy to be called Phenomena of Putrid Fermentation, +than Struggles of Human Heroism to vindicate itself in this +Planet, which latter alone are worthy of recording as "History" +by mankind. + +On the throne of Spain, beside Philip V. the melancholic new +Bourbon, Louis XIV.'s Grandson, sat Elizabeth Farnese, a termagant +tenacious woman, whose ambitious cupidities were not inferior in +obstinacy to Kaiser Karl's, and proved not quite so shadowy as +his. Elizabeth also wanted several things: renunciation of your +(Kaiser Karl's) shadowy claims; nay of sundry real usurpations you +and your Treaties have made on the actual possessions of Spain,-- +Kingdom of Sicily, for instance; Netherlands, for instance; +Gibraltar, for instance. But there is one thing which, we observe, +is indispensable throughout to Elizabeth Farnese: the future +settlement of her dear Boy Carlos. Carlos, whom as Spanish +Philip's second Wife she had given to Spain and the world, as +Second or supplementary INFANT there,--a troublesome gift to Spain +and others. + +"This dear Boy, surely he must have his Italian Apanages, which, +you have provided for him: Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which +will fall heirless soon. Security for these Italian Apanages, such +as will satisfy a Mother: Let us introduce Spanish garrisons into +Parma and Piacenza at once! How else can we be certain of getting +those indispensable Apanages, when they fall vacant?" On this +point Elizabeth Farnese was positive, maternally vehement; +would take no subterfuge, denial or delay: "Let me perceive that +I shall have these Duchies: that, first of all; or else not that +only, but numerous other things will be demanded of you!" + +Upon which point the Kaiser too, who loved his Duchies, and hoped +yet to keep them by some turn of the game, never could decide to +comply. Whereupon Elizabeth grew more and more termagant; listened +to wild counsels; took up an Alberoni, a Ripperda, any wandering +diplomatic bull-dog that offered; and let them loose upon the +Kaiser and her other gainsayers. To the terror of mankind, lest +universal war should supervene. She held the Kaiser well at bay, +mankind well in panic; and continually there came on all Europe, +for about twenty years, a terror that war was just about to break +out, and the whole world to take fire. The History so called of +Europe went canting from side to side; heeling at a huge rate, +according to the passes and lunges these two giant figures, +Imperial Majesty and the Termagant of Spain, made at one another, +--for a twenty years or more, till once the duel was decided +between them. + +There came next to no war, after all; sputterings of war twice +over,--1718, Byng at Messina, as we saw; and then, in 1727, a +second sputter, as we are to see:--but the neighbors always ran +with buckets, and got it quenched. No war to speak of; but such +negotiating, diplomatizing, universal hope, universal fear, and +infinite ado about nothing, as were seldom heard of before. +For except Friedrich Wilhelm drilling his 50,000 soldiers (80,000 +gradually, and gradually even twice that number), I see no Crowned +Head in Europe that is not, with immeasurable apparatus, simply +doing ZERO. Alas, in an age of universal infidelity to Heaven, +where the Heavenly Sun has SUNK, there occur strange +Spectre-huntings. Which is a fact worth laying to heart.--Duel of +Twenty Years with Elizabeth Farnese, about the eventualities of +Parma and Piacensa, and the Shadow of the lost Crown of Spain; +this was the first grand Spectrality of Kaiser Karl's existence; +but this was not the whole of them. + + +IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S PRAGMATIC SANCTION. + +Kaiser Karl meanwhile was rather short of heirs; which formed +another of his real troubles, and involved him in much +shadow-hunting. His Wife, the Serene Brunswick Empress whom we +spoke of above, did at length bring him children, brought him a +boy even; but the boy died within the year; and, on the whole, +there remained nothing but two Daughters; Maria Theresa the elder +of them, born 1717,--the prettiest little maiden in the world;-- +no son to inherit Kaiser Karl. Under which circumstances Kaiser +Karl produced now, in the Year 1724, a Document which he had +executed privately as long ago as 1713, only his Privy Councillors +and other Official witnesses knowing of it then; [19th April, 1713 +(Stenzel, iii. 5222).] and solemnly publishes it to the world, as +a thing all men are to take notice of. All men had notice enough +of this Imperial bit of Sheepskin, before they got done with it, +five-and-twenty years hence. [Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748.] +A very famous Pragmatic Sanction; now published for the +world's comfort! + +By which Document, Kaiser Karl had formally settled, and fixed +according to the power he has, in the shape of what they call a +Pragmatic Sanction, or unalterable Ordinance in his Imperial +House, "That, failing Heirs-male, his Daughters, his Eldest +Daughter, should succeed him; failing Daughters, his Nieces; +and in short, that Heirs-female ranking from their kinship to +Kaiser Karl, and not to any prior Kaiser, should be as good as +Heirs-male of Karl's body would have been." A Pragmatic Sanction +is the high name he gives this document, or the Act it represents; +"Pragmatic Sanction" being, in the Imperial Chancery and some +others, the received title for Ordinances of a very irrevocable +nature, which a sovereign makes, in affairs that belong wholly to +himself, or what he reckons his own rights. [A rare kind of Deed, +it would seem; and all the more solemn. In 1438, Charles VI. of +France, conceding the Gallican Church its Liberties, does, it by +"SANCTION PRAGMATIQUE;" Carlos III. of Spain (in 1759, "settling +the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on his third son") does the like, +--which is the last instance of "PRAGMATIC SANCTION" in +this world.] + +This Pragmatic Sanction of Kaiser Karl's, executed 19th April, +1713, was promulgated, "gradually," now here now there, from 1720 +to 1724, {Stenzel, pp. 522, 523.]--in which later year it became +universally public; and was transmitted to all Courts and +Sovereignties, as an unalterable law of Things Imperial. +Thereby the good man hopes his beautiful little Theresa, now seven +years old, may succeed him, all as a son would have done, in the +Austrian States and Dignities; and incalculable damages, wars, and +chances of war, be prevented, for his House and for all the world. + +The world, incredulous of to-morrow, in its lazy way, was not +sufficiently attentive to this new law of things. Some who were +personally interested, as the Saxon Sovereignty, and the Bavarian, +denied that it was just: reminded Kaiser-Karl that he was not the +Noah or Adam of Kaisers; and that the case of Heirs-female was not +quite a new idea on sheepskin. No; there are older Pragmatic +Sanctions and settlements, by prior Kaisers of blessed memory; +under which, if Daughters are to come in, we, descended from +Imperial Daughters of older standing, shall have a word to say!-- +To this Kaiser Karl answers steadily, with endless argument, That +every Kaiser is a Patriarch, and First Man, in such matters; +and that so it has been pragmatically sanctioned by him, and that +so it shall and must irrevocably be. To the other Powers, and +indolent impartial Sovereigns of the world, he was lavish in +embassies; in ardent representations; and spared no pains in +convincing them that to-morrow would surely come, and that then it +would be a blessedness to have accepted this Pragmatic Sanction, +and see it lying for you as a Law of Nature to go by, and avoid +incalculable controversies. + +This was another vast Shadow, or confused high-piled continent of +shadows, to which our poor Kaiser held with his customary +tenacity. To procure adherences and assurances to this dear +Pragmatic Sanction, was, even more than the shadow of the Spanish +Crown, and above all after he had quitted that, the one grand +business of his Life henceforth. With which he kept all Europe in +perpetual travail and diplomacy; raying out ambassadors, and less +ostensible agents, with bribes, and with entreaties and proposals, +into every high Sovereign Court and every low; negotiating +unweariedly by all methods, with all men. For it was his +evening-song and his morning-prayer; the grand meaning of Life to +him, till Life ended. You would have said, the first question he +asks of every creature is, "Will you covenant for my Pragmatic +Sanction with me? Oh, agree to it; accept that new Law of +Nature: when the morrow comes, it will be salutary for you!" + +Most of the Foreign Potentates idly accepted the thing,--as things +of a distant contingent kind are accepted;--made Treaty on it, +since the Kaiser seemed so extremely anxious. Only Bavaria, having +heritable claims, never would. Saxony too (August the Strong), +being in the like case, or a better, flatly refused for a long +time; would not, at all,--except for a consideration. +Bright little Prince Eugene, who dictated square miles of Letters +and DIplomacies on the subject (Letters of a steady depth of +dulness, which at last grows almost sublime), was wont to tell his +Majesty: "Treatying, your Majesty? A well-trained Army and a full +Treasury; that is the only Treaty that will make this Pragmatic +Sanction valid!" But his Majesty never would believe. So the +bright old Eugene dictated,--or, we hope and guess, he only gave +his clerks some key-word, and signed his name (in three languages, +"Eugenio von Savoye") to these square miles of dull epistolary +matter,--probably taking Spanish snuff when he had done. For he +wears it in both waistcoat-pockets;--has (as his Portraits still +tell us) given up breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, +with a flash in him as of Heaven's own lightning; but now growing +very old and snuffy. + +Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the Spanish Crown,--it was +such shadow-huntings of the Kaiser in Vienna, it was this of the +Pragmatic Sanction most of all, that thwarted our Prussian +Double-Marriage, which lay so far away from it. This it was that +pretty nearly broke the hearts of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and their +Mother and Father. For there never was such negotiating; not for +admittance to the Kingdom of Heaven, in the pious times. And the +open goings-forth of it, still more the secret minings and +mole-courses of it, were into all places. Above ground and below, +no Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him agree +or not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and with all his heart, +agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction; this above ground, in sight of +the sun; and rashly fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his +horror, he found the Imperial moles, by way of keeping assurance +doubly sure, had been under the foundations of his very house for +long years past, and had all but brought it down about him in the +most hideous manner!-- + + +THIRD SHADOW: IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OSTEND COMPANY. + +Another object which Kaiser Karl pursued with some diligence in +these times, and which likewise proved a shadow, much disturbance +as it gave mankind, was his "Ostend East-India Company." +The Kaiser had seen impoverished Spain, rich England, rich +Holland; he had taken up a creditable notion about commerce and +its advantages. He said to himself, Why should not my Netherlands +trade to the East, as well as these English and Dutch, and grow +opulent like them? He instituted (OCTROYA) an "Ostend East-India +Company," under due Patents and Imperial Sheepskins, of date 17th +December, 1722, [Buchholz, i. 88; Pfeffel, <italic> Abrege +Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne <end italic> (Park, 1776), +ii. 522.] gave it what freedom he could to trade to the East. +"Impossible!" answered the Dutch, with distraction in their +aspect; "Impossible, we say; contrary to Treaty of Westphalia, to +Utrecht, to Barrier Treaty; and destructive to the best interests +of mankind, especially to us and our trade-profits! We shall have +to capture your ships, if you ever send any." + +To which the Kaiser counterpleaded, earnestly, diligently, for the +space of seven years,--to no effect. "We will capture your ships +if you ever send any," answered the Dutch and English. What ships +ever could have been sent from Ostend to the East, or what ill +they could have done there, remains a mystery, owing to the +monopolizing Maritime Powers. + +The Kaiser's laudable zeal for commerce had to expend itself in +his Adriatic Territories,--giving privileges to the Ports of +Trieste and Fiume; [Hormayr, <italic> OEsterreichischer Plutarch, +<end italic> x. 101.] making roads through the Dalmatian +Hill-Countries, which are useful to this day;--but could not +operate on the Netherlands in the way proposed. The Kaiser's +Imperial Ostend East-India Company, which convulsed the Diplomatic +mind for seven years to come, and made Europe lurch from side to +side in a terrific manner, proved a mere paper Company; never sent +any ships, only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honor to be." +This was the third grand Shadow which the Kaiser chased, shaking +all the world, poor crank world, as he strode after it; and this +also ended in zero, and several tons of diplomatic correspondence, +carried once by breathless estaffettes, and now silent, +gravitating towards Acheron all of them, and interesting to the +spiders only. + +Poor good Kaiser: they say he was a humane stately gentleman, +stately though shortish; fond of pardoning criminals where he +could; very polite to Muratori and the Antiquaries, even to +English Rymer, in opening his Archives to them,--and made roads in +the Dalmatian Hill-Country, which remain to this day. I do not +wonder he grew more and more saturnine, and addicted to solid +taciturn field-sports. His Political "Perforce-Hunt (PARFORCE +JAGD)," with so many two-footed terriers, and legationary beagles, +distressing all the world by their baying and their burrowing, had +proved to be of Shadows; and melted into thin air, to a very +singular degree! + + + +Chapter III. + +THE SEVEN CRISES OR EUROPEAN TRAVAIL-THROES. + +In process of this so terrific Duel with Elizabeth Farnese, and +general combat of the Shadows, which then made Europe quake, at +every new lunge and pass of it, and which now makes Europe yawn to +hear the least mention of it, there came two sputterings of actual +War. Byng's sea-victory at Messina, 1718; Spanish "Siege of +Gibraltar," 1727, are the main phenomena of these two Wars,-- +England, as its wont is, taking a shot in both, though it has now +forgotten both. And, on the whole, there came, so far as I can +count, Seven grand diplomatic Spasms or Crises,--desperate general +European Treatyings hither and then thither, solemn Congresses two +of them, with endless supplementary adhesions by the minor powers. +Seven grand mother-treaties, not to mention the daughters, or +supplementary adhesions they had; all Europe rising spasmodically +seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this terrible +incubus; all Europe changing color seven times, like a lobster +boiling, for twenty years. Seven diplomatic Crises, we say, marked +changings of color in the long-suffering lobster; and two +so-called Wars,--before this enormous zero could be settled. +Which high Treaties and Transactions, human nature, after much +study of them, grudges to enumerate. Apanage for Baby Carlos, +ghost of a Pragmatic Sanction; these were a pair of causes for +mankind! Be no word spoken of them, except with regret and on +evident compulsion. + +For the reader's convenience we must note the salient points; +but grudge to do it. Salient points, now mostly wrapt in Orcus, +and terrestrially interesting only to the spiders,--except on an +occasion of this kind, when part of them happens to stick to the +history of a memorable man, To us they are mere bubblings-up of +the general putrid fermentation of the then Political World; +and are too unlovely to be dwelt on longer than indispensable. +Triple Alliance, Quadruple Alliance, Congress of Cambrai, Congress +of Soissons; Conference of Pardo, Treaty of Hanover, Treaty of +Wusterhausen, what are they? Echo answers, What? Ripperda and the +Queen of Spain, Kaiser Karl and his Pragmatic Sanction, are fallen +dim to every mind. The Troubles of Thorn (sad enough +Papist-Protestant tragedy in their time),--who now cares to know +of them? It is much if we find a hearing for the poor Salzburg +Emigrants when they get into Preussen itself. Afflicted human +nature ought to be, at last, delivered from the palpably +superfluous; and if a few things memorable are to be remembered, +millions of things unmemorable must first be honestly buried and +forgotten! But to our affair,--that of marking the chief +bubblings-up in the above-said Universal Putrid Fermentation, so +far as they concern us. + +CONGRESS OF CAMBRAI. + +We already saw Byng sea fighting in the Straits of Messina; +that was part of Crisis Second,--sequel, in powder-and-ball, of +Crisis First, which had been in paper till then. The Powers had +interfered, by Triple, by Quadruple Alliance, to quench the +Spanish-Austrian Duel (about Apanage for Baby Carlos, and a +quantity of other Shadows): "Triple Alliance" [4th January, 1717.] +was, we may say, when France, England, Holland laboriously sorted +out terms of agreement between Kaiser and Termagant: "Quadruple" +[18th July, 1718.] was when Kaiser, after much coaxing, acceded, +as fourth party; and said gloomily, "Yes, then." Byng's Sea-fight +was when Termagant said, "No, by--the Plots of Alberoni! +Never will I, for my part, accede to such terms!" and attacked the +poor Kaiser in his Sicilies and elsewhere. Byng's Sea-fight, in +aid of a suffering Kaiser and his Sicilies, in consequence. +Furthermore, the French invaded Spain, till Messina were retaken; +nay the English, by land too, made a dash at Spain, "Descent on +Vigo" as they call it,--in reference to which take the following +stray Note:-- + +"That same year [1719, year after Byng's Sea-fight, Messina just +about recaptured], there took effect, planned by the vigorous +Colonel Stanhope, our Minister at Madrid, who took personal share +in the thing, a 'Descent on Vigo,' sudden swoop-down upon Town and +shipping in those Gallician, north-west regions. Which was +perfectly successful,--Lord Cobham leading;--and made much noise +among mankind. Filled all Gazettes at that time;--but now, again, +is all fallen silent for us,--except this one thrice-insignificant +point, That there was in it, 'in Handyside's Regiment,' a +Lieutenant of Foot, by name STERNE, who had left, with his poor +Wife at Plymouth, a very remarkable Boy called Lorry, or LAWRENCE; +known since that to all mankind. When Lorry in his LIFE writes, +'my Father went on the Vigo expedition,' readers may understand +this was it. Strange enough: that poor Lieutenant of Foot is now +pretty much all that is left of this sublime enterprise upon Vigo, +in the memory of mankind;--hanging there, as if by a single hair, +till poor TRISTRAM SHANDY be forgotten too." [<italic> Memoirs of +Laurence Sterne, written by himself for his Daughter (see Annual +Register, <end italic> Year 1775, pp. 50-52).] + +In short, the French and even the English invaded Spain; +English Byng and others sank Spanish ships: Termagant was obliged +to pack away her Alberoni, and give in. She had to accede to +"Quadruple Alliance," after all; making it, so to speak, a +Quintuple one; making Peace, in fact, [17th February, 1720.]