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diff --git a/2110.txt b/2110.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6dfbb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/2110.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4663 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. +X. (of XXI.), by Thomas Carlyle + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) + Frederick The Great--At Reinsberg--1736-1740 + +Author: Thomas Carlyle + +Posting Date: June 13, 2008 [EBook #2110] +Release Date: March 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. *** + + + + +Produced by D.R. Thompson + + + + + +HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II OF PRUSSIA + +FREDERICK THE GREAT + +By Thomas Carlyle + +Volume X. + + + + +BOOK X. -- AT REINSBERG. - 1736-1740. + + + + +Chapter I. -- MANSION OF REINSBERG. + +On the Crown-Prince's Marriage, three years ago, when the AMT or +Government-District RUPPIN, with its incomings, was assigned to him for +revenue, we heard withal of a residence getting ready. Hint had fallen +from the Prince, that Reinsberg, an old Country-seat, standing with +its Domain round it in that little Territory of Ruppin, and probably +purchasable as was understood, might be pleasant, were it once his +and well put in repair. Which hint the kind paternal Majesty instantly +proceeded to act upon. He straightway gave orders for the purchase of +Reinsberg; concluded said purchase, on fair terms, after some months' +bargaining; [23d October, 1733, order given,--16th March, 1734, purchase +completed (Preuss, i. 75).]--and set his best Architect, one Kemeter, +to work, in concert with the Crown-Prince, to new-build and enlarge +the decayed Schloss of Reinsberg into such a Mansion as the young Royal +Highness and his Wife would like. + +Kemeter has been busy, all this while; a solid, elegant, yet frugal +builder: and now the main body of the Mansion is complete, or nearly so, +the wings and adjuncts going steadily forward; Mansion so far ready that +the Royal Highnesses can take up their abode in it. Which they do, this +Autumn, 1736; and fairly commence Joint Housekeeping, in a permanent +manner. Hitherto it has been intermittent only: hitherto the +Crown-Princess has resided in their Berlin Mansion, or in her own +Country-house at Schonhausen; Husband not habitually with her, except +when on leave of absence from Ruppin, in Carnival time or for shorter +periods. At Ruppin his life has been rather that of a bachelor, or +husband abroad on business; up to this time. But now at Reinsberg they +do kindle the sacred hearth together; "6th August, 1736," the date of +that important event. They have got their Court about them, dames and +cavaliers more than we expected; they have arranged the furnitures of +their existence here on fit scale, and set up their Lares and Penates +on a thrifty footing. Majesty and Queen come out on a visit to them next +month; [4th September, 1736 (Ib.).]--raising the sacred hearth into its +first considerable blaze, and crowning the operation in a human manner. + +And so there has a new epoch arisen for the Crown-Prince and his +Consort. A new, and much-improved one. It lasted into the fourth year; +rather improving all the way: and only Kingship, which, if a higher +sphere, was a far less pleasant one, put an end to it. Friedrich's +happiest time was this at Reinsberg; the little Four Years of Hope, +Composure, realizable Idealism: an actual snatch of something like the +Idyllic, appointed him in a life-pilgrimage consisting otherwise of +realisms oftenest contradictory enough, and sometimes of very grim +complexion. He is master of his work, he is adjusted to the practical +conditions set him; conditions once complied with, daily work done, +he lives to the Muses, to the spiritual improvements, to the social +enjoyments; and has, though not without flaws of ill-weather,--from +the Tobacco-Parliament perhaps rather less than formerly, and from +the Finance-quarter perhaps rather more,--a sunny time. His innocent +insipidity of a Wife, too, appears to have been happy. She had the +charm of youth, of good looks; a wholesome perfect loyalty of character +withal; and did not "take to pouting," as was once apprehended of +her, but pleasantly gave and received of what was going. This poor +Crown-Princess, afterwards Queen, has been heard, in her old age, +reverting, in a touching transient way, to the glad days she had at +Reinsberg. Complaint openly was never heard from her, in any kind of +days; but these doubtless were the best of her life. + +Reinsberg, we said, is in the AMT Ruppin; naturally under the +Crown-Prince's government at present: the little Town or Village of +Reinsberg stands about, ten miles north of the Town Ruppin;--not quite +a third-part as big as Ruppin is in our time, and much more pleasantly +situated. The country about is of comfortable, not unpicturesque +character; to be distinguished almost as beautiful, in that region +of sand and moor. Lakes abound in it; tilled fields; heights called +"hills;" and wood of fair growth,--one reads of "beech-avenues" of "high +linden-avenues:"--a country rather of the ornamented sort, before the +Prince with his improvements settled there. Many lakes and lakelets in +it, as usual hereabouts; the loitering waters straggle, all over that +region, into meshes of lakes. Reinsberg itself, Village and Schloss, +stands on the edge of a pleasant Lake, last of a mesh of such: the +SUMMARY, or outfall, of which, already here a good strong brook or +stream, is called the RHEIN, Rhyn or Rein; and gives name to the little +place. We heard of the Rein at Ruppin: it is there counted as a kind of +river; still more, twenty miles farther down, where it falls into the +Havel, on its way to the Elbe. The waters, I think, are drab-colored, +not peat-brown: and here, at the source, or outfall from that mesh +of lakes, where Reinsberg is, the country seems to be about the +best;--sufficient, in picturesqueness and otherwise, to satisfy a +reasonable man. + +The little Town is very old; but, till the Crown-Prince settled there, +had no peculiar vitality in it. I think there are now some potteries, +glass-manufactories: Friedrich Wilhelm, just while the Crown-Prince +was removing thither, settled a first Glass-work there; which took +good root, and rose to eminence in the crystal, Bohemian-crystal, +white-glass, cut-glass, and other commoner lines, in the Crown-Prince's +time. [_Bescheibung des Lutschlosses &c. zu Reinsberg_ (Berlin, 1788); +Author, a "Lieutenant Hennert," thoroughly acquainted with his subject.] + +Reinsberg stands on the east or southeast side of its pretty Lake: Lake +is called "the GRINERICK SEE" (as all those remote Lakes have their +names); Mansion is between the Town and Lake. A Mansion fronting, we may +say, four ways; for it is of quadrangular form, with a wet moat from +the Lake begirdling it, and has a spacious court for interior: but the +principal entrance is from the Town side; for the rest, the Building is +ashlar on all sides, front and rear. Stands there, handsomely abutting +on the Lake with two Towers, a Tower at each angle, which it has on that +lakeward side; and looks, over Reinsberg, and its steeple rising amid +friendly umbrage which hides the house-tops, towards the rising sun. +Townward there is room for a spacious esplanade; and then for the +stables, outbuildings, well masked; which still farther shut off the +Town. To this day, Reinsberg stands with the air of a solid respectable +Edifice; still massive, rain-tight, though long since deserted by +the Princeships,--by Friedrich nearly sixscore years ago, and nearly +threescore by Prince Henri, Brother of Friedrich's, who afterwards had +it. Last accounts I got were, of talk there had risen of planting an +extensive NORMAL-SCHOOL there; which promising plan had been laid aside +again for the time. + +The old Schloss, residence of the Bredows and other feudal people for +a long while, had good solid masonry in it, and around it orchards, +potherb gardens; which Friedrich Wilhelm's Architects took good care to +extend and improve, not to throw away: the result of their art is what +we see, a beautiful Country-House, what might be called a Country-Palace +with all its adjuncts;--and at a rate of expense which would fill +English readers, of this time, with amazement. Much is admirable to us +as we study Reinsberg, what it had been, what it became, and how it was +made; but nothing more so than the small modicum of money it cost. To +our wondering thought, it seems as if the shilling, in those parts, were +equal to the guinea in these; and the reason, if we ask it, is by no +means flattering altogether. "Change in the value of money?" Alas, +reader, no; that is not above the fourth part of the phenomenon. +Three-fourths of the phenomenon are change in the methods of +administering money,--difference between managing it with wisdom and +veracity on both sides, and managing it with unwisdom and mendacity on +both sides. Which is very great indeed; and infinitely sadder than +any one, in these times, will believe!