-- +general Congress to be held at Cambrai and settle the details. + +Congress of Cambrai met accordingly; in 1722,--"in the course of +the year," Delegates slowly raining in,--date not fixable to a day +or month. Congress was "sat," as we said,--or, alas, was only +still endeavoring to get seated, and wandering about among the +chairs,--when George I. came to Charlottenburg that evening, +October, 1723, and surveyed Wilhelmina with a candle. More inane +Congress never met in this world, nor will meet. Settlement proved +so difficult; all the more, as neither of the quarrelling parties +wished it. Kaiser and Termagant, fallen as if exhausted, had not +the least disposition to agree; lay diplomatically gnashing their +teeth at one another, ready to fight again should strength return. +Difficult for third parties to settle on behalf of such a pair. +Nay at length the Kaiser's Ostend Company came to light: what will +third parties, Dutch and English especially, make of that? + +This poor Congress---let the reader fancy it--spent two years in +"arguments about precedencies," in mere beatings of the air; +could not get seated at all, but wandered among the chairs, till +"February, 1724." Nor did it manage to accomplish any work +whatever, even then; the most inane of Human Congresses; +and memorable on that account, if on no other. There, in old +stagnant Cambrai, through the third year and into the fourth, were +Delegates, Spanish, Austrian, English, Dutch, French, of solemn +outfit, with a big tail to each,--"Lord Whitworth" whom I do not +know, "Lord Polwarth" (Earl of Marchmont that will be, a friend of +Pope's), were the English Principals: [Scholl, ii. 197.]--there, +for about four years, were these poor fellow-creatures busied, +baling out water with sieves. Seen through the Horn-Gate of +Dreams, the figure of them rises almost grand on the mind. + +A certain bright young Frenchman, Francois Arouet,--spoiled for a +solid law-career, but whose OEDIPE we saw triumphing in the +Theatres, and who will, under the new name of VOLTAIRE, become +very memorable to us,--happened to be running towards Holland that +way, one of his many journeys thitherward; and actually saw this +Congress, then in the first year of its existence. Saw it, +probably dined with it. A Letter of his still extant, not yet +fallen to the spiders, as so much else has done, testifies to this +fact. Let us read part of it, the less despicable part,--as a +Piece supremely insignificant, yet now in a manner the one +surviving Document of this extraordinary Congress; Congress's own +works and history having all otherwise fallen to the spiders +forever. The Letter is addressed to Cardinal Dubois;--for Dubois, +"with the face like a goat," [Herzogin von Orleans, BRIEFE.] yet +lived (first year of this Congress); and Regent d'Orleans lived, +intensely interested here as third party:--and a goat-faced +Cardinal, once pimp and lackey, ugliest of created souls, +Archbishop of this same Cambrai "by Divine permission" and +favor of Beelzebub, was capable of promoting a young fellow if +he chose:-- + +"TO HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL DUBOIS (from Arouet Junior). + +"CAMBRAI, July, 1722. + +". . . We are just arrived in your City, Monseigneur; where, I +think, all the Ambassadors and all the Cooks in Europe have given +one another rendezvous. It seems as if all the Ministers of +Germany had assembled here for the purpose of getting their +Emperor's health drunk. As to Messieurs the Ambassadors of Spain, +one of them hears two masses a day, and the other manages the +troop of players. The English Ministers [a LORD POLWARTH and a +LORD WHITWORTH] send many couriers to Champagne, and few to +London. For the rest, nobody expects your Eminence here; it is not +thought you will quit the Palais-Royal to visit the sheep of your +flock in these parts [no!], it would be too bad for your Eminence +and for us all. . . . Think sometimes, Monseigneur, of a man who +[regards your goat-faced Eminence as a beautiful ingenious +creature; and such a hand in conversation as never was). +The one thing I will ask [of your goat-faced Eminence] at Paris +will be, to have the goodness to talk to me." [<italic> OEuvres +de Voltaire, <end italic> 97 vols. (Paris, l825-1834), +lxviii. 95, 96.] + +Alas, alas!--The more despicable portions of this Letter we omit, +as they are not history of the Congress, but of Arouet Junior on +the shady side. So much will testify that this Congress did exist; +that its wiggeries and it were not always, what they now are, part +of a nightmare-vision in Human History.-- + +Elizabeth Farnese, seeing at what rate the Congress of Cambrai +sped, lost all patience with it; and getting more and more +exasperations there, at length employed one Ripperda, a surprising +Dutch Black-Artist whom she now had for Minister, to pull the +floor from beneath it (so to speak), and send it home in that +manner. Which Ripperda did. An appropriate enough catastrophe, +comfortable to the reader; upon which perhaps he will not grudge +to read still another word? + + + CONGRESS OF CAMBRAI GETS THE FLOOR PULLED FROM UNDER IT. + +Termagant Elizabeth had now one Ripperda for Minister; +a surprising Dutch adventurer, once secretary of some Dutch +embassy at Madrid; who, discerning how the land lay, had broken +loose from that subaltern career, had changed his religion, +insinuated himself into Elizabeth's royal favor; and was now "Duke +de Ripperda," and a diplomatic bull-dog of the first quality, full +of mighty schemes and hopes; in brief, a new Alberoni to the +Termagant Queen. This Ripperda had persuaded her (the third year +of our inane Congress now running out, to no purpose), That he, if +he were sent direct to Vienna, could reconcile the Kaiser to her +Majesty, and bring them to Treaty, independently of Congresses. +He was sent accordingly, in all privacy; had reported himself as +laboring there, with the best outlooks, for some while past; +when, still early in 1725, there occurred on the part of France,-- +where Regent d'Orleans was now dead, and new politics bad come in +vogue,--that "sending back," of the poor little Spanish: +Infanta, ["5th April, 1725, quitted Paris" (Barbier, <italic> +Journal du Regne de Louis XV., <end italic> i. 218).] and marrying +of young Louis XV. elsewhere, which drove Elizabeth and the Court +of Spain, not unnaturally, into a very delirium of indignation. + +Why they sent the poor little Lady home on those shocking terms? +It seems there was no particular reason, except that French Louis +was now about fifteen, and little Spanish Theresa was only eight; +and that, under Duc de Bourbon, the new Premier, and none of the +wisest, there was, express or implicit, "an ardent wish to see +royal progeny secured." For which, of course, a wife of eight +years would not answer. So she was returned; and even in a +blundering way, it is said,--the French Ambassador at Madrid +having prefaced his communication, not with light adroit +preludings of speech, but with a tempest of tears and howling +lamentations, as if that were the way to conciliate King Philip +and his Termagant Elizabeth. Transport of indignation was the +natural consequence on their part; order to every Frenchman to be +across the border within, say eight-and-forty hours; rejection +forever of all French mediation at Cambrai or elsewhere; +question to the English, "Will you mediate for us, then?" To which +the answer being merely "Hm!" with looks of delay,--order by +express to Ripperda, to make straightway a bargain with the +Kaiser; almost any bargain, so it were made at once. Ripperda made +a bargain: Treaty of Vienna, 30th April, 1725: [Scholl, ii. 201; +Coxe, <italic> Walpole, <end italic> i. 239-250.] "Titles and +Shadows each of us shall keep for his own lifetime, then they +shall drop. As to realities again, to Parma and Piacenza among the +rest, let these be as in the Treaty of Utrecht; arrangeable in the +lump;--and indeed, of Parma and Piacenza perhaps the less we say, +the better at present." This was, in substance, Ripperda's Treaty; +the Third great European travail-throe, or change of color in the +long-suffering lobster. Whereby, of course, the Congress of +Cambrai did straightway disappear, the floor miraculously +vanishing under it; and sinks--far below human eye-reach by this +time--towards the Bottomless Pool, ever since. Such was the +beginning, such the end of that Congress, which Arouet LE JEUNE, +in 1722, saw as a contemporary Fact, drinking champagne in +Ramillies wigs, and arranging comedies for itself. + + +FRANCE AND THE BRITANNIC MAJESTY TRIM THE SHIP AGAIN: +HOW FRIEDRICH WILHELM CAME INTO IT. TREATY OF HANOVER, 1725. + +The publication of this Treaty of Vienna (30th April, 1725),-- +miraculous disappearance of the Congress of Cambrai by withdrawal +of the floor from under it, and close union of the Courts of Spain +and Vienna as the outcome of its slow labors,--filled Europe, and +chiefly the late mediating Powers, with amazement, anger, terror. +Made Europe lurch suddenly to the other side, as we phrased it,-- +other gunwale now under water. Wherefore, in Heaven's name, trim +your ship again, if possible, ye high mediating Powers. This the +mediating Powers were laudably alert to do. Duc de Bourbon, and +his young King about to marry, were of pacific tendencies; +anxious for the Balance: still more was Fleury, who succeeded +Duc de Bourbon. Cardinal Fleury (with his pupil Louis XV. under +him, producing royal progeny and nothing worse or better as yet) +began, next year, his long supremacy in France; an aged reverend +gentleman, of sly, delicately cunning ways, and disliking war, as +George I. did, unless when forced on him: now and henceforth, no +mediating power more anxious than France to have the ship in trim. + +George and Bourbon laid their heads together, deeply pondering +this little less than awful state of the Terrestrial Balance; +and in about six months they, in their quiet way, suddenly came +out with a Fourth Crisis on the astonished populations, so as to +right the ship's trim again, and more. "Treaty of Hanover," this +was their unexpected manoeuvre; done quietly at Herrenhausen, when +his Majesty next went across for the Hanover hunting-season. +Mere hunting:--but the diplomatists, as well as the beagles, were +all in readiness there. Even Friedrich Wilhelm, ostensibly intent +on hunting, was come over thither, his abstruse Ilgens, with their +inkhorns, escorting him: Friedrich Wilhelm, hunting in unexpected +sort, was persuaded to sign this Treaty; which makes it unusually +interesting to us. An exceptional procedure on the part of +Friedrich Wilhelm, who beyond all Sovereigns stays well at home, +careless of affairs that are not his:--procedure betokening +cordiality at Hanover; and of good omen for the Double-Marriage? + +Yes, surely;--and yet something more, on Friedrich Wilhelm's part. +His rights on the Cleve-Julich Countries; reversion of Julich and +Berg, once Karl Philip shall decease:--perhaps these high Powers, +for a consideration, will guarantee one's undoubted rights there? +It is understood they gave promises of this kind, not too +specific. Nay we hear farther a curious thing: "France and +England, looking for immediate war with the Kaiser, advised +Friedrich Wilhelm to assert his rights on Silesia." Which would +have been an important procedure! Friedrich Wilhelm, it is added, +had actual thoughts of it; the Kaiser, in those matters of the +RITTER-DIENST, of the HEIDELBERG PROTESTANTS, and wherever a +chance was, had been unfriendly, little less than insulting, to +Friedrich Wilhelm: "Give me one single Hanoverian brigade, to show +that you go along with me!" said his Prussian Majesty;--but the +Britannic never altogether would. [<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, +<end italic> i. 153.] Certain it is, Friedrich Wilhelm signed: +a man with such Fighting-Apparatus as to be important in a Hanover +Treaty. "Balance of Power, they tell me, is in a dreadful way: +certainly if one can help the Balance a little, why not? +But Julich and Berg, one's own outlook of reversion there, that +is the point to be attended to:--Balance, I believe, will somehow +shift for itself!" On these principles, Friedrich Wilhelm signed, +while ostensibly hunting. [Fassmann, p. 368; Forster, <italic> +Urkundenbuch, <end italic> p. 67.] Treaty of Hanover, which was to +trim the ship again, or even to make it heel the other way, dates +itself 3d September, 1725, and is of this purport: "We three, +France, England, Prussia to stand by each other as one man, in +case any of us is attacked,--will invite Holland, Denmark, Sweden +and every pacific Sovereignty to join us in such convention,"-- +as they all gradually did, had Friedrich Wilhelm but stood firm. + +For it is a state of the Balances little less than awful. +Rumor goes that, by the Ripperda bargain, fatal to mankind, Don +Carlos was to get the beautiful young Maria Theresa to wife: +that would settle the Parma-Piacenza business and some others; +that would be a compensation with a witness! Spain and Austria +united, as in Karl V.'s time; or perhaps some Succession War, or +worse, to fight over again!-- + +Fleury and George, as Duc de Bourbon and George had done, though +both pacific gentlemen, brandished weapons at the Kaiser; strongly +admonishing him to become less formidable, or it would be worse +for him. Possible indeed, in such a shadow-hunting, shadow-hunted +hour! Fleury and George stand looking with intense anxiety into a +certain spectral something, which they call the Balance of Power; +no end to their exorcisms in that matter. Truly, if each of the +Royal Majesties and Serene Highnesses would attend to his own +affairs,--doing his utmost to better his own land and people, in +earthly and in heavenly respects, a little,--he would find it +infinitely profitabler for himself and others. And the Balance of +Power would settle, in that case, as the laws of gravity ordered: +which is its one method of settling, after all diplomacy!--Fleury +and George, by their manifestoing, still more by their levying of +men, George I. shovelling out his English subsidies as usual, +created deadly qualms in the Kaiser; who still found it unpleasant +to "admit Spanish Garrisons in Parma;" but found likewise his +Termagant Friend inexorably positive on that score; and knew not +what would become of him, if he had to try fighting, and the +Sea-Powers refused him cash to do it. + +Hereby was the ship trimmed, and more; ship now lurching to the +other side again. George I. goes subsidying Hessians, Danes; +sounding manifestoes, beating drums, in an alarming manner: +and the Kaiser, except it were in Russia, with the new Czarina +Catherine I. (that brown little woman, now become Czarina [8th +February, 1725. Treaty with Kaiser (6th August, 1726) went to +nothing on her death, 11th May, 1727.]), finds no ally to speak +of. An unlucky, spectre-hunting, spectre-hunted Kaiser; who, amid +so many drums, manifestoes, menaces, is now rolling eyes that +witness everywhere considerable dismay. This is the Fourth grand +Crisis of Europe; crisis or travail-throe of Nature, bringing +forth, and unable to do it, Baby Carlos's Apanage and the +Pragmatic Sanction. Fourth conspicuous change of color to the +universal lobster, getting itself boiled on those sad terms, for +twenty years. For its sins, we need not doubt; for its own +long-continued cowardices, sloths and greedy follies, as well as +those of Kaiser Karl!-- + +At this Fourth change we will gladly leave the matter, for a time; +much wishing it might be forever. Alas, as if that were possible +to us! Meanwhile, let afflicted readers, looking before and after, +readier to forget than to remember in such a case, accept this +Note, or Summary of all the Seven together, by way of help:-- + + +TRAVAIL-THROES OF NATURE FOR BABY CARLOS'S ITALIAN APANAGE; +SEVEN IN NUMBER. + + l. Triple Alliance, English, Dutch, French (4th January, 1717), +saying, "Peace, then! No Alberoni-plotting; no Duel-fighting +permitted!" Same Powers, next year, proposing Terms of Agreement; +Kaiser gloomily accepting them; which makes it Quadruple Alliance +(18th July, 1718); Termagant indignantly refusing,--with attack on +the Kaiser's Sicilies. + 2. First Sputter of War; Byng's Sea-fight, and the other +pressures, compelling Termagant: Peace (26th January, 1720); +Congress of Cambrai to settle the Apanage and other points. + 3. Congress of Cambrai, a weariness to gods and men, gets the +floor pulled from under it (Ripperda's feat, 30th April, 1725); +so that Kaiser and Termagant stand ranked together, Apanage wrapt +in mystery,--to the terror of mankind. + 4. Treaty of Hanover (France, England, Prussia, 3d September, +1725) restores the Balances, and more. War imminent. +Prussia privately falls off,--as we shall see. + +[These first Four lie behind us, at this point; but there are +Three others still ahead, which we cannot hope to escape +altogether; namely:] + + 5. Second Sputter of War: Termagant besieges Gibraltar (4th +March, 1727--6th March, 1728): Peace at that latter date;-- +Congress of Soissons to settle the Apanage and other points, as +formerly. + 6. Congress of Soissons (14th June, 1728--9th November, 1729), +as formerly, cannot in the least: Termagaut whispers England;-- +there is Treaty of Seville (9th November, 1729), France and +England undertaking for the Apanage. Congress vanishes; Kaiser is +left solitary, with the shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, in the night +of things. Pause of an awful nature:--but Fleury does not hasten +with the Apanage, as promised. Whereupon, at length, + 7. Treaty of Vienna (16th March, 1731): Sea-Powers, leading +Termagant by the hand, Sea-Powers and no France, unite with Kaiser +again, according to the old laws of Nature;--and Baby Carlos gets +his Apanage, in due course;--but does not rest content with it, +Mamma nor he, very long! + +Huge spectres and absurd bugaboos, stalking through the brain of +dull thoughtless pusillanimous mankind, do, to a terrible extent, +tumble hither and thither, and cause to lurch from side to side, +their ship of state, and all that is embarked there, +BREAKFAST-TABLE, among other things. Nevertheless, if they were +only bugaboos, and mere Shadows caused by Imperial hand-lanterns +in the general Night of the world,--ought they to be spoken of in +the family, when avoidable? + + + +Chapter IV. + +DOUBLE-MARRIAGE TREATY CANNOT BE SIGNED. + +Hitherto the world-tides, and ebbs and flows of external Politics, +had, by accident, rather forwarded, than hindered the +Double-Marriage. In the rear of such a Treaty of Hanover, +triumphantly righting the European Balances by help of Friedrich +Wilhelm, one might have hoped this little domestic Treaty would, +at last, get itself signed. Queen Sophie did hasten off to +Hanover, directly after her husband had left it under those +favorable aspects: but Papa again proved unmanageable; the Treaty +could not be achieved. + +Alas, and why not? Parents and Children, on both sides, being +really desirous of it, what reason is there but it should in due +time come to perfection, and, without annihilating Time and Space, +make four lovers happy? No reason. Rubs doubtless had arisen since +that Visit of George I., discordant procedures, chiefly about +Friedrich Wilhelm's recruiting operations in the Hanover +territory, as shall be noted by and by: but these the ever-wakeful +enthusiasm of Queen Sophie, who had set her whole heart with a +female fixity on this Double-Marriage Project, had smoothed down +again: and now, Papa and Husband being so blessedly united in +their World Politics, why not sign the Marriage-Treaty? +Honored Majesty-Papa, why not!