--But we cannot dwell on +this consideration. Let the reader take it with him, as a constant +accompaniment in whatever work of Friedrich Wilhelm's or of Friedrich +his Son's, he now or at any other time may be contemplating. Impious +waste, which means disorder and dishonesty, and loss of much other than +money to all, parties,--disgusting aspect of human creatures, master and +servant, working together as if they were not human,--will be spared +him in those foreign departments; and in an English heart thoughts will +arise, perhaps, of a wholesome tendency, though very sad, as times are. + +It would but weary the reader to describe this Crown-Prince Mansion; +which, by desperate study of our abstruse materials, it is possible to +do with auctioneer minuteness. There are engraved VIEWS of Reinsberg +and its Environs; which used to lie conspicuous in the portfolios of +collectors,---which I have not seen. [See Hennert, just cited, for the +titles of them.] Of the House itself, engraved Frontages (FACADES), +Ground-plans, are more accessible; and along with them, descriptions +which are little descriptive,--wearisomely detailed, and as it were dark +by excess of light (auctioneer light) thrown on them. The reader +sees, in general, a fine symmetrical Block of Buildings, standing in +rectangular shape, in the above locality;--about two hundred English +feet, each, the two longer sides measure, the Townward and the Lakeward, +on their outer front: about a hundred and thirty, each, the two shorter; +or a hundred and fifty, taking in their Towers just spoken of. The +fourth or Lakeward side, however, which is one of the longer pair, +consists mainly of "Colonnade;" spacious Colonnade "with vases and +statues;" catching up the outskirts of said Towers, and handsomely +uniting everything. + +Beyond doubt, a dignified, substantial pile of stone-work; all of good +proportions. Architecture everywhere of cheerfully serious, solidly +graceful character; all of sterling ashlar; the due RISALITES +(projecting spaces) with their attics and statues atop, the due +architraves, cornices and corbels,--in short the due opulence of +ornament being introduced, and only the due. Genuine sculptors, genuine +painters, artists have been busy; and in fact all the suitable fine +arts, and all the necessary solid ones, have worked together, with +a noticeable fidelity, comfortable to the very beholder to this day. +General height is about forty feet; two stories of ample proportions: +the Towers overlooking them are sixty feet in height. Extent of outer +frontage, if you go all round, and omit the Colonnade, will be five +hundred feet and more: this, with the rearward face, is a thousand +feet of room frontage:--fancy the extent of lodging space. For "all the +kitchens and appurtenances are underground;" the "left front" (which is +a new part of the Edifice) rising comfortably over these. Windows I did +not count; but they must go high up into the Hundreds. No end to +lodging space. Way in a detached side-edifice subsequently built, called +Cavalier House, I read of there being, for one item, "fifty lodging +rooms," and for another "a theatre." And if an English Duke of Trumps +were to look at the bills for all that, his astonishment would be +extreme, and perhaps in a degree painful and salutary to him. + +In one of these Towers the Crown-Prince has his Library: a beautiful +apartment; nothing wanting to it that the arts could furnish, "ceiling +done by Pesne" with allegorical geniuses and what not,--looks out on +mere sky, mere earth and water in an ornamental state: silent as in +Elysium. It is there we are to fancy the Correspondence written, the +Poetries and literary industries going on. There, or stepping down for +a turn in the open air, or sauntering meditatively under the Colonnade +with its statues and vases (where weather is no object), one commands +the Lake, with its little tufted Islands, "Remus Island" much famed +among them, and "high beech-woods" on the farther side. The Lake is very +pretty, all say; lying between you and the sunset;--with perhaps some +other lakelet, or solitary pool in the wilderness, many miles away, +"revealing itself as a cup of molten gold," at that interesting moment. +What the Book-Collection was, in the interior, I know not except by mere +guess. + +The Crown-Princess's Apartment, too, which remained unaltered at the +last accounts had of it, [From Hennert, namely, in 1778.] is very +fine;--take the anteroom for specimen: "This fine room," some twenty +feet height of ceiling, "has six windows; three of them, in the main +front, looking towards the Town, the other three, towards the Interior +Court. The light from these windows is heightened by mirrors covering +all the piers (SCHAFTE, interspaces of the walls), to an uncommonly +splendid pitch; and shows the painting of the ceiling, which again is +by the famous Pesne, to much perfection. The Artist himself, too, has +managed to lay on his colors there so softly, and with such delicate +skill, that the light-beams seem to prolong themselves in the painted +clouds and air, as if it were the real sky you had overhead." There in +that cloud-region "Mars is being disarmed by the Love-goddesses, and +they are sporting with his weapons. He stretches out his arm towards the +Goddess, who looks upon him with fond glances. Cupids are spreading +out a draping." That is Pesne's luxurious performance in the +ceiling.--"Weapon-festoons, in basso-relievo, gilt, adorn the walls of +this room; and two Pictures, also by Pesne, which represent, in life +size, the late King and Queen [our good friends Friedrich Wilhelm and +his Sophie], are worthy of attention. Over each of the doors, you +find in low-relief the Profiles of Hannibal, Pompey, Scipio, Caesar, +introduced as Medallions." + +All this is very fine; but all this is little to another ceiling, in +some big Saloon elsewhere, Music-saloon, I think: Black Night, making +off, with all her sickly dews, at one end of the ceiling; and at the +other end, the Steeds of Phoebus bursting forth, and the glittering +shafts of Day,--with Cupids, Love-goddesses, War-gods, not omitting +Bacchus and his vines, all getting beautifully awake in consequence. A +very fine room indeed;--used as a Music-saloon, or I know not what,--and +the ceiling of it almost an ideal, say the connoisseurs. + +Endless gardens, pavilions, grottos, hermitages, orangeries, artificial +ruins, parks and pleasances surround this favored spot and its Schloss; +nothing wanting in it that a Prince's establishment needs,--except +indeed it be hounds, for which this Prince never had the least demand. + +Except the old Ruppin duties, which imply continual journeyings thither, +distance only a morning's ride; except these, and occasional commissions +from Papa, Friedrich is left master of his time and pursuits in this new +Mansion. There are visits to Potsdam, periodical appearances at +Berlin; some Correspondence to keep the Tobacco-Parliament in tune. But +Friedrich's taste is for the Literatures, Philosophies: a--young Prince +bent seriously to cultivate his mind; to attain some clear knowledge of +this world, so all-important to him. And he does seriously read, study +and reflect a good deal; his main recreations, seemingly, are Music, +and the converse of well-informed, friendly men. In Music we find him +particularly rich. Daily, at a fixed hour of the afternoon, there is +concert held; the reader has seen in what kind of room: and if the +Artists entertained here for that function were enumerated (high names, +not yet forgotten in the Musical world), it would still more astonish +readers. I count them to the number of twenty or nineteen; and mention +only that "the two Brothers Graun" and "the two Brothers Benda" were of +the lot; suppressing four other Fiddlers of eminence, and "a Pianist +who is known to everybody." [Hennert, p. 21.] The Prince has a fine +sensibility to Music: does himself, with thrilling adagios on the +flute, join in these harmonious acts; and, no doubt, if rightly vigilant +against the Nonsenses, gets profit, now and henceforth, from this part +of his resources. + +He has visits, calls to make, on distinguished persons within reach; he +has much Correspondence, of a Literary or Social nature. For instance, +there is Suhm the Saxon Envoy translating _Wolf's Philosophy_ into +French for him; sending it in fascicles; with endless Letters to and +from, upon it,--which were then highly interesting, but are now dead +to every reader. The Crown-Prince has got a Post-Office established +at Reinsberg; leathern functionary of some sort comes lumbering round, +southward, "from the Mecklenburg quarter twice a week, and goes by +Fehrbellin," for the benefit of his Correspondences. Of his calls in the +neighborhood, we mean to show the reader one sample, before long; and +only one. + +There are Lists given us of the Prince's "Court" at Reinsberg; and one +reads, and again reads, the dreariest unmemorable accounts of them; but +cannot, with all one's industry, attain any definite understanding of +what they were employed in, day after day, at Reinsberg:--still more +are their salaries and maintenance a mystery to us, in that frugal +establishment. There is Wolden for Hofmarschall, our old Custrin friend; +there is Colonel Senning, old Marlborough Colonel with the wooden leg, +who taught Friedrich his drillings and artillery-practices in boyhood, +a fine sagacious old gentleman this latter. There is a M. Jordan, +Ex-Preacher, an ingenious Prussian-Frenchman, still young, who acts +as "Reader and Librarian;" of whom we shall hear a good deal more. +"Intendant" is Captain (Ex-Captain) Knobelsdorf; a very sensible +accomplished man, whom we saw once at Baireuth; who has been to Italy +since, and is now returned with beautiful talents for Architecture: it +is he that now undertakes the completing of Reinsberg, [Hennert, p. +29.] which he will skilfully accomplish in the course of the next three +years. Twenty Musicians on wind or string; Painters, Antoine Pesne but +one of them; Sculptors, Glume and others of eminence; and Hof-Cavaliers, +to we know not what extent:--how was such a Court kept up, in harmonious +free dignity, and no halt in its finances, or mean pinch of any kind +visible? The Prince did get in debt; but not deep, and it was mainly for +the tall recruits he had to purchase. His money-accounts are by no means +fully known to me: but I should question if his expenditure (such is my +guess) ever reached 3,000 pounds a year; and am obliged to reflect more +and more, as the ancient Cato did, what an admirable revenue frugality +is! + +Many of the Cavaliers, I find, for one thing, were of the Regiment +Goltz; that was one evident economy. "Rittmeister van Chasot," as the +Books call him: readers saw that Chasot flying to Prince Eugene, and +know him since the Siege of Philipsburg. He is not yet Rittmeister, +or Captain of Horse, as he became; but is of the Ruppin Garrison; +Hof-Cavalier; "attended Friedrich on his late Prussian journey;" and +is much a favorite, when he can be spared from Ruppin. Captain Wylich, +afterwards a General of mark; the Lieutenant Buddenbrock who did the +parson-charivari at Ruppin, but is now reformed from those practices: +all these are of Goltz. Colonel Keyserling, not of Goltz, nor in active +military duty here, is a friend of very old standing; was officially +named as "Companion" to the Prince, a long while back; and got into +trouble on his account in the disastrous Ante-Custrin or Flight Epoch: +one of the Prince's first acts, when he got pardoned after Custrin, was +to beg for the pardon of this Keyserling; and now he has him here, and +is very fond of him. A Courlander, of good family, this Keyserling; +of good gifts too,--which, it was once thought, would be practically +sublime; for he carried off all manner of college prizes, and was the +Admirable-Crichton of Konigsberg University and the Graduates there. But +in the end they proved to be gifts of the vocal sort rather: and have +led only to what we see. A man, I should guess, rather of buoyant +vivacity than of depth or strength in intellect or otherwise. +Excessively buoyant, ingenious; full of wit, kindly exuberance; a +loyal-hearted, gay-tempered man, and much a favorite in society as well +as with the Prince. If we were to dwell on Reinsberg, Keyserling would +come prominently forward. + +Major van Stille, ultimately Major-General von Stille, I should also +mention: near twenty years older than the Prince; a wise thoughtful +soldier (went, by permission, to the Siege of Dantzig lately, to improve +himself); a man capable of rugged service, when the time comes. His +military writings were once in considerable esteem with professional +men; and still impress a lay reader with favorable notions towards +Stille, as a man of real worth and sense. [_Campagnes du Roi de +Prusse;_--a posthumous Book; ANTERIOR to the Seven-Years War.] + + + + +OF MONSIEUR JORDAN AND THE LITERARY SET. + +There is, of course, a Chaplain in the Establishment: a Reverend "M. +Deschamps;" who preaches to them all,--in French no doubt. Friedrich +never hears Deschamps: Friedrich is always over at Ruppin on Sundays; +and there "himself reads a sermon to the Garrison," as part of the day's +duties. Reads finely, in a melodious feeling manner, says Formey, who +can judge: "even in his old days, he would incidentally," when some +Emeritus Parson, like Formey, chanced to be with him, "roll out choice +passages from Bossuet, from Massillon," in a voice and with a look, +which would have been perfection in the pulpit, thinks Formey. +[_Souvenirs d'un Citoyen_ (2de edition, Paris, 1797), i. 37.] + +M. Jordan, though he was called "LECTEUR (Reader)," did not read to him, +I can perceive; but took charge of the Books; busied himself honestly to +be useful in all manner of literary or quasi-literary ways. He was, +as his name indicates, from the French-refugee department; a recent +acquisition, much valued at Reinsberg. As he makes a figure afterwards, +we had better mark him a little. + +Jordan's parents were wealthy religious persons, in trade at Berlin; +this Jordan (Charles Etienne, age now thirty-six) was their eldest son. +It seems they had destined him from birth, consulting their own pious +feelings merely, to be a Preacher of the Gospel; the other sons, all of +them reckoned clever too, were brought up to secular employments. And +preach he, this poor Charles Etienne, accordingly did; what best Gospel +he had; in an honest manner, all say,--though never with other than a +kind of reluctance on the part of Nature, forced out of her course. He +had wedded, been clergyman in two successive country places; when his +wife died, leaving him one little daughter, and a heart much overset by +that event. Friends, wealthy Brothers probably, had pushed him out into +the free air, in these circumstances: "Take a Tour; Holland, England; +feel the winds blowing, see the sun shining, as in times past: it will +do you good!" + +Jordan, in the course of his Tour, came to composure on several points. +He found that, by frugality, by wise management of some peculium already +his, his little Daughter and he might have quietness at Berlin, and the +necessary food and raiment;--and, on the whole, that he would altogether +cease preaching, and settle down there, among his Books, in a frugal +manner. Which he did;--and was living so, when the Prince, searching for +that kind of person, got tidings of him. And here he is at Reinsberg; +bustling about, in a brisk, modestly frank and cheerful manner: well +liked by everybody; by his Master very well and ever better, who grew +into real regard, esteem and even friendship for him, and has much +Correspondence, of a freer kind than is common to him, with little +Jordan, so long as they lived together. Jordan's death, ten years hence, +was probably the one considerable pain he had ever given his neighbors, +in this the ultimate section of his life. + +I find him described, at Reinsberg, as a small nimble figure, of +Southern-French aspect; black, uncommonly bright eyes; and a general +aspect of adroitness, modesty, sense, sincerity; good prognostics, which +on acquaintance with the man were pleasantly fulfilled. + +For the sake of these considerations, I fished out, from the Old-Book +Catalogues and sea of forgetfulness, some of the poor Books he wrote; +especially a _Voyage Litteraire,_ [_Histoire d'un Voyage Litteraire +fait, en MDCCXXXIII., en France, en Angleterre et en Hollande_ (2de +edition, a La Haye, 1736).] Journal of that first Sanitary Excursion or +Tour he took, to get the clouds blown from his mind. A LITERARY VOYAGE +which awakens a kind of tragic feeling; being itself dead, and treating +of matters which are all gone dead. So many immortal writers, Dutch +chiefly, whom Jordan is enabled to report as having effloresced, or +being soon to effloresce, in such and such forms, of Books important to +be learned: leafy, blossomy Forest of Literature, waving glorious in +the then sunlight to Jordan;--and it lies all now, to Jordan and us, not +withered only, but abolished; compressed into a film of indiscriminate +PEAT. Consider what that peat is made of, O celebrated or uncelebrated +reader, and take a moral from Jordan's Book! Other merit, except indeed +clearness and commendable brevity, the _Voyage Litteraire_ or other +little Books of Jordan's have not now. A few of his Letters to +Friedrich, which exist, are the only writings with the least life +left in them, and this an accidental life, not momentous to him or +us. Dryasdust informs me, "Abbe Jordan, alone of the Crown-Prince's +cavaliers, sleeps in the Town of Reinsberg, not in the Schloss:" and if +I ask, Why?--there is no answer. Probably his poor little Daughterkin +was beside him there?-- + +We have to say of Friedrich's Associates, that generally they were of +intelligent type, each of them master of something or other, and +capable of rational discourse upon that at least. Integrity, loyalty of +character, was indispensable; good humor, wit if it could be had, were +much in request. There was no man of shining distinction there; but +they were the best that could be had, and that is saying all. Friedrich +cannot be said, either as Prince or as King, to have been superlatively +successful in his choice of associates. With one single exception, to +be noticed shortly, there is not one of them whom we should now remember +except for Friedrich's sake;--uniformly they are men whom it is now a +weariness to hear of, except in a cursory manner. One man of shining +parts he had, and one only; no man ever of really high and great mind. +The latter sort are not so easy to get; rarely producible on the soil of +this Earth! Nor is it certain how Friedrich might have managed with one +of this sort, or he with Friedrich;--though Friedrich unquestionably +would have tried, had the chance offered. For he loved intellect as few +men on the throne, or off it, ever did; and the little he could gather +of it round him often seems to me a fact tragical rather than otherwise. + +With the outer Berlin social world, acting and reacting, Friedrich has +his connections, which obscurely emerge on us now and then. Literary +Eminences, who are generally of Theological vesture; any follower of +Philosophy, especially if he be of refined manners withal, or known in +fashionable life, is sure to attract him; and gains ample recognition +at Reinsberg or on Town-visits. But the Berlin Theological or Literary +world at that time, still more the Berlin Social, like a sunk extinct +object, continues very dim in those old records; and to say truth, what +features we have of it do not invite to miraculous efforts for farther +acquaintance. Venerable Beausobre, with his _History of the Manicheans, +[_Histoire critique de Manichee et du Manicheisme:_ wrote also +_Remarques &c. sur le Nouveau Testament,_ which were once famous; +_Histoire de la Reformation;_ &c. &c. He is Beausobre SENIOR; there were +two Sons (one of them born in second wedlock, after Papa was 70), who +were likewise given to writing.