--"Tush, child, you do not +understand. In these tremendous circumstances, the celestial Sign +of the BALANCE just about canting, and the Obliquity of the +Ecliptic like to alter, how can one think of little marriages? +Wait till the Obliquity of the Ecliptic come steadily to its +old pitch!"-- + +Truth is, George was in general of a slow, solemn, Spanish turn of +manners; "intolerably proud, too, since he got that English +dignity," says Wilhelmina: he seemed always tacitly to look down +on Friedrich Wilhelm, as if the Prussian Majesty were a kind of +inferior clownish King in comparison. It is certain he showed no +eagerness to get the Treaty perfected. Again and again, when +specially applied to by Queen Sophie, on Friedrich Wilhelm's +order, he intimated only: "It was a fixed thing, but not to be +hurried,--English Parliaments were concerned in it, the parties +were still young," and so on;--after which brief answer he would +take you to the window, and ask, "If you did not think the +Herrenhausen Gardens and their Leibnitz waterworks, and +clipped-beech walls were rather fine?" [Pollnitz, <italic> +Memoiren, <end italic> ii. 226, 228, &c.] + +In fact, the English Parliaments, from whom money was so often +demanded for our fat Improper Darlingtons, lean Improper Kendals +and other royal occasions, would naturally have to make a +marriage-revenue for this fine Grandson of ours;--Grandson Fred, +who is now a young lout of, eighteen; leading an extremely +dissolute life, they say, at Hanover; and by no means the most +beautiful of mortals, either he or the foolish little Father of +him, to our old sad heart. They can wait, they can wait! said +George always. + +But undoubtedly he did intend that both Marriages should take +effect: only he was slow; and the more you hurried him, perhaps +the slower. He would have perfected the Treaty "next year," say +the Authorities; meant to do so, if well let alone: but Townshend +whispered withal, "Better not urge him." Surly George was always a +man of his word; no treachery intended by him, towards Friedrich +Wilhelm or any man. It is very clear, moreover, that Friedrich +Wilhelm, in this Autumn 1725, was, and was like to be, of high +importance to King George; a man not to be angered by dishonorable +treatment, had such otherwise been likely on George's part. +Nevertheless George did not sign the Treaty "next year" either,-- +such things having intervened;--nor the next year after that, for +reasons tragically good on the latter occasion! + +These delays about the Double-Marriage Treaty are not a pleasing +feature of it to Friedrich Wilhelm; who is very capable of being +hurt by slights; who, at any rate, dislikes to have loose thrums +flying about, or that the business of to-day should be shoved over +upon to-morrow. And so Queen Sophie has her own sore difficulties; +driven thus between the Barbarians (that is, her Husband), and the +deep Sea (that is, her Father), to and fro. Nevertheless, since +all parties to the matter wished it, Sophie and the younger +parties getting even enthusiastic about it; and since the matter +itself was good, agreeable so far to Prussia and England, to +Protestant Germany and to Heaven and Earth,--might not Sophie +confidently hope to vanquish these and other difficulties; and so +bring all things to a happy close? + +Had it not been for the Imperial Shadow-huntings, and this rickety +condition of the celestial Balance! Alas, the outer elements +interfered with Queen Sophie in a singular manner. Huge foreign +world-movements, springing from Vienna and a spectre-haunted +Kaiser, and spreading like an avalanche over all the Earth, +snatched up this little Double-Marriage question; tore it along +with them, reeling over precipices, one knew not whitherward, at +such a rate as was seldom seen before. Scarcely in the Minerva +Press is there record of such surprising, infinite and +inextricable obstructions to a wedding or a double-wedding. +Time and space, which cannot be annihilated to make two lovers +happy, were here turned topsy-turvy, as it were, to make four +lovers,--four, or at the very least three, for Wilhelmina will not +admit she was ever the least in love, not she, poor soul, either +with loose Fred or his English outlooks,--four young creatures, +and one or more elderly persons, superlatively wretched; +and even, literally enough, to do all but kill some of them. + +What is noteworthy too, it proved wholly inane, this huge +world-ocean of Intrigues and Imperial Necromancy; ran dry at last +into absolute nothing even for the Kaiser, and might as well not +have been. And Mother and Father, on the Prussian side, were +driven to despair and pretty nearly to delirium by it; and our +poor young Fritz got tormented, scourged, and throttled in body +and in soul by it, till he grew to loathe the light of the sun, +and in fact looked soon to have quitted said light at one stage of +the business. + +We are now approaching Act Second of the Double-Marriage, where +Imperial Ordnance-Master Graf von Seckendorf, a Black-Artist of +supreme quality, despatched from Vienna on secret errand, "crosses +the Palace Esplanade at Berlin on a summer evening of the year +1726;" and evokes all the demons on our little Crown-Prince and +those dear to him. We must first say something of an important +step, shortly antecedent thereto, which occurred in the +Crown-Prince's educational course. + + + +Chapter V. + +CROWN-PRINCE GOES INTO THE POTSDAM GUARDS. + +Amid such commotion of the foreign elements and the domestic, an +important change occurs in the Crown-Prince's course of schooling. +It is decided that, whatever be his progress in the speculative +branches, it is time he should go into the Army, and practically +learn soldiering. In his fourteenth year, 3d May, 1725, [Preuss, +i. 26; 106; and <italic> Buch fur Jedermann <end italic> (a minor +book of his, on the same subject, Berlin, 1837), ii. 13.] not long +before the Treaty of Hanover, he was formally named Captain, by +Papa in War-council. Grenadier Guards, Potsdam Lifeguards, to be +the regiment; and next year he is nominated Major, and, a vacancy +occurring, appointed to begin actual duty. It is on the "20th of +August, 1726, that he flrat leads out his battalion to the +muster," on those terms. His age is not yet fifteen by four +months;--a very tiny Major among those Potsdam giants; but by +rank, we observe, he rides; and his horse is doubtless of the due +height. And so the tiny Cadet-drillinga have ended; long Files of +Giants, splendent in gold-lace and grenadier-caps, have succeeded; +and earnest work instead of mimic, in that matter, has begun. + +However it may have fared with his other school-lessons, here now +is a school-form he is advanced to, in which there will be no +resource but learning. Bad spelling might be overlooked by those +that had charge of it; bad drilling is not permissible on any +terms. We need not doubt the Crown-Prince did his soldier-duty +faithfully, and learned in every point the conduct of an officer: +penalty as of Rhadamanthus waited upon all failure there. That he +liked it is by no means said; he much disliked it, and his +disgusts were many. An airy young creature:--and it was in this +time to give one instance, that that shearing of his locks +occurred: which was spoken of above, where the Court-Chirurgus +proved so merciful. To clog the winged Psyche in ever-returning +parade-routine and military pipe-clay,--it seems very cruel. +But it is not to be altered: in spite of one's disgusts, the dull +work, to the last item of it, has daily to be done. Which proved +infinitely beneficial to the Crown-Prince, after all. Hereby, to +his Athenian-French elegancies, and airy promptitudes and +brilliancies, there shall lie as basis an adamantine Spartanism +and Stoicism; very rare, but very indispensable, for such a +superstructure. Well exemplified, through after life, in +this Crown-Prince. + + +OF THE POTSDAM GIANTS, AS A FACT. + +His regiment was the Potsdam Grenadier Guard; that unique +giant-regiment, of which the world has heard so much in a vague +half-mythical way. The giant-regiment was not a Myth, however, but +a big-boned expensive Fact, tramping very hard upon the earth at +one time, though now gone all to the ghostly state. As it was a +CLASS-BOOK, so to speak, of our Friedrich's,--Class-Book (printed +in huge type) for a certain branch of his schooling, the details +of which are so dim, though the general outcome of it proved so +unforgettable,--readers, apart from their curiosity otherwise, may +as well take a glimpse of it on this occasion. Vanished now, +and grown a Giant Phantom, the like of it hardly again to be in +this world; and by accident, the very smallest Figure ever ranked +in it makes it memorable there!-- + +With a wise instinct, Friedrich Wilhelm had discerned that all +things in Prussia must point towards his Army; that his Army was +the heart and pith; the State being the tree, every branch and +leaf bound, after its sort, to be nutritive and productive for the +Army's behoof. That, probably for any Nation in the long-run, and +certainly for the Prussian Nation straightway, life or death +depends on the Army: Friedrich Wilhelm's head, in an inarticulate +manner, was full of this just notion; and all his life was spent +in organizing it to a practical fact. The more of potential +battle, the more of life is in us: a MAXIMUM of potential battle, +therefore; and let it be the OPTIMUM in quality! How Friedrich +Wilhelm cared, day and night, with all his heart and all his soul, +to bring his Army to the supreme pitch, we have often heard; +and the more we look into his ways, the more we are impressed with +that fact. It was the central thing for him; all other things +circulating towards it, deriving from it: no labor too great, and +none too little, to be undergone for such an object. He watched +over it like an Argus, with eyes that reached everywhere. +Discipline shall be as exact as Euclid;--short of perfection we do +not stop! Discipline and ever better discipline; enforcement of +the rule in all points, improvement of the rule itself where +possible, were the great Drill-sergeant's continual care. +Daily had some loop fallen, which might have gone ravelling far +enough; but daily was he there to pick it up again, and keep the +web unrent and solidly progressive. + +We said, it was the "poetic ideal" of Friedrich Wilhelm; who is a +dumb poet in several particulars,--and requires the privileges of +genius from those that READ his dumb poem. It must be owned he +rises into the fantastic here and there; and has crotchets of +ultraperfection for his Army, which are not rational at all. +Crotchets that grew ever madder, the farther he followed them. +This Lifeguard Regiment of foot, for instance, in which the +Crown-Prince now is,--Friedrich Wilhelm got it in his Father's +time, no doubt a regiment then of fair qualities; and he has kept +drilling it, improving it, as poets polish stanzas, unweariedly +ever since:--and see now what it has grown to! A Potsdam Giant +Regiment, such as the world never saw, before or since. +Three Battalions of them,--two always here at Potsdam doing formal +lifeguard duty, the third at Brandenburg on drill; 800 to the +Battalion,--2,400 sons of Anak in all. Sublime enough, hugely +perfect to the royal eye, such a mass of shining giants, in their +long-drawn regularities and mathematical manoeuvrings,--like some +streak of Promethean lightning, realized here at last, in the +vulgar dusk of things! + +Truly they are men supreme in discipline, in beauty of equipment; +and the shortest man of them rises, I think, towards seven feet, +some are nearly nine feet high. Men from all countries; a hundred +and odd come annually, as we saw, from Russia,--a very precious +windfall: the rest have been collected, crimped, purchased out of +every European country, at enormous expense, not to speak of other +trouble to his Majesty. James Kirkman, an Irish recruit of good +inches, cost him 1,200 pounds before he could be got inveigled, +shipped and brought safe to hand. The documents are yet in +existence; [Forster, <italic> Handbuch der Geschichte, Geographie +und Statistik des Preussischen Reichs <end italic> (Berlin, 1820), +iv. 130, 132;--not in a very lucid state.] and the Portrait of +this Irish fellow-citizen himself, who is by no means a beautiful +man. Indeed, they are all portrayed; all the privates of this +distinguished Regiment are, if anybody cared to look at them-- +Redivanoff from Moscow" seems of far better bone than Kirkman, +though still more stolid of aspect. One Hohmann, a born Prussian, +was so tall, you could not, though yourself tall, touch his bare +crown with your hand; August the Strong of Poland tried, on one +occasion, and could not. Before Hohmann turned up, there had been +"Jonas the Norwegian Blacksmith,", also a dreadfully tall monster. +Giant "Macdoll,"--who was to be married, no consent asked on +EITHER side, to the tall young woman, which latter turned out to +be a decrepit OLD woman (all Jest-Books know the myth),--he also +was an Irish Giant; his name probably M'Dowal. [Forster, <italic> +Preussens Helden im Krieg und Frieden <end italic> (Berlin, l848), +i. 531; no date to the story, no evidence what grain of truth may +be in it.] This Hohmann was now FLUGELMANN ("fugleman" as we have +named it, leader of the file), the Tallest of the Regiment, a very +mountain of pipe-clayed flesh and bone. + +Here, in reference to one other of those poor Giants, is an +Anecdote from Fassmann (who is very full on this subject of the +Giants; abstruse Historical Fassmann, often painfully cited by +us): a most small Anecdote, but then an indisputably certain one; +--which brings back to us, in a strange way, the vanished Time and +its populations; as the poorest authentic wooden lucifer may do, +kindling suddenly, and' peopling the void Night for moments, to +the seeing eye!-- + +Fassmann, a very dark German literary man, in obsolete costume and +garniture, how living or what doing we cannot guess, found himself +at Paris, gazing about, in the year 1713; where, among other +things, the Fair of St. Germain was going on. Loud, large Fair of +St. Germain, "which lasts from Candlemas to the Monday before +Easter;" and Fassmann one day took a walk of contemplation through +the same. Much noise, gesticulation, little meaning. Show-booths, +temporary theatres, merry-andrews, sleight-of-hand men; and a vast +public, drinking, dancing, gambling, flirting, as its wont is. +Nothing new for us there; new only that it all lies five +generations from us now. Did "the Old Pretender," who was then in +his expectant period, in this same village of St. Germain, see it +too, as Fassmann did? And Louis XIV., he is at Versailles; +drooping fast, very dull to his Maintenon. And our little Fritz in +Berlin is a child in arms;--and the world is all awake as usual, +while Fassmann strolls through this noisy inanity of show-booths, +in the year 1713. + +Strolling along, Fassmann came upon a certain booth with an +enormous Picture hung aloft in front of it: "Picture of a very +tall man, in HEYDUC livery, coat reaching to his ankles, in grand +peruke, cap and big heron-plume, with these words, 'LE GEANT +ALLEMAND (German Giant),' written underneath. Partly from +curiosity, partly "for country's sake," Fassmann expended +twopence; viewed the gigantic fellow-creature; admits he had never +seen one so tall; though "Bentenrieder, the Imperial Diplomatist," +thought by some to be the tallest of men, had come athwart him +once. This giant's name was Muller; birthplace the neighborhood of +Weissenfels;--"a Saxon like myself. He had a small German Wife, +not half his size. He made money readily, showing himself about, +in France, England, Holland;"--and Fassmann went his way, thinking +no more of the fellow.