--See Formey, _Souvenirs d'un Citoyen +since, in Toland and the Republican Queen's time, as a light of the +world. He is now fourscore, grown white as snow; very serene, polite, +with a smack of French noblesse in him, perhaps a smack of affectation +traceable too. The Crown-Prince, on one of his Berlin visits, wished to +see this Beausobre; got a meeting appointed, in somebody's rooms "in +the French College," and waited for the venerable man. Venerable man +entered, loftily serene as a martyr Preacher of the Word, something +of an ancient Seigneur de Beausobre in him, too; for the rest, soft as +sunset, and really with fine radiances, in a somewhat twisted state, +in that good old mind of his. "What have you been reading lately, M. de +Beausobre?" said the Prince, to begin conversation. "Ah, Monseigneur, +I have just risen from reading the sublimest piece of writing that +exists."--"And what?" "The exordium of St. John's Gospel: _In the +Beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was--"_ +Which somewhat took the Prince by surprise, as Formey reports; though he +rallied straightway, and got good conversation out of the old gentleman. +To whom, we perceive, he writes once or twice, [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ +121-126. Dates are all of 1737; the last of Beausobre's years.]--a copy +of his own verses to correct, on one occasion,--and is very respectful +and considerate. + +Formey tells us of another French sage, personally known to the Prince +since Boyhood; for he used to be about the Palace, doing something. +This is one La Croze; Professor of, I think, "Philosophy" in the French +College: sublime Monster of Erudition, at that time; forgotten now, I +fear, by everybody. Swag-bellied, short of wind; liable to rages, to +utterances of a coarse nature; a decidedly ugly, monstrous and rather +stupid kind of man. Knew twenty languages, in a coarse inexact way. +Attempted deep kinds of discourse, in the lecture-room and elsewhere; +but usually broke off into endless welters of anecdote, not always of +cleanly nature; and after every two or three words, a desperate sigh, +not for sorrow, but on account of flabbiness and fat. Formey gives a +portraiture of him; not worth copying farther. The same Formey, standing +one day somewhere on the streets of Berlin, was himself, he cannot +doubt, SEEN by the Crown-Prince in passing; "who asked M. Jordan, who +that was," and got answer:--is not that a comfortable fact? Nothing +farther came of it;--respectable Ex-Parson Formey, though ever +ready with his pen, being indeed of very vapid nature, not wanted at +Reinsberg, as we can guess. + +There is M. Achard, too, another Preacher, supreme of his sort, in the +then Berlin circles; to whom or from whom a Letter or two exist. Letters +worthless, if it were not for one dim indication: That, on inquiry, the +Crown-Prince had been consulting this supreme Achard on the difficulties +of Orthodoxy; [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvi. pp. 112-117: date, +March-June, 1736.] and had given him texts, or a text, to preach from. +Supreme Achard did not abolish the difficulties for his inquiring +Prince,--who complains respectfully that "his faith is weak," and leaves +us dark as to particulars. This Achard passage is almost the only +hint we have of what might have been an important chapter: Friedrich's +Religious History at Reinsberg. The expression "weak faith" I take to +be meant not in mockery, but in ingenuous regret and solicitude; much +painful fermentation, probably, on the religious question in those +Reinsberg years! But the old "GNADENWAHL" business, the Free-Grace +controversy, had taught him to be cautious as to what he uttered on +those points. The fermentation, therefore, had to go on under cover; +what the result of it was, is notorious enough; though the steps of the +process are not in any point known. + +Enough now of such details. Outwardly or inwardly, there is no History, +or almost none, to be had of this Reinsberg Period; the extensive +records of it consisting, as usual, mainly of chaotic nugatory matter, +opaque to the mind of readers. There is copious correspondence of the +Crown-Prince, with at least dates to it for most part: but this, +which should be the main resource, proves likewise a poor one; the +Crown-Prince's Letters, now or afterwards, being almost never of a deep +or intimate quality; and seldom turning on events or facts at all, and +then not always on facts interesting, on facts clearly apprehensible to +us in that extinct element. + +The Thing, we know always, IS there; but vision of the Thing is only to +be had faintly, intermittently. Dim inane twilight, with here and +there a transient SPARK falling somewhither in it;--you do at last, by +desperate persistence, get to discern outlines, features:--"The Thing +cannot always have been No-thing," you reflect! Outlines, features:--and +perhaps, after all, those are mostly what the reader wants on this +occasion. + + + + +Chapter II. -- OF VOLTAIRE AND THE LITERARY CORRESPONDENCES. + +One of Friedrich's grand purposes at Reinsberg, to himself privately +the grandest there, which he follows with constant loyalty and ardor, +is that of scaling the heights of the Muses' Hill withal; of attaining +mastership, discipleship, in Art and Philosophy;--or in candor let us +call it, what it truly was, that of enlightening and fortifying himself +with clear knowledge, clear belief, on all sides; and acquiring some +spiritual panoply in which to front the coming practicalities of life. +This, he feels well, will be a noble use of his seclusion in those still +places; and it must be owned, he struggles and endeavors towards this, +with great perseverance, by all the methods in his power, here, or +wherever afterwards he might be. + +Here at Reinsberg, one of his readiest methods, his pleasantest if not +his usefulest, is that of getting into correspondence with the chief +spirits of his time. Which accordingly he forthwith sets about, after +getting into Reinsberg, and continues, as we shall see, with much +assiduity. Rollin, Fontenelle, and other French lights of the then +firmament,--his Letters to them exist; and could be given in some +quantity: but it is better not. They are intrinsically the common +Letters on such occasions: "O sublime demi-god of literature, how small +are princely distinctions to such a glory as thine; thou who enterest +within the veil of the temple, and issuest with thy face shining!"--To +which the response is: "Hm, think you so, most happy, gracious, +illustrious Prince, with every convenience round you, and such prospects +ahead? Well, thank you, at any rate,--and, as the Irish say, more power +to your Honor's Glory!" This really is nearly all that said Sets of +Letters contain; and except perhaps the Voltaire Set, none of them give +symptoms of much capacity to contain more. + +Certainly there was no want of Literary Men discernible from Reinsberg +at that time; and the young Prince corresponds with a good many of them; +temporal potentate saluting spiritual, from the distance,--in a way +highly interesting to the then parties, but now without interest, except +of the reflex kind, to any creature. A very cold and empty portion, +this, of the Friedrich Correspondence; standing there to testify what +his admiration was for literary talent, or the great reputation of such; +but in itself uninstructive utterly, and of freezing influence on the +now living mind. Most of those French lights of the then firmament are +gone out. Forgotten altogether; or recognized, like Rollin and others, +for polished dullards, university big-wigs, and long-winded commonplace +persons, deserving nothing but oblivion. To Montesquieu,--not yet called +"Baron de Montesquieu" with ESPRIT DES LOIS, but "M. de Secondat" with +(Anonymous) LETTRES PERSANES, and already known to the world for a +person of sharp audacious eyesight,--it does not appear that Friedrich +addressed any Letter, now or afterwards. No notice of Montesquieu; nor +of some others, the absence of whom is a little unexpected. Probably +it was want of knowledge mainly; for his appetite was not fastidious at +this time. And certainly he did hit the centre of the mark, and get +into the very kernel of French literature, when, in 1736, hardly yet +established in his new quarters, he addressed himself to the shining +figure known to us as "Arouet Junior" long since, and now called M. DE +VOLTAIRE; which latter is still a name notable in Friedrich's History +and that of Mankind. Friedrich's first Letter, challenging Voltaire +to correspondence, dates itself 8th August, 1736; and Voltaire's +Answer--the Reinsberg Household still only in its second month--was +probably the brightest event which had yet befallen there. + +On various accounts it will behoove us to look a good deal more strictly +into this Voltaire; and, as his relations to Friedrich and to the world +are so multiplex, endeavor to disengage the real likeness of the +man from the circumambient noise and confusion which in his instance +continue very great. "Voltaire was the spiritual complement of +Friedrich," says Sauerteig once: "what little of lasting their poor +Century produced lies mainly in these Two. A very somnambulating +Century! But what little it DID, we must call Friedrich; what little it +THOUGHT, Voltaire. Other fruit we have not from it to speak of, at this +day. Voltaire, and what CAN be faithfully done on the Voltaire Creed; +'Realized Voltairism;'--admit it, reader, not in a too triumphant +humor,--is not that pretty much the net historical product of the +Eighteenth Century? The rest of its history either pure somnambulism; or +a mere Controversy, to the effect, 'Realized Voltairism? How soon +shall it be realized, then? Not at once, surely!' So that Friedrich and +Voltaire are related, not by accident only. They are, they for want of +better, the two Original Men of their Century; the chief and in a sense +the sole products of their Century. They alone remain to us as still +living results from it,--such as they are. And the rest, truly, OUGHT +to depart and vanish (as they are now doing); being mere ephemera; +contemporary eaters, scramblers for provender, talkers of acceptable +hearsay; and related merely to the butteries and wiggeries of their +time, and not related to the Perennialities at all, as these Two +were."