--But now, continues Fassmann:-- + +"Coming to Potsdam, thirteen years after, in the spring of 1726, +by his Majesty's order, to"--in fact, to read the Newspapers to +his Majesty, and be generally useful, chiefly in the +Tobacco-College, as we shall discover,--"what was my surprise to +find this same 'GEANT ALLEMAND' of St. Germain ranked among the +King's Grenadiers! No doubt of the identity: I renewed +acquaintance with the man; his little German Wife was dead; +but he had got an English one instead, an uncommonly shifty +creature. They had a neat little dwelling-house [as most of the +married giants had], near the Palace: here the Wife sold beer +[brandy not permissible on any terms], and lodged travellers;-- +I myself have lodged there on occasion. In the course of some +years, the man took swelling in the legs; good for nothing as a +grenadier; and was like to fall heavy on society. But no, his +little Wife snatched him up, easily getting his discharge; +carried him over with her to England, where he again became a +show-giant, and they were doing very well, when last heard of,"-- +in the Country-Wakes of George II.'s early time. And that is the +real Biography of one Potsdam Giant, by a literary gentleman who +had lodged with him on occasion. [Fassmann, pp. 723-730.] + +The pay of these sublime Footguards is greatly higher than common; +they have distinguished privileges and treatment: on the other +hand, their discipline is nonpareil, and discharge is never to be +dreamt of, while strength lasts. Poor Kirkman, does he sometimes +think of the Hill of Howth, and that he will never see it more? +Kirkman, I judge, is not given to thought;--considers that he has +tobacco here, and privileges and perquisites; and that Howth, and +Heaven itself, is inaccessible to many a man. + + +FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S RECRUITING DIFFICULTIES. + +Tall men, not for this regiment only, had become a necessary of +life to Friedrich Wilhelm. Indispensable to him almost as his +daily bread, To his heart there is no road so ready as that of +presenting a tall man or two. Friedrich Wilhelm's regiments are +now, by his exact new regulations, levied and recruited each in +its own Canton, or specific district: there all males as soon as +born are enrolled; liable to serve, when they have grown to years +and strength. All grown men (under certain exceptions, as of a +widow's eldest son, or of the like evidently ruinous cases) are +liable to serve; Captain of the Regiment and AMTMANN of the Canton +settle between them which grown man it shall be. Better for you +not to be tall! In fact it is almost a kindness of Heaven to be +gifted with some safe impediment of body, slightly crooked back or +the like, if you much dislike the career of honor under Friedrich +Wilhelm. A general shadow of unquiet apprehension we can well +fancy hanging over those rural populations, and much unpleasant +haggling now and then;--nothing but the King's justice that can be +appealed to. King's justice, very great indeed, but heavily +checked by the King's value for handsome soldiers. + +Happily his value for industrial laborers and increase of +population is likewise great. Townsfolk, skilful workmen as the +theory supposes, are exempt; the more ingenious classes, +generally, his Majesty exempts in this respect, to encourage them +in others. For, on the whole, he is not less a Captain of Work, to +his Nation, than of other things. What he did for Prussia in the +way of industries, improvements, new manufactures, new methods; +in settling "colonies," tearing up drowned bogs and subduing them +into dry cornfields; in building, draining, digging, and +encouraging or forcing others to do so, would take a long chapter. +He is the enemy of Chaos, not the friend of it, wherever you meet +with him. + +For example, Potsdam itself. Potsdam, now a pleasant, grassy, +leafy place, branching out extensively in fine stone architecture, +with swept pavements; where, as in other places, the traveller +finds land and water separated into two firmaments,--Friedrich +Wilhelm found much of it a quagmire, land and water still +weltering in one. In these very years, his cuttings, embankments, +buildings, pile-drivings there, are enormous; and his perseverance +needs to be invincible. For instance, looking out, one morning +after heavy rain, upon some extensive anti-quagmire operations and +strong pile-drivings, he finds half a furlong of his latest heavy +piling clean gone. What in the world has become of it? Pooh, the +swollen lake has burst it topsy-turvy; and it floats yonder, +bottom uppermost, a half-furlong of distracted liquid-peat. +Whereat his Majesty gave a loud laugh, says Bielfeld, [Baron de +Bielfeld, <italic> Lettres Familieres <end italic> (second +edition, a Leide, 1767), i. 31.] and commenced anew. The piles now +stand firm enough, like the rest of the Earth's crust, and carry +strong ashlar houses and umbrageous trees for mankind; and trivial +mankind can walk in clean pumps there, shuddering or sniggering at +Friedrich Wilhelm, as their humor may be. + +No danger of this "Canton-system" of recruitment to the more +ingenious classes, who could do better than learn drill. Nor, to +say truth, does the poor clayey peasant suffer from it, according +to his apprehensions. Often perhaps, could he count profit and +loss, he might find himself a gainer: the career of honor turns +out to be, at least, a career of practical Stoicism and +Spartanism; useful to any peasant or to any prince. Cleanliness, +of person and even of mind; fixed rigor of method, sobriety, +frugality, these are virtues worth acquiring. Sobriety in the +matter of drink is much attended to here: his Majesty permits no +distillation of strong-waters in Potsdam, or within so many miles; +[Fassmann, p. 728.] nor is sale of such allowed, except in the +most intensely select manner. The soldier's pay is in the highest +degree exiguous; not above three halfpence a day, for a common +foot-soldier, in addition to what rations he has:--but it is found +adequate to its purpose, too; supports the soldier in sound +health, vigorously fit for his work; into which points his Majesty +looks with his own eyes, and will admit no dubiety. Often, too, if +not already OFTENEST (as it ultimately grew to be), the +peasant-soldier gets home for many months of the year, a +soldier-ploughman; and labors for his living in the old way. +His Captain (it is one of the Captain's perquisites, who is +generally a veteran of fifty, with a long Spartan training, before +he gets so high) pockets the pay of all these furloughs, +supernumerary to the real work of the regiment;--and has certain +important furnishings to yield in return. + +At any rate, enrolment, in time of peace, cannot fall on many: +three or four recruits in the year, to replace vacancies, will +carry the Canton through its crisis. For we are to note withal, +the third part of every regiment can, and should by rule, consist +of "foreigners,"--men not born Prussians. These are generally men +levied in the Imperial Free-towns; "in the REICH" or Empire, as +they term it; that is to say, or is mainly to say, in the +countries of Germany that are not Austrian or Prussian. For this +foreign third-part too, the recruits must be got; excuses not +admissible for Captain or Colonel; nothing but recruits of the due +inches will do. Captain and Colonel (supporting their enterprise +on frugal adequate "perquisites," hinted of above) have to be on +the outlook; vigilantly, eagerly; and must contrive to get them. +Nay, we can take supernumerary recruits; and have in fact always +on hand, attached to each regiment, a stock of such. Any number of +recruits, that stand well on their legs, are welcome; and for a +tall man there is joyin Potsdam, almost as if he were a wise man +or a good man. + +The consequence is, all countries, especially all German +countries, are infested with a new species of predatory +two-legged animals: Prussian recruiters. They glide about, under +disguise if necessary; lynx-eyed, eager almost as the Jesuit +hounds are; not hunting the souls of men, as the spiritual Jesuits +do, but their bodies in a merciless carnivorous manner. Better not +to be too tall, in any country, at present! Irish Kirkman could +not be protected by the aegis of the British Constitution itself. +In general, however, the Prussian recruiter, on British ground, +reports, That the people are too well off, that there is little to +be done in those parts. A tall British sailor, if we pick him up +strolling about Memel or the Baltic ports, is inexorably claimed +by the Diplomatists; no business do-able till after restoration of +him; and he proves a mere loss to us. [Despatches in the +State-Paper Office.] Germany, Holland, Switzerland, the +Netherlands, these are the fruitful fields for us, and there we do +hunt with some vigor. + +For example, in the town of Julich there lived and worked a tall +young carpenter: one day a well-dressed positive-looking gentleman +("Baron von Hompesch," the records name him) enters the shop; +wants "a stout chest, with lock on it, for household purposes; +must be of such and such dimensions, six feet six in length +especially, and that is an indispensable point,--in fact it will +be longer than yourself, I think, Herr Zimmermann: what is the +cost; when can it be ready?" Cost, time, and the rest are settled. +"A right stout chest, then; and see you don't forget the size; +if too short, it will be of no use to me: mind;"--"JA WOHL! +GEWISS!" And the positive-looking, well-clad gentleman goes his +ways. At the appointed day he reappears; the chest is ready;-- +we hope, an unexceptionable article? "Too short, as I dreaded!" +says the positive gentleman. "Nay, your honor," says the +carpenter, "I am certain it is six feet six!" and takes out his +foot-rule.--"Pshaw, it was to be longer than yourself." "Well, it +is."--"No it isn't!" The carpenter, to end the matter, gets into +his chest; and will convince any and all mortals. No sooner is he +in, rightly flat, than the positive gentleman, a Prussian +recruiting officer in disguise, slams down the lid upon him; +locks it; whistles in three stout fellows, who pick up the chest, +gravely walk through the streets with it, open it in a safe place; +and find-horrible to relate--the poor carpenter dead; choked by +want of air in this frightful middle-passage of his. [Forster, +ii. 305, 306; Pollnitz, ii. 518, 519.] Name of the Town is given, +Julich as above; date not. And if the thing had been only a +popular Myth, is it not a significant one? But it is too true; +the tall carpenter lay dead, and Hompesch got "imprisoned for +life" by the business. + +Burgermeisters of small towns have been carried off; in one case, +"a rich merchant in Magdeburg," whom it cost a large sum to get +free again. [Stenzel, iii. 356.] Prussian recruiters hover about +barracks, parade-grounds, in Foreign Countries; and if they see a +tall soldier (the Dutch have had instances, and are indignant at +them), will persuade him to desert,--to make for the country where +soldier-merit is understood, and a tall fellow of parts will get +his pair of colors in no-time. + +But the highest stretch of their art was probably that done on the +Austrian Ambassador,--tall Herr von Bentenrieder; tallest of +Diplomatists; whom Fassmann, till the Fair of St. Germain, had +considered the tallest of men. Bentenrieder was on his road as +Kaiser's Ambassador to George I., in those Congress-of-Cambrai +times; serenely journeying on; when, near by Halberstadt, his +carriage broke. Carriage takes some time in mending; the tall +Diplomatic Herr walks on, will stretch his long legs, catch a +glimpse of the Town withal, till they get it ready again. And now, +at some Guard-house of the place, a Prussian Officer inquires, not +too reverently of a nobleman without carriage, "Who are you?" +"Well," answered he smiling, "I am BOTSCHAFTER (Message-bearer) +from his Imperial Majesty. And who may you be that ask?"--"To the +Guard-house with us!" Whither he is marched accordingly. "Kaiser's +messenger, why not?" Being a most tall handsome man, this Kaiser's +BOTSCHAFTER, striding along on foot here, the Guard-house +Officials have decided to keep him, to teach him Prussian +drill-exercise;--and are thrown into a singular quandary, when his +valets and suite come up, full of alarm dissolving into joy, and +call him "Excellenz!" [Pollnitz, ii. 207-209.] + +Tall Herr von Bentenrieder accepted the prostrate apology of these +Guard-house Officials. But he naturally spoke of the matter to +George I.; whose patience, often fretted by complaints on that +head, seems to have taken fire at this transcendent instance of +Prussian insolency. In consequence of this adventure, he +commenced, says Pollnitz, a system of decisive measures; +of reprisals even, and of altogether peremptory, minatory +procedures, to clear Hanover of this nuisance; and to make it +cease, in very fact, and not in promise and profession merely. +These were the first rubs Queen Sophie met with, in pushing on the +Double-Marriage; and sore rubs they were, though she at last got +over them. Coming on the back of that fine Charlottenburg Visit, +almost within year and day, and directly in the teeth of such +friendly aspects and prospects, this conduct on the part of his +Britannic Majesty much grieved and angered Friedrich Wilhelm; +and in fact involved him in considerable practical troubles. + +For it was the signal of a similar set of loud complaints, and +menacing remonstrances (with little twinges of fulfilment here and +there) from all quarters of Germany; a tempest of trouble and +public indignation rising everywhere, and raining in upon +Friedrich Wilhelm and this unfortunate Hobby of his. No riding of +one's poor Hobby in peaoe henceforth. Friedrich Wilhelm always +answered, what was only superficially the fact, That HE knew +nothing of these violences and acts of ill-neighborship; he, a +just King, was sorrier than any man to hear of them; and would +give immediate order that they should end. But they always went on +again, much the same; and never did end. I am sorry a just King, +led astray by his Hobby, answers thus what is only superficially +the fact. But it seems he cannot help it: his Hobby is too strong +for him; regardless of curb and bridle in this instance. Let us +pity a man of genius, mounted on so ungovernable a Hobby; +leaping the barriers, in spite of his best resolutions. +Perhaps the poetic temperament is more liable to such morbid +biases, influxes of imaginative crotchet, and mere folly that +cannot he cured? Friedrich Wilhelm never would or could dismount +from his Hobby: but he rode him under much sorrow henceforth; +under showers of anger and ridicule;--contumelious words and +procedures, as it were SAXA ET FAECES, battering round him, +to a heavy extent; the rider a victim of Tragedy and Farce both +at once. + + +QUEEN SOPHIE'S TROUBLES: GRUMKOW WITH THE OLD DESSAUER, +AND GRUMKOW WITHOUT HIM. + +Queen Sophie had, by delicate management, got over those first +rubs, aud arrived at a Treaty of Hanover, and clear ground again; +far worse rubs lay ahead; but smooth travelling, towards such a +goal, was not possible for this Queen. Poor Lady, her Court, as we +discern from Wilhelmina and the Books, is a sad welter of +intrigues, suspicions; of treacherous chambermaids, head-valets, +pickthank scouts of official gentlemen and others striving to +supplant one another. Satan's Invisible World very busy against +Queen Sophie! Under any terms, much more under those of the +Double-Marriage, her place in a kindly but suspicious Husband's +favor was difficult to maintain. Restless aspirants, climbing this +way or that, by ladder-steps discoverable in this abstruse +element, are never wanting, and have the due eavesdropping +satellites, now here, now there. Queen Sophie and her party have +to walk warily, as if among precipices and pitfalls. Of all which +wide welter of extinct contemptibilities, then and there so +important, here and now become minus quantities, we again notice +the existence, but can undertake no study or specification +whatever. Two Incidents, the latter of them dating near the point +where we now are, will sufficiently instruct the reader what a +welter this was, in which Queen Sophie and her bright little Son, +the new Major of the Potsdam Giants, had to pass their existence. + +Incident First fell out some six years ago or more,--in 1719, year +of the Heidelberg Protestants, of Clement the Forger, when his +Majesty "slept for weeks with a pistol under his pillow," and had +other troubles. His Majesty, on one of his journeys, which were +always many, was taken suddenly ill at Brandenburg, that year: +so violently ill, that thinking himself about to die, he sent for +his good Queen, and made a Will appointing her Regent in case of +his decease. His Majesty quite recovered before long. But Grumkow +and the old Dessauer, main aspirants; getting wind of this Will, +and hunting out the truth of it,--what a puddling of the waters +these two made in consequence; stirring up mire and dirt round the +good Queen, finding she had been preferred to them! [Wilhelmina, +i. 26, 29.] Nay Wilhelmina, in her wild way, believes they had, +not long after, planned to "fire a Theatre" about the King, one +afternoon, in Berlin City, and take his life, thereby securing for +themselves such benefit in prospect as there might be! Not a doubt +of it, thinks Wilhelmina: "The young Margraf, [Born 1700 (see +vol. v. p. 393.] our precious Cousin, of Schwedt, is not he +Sister's-son of that Old Dessauer? Grandson of the Great Elector, +even as Papa is. Papa once killed (and our poor Crown-Prince also +made away with),--that young Margraf, and his blue Fox-tiger of an +Uncle over him, is King in Prussia! Obviously they meant to burn +that Theatre, and kill Papa!" This is Wilhelmina's distracted +belief; as, doubtless, it was her Mother's on the day in question: +a jealous, much-suffering, transcendently exasperated Mother, as +we see. + +Incident Second shows us those, two rough Gentlemen fallen out of +partnership, into open quarrel and even duel. "Duel at the +Copenick Gate," much noised of in the dull old Prussian Books,-- +though always in a reserved manner; not even the DATE, as if that +were dangerous, being clearly given! It came in the wake of that +Hanover Treaty, as is now guessed; the two having taken opposite +sides on that measure, and got provoked into ripping up old sores +in general. Dessau was AGAINST King George and the Treaty, it +appears; having his reasons, family-reasons of old standing: +Grumkow, a bribable gentleman, was FOR,--having also perhaps his +reasons. Enough, it came to altercations, objurgations between +the two; which rose ever higher,--rose at length to +wager-of-battle. Indignant challenge on the part of the Old +Dessauer; which, however, Grumkow, not regarded as a BARESARK in +the fighting way, regrets that his Christian principles do not, +forsooth, allow him to accept. The King is appealed to; the King, +being himself, though an orthodox Christian, yet a still more +orthodox Soldier, decides That, on the whole, General Grumkow +cannot but accept this challenge from the Field-marshal Prince +of Dessau. + +Dessau is on the field, at the Copenick Gate, accordingly,-- +late-autumn afternoon (I calculate) of the year 1725;--waits +patiently till Grumkow make his appearance. Grumkow, with a chosen +second, does at last appear; advances pensively with slow steps. +Gunpowder Dessau, black as a silent thunder-cloud, draws his +sword: and Grumkow--does not draw his; presents it undrawn, with +unconditional submission and apology: "Slay me, if you like, old +Friend, whom I have injured!" Whereat Dessau, uttering no word, +uttering only some contemptuous snort, turns his back on the +phenomenon; mounts his horse and rides home. [Pollnitz, ii. 212, +214.] A divided man from this Grumkow henceforth. The Prince +waited on her Majesty; signified his sorrow for past +estrangements; his great wish now to help her, but his total +inability, being ousted by Grumkow: We are for Halle, Madam, where +our Regiment is; there let us serve his Majesty, since we cannot +here! [Wilhelmina, i. 90, 93.] --And in fact the Old Dessauer +lives mostly there in time coming; sunk inarticulate in tactics of +a truly deep nature, not stranding on politics of a shallow;-- +a man still memorable in the mythic traditions of that place. +Better to drill men to perfection, and invent iron ramrods, +against the day they shall be needed, than go jostling, on such +terms, with cattle of the Grumkow kind! And thus, we perceive, +Grumkow is in, and the Old Dessauer out; and there has been +"a change of Ministry," change of "Majesty's-Advisers," brought +about;--may the Advice going be wiser now! + +What the young Crown-Prince did, said, thought, in such +environment, of backstairs diplomacies, female sighs and +aspirations, Grumkow duels, drillings in the Giant Regiment, is +not specified for us in the smallest particular, in the extensive +rubbish-books that have been written about him. Ours is, to +indicate that such environment was: how a lively soul, acted on by +it, did not fail to react, chameleon-like taking color from it, +and contrariwise taking color against it, must be left to the +reader's imagination--One thing we have gathered and will not +forget, That the Old Dessauer is out, and Grumkow in, that the +rugged Son of Gunpowder, drilling men henceforth at Halle, and in +a dumb way meditating tactics as few ever did, has no share in the +foul enchantments that now supervene at court. + + + +Chapter VI. + +ORDNANCE-MASTER SECKENDORF CROSSES THE PALACE ESPLANADE. + +The Kaiser's terror and embarrassment at the conclusion of the +Hanover Treaty, as we saw, were extreme. War possible or likely; +and nothing but the termagant caprices of Elizabeth Farnese to +depend on: no cash from the Sea-Powers; only cannonshot, invasion +and hostility, from their cash and them: What is to be done? +To "caress the pride of Spain;" to keep alive the hopes, in that +quarter, of marrying their Don Carlos, the supplementary Infant, +to our eldest Archduchess; which indeed has set the Sea-Powers +dreadfully on fire, but which does leave Parma and Piacenza quiet +for the present, and makes the Pragmatic Sanction too an affair of +Spain's own: this is one resource, though a poor one, and a +dangerous. Another is, to make alliance with Russia, by well +flattering the poor little brown Czarina there: but is not that a +still poorer? And what third is there!