--With more of the like sort from Sauerteig. + +M. de Voltaire, who used to be M. Francois-Marie Arouet, was at this +time about forty, [Born 20th February, 1694; the younger of two sons: +Father, "Francois Arouet, a Notary of the Chatelet, ultimately Treasurer +of the Chamber of Accounts;" Mother, "Marguerite d'Aumart, of a noble +family of Poitou."] and had gone through various fortunes; a man, now +and henceforth, in a high degree conspicuous, and questionable to his +fellow-creatures. Clear knowledge of him ought, at this stage, to +be common; but unexpectedly it is not. What endless writing and +biographying there has been about this man; in which one still reads, +with a kind of lazy satisfaction, due to the subject, and to the French +genius in that department! But the man himself, and his environment and +practical aspects, what the actual physiognomy of his life and of him +can have been, is dark from beginning to ending; and much is left in an +ambiguous undecipherable condition to us. A proper History of Voltaire, +in which should be discoverable, luminous to human creatures, what he +was, what element he lived in, what work he did: this is still a problem +for the genius of France!-- + +His Father's name is known to us; the name of his Father's profession, +too, but not clearly the nature of it; still less his Father's +character, economic circumstances, physiognomy spiritual or social: not +the least possibility granted you of forming an image, however faint, +of that notable man and household, which distinguished itself to all the +earth by producing little Francois into the light of this sun. Of Madame +Arouet, who, or what, or how she was, nothing whatever is known. A human +reader, pestered continually with the Madame-Denises, Abbe-Mignots and +enigmatic nieces and nephews, would have wished to know, at least, what +children, besides Francois, Madame Arouet had: once for all, How many +children? Name them, with year of birth, year of death, according to the +church-registers: they all, at any rate, had that degree of history! No; +even that has not been done. Beneficent correspondents of my own make +answer, after some research, No register of the Arouets anywhere to +be had. The very name VOLTAIRE, if you ask whence came it? there is no +answer, or worse than none.--The fit "History" of this man, which might +be one of the shining Epics of his Century, and the lucid summary and +soul of any HISTORY France then had, but which would require almost a +French demi-god to do it, is still a great way off, if on the road at +all! For present purposes, we select what follows from a well-known +hand:-- + +"YOUTH OF VOLTAIRE (1694-1725).--French Biographers have left the Arouet +Household very dark for us; meanwhile we can perceive, or guess, that it +was moderately well in economic respects; that Francois was the second +of the Two Sons; and that old Arouet, a steady, practical and perhaps +rather sharp-tempered old gentleman, of official legal habits and +position, 'Notary of the Chatelet' and something else, had destined him +for the Law Profession; as was natural enough to a son of M. Arouet, who +had himself succeeded well in Law, and could there, best of all, open +roads for a clever second son. Francois accordingly sat 'in chambers,' +as we call it; and his fellow-clerks much loved him,--the most amusing +fellow in the world. Sat in chambers, even became an advocate; but did +not in the least take to advocateship;--took to poetry, and other airy +dangerous courses, speculative, practical; causing family explosions +and rebukes, which were without effect on him. A young fool, bent on +sportful pursuits instead of serious; more and more shuddering at Law. +To the surprise and indignation of M. Arouet Senior. Law, with its wigs +and sheepskins, pointing towards high honors and deep flesh-pots, had no +charms for the young fool; he could not be made to like Law. + +"Whereupon arose explosions, as we hint; family explosions on the part +of M. Arouet Senior; such that friends had to interfere, and it was +uncertain what would come of it. One judicious friend, 'M. Caumartin,' +took the young fellow home to his house in the country for a time;--and +there, incidentally, brought him acquainted with old gentlemen deep +in the traditions of Henri Quatre and the cognate topics; which much +inflamed the young fellow, and produced big schemes in the head of him. + +"M. Arouet Senior stood strong for Law; but it was becoming daily more +impossible. Madrigals, dramas (not without actresses), satirical wit, +airy verse, and all manner of adventurous speculation, were what +this young man went upon; and was getting more and more loved for; +introduced, even, to the superior circles, and recognized there as one +of the brightest young fellows ever seen. Which tended, of course, to +confirm him in his folly, and open other outlooks and harbors of refuge +than the paternal one. + +"Such things, strange to M. Arouet Senior, were in vogue then; wicked +Regent d'Orleans having succeeded sublime Louis XIV., and set strange +fashions to the Quality. Not likely to profit this fool Francois, +thought M. Arouet Senior; and was much confirmed in his notion, when a +rhymed Lampoon against the Government having come out (LES J'AI VU, as +they call it ["I have seen (J'AI VU)" this ignominy occur, "I have seen" +that other,--to the amount of a dozen or two;--"and am not yet twenty." +Copy of it, and guess as to authorship, in _OEuvres de Voltaire_, i. +321.]), and become the rage, as a clever thing of the kind will, it was +imputed to the brightest young fellow in France, M. Arouet's Son. Who, +in fact, was not the Author; but was not believed on his denial; and +saw himself, in spite of his high connections, ruthlessly lodged in the +Bastille in consequence. 'Let him sit,' thought M. Arouet Senior, 'and +come to his senses there!' He sat for eighteen months (age still little +above twenty); but privately employed his time, not in repentance, or in +serious legal studies, but in writing a Poem on his Henri Quatre. 'Epic +Poem,' no less; LA LIGUE, as he then called it; which it was his hope +the whole world would one day fall in love with;--as it did. Nay, in two +years more, he had done a Play, OEDIPE the renowned name of it; which +ran for forty-eight nights' (18th November, 1718, the first of them); +and was enough to turn any head of such age. Law may be considered +hopeless, even by M. Arouet Senior. + +"Try him in the Diplomatic line; break these bad habits and connections, +thought M. Arouet, at one time; and sent him to the French Ambassador +in Holland,--on good behavior, as it were, and by way of temporary +banishment. But neither did this answer. On the contrary, the young +fellow got into scrapes again; got into amatory intrigues,--young lady +visiting you in men's clothes, young lady's mother inveigling, and I +know not what;--so that the Ambassador was glad to send him home again +unmarried; marked, as it were, 'Glass, with care!' And the young lady's +mother printed his Letters, not the least worth reading:--and the old M. +Arouet seems now to have flung up his head; to have settled some small +allowance on him, with peremptory no hope of more, and said, 'Go your +own way, then, foolish junior: the elder shall be my son.' M. Arouet +disappears at this point, or nearly so, from the history of his son +Francois; and I think must have died in not many years. Poor old +M. Arouet closed his old eyes without the least conception what a +prodigious ever-memorable thing he had done unknowingly, in sending this +Francois into the world, to kindle such universal 'dry dung-heap of a +rotten world,' and set it blazing! Francois, his Father's synonym, came +to be representative of the family, after all; the elder Brother also +having died before long. Except certain confused niece-and-nephew +personages, progeny of the sisters, Francois has no more trouble or +solacement from the paternal household. Francois meanwhile is his +Father's synonym, and signs Arouet Junior, 'Francois Aroue l. j. (LE +JEUNE).' + +"'All of us Princes, then, or Poets!' said he, one night at supper, +looking to right and left: the brightest fellow in the world, well fit +to be Phoebus Apollo of such circles; and great things now ahead of him. +Dissolute Regent d'Orleans, politest, most debauched of men, and very +witty, holds the helm; near him Dubois the Devil's Cardinal, and so many +bright spirits. All the Luciferous Spiritualism there is in France is +lifting anchor, under these auspices, joyfully towards new latitudes +and Isles of the Blest. What may not Francois hope to become? 