-- + +There is a third worth both the others, could it be got done: +To detach Friedrich Wilhelm from those dangerous Hanover +Confederates, and bring him gently over to ourselves. He has an +army of 60,000, in perfect equipment, and money to maintain them +so. Against us or for us,--60,000 PLUS or 60,000 MINUS;--that will +mean 120,000 fighting men; a most weighty item in any field there +is like to be. If it lie in the power of human art, let us gain +this wild irritated King of Prussia. Dare any henchman of ours +venture to go, with honey-cakes, with pattings and cajoleries, and +slip the imperial muzzle well round the snout of that rugged +ursine animal? An iracund bear, of dangerous proportions, and +justly irritated against us at present? Our experienced +FELDZEUGMEISTER, Ordnance-Master and Diplomatist, Graf von +Seckendorf, a conscientious Protestant, and the cunningest of men, +able to lie to all lengths,--dare he try it? He has fought in all +quarters of the world; and lied in all, where needful; and saved +money in all: he will try it, and will succeed in it too! +[Pollnitz, ii. 235; Stenzel, iii. 544; Forster, ii. 59, +iii. 235, 239.] + +The Second Act, therefore, of this foolish World-Drama of the +Double-Marriage opens,--on the 11th May, 1726, towards sunset, in +the TABAGIE of the Berlin Palace, as we gather from laborious +comparison of windy Pollnitz with other indistinct witnesses of a +dreary nature,--in the following manner:-- + +Prussian Majesty sits smoking at the window; nothing particular +going on. A square-built shortish steel-gray Gentleman, of +military cut, past fifty, is strolling over the SCHLOSSPLATZ +(spacious Square in front of the Palace), conspicuous amid the +sparse populations there; pensively recreating himself, in the +yellow sunlight and long shadows, as after a day's hard labor or +travel. "Who is that?" inquires Friedrich Wilhelm, suspending his +tobacco. Grumkow answers cautiously, after survey: He thinks it +must be Ordnance-Master Seckendorf; who was with him to-day; +passing on rapidly towards Denmark, on business that will not +wait.--"Experienced Feldzeugmeister Graf von Seckendorf, whom we +stand in correspondence with, of late, and were expecting about +this time? Whom we have known at the Siege of Stralsund, nay +ever since the Marlborough times and the Siege of Menin, in war +and peace; and have always reckoned a solid reasonable man and +soldier: Why has he not come to us?"--"Your Majesty," confesses +Grumkow, "his business is so pressing! Business in Denmark will +not wait. Seckendorf owned he had come slightly round, in his +eagerness to see our grand Review at Tempelhof the day after +to-morrow: What soldier would omit the sight (so he was pleased to +intimate) of soldiering carried to the non-plus-ultra? But he +hoped to do it quite incognito, among the general public;--and +then to be at the gallop again: not able to have the honor of +paying his court at this time."--"Court? NARREN-POSSEN +(Nonsense)!" answers Friedrich Wilhelm,--and opening the window, +beckons Seckendorf up, with his own royal head and hand. +The conversation of a man who had rational sense, and could tell +him anything, were it only news af foreign parts in a rational +manner, was always welcome to Friedrich Wilhelm. + +And so Seckendorf, how can he help it, is installed in the +Tabagie; glides into pleasant conversation there. A captivating +talker; solid for religion, for the rights of Germany against +intrusive French and others: such insight, orthodoxy, sense and +ingenuity; pleasant to hear; and all with the due quantity of oil, +though he "both snuffles and lisps;" and has privately, in case of +need, a capacity of lying,--for he curiously distils you any lie, +in his religious alembics, till it become tolerable to his +conscience, or even palatable, as elixirs are;--capacity of +double-distilled lying probably the greatest of his day.-- +Seckendorf assists at the grand Review, 13th May, 1726; witnesses +with unfeigned admiration the non-plus-ultra of manoeuvring, and, +in fact, the general management, military and other, of this +admirable King. [Pollnitz, ii. 235; Fassmann, pp. 367, 368.] +Seckendorf, no question of it, will do his Denmark business +swiftly, then, since your Majesty is pleased so to wish. +Seckendorf, sure enough, will return swiftly to such a King, whose +familiar company, vouchsafed him in this noble manner, he likes,-- +oh, how he likes it! + +In a week or two, Seckendorf is back to Berlin; attends his +Majesty on the annual Military Tour through Preussen; attends him +everywhere, becoming quite a necessary of life to his Majesty; +and does not go away at all. Seckendorf's business, if his Majesty +knew it, will not lead him "away;" but lies here on this spot; +and is now going on; the magic-apparatus, Grumkow the mainspring +of it, getting all into gear! Grumkow was once clear for King +George and the Hanover Treaty, having his reasons then; but now he +has other reasons, and is clear against those foreign connections. +"Hm, hah--Yes, my estimable, justly powerful Herr von Grumkow, +here is a little Pension of 1,600 ducats (only 500 pounds as yet), +which the Imperial Majesty, thinking of the service you may do +Prussia and Germany and him, graciously commands me to present;-- +only 500 pounds by the year as yet; but there shall be no lack of +money if we prosper!" [Forster, iii. 233, 232; see also iv. 172, +121, 157, &c.] + +And so there are now two Black-Artists, of the first quality, busy +on the unconscious Friedrich Wilhelm; and Seckendorf, for the next +seven years, will stick to Friedrich Wilhelm like his shadow; +and fascinate his whole existence and him, as few wizards could +have done. Friedrich Wilhelm, like St. Paul in Melita, warming his +innocent hands at the fire of dry branches here kindled for him,-- +that miracle of a venomous serpent is this that has fixed itself +upon his finger? To Friedrich Wilhelm's enchanted sense it seems a +bird-of-paradise, trustfully perching there; but it is of the +whip-snake kind, or a worse; and will stick to him tragically, if +also comically, for years to come. The world has seen the comedy +of it, and has howled scornful laughter upon Friedrich Wilhelm for +it: but there is a tragic side, not so well seen into, where tears +are due to the poor King; and to certain others horsewhips, and +almost gallows-ropes, are due!--Yes, had Seckendorf and Grumkow +both been well hanged, at this stage of the affair, whereby the +affair might have soon ended on fair terms, it had been welcome to +mankind; welcome surely to the present Editor; for one; such a +saving to him, of time wasted, of disgust endured! And indeed it +is a solacement he has often longed for, in these dreary +operations of his. But the Fates appointed otherwise; we have all +to accept our Fate!-- + +Grumkow is sworn to Imperial orthodoxy, then,--probably the +vulpine MIND (so to term it) went always rather that way, and only +his interest the other;--Grumkow is well bribed, supplied for +bribing others where needful; stands orthodox now, under peril of +his very head. All things have been got distilled into the +palatable state, spiritual and economic, for oneself and one's +grand Trojan-Horse of a Grumkow; and the adventure proceeds apace. +Seckendorf sits nightly in the TABAGIE (a kind of "Smoking +Parliament," as we shall see anon); attends on all promenades and +journeys: one of the wisest heads, and so pleasant in discourse, +he is grown indispensable, and a necessary of life to us. +Seckendorf's Biographer computes, "he must have ridden, in those +seven years, continually attending his Majesty, above 5,000 German +miles," [Anonymous (Seckendorf's Grand-Nephew) <italic> Versuch +einer Lebensbeschreibung des Feldmarschalls Grafen von Seckendorf +<end italic> (Leipzig, 1792, 1794), i. 6.]--that is 25,000 +English miles; or a trifle more than the length of the +Terrestrial Equator. + +In a month or two, [13th August, 1726 (Preuss, i. 37).] +Seckendorf--since Majesty vouchsafes to honor us by wishing it-- +contrives to get nominated Kaiser's Minister at Berlin: unlimited +prospects of Tabagie, and good talk, now opening on Majesty. +And impartial Grumkow, in Tabagie or wherever we are, cannot but +admit, now and then, that the Excellenz Herr Graf Ordnance-Master +has a deal of reason in what he says about Foreign Politics, about +intrusive French and other points. "Hm, Na," muses Friedrich +Wilhelm to himself, "if the Kaiser had not been so lofty on us in +that Heidelberg-Protestant affair, in the Ritter-Dienst business, +in those damned 'recruiting' brabbles; always a very high-sniffing +surly Kaiser to us!" For in fact the Kaiser has, all along, used +Friedrich Wilhelm bitterly ill; and contemplates no better usage +of him, except in show. Usage? thinks the Kaiser: A big Prussian +piece of Cannon, whom we wish to enchant over to us! Did LAZY PEG +complain of her "usage"?--So that the Excellenz and Grumkow have a +heavy problem of it; were they not so diligent, and the Cannon +itself well disposed. "Those BLITZ FRANZOSEN (blasted French)!" +growls Friedrich Wilhelm sometimes, in the Tobacco-Parliament: +[Forster, ii. 12, &c.] for he hates the French, and would fain +love his Kaiser; being German to the bone, and of right loyal +heart, though counted only a piece of cannon by some. For one +thing, his Prussian Majesty declines signing that Treaty of +Hanover a second time: now when the Dutch accede to it, after +almost a year's trouble with them, the Prussian Ambassador, +singular to observe, "has no orders to sign;" leaves the English +with their Hollanders and Blitz Franzosen to sign by themselves, +this time. [9th August, 1726. (Boyer, <italic> The Political State +of Great Rrilain, <end italic> a monthly periodical, vol. xxxii. +p. 77, which is the number for July, 1726.)] "We will wait, we +will wait!" thinks his Prussian Majesty:--"Who knows?" + +"But then Julich and Berg!" urges he always; "Britannic Majesty +and the Blitz Franzosen were to secure me the reversion there. +That was the essential point!"--For this too Excellenz has a +remedy; works out gradually a remedy from headquarters, the +amiable dexterous man: "Kaiser will do the like, your Majesty; +Kaiser himself will secure it you!"--In brief, some three months +after Seckendorf's instalment as Kaiser's Minister, not yet five +months since his appearance in the Schlossplatz that May evening, +--it is now Hunting-season, and we are at Wusterhausen; +Majesty, his two Black-Artists and the proper satellites on both +sides all there,--a new and opposite Treaty, in extreme privacy, +on the 12th of October, 1726, is signed at that sequestered +Hunting-Schloss: "Treaty of Wusterhausen" so called; which was +once very famous and mysterious, and caused many wigs to wag. +Wigs to wag, in those days especially, when knowledge of it was +first had; the rather as only half knowledge could be had of it;-- +or can, mourns Dryasdust, who has still difficulties about some +"secret articles" in the Document. [Buchholz, i. 94 n.] Courage, +my friend; they are now of no importance to any creature. + +The essential purport of this Treaty, [Given IN EXTENSO (without +the secret articles) in Forster, iv. 159-166.] legible to all +eyes, is, "That Friedrich Wilhelm silently drops the Hanover +Treaty and Blitz Franzosen; and explicitly steps over to the +Kaiser's side; stipulates to assist the Kaiser with so many +thousand, if attacked in Germany by any Blitz Franzose or +intrusive Foreigner whatever. In return for which, the Kaiser, +besides assisting Prussia in the like case with a like quotity of +thousands, engages, in circuitous chancery language, To be +helpful, and humanly speaking effectua1, in that grand matter of +Julich and Berg;--somewhat in the following strain: 'To our +Imperial mind it does appear the King of Prussia has manifest +right to the succession in Julich and Berg; right grounded on +express ERBVERGLEICH of 1624, not to speak of Deeds subsequent: +the Imperial mind, as supreme judge of such matters in the Reich, +will not fail to decide this Cause soon and justly, should it come +to that. But we hope it may take a still better course: for the +Imperial mind will straightway set about persuading Kur-Pfalz to +comply peaceably; and even undertakes to have something done, that +way, before six months pass.'" [Art. v. in Forster, ubi supra.] + +Humanly speaking, surely the Imperial mind will be effectual in +the Julich and Berg matter. But it was very necessary to use +circuitous chancery language,--inasmuch as the Imperial mind, +desirous also to secure Kur-Pfalz's help in this sore crisis, had, +about three months ago, [Treaty with Kur-Pfalz, 16th August, 1726 +(Forster, ii. 71).] expressly engaged to Kur-Pfalz, That Julich +and Berg should NOT go to Friedrich Wilhelm in terms of the old +Deed, but to Kur-Pfalz's Cousins of Sulzbach, whom the old +gentleman (in spite of Deeds) was obstinate to prefer! There is no +doubt about that fact, about that self-devouring pair of facts. +To such straits is a Kaiser driven when he gets deep into +spectre-hunting. + +This is the once famous, now forgotten, "Treaty of Wusterhausen, +12th October, 1726;" which proved so consolatory to the Kaiser in +that dread crisis of his Spectre-Hunt; and the effects of which +are very visible in this History, if nowhere else. It caught up +the Prussian-English Double-Marriage; launched it into the huge +tide of Imperial Spectre Politics, into the awful swaggings and +swayings of the Terrestrial LIBRA in general; and nearly broke the +heart of several Royal persons; of a memorable Crown-Prince, among +others. Which last is now, pretty much, its sole claim to be ever +mentioned again by mankind. As there was no performance, nor an +intention of any, in that Julich-Berg matter, Excellenz Seckendorf +had the task henceforth of keeping, by art-magic or the +PRETERnatural method,--that is, by mere help of Grumkow and the +Devil,--his Prussian Majesty steady to the Kaiser nevertheless. +Always well divided from the English especially. Which the +Excellency Seckendorf managed to do. For six or seven years +coming; or, in fact, till these Spectre-chasings ended, or ran +else-whither for consummation. Steady always, jealous of the +English; sometimes nearly mad, but always ready as a primed +cannon: so Friedrich Wilhelm was accordingly managed to be kept;-- +his own Household gone almost into delirium; he himself looking +out, with loyally fierce survey, for any Anti-Kaiser War: "When do +we go off, then?"--though none ever came. And indeed nothing came; +and except those torments to young Friedrich and others, it was +all Nothing. One of the strangest pieces of Black-Art ever done. + +Excellenz Seckendorf, whom Friedrich Wilhelm so loves, is by no +means a beautiful man; far the reverse. Bodily,--and the spirit +corresponds,--a stiff-backed, petrified, stony, +inscrutable-looking, and most unbeautiful old Intriguer. +Portraits of him, which are frequent, tell all one story. +The brow puckered together, in a wide web of wrinkles from each +temple, as if it meant to hide the bad pair of eyes, which look +suspicion; inquiry, apprehension, habit of double-distilled +mendacity; the indeterminate projecting chin, with its thick, +chapped under-lip, is shaken out, or shoved out, in mill-hopper +fashion,--as if to swallow anything there may be, spoken thing or +other, and grind it to profitable meal for itself. Spiritually he +was an old Soldier let for hire; an old Intriguer, Liar, Fighter, +what you like. What we may call a human Soul standing like a +hackney-coach, this half-century past, with head, tongue, heart, +conscience, at the hest of a discerning public and its shilling. + +There is considerable faculty, a certain stiff-necked strength in +the old fellow; in fact, nature had been rather kind to him; +and certainly his Uncle and Guardian--the distinguished Seckendorf +who did the HISTORIA LUTHERANISMI, a RITTER, and man of good mark, +in Ernst THE PIOUS of Saxe-Gotha's time--took pains about his +education. But Nature's gifts have not prospered with him: +how could they, in that hackney-coach way of life? +Considerable gifts, we say; shrunk into a strange bankruptcy in +the development of them. A stiff-backed, close-fisted old +gentleman, with mill-hopper chin,--with puckery much-inquiring +eyes, which have never discovered any noble path for him in this +world. He is a strictly orthodox Protestant; zealous about +external points of moral conduct; yet scruples not, for the +Kaiser's shilling, to lie with energy to all lengths; and fight, +according to the Reichs-Hofrath code, for any god or man. He is +gone mostly to avarice, in these mature years; all his various +strengths turned into strength of grasping. He is now fifty-four; +a man public in the world, especially since he became the Kaiser's +man: but he has served various masters, in various capacities, and +been in many wars;--and for the next thirty years we shall still +occasionally meet him, seldom to our advantage. + +He comes from Anspach originally; and has kindred Seckendorfs in +office there, old Ritters in that Country. He inherited a handsome +castle and estate, Meuselwitz, near Altenburg in the Thuringen +region, from that Uncle, Ernst of Saxe-Gotha's man, whom we spoke +of; and has otherwise gained wealth; all which he holds like a +vice. Once, at Meuselwitz, they say, he and some young secretary, +of a smartish turn, sat working or conversing, in a large room +with only one candle to illuminate it: the secretary, snuffing the +candle, snuffed it out: "Pshaw," said Seckendorf impatiently, +"where did you learn to handle snuffers?" "Excellenz, in a place +where there were two lights kept!" replied the 0ther. [<italic> +Sechendorje Leben <end italic> (already cited), i. 4.]--For the +rest, he has a good old Wife at Meuselwitz, who is now old, and +had never any children; who loves him much, and is much loved by +him, it would appear: this is really the best fact I ever knew of +him,--poor bankrupt creature; gone all to spiritual rheumatism, to +strict orthodoxy, with unlimited mendacity; and avarice as the +general outcome! Stiff-backed, close-fisted strength, all grown +wooden or stony; yet some little well of human Sympathy does lie +far in the interior: one wishes, after all (since he could not be +got hanged in time for us), good days to his poor old Wife and +him! He both lisps and snuffles, as was mentioned; writes +cunningly acres of despatches to Prince Eugene; never swears, +though a military man, except on great occasions one oath, +JARNI-BLEU,--which is perhaps some flash-note version of +CHAIR-DE-DIEU, like PARBLEU, 'Zounds and the rest of them, which +the Devil cannot prosecute you for; whereby an economic man has +the pleasure of swearing on cheap terms. + +Herr Pollnitz's account of Seckendorf is unusually emphatic; +babbling Pollnitz rises into a strain of pulpit eloquence, +inspired by indignation, on this topic: "He affected German +downrightness, to which he was a stranger; and followed, under a +deceitful show of piety, all the principles of Machiavel. With the +most sordid love of money he combined boorish manners. Lies [of +the distilled kind chiefly] had so become a habit with him, that +he had altogether lost notion of employing truth in speech. It was +the soul of a usurer, inhabiting now the body of a war-captain, +now transmigrating into that of a huckster. False oaths, and the +abominablest basenesses, cost him nothing, so his object might be +reached. He was miserly with his own, but lavish with his Master's +money; daily he gave most striking proofs of both these habitudes. +And this was the man whom we saw, for a space of time, at the head +of the Kaiser's Armies, and at the helm of the State and of the +German Empire," [Pollnitz, ii. 238.]--having done the Prussian +affair so well. + +This cunning old Gentleman, to date from the autumn of 1726, may +be said to have taken possession of Friedrich Wilhelm; to have +gone into him, Grumkow and he, as two devils would have done in +the old miraculous times: and, in many senses, it was they, not +the nominal proprietor, that lived Friedrich Wilhelm's life. +For the next seven years, a figure went about, not doubting it was +Friedrich Wilhelm; but it was in reality Seckendorf-and-Grumkow +much more. These two, conjurer and his man, both invisible, have +caught their royal wild Bear; got a rope round his muzzle;--and so +dance him about; now terrifying, now exhilarating all the market +by the pranks he plays! Grumkow, a very Machiavel after his sort, +knew the nature of the royal animal as no other did. Grumkow, +purchased by his Pension of 500 pounds, is dog-cheap at the Money, +as Seckendorf often urges at Vienna, Is he not? And they add a +touch of extraordinary gift now and then, 40,000 florins (4,000 +pounds) on one occasion: [In 1732: Forster, iii. 232.] for +"Grumkow DIENET EHRLICH (serves honorably)," urges Seckendorf; +and again, "If anybody deserves favor [GNADE, meaning extra pay], +it is this gentleman;"--WAHRLICH! Purchased Grumkow has ample +money at command, to purchase other people needed; and does +purchase; so that all things and persons can be falsified and +enchanted, as need is. By and by it has got so far, that Friedrich +Wilhelm's Ambassador at London maintains a cipher-correspondence +with Grumkow; and writes to Friedrich Wilhelm, not what is passing +in city or court there, but what Grumkow wishes Friedrich Wilhelm +to think is passing. + +Of insinuations, by assent or contradiction, potent if you know +the nature of the beast; of these we need not speak. +Tabaks-Collegium has become a workshop:--human nature can fancy +it! Nay human nature can still read it in the British State-Paper +Office, to boundless stupendous extent;--but ought mostly to +suppress it when read. + +This is a very strange part of Friedrich Wilhelm's history; +and has caused much wonder in the world: Wilhelmina's Book rather +aggravating than assuaging that feeling, on the part of +intelligent readers. A Book written long afterwards, from her +recollections, from her own oblique point of view; in a +beautifully shrill humor; running, not unnaturally, into confused +exaggerations and distortions of all kinds. Not mendaciously +written anywhere, yet erroneously everywhere. Wilhelmina had no +knowledge of the magical machinery that was at work: she vaguely +suspects Grumkow and Seckendorf; but does not guess, in the mad +explosions of Papa, that two devils have got into Papa, and are +doing the mischief. Trusting to memory alone, she misdates, +mistakes, misplaces; jumbles all things topsy-turvy;--giving, on +the whole, an image of affairs which is altogether oblique, +dislocated, exaggerative; and which, in fine, proves +unintelligible, if you try to construe it into a fact or thing +DONE. Yet her Human Narrative, in that wide waste of merely Pedant +Maunderings, is of great worth to us. A green tree, a leafy grove, +better or worse, in the wilderness of dead bones and sand,--how +welcome! Many other Books have been written on the matter; but +these to my experience, only darken it more and more. +Pull Wilhelmina STRAIGHT, the best you can; deduct a twenty-five +or sometimes even a seventy-five per cent, from the exaggerative +portions of her statement; you will find her always true, lucid, +charmingly human; and by far the best authority on this part of +her Brother's History. State-Papers to some extent have also been +printed on the matter; and of written State-Papers, here in +England and elsewhere, this Editor has, had several +hundred-weights distilled for him: but except as lights hung out +over Wilhelmina, nothing yet known, of published or manuscript, +can be regarded as good for much. + +O Heavens, had one but seven-league boots, to get across that +inane country,--a bottomless whirlpool of dust and cobwebs in many +places;--where, at any rate, we had so little to do! Elucidating, +rectifying, painfully contrasting, comparing, let us try to work +out some conceivable picture of this strange Imperial MUCH ADO +ABOUT NOTHING; and get our unfortunate Crown-Prince, and our +unfortunate selves, alive through it. + + + +Chapter VII. + +TOBACCO-PARLIAMENT. + +In these distressing junctures, it may cheer the reader's spirits, +and will tend to explain for him what is coming, if we glance a +little into the Friedrich-Wilhelm TABAGIE (TABAKS-COLLEGIUM or +Smoking College), more worthy to be called Tobacco-Parliament, of +which there have already been incidental notices. Far too +remarkable an Institution of the country to be overlooked +by us here. + +Friedrich Wilhelm, though an absolute Monarch, does not dream of +governing without Law, still less without Justice, which he knows +well to be the one basis for him and for all Kings and men. +His life-effort, prosecuted in a grand, unconscious, unvarying and +instinctive way, may be defined rather as the effort to find out +everywhere in his affairs what was justice; to make regulations, +laws in conformity with that, and to guide himself and his Prussia +rigorously by these. Truly he is not of constitutional turn; +cares little about the wigs and formalities of justice, pressing +on so fiercely towards the essence and fact of it; he has been +known to tear asunder the wigs and formalities, in a notably +impatient manner, when they stood between him and the fact. +But Prussia has its Laws withal, tolerably abundant, tolerably +fixed and supreme: and the meanest Prussian man that could find +out a definite Law, coming athwart Friedrich Wilhelm's wrath, +would check Friedrich Wilhelm in mid-volley,--or hope with good +ground to do it. Hope, we say; for the King is in his own and his +people's eyes, to some indefinite extent, always himself the +supreme ultimate Interpreter, and grand living codex, of the +Laws,--always to some indefinite extent;--and there remains for a +subject man nothing but the appeal to PHILIP SOBER, in some rash +cases! On the whole, however, Friedrich Wilhelm is by no means a +lawless Monarch; nor are his Prussians slaves by any means: +they are patient, stout-hearted, subject men, with a very +considerable quantity of radical fire, very well covered in; +prevented from idle explosions, bound to a respectful demeanor, +and especially to hold their tongues as much as possible. + +Friedrich Wilhelm has not the least shadow of a Constitutional +Parliament, nor even a Privy-Council, as we understand it; +his Ministers being in general mere Clerks to register and execute +what he had otherwise resolved upon: but he had his +TABAKS-COLLEGIUM, Tobacco-College, Smoking Congress, TABAGIE, +which has made so much noise in the world, and which, in a rough +natural way: affords him the uses of a Parliament, on most cheap +terms, and without the formidable inconveniences attached to that +kind of Institution. A Parliament reduced to its simplest +expression, and, instead of Parliamentary eloquence, provided with +Dutch clay-pipes and tobacco: so we may define this celebrated +Tabagie of Friedrich Wilhelm's. + +Tabagies were not uncommon among German Sovereigns of that epoch: +George I. at Hanover had his Smoking-room, and select smoking +Party on an evening; and even at London, as we noticed, smoked +nightly, wetting his royal throat with thin beer, in presence of +his fat and of his lean Mistress, if there were no other company. +Tobacco,--introduced by the Swedish soldiers in the Thirty-Years +War, say some; or even by the English soldiers in the Bohemian or +Palatinate beginnings of said War, say others;--tobacco, once +shown them, was enthusiastically adopted by the German +populations, long in want of such an article; and has done +important multifarious functions in that country ever since. +For truly, in Politics, Morality, and all departments of their +Practical and Speculative affairs, we may trace its influences, +good and bad, to this day. + +Influences generally bad; pacificatory but bad, engaging you in +idle cloudy dreams;--still worse, promoting composure among the +palpably chaotic and discomposed; soothing all things into lazy +peace; that all things may be left to themselves very much, and to +the laws of gravity and decomposition. Whereby German affairs are +come to be greatly overgrown with funguses in our Time; and give +symptoms of dry and of wet rot, wherever handled. George I., we +say, had his Tabagie; and other German Sovereigns had: but none of +them turned it to a Political Institution, as Friedrich Wilhelm +did. The thrifty man; finding it would serve in that capacity +withal. He had taken it up as a commonplace solace and amusement: +it is a reward for doing strenuously the day's heavy labors, to +wind them up in this manner, in quiet society of friendly human +faces, into a contemplative smoke-canopy, slowly spreading into +the realm of sleep and its dreams. Friedrich Wilhelm was a man of +habitudes; his evening Tabagie became a law of Nature to him, +constant as the setting of the sun. Favorable circumstances, +quietly noticed and laid hold of by the thrifty man, developed +this simple evening arrangement of his into a sort of Smoking +Parliament, small but powerful, where State-consultations, in a +fitful informal way, took place; and the weightiest affairs might, +by dexterous management, cunning insinuation and manoeuvring from +those that understood the art and the place, be bent this way or +that, and ripened towards such issue as was desirable. + +To ascertain what the true course in regard to this or the other +high matter will be; what the public will think of it; and, in +short, what and how the Executive-Royal shall DO therein: +this, the essential function of a Parliament and Privy-Council, +was here, by artless cheap methods, under the bidding of mere +Nature, multifariously done; mere taciturnity and sedative smoke +making the most of what natural intellect there might be. +The substitution of Tobacco-smoke for Parliamentary eloquence is, +by some, held to be a great improvement. Here is Smelfungus's +opinion, quaintly expressed, with a smile in it, which perhaps is +not all of joy:-- + +"Tobacco-smoke is the one element in which, by our European +manners, men can sit silent together without embarrassment, and +where no man is bound to speak one word more than he has actually +and veritably got to say. Nay, rather every man is admonished and +enjoined by the laws of honor, and even of personal ease, to stop +short of that point; at all events, to hold his peace and take to +his pipe again, the instant he has spoken his meaning, if he +chance to have any. The results of which salutary practice, if +introduced into Constitutional Parliaments, might evidently be +incalculable. The essence of what little intellect and insight +there is in that room: we shall or can get nothing more out of any +Parliament; and sedative, gently soothing, gently clarifying +tobacco-smoke (if the room were well ventilated, open atop, and +the air kept good), with the obligation to a MINIMUM of speech, +surely gives human intellect and insight the best chance they can +have. Best chance, instead of the worst chance as at present: +ah me, ah me, who will reduce fools to silence again in any +measure? Who will deliver men from this hideous nightmare of +Stump-Oratory, under which the grandest Nations are choking to a +nameless death, bleeding (too truly) from mouth and nose and ears, +in our sad days?" + +This Tobacco-College is the Grumkow-and-Seckendorf chief field of +action. These two gentlemen understand thoroughly the nature of +the Prussian Tobacco-Parliament; have studied the conditions of it +to the most intricate cranny: no English Whipper-in or eloquent +Premier knows his St. Stephen's better, or how to hatch a measure +in that dim hot element. By hint, by innuendo; by contemplative +smoke, speech and forbearance to speak; often looking one way and +rowing another,--they can touch the secret springs, and guide in a +surprising manner the big dangerous Fireship (for such every +State-Parliament is) towards the haven they intend for it. +Most dexterous Parliament-men (Smoke-Parliament); no Walpole, no +Dundas, or immortal Pitt, First or Second, is cleverer in +Parliamentary practice. For their Fireship, though smaller than +the British, is very dangerous withal. Look at this, for instance: +Seckendorf, one evening, far contrary to his wont, which was +prostrate respect in easy forms, and always judicious submission +of one's own weaker judgment, towards his Majesty,--has got into +some difficult defence of the Kaiser; defence very difficult, or +in reality impossible. The cautious man is flustered by the +intricacies of his position, by his Majesty's indignant +counter-volleys, and the perilous necessity there is to do the +impossible on the spur of the instant;--gets into emphasis, +answers his Majesty's volcanic fire by incipient heat of his own; +and, in short, seems in danger of forgetting himself, and kindling +the Tobacco-Parliament into a mere conflagration. That will be an +issue for us! And yet who dare interfere? Friedrich Wilhelm's +words, in high clangorous metallic plangency, and the pathos of a +lion raised by anger into song, fall hotter and hotter; +Seckendorf's puckered brow is growing of slate-color; +his shelf-lip, shuttling violently, lisps and snuffles mere +unconciliatory matter:--What on earth will become of us?--"Hoom! +Boom!" dexterous Grumkow has drawn a Humming-top from his pocket, +and suddenly sent it spinning. There it hums and caracoles, +through the bottles and glasses; reckless what dangerous breakage +and spilth it may occasion. Friedrich Wilhelm looked aside to it +indignantly. "What is that?" inquired he, in metallic tone still +high. "Pooh, a toy I bought for the little Prince August, your +Majesty: am only trying it!" His Majesty understood the hint, +Seckendorf still better; and a jolly touch of laughter, on both +sides, brought the matter back into the safe tobacco-clouds again. +[Forster, ii. 110.] + +This Smoking Parliament or (TABAKS-COLLEGIUM of his Prussian +Majesty was a thing much talked of in the world; but till +Seckendorf and Grumkow started their graud operations there, its +proceedings are not on record; nor indeed till then had its +political or parliamentary function become so decidedly evident. +It was originally a simple Smoking-Club; got together on hest of +Nature, without ulterior intentions:--thus English PARLIAMENTA +themselves are understood to have been, in the old Norman time, +mere royal Christmas-Festivities, with natural colloquy or +PARLEYING between King and Nobles ensuing thereupon, and what +wisest consultation concerning the arduous things of the realm the +circumstances gave rise to. Such parleyings or consultations,-- +always two in number in regard to every matter, it would seem, or +even three; one sober, one drunk, and one just after being drunk, +--proving of extreme service in practice, grew to be Parliament, +with its three readings, and what not. + +A Smoking-room,--with wooden furniture, we can suppose,--in each +of his Majesty's royal Palaces, was set apart for this evening +service, and became the Tabagie of his Majesty. A Tabagie-room in +the Berlin Schloss, another in the Potsdam, if the cicerone had +any knowledge, could still be pointed out:--but the Tobacco-PIPES +that are shown as Friedrich Wilhelm's in the KUNSTKAMMER or Museum +of Berlin, pipes which no rational smoker, not compelled to it, +would have used, awaken just doubt as to the cicerones; and you +leave the Locality of the Tabagie a thing conjectural. In summer +season, at Potsdam and in country situations, Tabagie could be +held under a tent: we expressly know, his Majesty held Tabagie at +Wusterhausen nightly on the Steps of the big Fountain, in the +Outer Court there. Issuing from Wusterhausen Schloss, and its +little clipped lindens, by the western side; passing the sentries, +bridge and black ditch, with live Prussian eagles, vicious black +bears, you come upon the royal Tabagie of Wusterhausen; covered by +an awning, I should think; sending forth its bits of smoke-clouds, +and its hum of human talk, into the wide free Desert round. +Any room that was large enough, and had height of ceiling, and +air-circulation and no cloth-furniture, would do: and in each +Palace is one, or more than one, that has been fixed upon and +fitted out for that object. + +A high large Room, as the Engravings (mostly worthless) give it +us: contented saturnine human figures, a dozen or so of them, +sitting round a large long Table, furnished for the occasion; +long Dutch pipe in the mouth of each man; supplies of knaster +easily accessible; small pan of burning peat, in the Dutch fashion +(sandy native charcoal, which burns slowly without smoke), is at +your left hand; at your right a jug, which I find to consist of +excellent thin bitter beer. Other costlier materials for drinking, +if you want such, are not beyond reach. On side-tables stand +wholesome cold-meats, royal rounds of beef not wanting, with bread +thinly sliced and buttered: in a rustic but neat and abundant way, +such innocent accommodations, narcotic or nutritious, gaseous, +fluid and solid, as human nature, bent on contemplation and an +evening lounge, can require. Perfect equality is to be the rule; +no rising, or notice taken, when anybody enters or leaves. Let the +entering man take his place and pipe, without obligatory remarks: +if he cannot smoke, which is Seckendorf's case for instance, let +him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established +stream of things. And so, Puff, slowly Pff!