'Hmph!' +answers M. Arouet Senior, steadily, so long as he lives. Here are one +or two subsequent phases, epochs or turning-points, of the young +gentleman's career. + +"PHASIS FIRST (1725-1728).--The accomplished Duc de Sulli (Year 1725, +day not recorded), is giving in his hotel a dinner, such as usual; and a +bright witty company is assembled;--the brightest young fellow in +France sure to be there; and with his electric coruscations illuminating +everything, and keeping the table in a roar. To the delight of most; not +to that of a certain splenetic ill-given Duc de Rohan; grandee of high +rank, great haughtiness, and very ill-behavior in the world; who feels +impatient at the notice taken of a mere civic individual, Arouet Junior. +_ 'Quel est done ce jeune homme qui parle si haut,_ Who is this young +man that talks so loud, then?' exclaims the proud splenetic Duke. +'Monseigneur,' flashes the young man back upon him in an electric +manner, 'it is one who does not drag a big name about with him; but who +secures respect for the name he has!' Figure that, in the penetrating +grandly clangorous voice (VOIX SOMBRE ET MAJESTUEUSE), and the momentary +flash of eyes that attended it. Duc de Rohan rose, in a sulphurous +frame of mind; and went his ways. What date? You ask the idle French +Biographer in vain;--see only, after more and more inspection, that +the incident is true; and with labor date it, summer of the Year +1725. Treaty of Utrecht itself, though all the Newspapers and Own +Correspondents were so interested in it, was perhaps but a foolish +matter to date in comparison! + +"About a week after, M. Arouet Junior was again dining with the Duc +de Sulli, and a fine company as before. A servant whispers him, That +somebody has called, and wants him below. 'Cannot come,' answers Arouet; +'how can I, so engaged?' Servant returns after a minute or two: 'Pardon, +Monsieur; I am to say, it is to do an act of beneficence that you are +wanted below!' Arouet lays down his knife and fork; descends instantly +to see what act it is. A carriage is in the court, and hackney-coach +near it: 'Would Monsieur have the extreme goodness to come to the door +of the carriage, in a case of necessity?' At the door of the carriage, +hands seize the collar of him, hold him as in a vice; diabolic visage +of Duc de Rohan is visible inside, who utters, looking to the +hackney-coach, some "VOILA, Now then!" Whereupon the hackney-coach +opens, gives out three porters, or hired bullies, with the due +implements: scandalous actuality of horsewhipping descends on the back +of poor Arouet, who shrieks and execrates to no purpose, nobody being +near. 'That will do,' says Rohan at last, and the gallant ducal party +drive off; young Arouet, with torn frills and deranged hair, rushing up +stairs again, in such a mood as is easy to fancy. Everybody is sorry, +inconsolable, everybody shocked; nobody volunteers to help in avenging. +'Monseigneur de Sulli, is not such atrocity done to one of your +guests, an insult to yourself?' asks Arouet. 'Well, yes perhaps, +but'--Monseigneur de Sulli shrugs his shoulders, and proposes nothing. +Arouet withdrew, of course in a most blazing condition, to consider what +he could, on his own strength, do in this conjuncture. + +"His Biographer Duvernet says, he decided on doing two things: learning +English and the small-sword exercise. [_La Vie de Voltaire,_ par M--(a +Geneve, 1786), pp. 55-57; or pp. 60-63, in his SECOND form of the Book. +The "M--" is an Abbe Duvernet; of no great mark otherwise. He got +into Revolution trouble afterwards, but escaped with his head; and +republished his Book, swollen out somewhat by new "Anecdotes" and +republican bluster, in this second instance; signing himself T. J. D. +V--(Paris, 1797). A vague but not dark or mendacious little Book; +with traces of real EYESIGHT in it,--by one who had personally known +Voltaire, or at least seen and heard him.] He retired to the country for +six months, and perfected himself in these two branches. Being perfect, +he challenged Duc de Rohan in the proper manner; applying ingenious +compulsives withal, to secure acceptance of the challenge. Rohan +accepted, not without some difficulty, and compulsion at the Theatre or +otherwise:--accepted, but withal confessed to his wife. The result was, +no measuring of swords took place; and Rohan only blighted by public +opinion, or incapable of farther blight that way, went at large; a +convenient LETTRE DE CACHET having put Arouet again in the Bastille. +Where for six months Arouet lodged a second time, the innocent not the +guilty; making, we can well suppose, innumerable reflections on the +phenomena of human life. Imprisonment once over, he hastily quitted for +England; shaking the dust of ungrateful France off his feet,--resolved +to change his unhappy name, for one thing. + +"Smelfungus, denouncing the torpid fatuity of Voltaire's Biographers, +says he never met with one Frenchman, even of the Literary classes, who +could tell him whence this name VOLTAIRE originated. 'A PETITE +TERRE, small family estate,' they said; and sent him hunting through +Topographies, far and wide, to no purpose. Others answered, 'Volterra +in Italy, some connection with Volterra,'--and seemed even to know that +this was but fatuity. 'In ever-talking, ever-printing Paris, is it as +in Timbuctoo, then, which neither prints nor has anything to print?' +exclaims poor Smelfungus! He tells us at last, the name VOLTAIRE is +a mere Anagram of AROUET L. J.--you try it; +A.R.O.U.E.T.L.J.=V.O.L.T.A.I.R.E and perceive at once, with obligations +to Smelfungus, that he has settled this small matter for you, and that +you can be silent upon it forever thenceforth. + +"The anagram VOLTAIRE, gloomily settled in the Bastille in this manner, +can be reckoned a very famous wide-sounding outer result of the Rohan +impertinence and blackguardism; but it is not worth naming beside the +inner intrinsic result, of banishing Voltaire to England at this point +of his course. England was full of Constitutionality and Freethinking; +Tolands, Collinses, Wollastons, Bolingbrokes, still living; very free +indeed. England, one is astonished to see, has its royal-republican ways +of doing; something Roman in it, from Peerage down to Plebs; strange and +curious to the eye of M. de Voltaire. Sciences flourishing; Newton still +alive, white with fourscore years, the venerable hoary man; Locke's +Gospel of Common Sense in full vogue, or even done into verse, by +incomparable Mr. Pope, for the cultivated upper classes. In science, +in religion, in politics, what a surprising 'liberty' allowed or taken! +Never was a freer turn of thinking. And (what to M. de Voltaire is a +pleasant feature) it is Freethinking with ruffles to its shirt and rings +on its fingers;--never yet, the least, dreaming of the shirtless or +SANSCULOTTIC state that lies ahead for it! That is the palmy condition +of English Liberty, when M. de Voltaire arrives there. + +"In a man just out of the Bastille on those terms, there is a mind +driven by hard suffering into seriousness, and provoked by indignant +comparisons and remembrances. As if you had elaborately ploughed and +pulverized the mind of this Voltaire to receive with its utmost avidity, +and strength of fertility, whatever seed England may have for it. That +was a notable conjuncture of a man with circumstances. The question, +Is this man to grow up a Court Poet; to do legitimate dramas, lampoons, +witty verses, and wild spiritual and practical magnificences, the like +never seen; Princes and Princesses recognizing him as plainly divine, +and keeping him tied by enchantments to that poor trade as his task in +life? is answered in the negative. No: and it is not quite to decorate +and comfort your 'dry dung-heap' of a world, or the fortunate cocks that +scratch on it, that the man Voltaire is here; but to shoot lightnings +into it, and set it ablaze one day! That was an important alternative; +truly of world-importance to the poor generations that now are; and +it was settled, in good part, by this voyage to England, as one may +surmise. Such is sometimes the use of a dissolute Rohan in this world; +for the gods make implements of all manner of things. + +"M. de Voltaire (for we now drop the Arouet altogether, and never hear +of it more) came to England--when? Quitted England--when? Sorrow on +all fatuous Biographers, who spend their time not in laying permanent +foundation-stones, but in fencing with the wind!