--and any comfortable +speech that is in you; or none, if you authentically have not any. + +Old official gentlemen, military for most part; Grumkow, Derschau, +Old Dessauer (when at hand), Seckendorf, old General Flans (rugged +Platt-Deutsch specimen, capable of TOCADILLE or backgammon, +capable of rough slashes of sarcasm when he opens his old beard +for speech): these, and the like of these, intimate confidants of +the King, men who could speak a little, or who could be socially +silent otherwise,--seem to have been the staple of the +Institution. Strangers of mark, who happened to be passing, were +occasional guests; Ginckel the Dutch Ambassador, though foreign +like Seckendorf, was well seen there; garrulous Pollnitz, who has +wandered over all the world, had a standing invitation. +Kings, high Princes on visit, were sure to have the honor. +The Crown-Prince, now and afterwards, was often present; +oftener than he liked,--in such an atmosphere, in such an element. +"The little Princes were all wont to come in," doffing their bits +of triangular hats, "and bid Papa good-night. One of the old +Generals would sometimes put them through their exercise; and the +little creatures were unwilling to go away to bed." + +In such Assemblage, when business of importance, foreign or +domestic, was not occupying the royal thoughts,--the Talk, we can +believe, was rambling and multifarious: the day's hunting, if at +Wusterhausen; the day's news, if at Berlin or Potsdam; +old reminiscences, too, I can fancy, turning up, and talk, even in +Seckendorf's own time, about Siege of Menin (where your Majesty +first did me the honor of some notice), Siege of Stralsund, and-- +duly on September 11th at least--Malplaquet, with Marlborough and +Eugene: what Marlborough said, looked: and especially Lottum, late +Feldmarschall Lottum; [Died 1719.] and how the Prussian Infantry +held firm, like a wall of rocks, when the horse were swept away,-- +rocks highly volcanic, and capable of rolling forward too; +and "how a certain Adjutant [Derschau smokes harder, and blushes +brown] snatched poor Tettau on his back, bleeding to death, amid +the iron whirlwinds, and brought him out of shot-range." [<italic> +Militair-Lexikon, <end italic> iv. 78, ? Major-General von Tettau, +and i. 348, ? Derschau. This was the beginning of Derschau's favor +with Friedrich Wilhelm, who had witnesssd this piece of faithful +work.]--"Hm, na, such a Day, that, Herr Feldzeugmeister, as we +shall not see again till the Last of the Days!" + +Failing talk, there were Newspapers in abundance; scraggy Dutch +Courants, Journals of the Rhine, FAMAS, Frankfurt ZEITUNGS; +with which his Majesty exuberantly supplied himself;--being +willing to know what was passing in the high places of the world, +or even what in the dark snuffy Editor's thoughts was passing. +This kind of matter, as some picture of the actual hour, his +Majesty liked to have read to him, even during meal-time. +Some subordinate character, with clear windpipe,--all the better +too, if he be a book-man, cognizant of History, Geography, and can +explain everything,--usually reads the Newspaper from some high +seat behind backs, while his Majesty and Household dine. The same +subordinate personage may be worth his place in the Tabagie, +should his function happen to prove necessary there. +Even book-men, though generally pedants and mere bags of wind and +folly, are good for something, more especially if rich mines of +quizzability turn out to be workable in them. + + + OF GUNDLING, AND THE LITERARY MEN IN TOBACCO-PARLIAMENT. + +Friedrich Wilhelm had, in succession or sometimes simultaneously, +a number of such Nondescripts, to read his Newspapers and season +his Tabagie;--last evanescent phasis of the old Court-Fool +species;--who form a noticeable feature of his environment. +One very famous literary gentleman of this description, who +distanced every competitor, in the Tabagie and elsewhere, for +serving his Majesty's occasions, was Jakob Paul Gundling; a name +still laughingly remembered among the Prussian People. +Gundling was a Country-Clergyman's son, of the Nurnberg quarter; +had studied, carrying off the honors, in various Universities; +had read, or turned over, whole cartloads of wise and foolish +Books (gravitating, I fear, towards the latter kind); had gone the +Grand Tour as travelling tutor, "as companion to an English +gentleman." He had seen courts, perhaps camps, at lowest cities +and inns; knew in a manner, practically and theoretically, all +things, and had published multifarious Books of his own. [List of +them, Twenty-one in number, mostly on learned Antiquarian +subjects,--in Forster, ii. 255, 256.] The sublime long-eared +erudition of the man was not to be contested; manifest to +everybody; thrice and four times manifest to himself, in the +first place. + +In the course of his roamings, and grand and little tours, he had +come to Berlin in old King Friedrich's time; had thrown powder in +the eyes of men there, and been appointed to Professorships in the +Ritter-Academy, to Chief-Heraldships,--"Historiographer Royal," +and perhaps other honors and emoluments. The whole of which were +cut down by the ruthless scythe of Friedrich Wilhelm, ruthlessly +mowing his field clear, in the manner we saw at his Accession. +Whereby learned grandiloquent Gundling, much addicted to liquor by +this time, and turning the corner of forty, saw himself cast forth +into the general wilderness; that is to say, walking the streets +of Berlin, with no resources but what lay within himself and his +own hungry skin. Much given to liquor too. How he lived, for a +year or two after this,--erudite pen and braggart tongue his only +resources,--were tragical to say. At length a famous +Tavern-keeper, the "LEIPZIGE POLTER-HANS (Leipzig Kill-Cow, or +BOISTEROUS-JACK)," as they call him, finding what a dungeon of +erudite talk this Gundling was, and how gentlemen got entertained +by him, gave Gundling the run of his Tavern (or, I fear, only a +seat in the drinking-room); and it was here that General Grumkow +found him, talking big, and disserting DE OMNI SCIBILI, to the +ancient Berlin gentlemen over their cups. A very Dictionary of a +man; who knows, in a manner, all things; and is by no means +ignorant that he knows them: Would not this man suit his Majesty? +thought Grumkow; and brought him to Majesty, to read the +Newspapers and explain everything. Date is not given, or hinted +at; but incidentally we find Gundling in full blast "in the year +1718;" [Von Loen, <italic> Kleine Schriften, i. 201 (cited in +Forster, i. 260).] and conclude his instalment was a year or two +before. Gundling came to his Majesty from the Tap-room of +Boisterous-Jack; read the Newspapers, and explained everything: +such a Dictionary-in-breeches (much given to liquor) as his +Majesty had got, was never seen before. Working into the man, his +Majesty, who had a great taste for such things, discovered in him +such mines of college-learning, court-learning, without end; +self-conceit, and depth of appetite, not less considerable: +in fine, such Chaotic Blockheadism with the consciousness of being +Wisdom, as was wondrous to behold,--as filled his Majesty, +especially, with laughter and joyful amazement. Here are mines of +native Darkness and Human Stupidity, capable of being made to +phosphoresce and effervesce,--are there not, your Majesty? +Omniscient Gundling was a prime resource in the Tabagie, for many +years to come. Man with sublimer stores of long-eared Learning +and Omniscience; man more destitute of Mother-wit, was nowhere to +be met with. A man, bankrupt of Mother-wit;--who has Squandered +any poor Mother-wit he had in the process of acquiring his sublime +long-eared Omniscience; and has retained only depth of appetite,-- +appetite for liquor among other things, as the consummation and +bottomless cesspool of appetites:--is not this a discovery we have +made, in Boisterous-Jack's, your Majesty! + +The man was an Eldorado for the peculiar quizzing humor of his +Majesty; who took immense delight in working him, when occasion +served. In the first years, he had to attend his Majesty on all +occasions of amusement; if you invite his Majesty to dinner, +Gundling too must be of the party. Daily, otherwise, Gundling was +at the Tabagie; getting drunk, if nothing better. Vein after vein, +rich in broad fun (very broad and Brobdignagian, such as suits +there), is discovered in him: without wit himself, but much the +cause of wit. None oftener shook the Tabagie with inextinguishable +Hahas: daily, by stirring into him, you could wrinkle the Tabagie +into grim radiance of banter and silent grins. + +He wore sublime clothes: Friedrich Wilhelm, whom we saw dress up +his regimental Scavenger-Executioners in French costume, for Count +Rothenburg's behoof, made haste to load Gundling with Rathships, +Kammerherrships, Titles such as fools covet;--gave him tolerable +pensions too, poor devil, and even functions, if they were of the +imaginary or big insignificant sort. Above all things, his Majesty +dressed him, as the pink of fortunate ambitious courtiers. +Superfine scarlet coat, gold buttonholes, black-velvet facings and +embroideries without end: "straw-colored breeches; red silk +stockings," with probably blue clocks to them, "and shoes with red +heels:" on his learned head sat an immense cloud-periwig of white +goat's-hair (the man now growing towards fifty); in the hat a red +feather:--in this guise he walked the streets, the gold Key of +KAMMERHERR (Chamberlain) conspicuously hanging at his coat-breast; +and looked proudly down upon the world, when sober. Alas, he was +often not sober; and fiends in human shape were ready enough to +take advantage of his unguarded situation. No man suffered ruder +tarring-and-feathering;--and his only comfort was his bane withal, +that he had, under such conditions, the use of the royal cellars, +and could always command good liquor there. + +His illustrious scarlet coat, by tumblings in the ditch, soon got +dirty to a degree; and exposed him to the biting censures of his +Majesty, anxious for the respectability of his Hofraths. One day, +two wicked Captains, finding him prostrate in some lone place, cut +off his Kammerherr KEY; and privately gave it to his Majesty. +Majesty, in Tabagie, notices Gundling's coat-breast: "Where is +your Key, then, Herr Kammerherr?" "Hm, hah--unfortunately lost it, +Ihro Majestat!"--"Lost it, say you?" and his Majesty looks +dreadfully grave.--"Key lost?" thinks Tabagie, grave Seckendorf +included: "JARNI-BLEU, that is something serious!" "As if a +Soldier were to drink his musket!" thinks his Majesty: "And what +are the laws, if an ignorant fellow is shot, and a learned wise +one escapes?" Here is matter for a deliberative Tabagie; and to +poor Gundling a bad outlook, fatal or short of fatal. He had +better not even drink much; but dispense with consolation, and +keep his wits about him, till this squall pass. After much +deliberating, it is found that the royal clemency can be extended; +and an outlet devised, under conditions. Next Tabagie, a servant +enters with one of the biggest trays in the world, and upon it a +"Wooden Key gilt, about an ell long;" this gigantic implement is +solemnly hung round the repentant Kammerherr; this he shall wear +publicly as penance, and be upon his behavior, till the royal mind +can relent. Figure the poor blockhead till that happen! +"On recovering his metal key, he goes to a smith, and has it fixed +on with wire." + +What Gundling thought to himself, amid these pranks and hoaxings, +we do not know. The poor soul was not born a fool; though he had +become one, by college-learning, vanity, strong-drink, and the +world's perversity and his own. Under good guidance, especially if +bred to strict silence, he might have been in some measure a +luminous object,--not as now a phosphorescent one, shining by its +mere rottenness! A sad "Calamity of Authors" indeed, when it +overtakes a man!--Poor Gundling probably had lucid intervals now +and then; tragic fits of discernment, in the inner-man of him. +He had a Brother, also a learned man, who retained his senses; +and was even a rather famed Professor at Halle; whose Portrait, +looking very academic, solemn and well-to-do, turns up in old +printshops; whose Books, concerning "Henry the Fowler (<italic> De +Henrico Aucupe <end italic>)," "Kaiser Conrad I.," and other dim +Historical objects, are still consultable,--though with little +profit, to my experience. The name of this one was NICOLAUS +HIERONYMUS; ours is JAKOB PAUL, the senior brother,--once the hope +of the House, it is likely, and a fond Father's pride,--in that +poor old Nurnberg Parsonage long ago! + +Jakob Paul likewise continued to write Books, on Brandenburg +Heraldries, Topography, Genealogies: even a "LIFE" or two of some +old Brandenburg Electors are still extant from his hand; but not +looked at now by any mortal. He had been, perhaps was again, +Historiographer Royal; and felt bound to write such Books: several +of them he printed; and we hear of others still manuscript, "in +five folio volumes written fair." He held innumerable half-mock +Titles and Offices; among others, was actual President of the +Berlin Royal Society, or ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, Leibnitz's pet +daughter,--there Gundling actually sat in Office; and drew the +salary, for one certainty. "As good he as another," thought +Friedrich Wilhelm: "What is the use of these solemn fellows, in +their big perukes, with their crabbed X+Y's, and scientiflc +Pedler's-French; doing nothing that I can see, except annually the +<italic> Berlin Almanac, <end italic> which they live upon? +Let them live upon it, and be thankful; with Gundling for their +head man." + +Academy of Sciences makes its ALMANAC, and some peculium of profit +by it; lectures perhaps a little "on Anatomy" (good for something, +that, in his Majesty's mind); but languishes--without +encouragement during the present reign. Has his Majesty no prize +questions to propose, then? None, or worse. He once officially put +these learned Associates upon ascertaining for him "Why Champagne +foamed?" They, with a hidden vein of pleasantry, required +"material to experiment upon." Friedrich Wilhelm sent them a +dozen, or certain dozens; and the matter proved insoluble to this +day. No King, scarcely any man, had less of reverence for the +Sciences so called; for Academic culture, and the art of the +Talking-Schoolmaster in general! A King obtuse to the fine Arts, +especially to the vocal Arts, in a high degree. Literary fame +itself he regards as mountebank fame; the art of writing big +admirable folios is little better to him than that of vomiting +long coils of wonderful ribbon, for the idlers of the +market-place; and he bear-baits his Gundling, in this manner, +as phosphorescent blockhead of the first magnitude, worthy +of nothing better. + +Nay, it is but lately (1723 the exact year) that he did his +ever-memorable feat in regard to Wolf and his Philosophy, at +Halle. Illustrious Wolf was recognized, at that time, as the +second greater Leibnitz, and Head-Philosopher of Nature, who "by +mathematical method" had as it were taken Nature in the fact, and +illuminated everything, so that whosoever ran might read,--which +all manner of people then tried to do, but, have now quite ceased +trying "by the Wolf-method:"--Immortal Wolf, somewhat of a stiff, +reserved humor, inwardly a little proud, and not wanting in +private contempt of the contemptible, had been accused of +heterodoxy by the Halle Theologians. Immortal Wolf, croakily +satirical withal, had of course defended himself; and of course +got into a shoreless sea of controversy with the Halle +Theologians; pestering his Majesty with mere wars, and rumors of +war, for a length of time, from that Halle University. +[In Busching (<italic> Beitrage, <end italic> i. l-140) is rough +authentic account of Wolf, and especially of all that,--with +several curious LETTERS of Wolf's.] So that Majesty, unable to +distinguish top or bottom in such a coil of argument; or to do +justice in the case, however willing and anxious, often +passionately asked: "What, in God's name, is the real truth of +it?" Majesty appointed Commissions to inquire; read Reports; +could for a long while make out nothing certain. At last came a +decision on the sudden;--royal mind suddenly illuminated, it is a +little uncertain how. Some give the credit of it to Gundling, +which is unlikely; others to "Two Generals" of piouis orthodox +turn, acquainted with Halle;--and I have heard obscurely that it +was the Old Dessauer, who also knew Halle; and was no doubt +wearied to hear nothing talked of there but injured Philosopher +Wolf, and injuring Theologian Lange, or VICE VERSA. Some practical +military man, not given to take up with shadows, it likeliest was. +"In God's name, what is the real truth of all that?" inquired his +Majesty, of the practical man: "DOES Wolf teach hellish doctrines; +as Lange says, or heavenly, as himself says?" "Teaches babble +mainly, I should think, and scientific Pedler's French," intimated +the practical man: "But they say he has one doctrine about oaths, +and what he calls foundation of duty, which I did not like. Not a +heavenly doctrine that. Follow out that, any of your Majesty's +grenadiers might desert, and say he had done no sin against God!" +[Busching, i. 8; Benekendorf, <italic> Karakterzilge aus dem Leben +Konig Friedrich Wilhelm I. <end italic> (Anonymous, Berlin, 1787), +ii. 23.] Friedrich Wilhelm flew into a paroxysm of horror; +instantly redacted brief Royal Decree [15th November (Busching +says 8th), 1723.] (which is still extant among the curiosities of +the Universe), ordering Wolf to quit Halle and the Prussian +Dominions, bag and baggage, forevermore, within eighb-and-forty +hours, "BEY STRAFE DES STRANGES, under pain of the halter!" + +Halter: the Head-Philosopher of Nature, found too late, will be +hanged, as if he were a sheep-stealer; hanged, and no mistake! +Poor Wolf gathered himself together, wife and baggage; girded up +his loins; and ran with the due despatch. He is now found +sheltered under Hessen-Darmstadt, at Marburg, professing something +there; and all the intellect of the world is struck with +astonishment, and with silent or vocal pity for the poor man.