--I at last find +indisputably, it was in 1726 that he came to England: [Got out of +the Bastille, with orders to leave France, "29th April" of that year +(_OEuvres de Voltaire,_ i. 40 n.).] and he himself tells us that he +1728.' Spent, therefore, some two years there in all,--last year of +George I.'s reign, and first of George II.'s. But mere inanity and +darkness visible reign, in all his Biographies, over this period of his +life, which was above all others worth investigating: seek not to know +it; no man has inquired into it, probably no competent man now ever +will. By hints in certain Letters of the period, we learn that he +lodged, or at one time lodged, in 'Maiden Lane, Covent Garden;' one of +those old Houses that yet stand in Maiden Lane: for which small fact +let us be thankful. His own Letters of the period are dated now and +then from 'Wandsworth.' Allusions there are to Bolingbroke; but the +Wandsworth is not Bolingbroke's mansion, which stood in Battersea; the +Wandsworth was one Edward Fawkener's; a man somewhat admirable to young +Voltaire, but extinct now, or nearly so, in human memory. He had been a +Turkey Merchant, it would seem, and nevertheless was admitted to speak +his word in intellectual, even in political circles; which was wonderful +to young Voltaire. This Fawkener, I think, became Sir Edward Fawkener, +and some kind of 'Secretary to the Duke of Cumberland:'--I judge it to +be the same Fawkener; a man highly unmemorable now, were it not for the +young Frenchman he was hospitable to. Fawkener's and Bolingbroke's +are perhaps the only names that turn up in Voltaire's LETTERS of +this English Period: over which generally there reigns, in the French +Biographies, inane darkness, with an intimation, half involuntary, that +it SHOULD have been made luminous, and would if perfectly easy. + +"We know, from other sources, that he had acquaintance with many men +in England, with all manner of important men: Notes to Pope in +Voltaire-English, visit of Voltaire to Congreve, Notes even to such as +Lady Sundon in the interior of the Palace, are known of. The brightest +young fellow in the world did not want for introductions to the highest +quarters, in that time of political alliance, and extensive private +acquaintance, between his Country and ours. And all this he was the +man to improve, both in the trivial and the deep sense. His bow to the +divine Princess Caroline and suite, could it fail in graceful reverence +or what else was needed? Dexterous right words in the right places, +winged with ESPRIT so called: that was the man's supreme talent, +in which he had no match, to the last. A most brilliant, swift, +far-glancing young man, disposed to make himself generally agreeable. +For the rest, his wonder, we can see, was kept awake; wonder readily +inclining, in his circumstances, towards admiration. The stereotype +figure of the Englishman, always the same, which turns up in Voltaire's +WORKS, is worth noting in this respect. A rugged surly kind of fellow, +much-enduring, not intrinsically bad; splenetic without complaint, +standing oddly inexpugnable in that natural stoicism of his; taciturn, +yet with strange flashes of speech in him now and then, something which +goes beyond laughter and articulate logic, and is the taciturn elixir of +these two, what they call 'humor' in their dialect: this is pretty much +the REVERSE of Voltaire's own self, and therefore all the welcomer to +him; delineated always with a kind of mockery, but with evident love. +What excellences are in England, thought Voltaire; no Bastille in it, +for one thing! Newton's Philosophy annihilated the vortexes of Descartes +for him; Locke's Toleration is very grand (especially if all is +uncertain, and YOU are in the minority); then Collins, Wollaston and +Company,--no vile Jesuits here, strong in their mendacious mal-odorous +stupidity, despicablest yet most dangerous of creatures, to check +freedom of thought! Illustrious Mr. Pope, of the _Essay on Man,_ surely +he is admirable; as are Pericles Bolingbroke, and many others. Even +Bolingbroke's high-lacquered brass is gold to this young French friend +of his.--Through all which admirations and exaggerations the progress of +the young man, toward certain very serious attainments and achievements, +is conceivable enough. + +"One other man, who ought to be mentioned in the Biographies, I find +Voltaire to have made acquaintance with, in England: a German +M. Fabrice, one of several Brothers called Fabrice or +Fabricius,--concerning whom, how he had been at Bender, and how Voltaire +picked CHARLES DOUSE from the memory of him, there was already mention. +The same Fabrice who held poor George I. in his arms while they drove, +galloping, to Osnabriick, that night, IN EXTREMIS:--not needing mention +again. The following is more to the point. + +"Voltaire, among his multifarious studies while in England, did not +forget that of economics: his Poem LA LIGUE,--surreptitiously printed, +three years since, under that title (one Desfontaines, a hungry +Ex-Jesuit, the perpetrator), [1723, VIE, par T. J. D. V. (that is, "M--" +in the second form), p. 59.]--he now took in hand for his own benefit; +washed it clean of its blots; christened it HENRIADE, under which name +it is still known over all the world;--and printed it; published it +here, by subscription, in 1726; one of the first things he undertook. +Very splendid subscription; headed by Princess Caroline, and much +favored by the opulent of quality. Which yielded an unknown but very +considerable sum of thousands sterling, and grounded not only the +world-renown but the domestic finance of M. de Voltaire. For the fame of +the 'new epic,' as this HENRIADE was called, soon spread into all lands. +And such fame, and other agencies on his behalf, having opened the way +home for Voltaire, he took this sum of Thousands Sterling along with +him; laid it out judiciously in some city lottery, or profitable scrip +then going at Paris, which at once doubled the amount: after which he +invested it in Corn-trade, Army Clothing, Barbary-trade, Commissariat +Bacon-trade, all manner of well-chosen trades,--being one of the +shrewdest financiers on record;--and never from that day wanted +abundance of money, for one thing. Which he judged to be extremely +expedient for a literary man, especially in times of Jesuit and other +tribulation. 'You have only to watch,' he would say, 'what scrips, +public loans, investments in the field of agio, are offered; if you +exert any judgment, it is easy to gain there: do not the stupidest of +mortals gain there, by intensely attending to it?' + +"Voltaire got almost nothing by his Books, which he generally had to +disavow, and denounce as surreptitious supposititious scandals, when +some sharp-set Book-seller, in whose way he had laid the savory +article as bait, chose to risk his ears for the profit of snatching +and publishing it. Next to nothing by his Books; but by his fine +finance-talent otherwise, he had become possessed of ample moneys. Which +were so cunningly disposed, too, that he had resources in every Country; +and no conceivable combination of confiscating Jesuits and dark fanatic +Official Persons could throw him out of a livelihood, whithersoever he +might be forced to run. A man that looks facts in the face; which is +creditable of him. The vulgar call it avarice and the like, as their way +is: but M. de Voltaire is convinced that effects will follow causes; and +that it well beseems a lonely Ishmaelite, hunting his way through the +howling wildernesses and confused ravenous populations of this world, to +have money in his pocket. He died with a revenue of some 7,000 pounds a +year, probably as good as 20,000 pounds at present; the richest literary +man ever heard of hitherto, as well as the remarkablest in some other +respects. But we have to mark the second phasis of his life [in which +Friedrich now sees him], and how it grew out of this first one. + +"PHASIS SECOND (1728-1733).--Returning home as if quietly triumphant, +with such a talent in him, and such a sanction put upon it and him by a +neighboring Nation, and by all the world, Voltaire was warmly received, +in his old aristocratic circles, by cultivated France generally; and +now in 1728, in his thirty-second year, might begin to have definite +outlooks of a sufficiently royal kind, in Literature and otherwise. Nor +is he slow, far from it, to advance, to conquer and enjoy. He writes +successful literature, falls in love with women of quality; encourages +the indigent and humble; eclipses, and in case of need tramples down, +the too proud. He elegizes poor Adrienne Lecouvreur, the Actress,--our +poor friend the Comte de Saxe's female friend; who loyally emptied out +her whole purse for him, 30,000 pounds in one sum, that he might try +for Courland, and whether he could fall in love with her of the Swollen +Cheek there; which proved impossible. Elegizes Adrienne, slightly, and +even buries her under cloud of night: ready to protect unfortunate +females of merit. Especially theatrical females; having much to do in +the theatre, which we perceive to be the pulpit or real preaching-place +of cultivated France in those years. All manner of verse, all manner of +prose, he dashes off with surprising speed and grace: showers of light +spray for the moment; and always some current of graver enterprise, +_Siecle de Louis Quatorze_ or the like, going on beneath it. For he is a +most diligent, swift, unresting man; and studies and learns amazingly in +such a rackety existence. Victorious enough in some senses; defeat, in +Literature, never visited him. His Plays, coming thick on the heels of +one another, rapid brilliant pieces, are brilliantly received by the +unofficial world; and ought to dethrone dull Crebillon, and the sleepy +potentates of Poetry that now are. Which in fact is their result with +the public; but not yet in the highest courtly places;--a defect much to +be condemned and lamented. + +"Numerous enemies arise, as is natural, of an envious venomous +description; this is another ever-widening shadow in the sunshine. In +fact we perceive he has, besides the inner obstacles and griefs, two +classes of outward ones: There are Lions on his path and also Dogs. +Lions are the Ex-Bishop of Mirepoix, and certain other dark Holy +Fathers, or potent orthodox Official Persons. These, though Voltaire +does not yet declare his heterodoxy (which, indeed, is but the orthodoxy +of the cultivated private circles), perceive well enough, even by the +HENRIADE, and its talk of 'tolerance,' horror of 'fanaticism' and the +like, what this one's 'DOXY is; and how dangerous he, not a mere mute +man of quality, but a talking spirit with winged words, may be;--and +they much annoy and terrify him, by their roaring in the distance. Which +roaring cannot, of course, convince; and since it is not permitted to +kill, can only provoke a talking spirit into still deeper strains of +heterodoxy for his own private behoof. These are the Lions on his path: +beasts conscious to themselves of good intentions; but manifesting from +Voltaire's point of view, it must be owned, a physiognomy unlovely to +a degree. 