-- +It is but fair to say, Friedrich Wilhelm, gradually taking notice +of the world's humor in regard to this, began to have his own +misgivings; and determined to read some of Wolf's Books for +himself. Reading in Wolf, he had sense to discern that here was a +man of undeniable talent and integrity; that the Practical +Military judgment, loading with the iron ramrod, had shot wide of +the mark, in this matter; and, in short, that a palpable bit of +foul-play had been done. This was in 1733;--ten years after the +shot, when his Majesty saw, with his own eyes, how wide it had +gone. He applied to Wolf earnestly, more than once, to come back +to him: Halle, Frankfurt, any Prussian University with a vacancy +in it, was now wide open to Wolf. But Wolf knew better: Wolf, with +bows down to the ground, answered always evadingly;--and never +would come back till the New Reign began. + +Friedrich Wilhelm knew little of Book-learning or Book-writing; +and his notion of it is very shocking to us. But the fact is, +O reader, Book-writing is of two kinds: one wise, and may be among +the wisest of earthly things; the other foolish, sometimes far +beyond what can be reached by human nature elsewhere. +Blockheadism, Unwisdom, while silent, is reckoned bad; +but Blockheadism getting vocal, able to speak persuasively,--have +you considered that at all? Human Opacity falling into +Phosphorescence; that is to say, becoming luminous (to itself and +to many mortals) by the very excess of it, by the very bursting of +it into putrid fermentation;--all other forms of Chaos are cosmic +in comparison!--Our poor Friedrich Wilhelm had seen only Gundlings +among the Book-writing class: had he seen wiser specimens, he +might have formed, as he did in Wolf's case, another judgment. +Nay in regard to Gundling himself, it is observable how, with his +unutterable contempt, he seems to notice in him glimpses of the +admirable (such acquirements, such dictionary-faculties, though +gone distracted!),--and almost has a kind of love for the absurd +dog. Gundling's pensions amount to something like 150 pounds; +an immense sum in this Court. [Forster, i. 263, 284 (if you can +RECONCILE the two passages).] A blockhead admirable in some sorts; +and of immense resource in Tobaoco-Parliament when business +is slack!-- + +No end to the wild pranks, the Houyhnhnm horse-play they had with +drunken Gundling. He has staggered out in a drunk state, and +found, or not clearly FOUND till the morrow, young bears lying in +his bed;--has found his room-door walled up; been obliged to grope +about, staggering from door to door and from port to port, and +land ultimately in the big Bears' den, who hugged and squeezed him +inhumanly there. Once at Wusterhausen, staggering blind-drunk out +of the Schloss towards his lair, the sentries at the Bridge +(instigated to it by the Houyhnhnms, who look on) pretend to +fasten some military blame on him: Why has he omitted or committed +so-and-so? Gundling's drunk answer is unsatisfactory. "Arrest, +Herr Kammerrath, is it to be that, then!" They hustle him about, +among the Bears which lodge there;--at length they lay him +horizontally across two ropes;--take to swinging him hither and +thither, up and down, across the black Acherontic Ditch, which is +frozen over, it being the dead of winter: one of the ropes, LOWER +rope, breaks; Gundling comes souse upon the ice with his +sitting-part; breaks a big hole in the ice, and scarcely with +legs, arms and the remaining rope, can be got out undrowned. +[Forster (i. 254-280); founding, I suppose, on <italic> Leben und +Thaten des Freiherrn Paul von Gundling <end italic> (Berlin, +1795); probably not one of the exactest Biographies.] + +If, with natural indignation, he shut his door, and refuse to come +to the Tabagie, they knock in a panel of his door; and force him +out with crackers, fire-works, rockets and malodorous projectiles. +Once the poor blockhead, becoming human for a moment, went clean +away; to Halle where his Brother was, or to some safer place: +but the due inveiglements, sublime apologies, increase of titles, +salaries, were used; and the indispensable Phosphorescent +Blockhead, and President of the Academy of Pedler's-French, was +got back. Drink remained always as his consolation; drink, and the +deathless Volumes he was writing and printing. Sublime returns +came to him;--Kaiser's Portrait set in diamonds, on one occasion, +--for his Presentation-Copies in high quarters: immortal fame, is +it not his clear portion; still more clearly abundance of good +wine. Friedrich Wilhelm did not let him want for Titles;--raised +him at last to the Peerage; drawing out the Diploma and Armorial +Blazonry, in a truly Friedrich-Wilhelm manner, with his own hand. +The Gundlings, in virtue of the transcendent intellect and merits +of this Founder Gundling, are, and are hereby declared to be, of +Baronial dignity to the last scion of them; and in "all +RITTER-RENNEN (Tournaments), Battles, Fights, Camp-pitchings, +Sealings, Siguetings, shall and may use the above-said Shield of +Arms,"--if it can be of any advantage to them. A Prussian Majesty +who gives us 150 pounds yearly, with board and lodging and the run +of his cellar, and honors such as these, is not to be lightly +sneezed away, though of queer humors now and then. The highest +Personages, as we said, more than once made gifts to Gundling; +miniatures set in diamonds; purses of a hundred ducats: +even Gundling, it was thought, might throw in a word, mad or +otherwise, which would bear fruit. It was said of him, he never +spoke to harm anybody with his Majesty. The poor blown-up +blockhead was radically not ill-natured,--at least, if you let his +"phosphorescences" alone. + +But the grandest explosious, in Tobacco-Parliament, were +producible, when you got Two literary fools; and, as if with +Leyden-jars, positive and negative, brought their vanities to bear +on one another. This sometimes happened, when Tobacbo-Parliament +was in luck. Friedrich Wilhelm had a variety of Merry-Andrew Raths +of the Gundling sort, though none ever came up to Gundling, or +approached him, in worth as a Merry-Andrew. + +Herr Fassmann, who wrote Books, by Patronage or for the Leipzig +Booksellers, and wandered about the world as a star or comet of +some magnitude, is not much known to my readers:--but he is too +well known to me, for certain dark Books of his which I have had +to read. [<italic> Life of Friedrich Wilhelm, <end italic> +occasionally cited here; <italic> Life of August the Strong; +<end italic> &c.] A very dim Literary Figure; undeniable, +indecipherable Human Fact, of those days; now fallen quite extinct +and obsolete; his garniture, equipment, environment all very dark +to us. Probably a too restless, imponderous creature, too much of +the Gundling type; structure of him GASEOUS, not solid; Perhaps a +little of the coxcomb naturally; much of the sycophant on +compulsion,--being sorely jammed into corners, and without +elbow-room at all, in this world. Has, for the rest, a +recognizable talent for "Magazine writing,"--for Newspaper +editing, had that rich mine, "California of the Spiritually +Vagabond," been opened in those days. Poor extinct Fassmann, one +discovers at last a vein of weak geniality in him; here and there, +real human sense and eyesight, under those strange conditions; +and his poor Books, rotted now to inanity, have left a small +seed-pearl or two, to the earnest reader. Alas, if he WAS to +become "spiritually vagabond" ("spiritually" and otherwise), +might it not perhaps be wholesome to him that the California +was NOT discovered?-- + +Fassmann was by no means such a fool as Gundling; but, he was much +of a fool too. He had come to Berlin, about this time, [1726, as +he himself says (supra p. 8).] in hopes of patronage from the King +or somebody; might say to himself, "Surely I am a better man than +Gundling, if the Berlin Court has eyesight." By the King, on some +wise General's recommending it, he was, as a preliminary, +introduced to the Tabagie at least. Here is the celebrated +Gundling; there is the celebrated Fassmann. Positive Leyden-jar, +with negative close by: in each of these two men lodges a +full-charged fiery electric virtue of self-conceit; destructive +each of the other;--could a conductor be discovered. +Conductors are discoverable, conductors are not wanting; and many +are the explosions between these mutually-destructive human +varieties;--welcomed with hilarious, rather vacant, huge +horse-laughter, in this Tobacco-Parliament and Synod of +the Houyhnhnms. + +Of which take this acme; and then end. Fassmann, a fellow not +without sarcasm and sharpness, as you may still see, has one +evening provoked Gundling to the transcendent pitch,--till words +are weak, and only action will answer. Gundling, driven to the +exploding point, suddenly seizes his Dutch smoking-pan, of +peat-charcoal ashes and red-hot sand; and dashes it in the face of +Fassmann; who is of course dreadfully astonished thereby, and has +got his very eyebrows burnt, not to speak of other injuries. +Stand to him, Fassmann! Fassmann stands to him tightly, being the +better man as well as the more satirical; grasps Gundling by the +collar, wrenches him about, lays him at last over his knee, +sitting-part uppermost; slaps said sitting-part (poor sitting-part +that had broken the ice of Wusterhausen) with the hot pan,--nay +some say, strips it and slaps. Amid the inextinguishable +horse-laughter (sincere but vacant) of the Houyhnhnm Olympus. + +After which, his Majesty, as epilogue to such play, suggests, That +feats of that nature are unseemly among gentlemen; that when +gentlemen have a quarrel, there is another way of settling it. +Fassmann thereupon challenges Gundling; Gundling accepts; time and +place are settled, pistols the weapon. At the appointed time and +place Gundling stands, accordingly, pistol in hand; but at sight +of Fassmann, throws his pistol away; will not shoot any man, nor +have any man shoot him. Fassmann sternly advances; shoots his +pistol (powder merely) into Gundling's sublime goat's-hair wig: +wig blazes into flame; Gundling falls shrieking, a dead man, to +the earth; and they quench and revive him with a bucket of water. +Was there ever seen such horse-play? Roaring laughter, huge, rude, +and somewhat vacant, as that of the Norse gods over their ale at +Yule time;--as if the face of the Sphinx were to wrinkle itself in +laughter; or the fabulous Houyhnhnms themselves were there to mock +in their peculiar fashion. + +His Majesty at length gave Gundling a wine-cask, duly figured; +"painted black with a white cross," which was to stand in his room +as MEMENTO-MORI, and be his coffin. It stood for ten years; +Gundling often sitting to write in it; a good screen against +draughts. And the poor monster was actually buried in this cask; +[Died 11th April, 1731, age 58: description of the Burial "at +Bornstadt near Potsdam," in Forster, i. 276.] Fassmann pronouncing +some funeral oration,--and the orthodox clergy uttering, from the +distance, only a mute groan. "The Herr Baron von Gundling was a +man of many dignities, of much Book-learning; a man of great +memory," admits Fassmann, "but of no judgment," insinuates he,-- +LOOKING FOR the Judgment (EXPECTANS JUDICIUM)," says Fassmann, +with a pleasant wit. Fassmann succeeded to all the emoluments and +honors; but did not hold them; preferred to run away before long: +and after him came one and the other, whom the reader is not to be +troubled with here. Enough if the patient reader have seen, a +little, into that background of Friedrich Wilhelm's existence; +and, for the didactic part, have caught up his real views or +instincts upon Spiritual Phosphorescence, or Stupidity grown +Vocal, which are much sounder than most of us suspect. + +These were the sports of the Tobacco-Parliament; and it was always +meant primarily for sport, for recreation: but there is no doubt +it had a serious function as well. "Business matters," adds +Beneckendorf, who had means of knowing, [Benekendorf, <italic> +Karakterzuge, <end italic> i. 137-149; vi. 37.] "were often a +subject of colloquy in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM. Not that they were +there finished off, decided upon, or meant to be so. But Friedrich +Wilhelm often purposely brought up such things in conversation +there, that he might learn the different opinions of his generals +and chief men, without their observing it,"--and so might profit +by the Collective Wisdom, in short. + + + +Chapter VIII. + +SECKENDORF'S RETORT TO HER MAJESTY. + +The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not yet known to Queen Sophie, to +her Father George, or to any external creature: but that open +flinching, and gradual withdrawal, from the Treaty of Hanover was +too well known; and boded no good to her pet project. Female +sighs, male obduracies, and other domestic phenomena, are to be +imagined in consequence. "A grand Britannic Majesty indeed; +very lofty Father to us, Madam, ever since he came to be King of +England: Stalking along there, with his nose in the air; +not deigning the least notice of us, except as of a thing that may +be got to fight for him! And he does not sign the Double-Marriage +Treaty, Madam; only talks of signing it,--as if we were a starved +coach-horse, to be quickened along by a wisp of hay put upon the +coach-pole close ahead of us always!"--"JARNI-BLEU!" snuffles +Seckendorf with a virtuous zeal, or looks it; and things are not +pleasant at the royal dinner-table. + +Excellenz Seckendorf, we find at this time, "often has his Majesty +to dinner:" and such dinners; fitting one's tastes in all points, +--no expense regarded (which indeed is the Kaiser's, if we knew +it)! And in return, Excellenz is frequently at dinner with his +Majesty; where the conversation; if it turn on England, which +often happens, is more and more an offence to Queen Sophie. +Seckendorf studies to be polite, reserved before the Queen's +Majesty at her own table; yet sometimes he lisps out, in his vile +snuffling tone, half-insinuations, remarks on our Royal Kindred, +which are irritating in the extreme. Queen Sophie, the politest of +women, did once, says Pollnitz, on some excessive pressure of that +lisping snuffling unendurability, lose her royal patience and +flame out. With human frankness, and uncommonly kindled eyes, she +signified to Seckendorf, That none who was not himself a kind of +scoundrel could entertain such thoughts of Kings and gentlemen! +Which hard saying kindled the stiff-backed rheumatic soul of +Seckendorf (Excellenz had withal a temper in him, far down in the +deeps); who answered: "Your Majesty, that is what no one else +thinks of me. That is a name I have never permitted any one to +give me with impunity." And verily, he kept his threat in that +latter point, says Pollnitz. [ii. 244.] + +At this stage, it is becoming, in the nature of things, unlikely +that the projected Double-Marriage, or any union with England, can +ever realize itself for Queen Sophie and her House. The Kaiser has +decreed that it never shall. Here is the King already irritated, +grown indisposed to it; here is the Kaiser's Seckendorf, with +preternatural Apparatus, come to maintain him in that humor. +To Queen Sophie herself, who saw only the outside of Seckendorf +and his Apparatus, the matter doubtless seemed big with +difficulties; but to us, who see the interior, the difficulties +are plainly hopeless. Unless the Kaiser's mind change, unless many +fixed things change, the Double-Marriage is impossible. + +One thing only is a sorrow; and this proved an immeasurable one: +That they did not, that Queen Sophie did not, in such case, +frankly give it up: Double-Marriage is not a law of Nature; it is +only a project at Hanover that has gone off again. There will be a +life for our Crown-Prince, and Princess, without a marriage with +England!-It is greatly wise to recognize the impossible, the +unreasonably difficult, when it presents itself: but who of men is +there, much more who of women that can always do it? + +Queen Sophie Dorothee will have this Double-Marriage, and it shall +be possible. Pour Lady, she was very obstinate; and her Husband +was very arbitrary. A rough bear of a Husband, yet by no means an +unloving one; a Husband who might have been managed. She evidently +made a great mistake in deciding not to obey this man; as she had +once vowed. By perfect prompt obedience she might have had a very +tolerable life with the rugged Orson fallen to her lot; who was a +very honest-hearted creature. She might have done a pretty stroke +of female work, withal, in taming her Orson; might have led him by +the muzzle far enough in a private way,--by obedience. + +But by disobedience, by rebellion open or secret? Friedrich +Wilhelm was a Husband; Friedrich Wilhelm was a King; and the most +imperative man then breathing. Disobedience to Friedrich Wilhelm +was a thing which, in the Prussian State, still more in the Berlin +Schloss and vital heart of said State, the laws of Heaven and of +Earth had not permitted, for any man's or any woman's sake, to be. +The wide overarching sky looks down on no more inflexible +Sovereign Man than him in the red-collared blue coat and white +leggings, with the bamboo in his hand. A peaceable, capacious, not +ill-given Sovereign Man, if you will let him have his way. But to +bar his way; to tweak the nose of his sovereign royalty, and +ignominiously force him into another way: that is an enterprise no +man or devil, or body of men or devils, need attempt. +Seckendorf and Grumkow, in Tobacco-Parliament, understand it +better. That attempt is impossible, once for all. The first step +in such attempt will require to be assassination of Friedrich +Wilhelm; for you may depend on it, royal Sophie, so long as he is +alive, the feat cannot be done. O royal Sophie, O pretty Feekin, +what a business you are making of it! + +The year 1726 was throughout a troublous one to Queen Sophie. +Seckendorf's advent; King George's manifestoing; alarm of imminent +universal War, nay sputters of it actually beginning (Gibraltar +invested by the Spaniards, ready for besieging, it is said): +nor was this all. Sophie's poor Mother, worn to a tragic Megaera, +locked so long in the Castle of Ahlden, has taken up wild plans of +outbreak, of escape by means of secretaries, moneys in the Bank of +Amsterdam, and I know not what; with all which Sophie, +corresponding in double and triple mystery, has her own terrors +and sorrows, trying to keep it down. And now, in the depth of the +year, the poor old Mother suddenly dies. [13th November, 1726: +<italic> Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, Consort of George I. <end +italic> (i. 386),--where alao some of her concluding Letters +("edited" as if by the Nightmares) can be read, but next to no +sense made of them.] Burnt out in this manner, she collapses into +ashes and long rest; closing so her nameless tragedy of thirty +years' continuance:--what a Bluebeard-chamber in the mind of +Sophie! Nay there rise quarrels about the Heritage of the +Deceased, which will prove another sorrow. + + + +END OF BOOK V + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 5 + |