'Light is superior to darkness, I should think,' meditates +Voltaire; 'power of thought to the want of power! The ANE DE MIREPOIX +(Ass of Mirepoix), [Poor joke of Voltaire's, continually applied to this +Bishop, or Ex-Bishop,--who was thought, generally, a rather tenebrific +man for appointment to the FEUILLE DES BENEFICES (charge of nominating +Bishops, keeping King's conscience, &c.); and who, in that capacity, +signed himself ANC (by no means "ANE," but "ANCIEN, Whilom") DE +MIREPOIX,--to the enragement of Voltaire often enough.] pretending to +use me in this manner, is it other, in the court of Rhadamanthus, +than transcendent Stupidity, with transcendent Insolence superadded?' +Voltaire grows more and more heterodox; and is ripening towards +dangerous utterances, though he, strives to hold in. + +"The Dogs upon his path, again, are all the disloyal envious persons of +the Writing Class, whom his success has offended; and, more generally, +all the dishonest hungry persons who can gain a morsel by biting him: +and their name is legion. It must be owned, about as ugly a Doggery +('INFAME CANAILLE' he might well reckon them) as has, before or since, +infested the path of a man. They are not hired and set on, as angry +suspicion might suggest; but they are covertly somewhat patronized +by the Mirepoix, or orthodox Official class. Scandalous Ex-Jesuit +Desfontaines, Thersites Freron,--these are but types of an endless +Doggery; whose names and works should be blotted out; whose one claim to +memory is, that the riding man so often angrily sprang down, and tried +horsewhipping them into silence. A vain attempt. The individual hound +flies howling, abjectly petitioning and promising; but the rest bark +all with new comfort, and even he starts again straightway. It is bad +travelling in those woods, with such Lions and such Dogs. And then the +sparsely scattered HUMAN Creatures (so we may call them in contrast, +persons of Quality for most part) are not always what they should be. +The grand mansions you arrive at, in this waste-howling solitude, prove +sometimes essentially Robber-towers;--and there may be Armida Palaces, +and divine-looking Armidas, where your ultimate fate is still worse. + +_'Que le monde est rempli d'enchanteurs, je ne dis rien +d'enchanteresses!'_ + +To think of it, the solitary Ishmaelite journeying, never so well +mounted, through such a wilderness: with lions, dogs, human robbers and +Armidas all about him; himself lonely, friendless under the stars:--one +could pity him withal, though that is not the feeling he solicits; nor +gets hitherto, even at this impartial distance. + +"One of the beautiful creatures of Quality,--we hope, not an +Armida,--who came athwart Voltaire, in these times, was a Madame du +Chatelet; distinguished from all the others by a love of mathematics +and the pure sciences, were it nothing else. She was still young, under +thirty; the literary man still under forty. With her Husband, to whom +she had brought a child, or couple of children, there was no formal +quarrel; but they were living apart, neither much heeding the other, +as was by no means a case without example at that time; Monsieur +soldiering, and philandering about, in garrison or elsewhere; Madame, in +a like humor, doing the best for herself in the high circles of society, +to which he and she belonged. Most wearisome barren circles to a person +of thought, as both she and M. de Voltaire emphatically admitted to one +another, on first making acquaintance. But is there no help? + +"Madame had tried the pure sciences and philosophies, in Books: but +how much more charming, when they come to you as a Human Philosopher; +handsome, magnanimous, and the wittiest man in the world! Young +Madame was not regularly beautiful; but she was very piquant, radiant, +adventurous; understood other things than the pure sciences, and could +be abundantly coquettish and engaging. I have known her scuttle off, on +an evening, with a couple of adventurous young wives of Quality, to the +remote lodging of the witty M. de Voltaire, and make his dim evening +radiant to him. [One of Voltaire's Letters.] Then again, in public +crowds, I have seen them; obliged to dismount to the peril of Madame's +diamonds, there being a jam of carriages, and no getting forward for +half the day. In short, they are becoming more and more intimate, to the +extremest degree; and, scorning the world, thank Heaven that they are +mutually indispensable. Cannot we get away from this scurvy wasp's-nest +of a Paris, thought they, and live to ourselves and our books? + +"Madame was of high quality, one of the Breteuils; but was poor in +comparison, and her Husband the like. An old Chateau of theirs, named +Cirey, stands in a pleasant enough little valley in Champagne; but so +dilapidated, gaunt and vacant, nobody can live in it. Voltaire, who is +by this time a man of ample moneys, furnishes the requisite cash; Madame +and he, in sweet symphony, concert the plans: Cirey is repaired, +at least parts of it are, into a boudoir of the gods, regardless of +expense; nothing ever seen so tasteful, so magnificent; and the two +withdraw thither to study, in peace, what sciences, pure and other, they +have a mind to. They are recognized as lovers, by the Parisian public, +with little audible censure from anybody there,--with none at all from +the easy Husband; who occasionally even visits Cirey, if he be passing +that way; and is content to take matters as he finds them, without +looking below the surface. [See (whosoever is curious) Madame de +Grafigny, _Vie Privee de Voltaire et de Madame du Chatelet_ (Paris, +1820). A six months of actual Letters written by poor Grafigny, while +sheltering at Cirey, Winter and Spring, 1738-1739; straitened there +in various respects,--extremely ill off for fuel, among other things. +Rugged practical Letters, shadowing out to us, unconsciously oftenest, +and like a very mirror, the splendid and the sordid, the seamy side +and the smooth, of Life at Cirey, in her experience of it. Published, +fourscore years after, under the above title.] For the Ten Commandments +are at a singular pass in cultivated France at this epoch. Such +illicit-idyllic form of life has been the form of Voltaire's since +1733,"--for some three years now, when Friedrich and we first make +acquaintance with him. "It lasted above a dozen years more: an illicit +marriage after its sort, and subject only to the liabilities of such. +Perhaps we may look in upon the Cirey Household, ourselves, at some +future time; and"--This Editor hopes not! + +"Madame admits that for the first ten years it was, on the whole, +sublime; a perfect Eden on Earth, though stormy now and then. [_Lettres +Inedites de Madame la Marquise du Chastelet; auxquelles on a joint une +Dissertation_ (&c. of hers): Paris, 1806.] After ten years, it began to +grow decidedly dimmer; and in the course of few years more, it +became undeniably evident that M. de Voltaire 'did not love me as +formerly:'--in fact, if Madame could have seen it, M. de Voltaire +was growing old, losing his teeth, and the like; and did not care for +anything as formerly! Which was a dreadful discovery, and gave rise to +results by and by. + +"In this retreat at Cirey, varied with flying visits to Paris, and kept +awake by multifarious Correspondences, the quantity of Literature done +by the two was great and miscellaneous. By Madame, chiefly in the region +of the pure sciences, in Newtonian Dissertations, competitions for +Prizes, and the like: really sound and ingenious Pieces, entirely +forgotten long since. By Voltaire, in serious Tragedies, Histories, in +light Sketches and deep Dissertations:--mockery getting ever wilder +with him; the satirical vein, in prose and verse, amazingly copious, and +growing more and more heterodox, as we can perceive. His troubles from +the ecclesiastical or Lion kind in the Literary forest, still more from +the rabid Doggery in it, are manifold, incessant. And it is pleasantly +notable,--during these first ten years,--with what desperate intensity, +vigilance and fierceness, Madame watches over all his interests and +liabilities and casualties great and small; leaping with her whole force +into M. de Voltaire's scale of the balance, careless of antecedences and +consequences alike; flying, with the spirit of an angry brood-hen, +at the face of mastiffs, in defence of any feather that is M. de +Voltaire's. To which Voltaire replies, as he well may, with eloquent +gratitude; with Verses to the divine Emilie, with Gifts to her, verses +and gifts the prettiest in the world;--and industriously celebrates the +divine Emilie to herself and all third parties. + +"An ardent, aerial, gracefully predominant, and in the end somewhat +termagant female figure, this divine Emilie. Her temper, radiant rather +than bland, was none of the patientest on occasion; nor was M. de +Voltaire the least of a Job, if you came athwart him the wrong way. I +have heard, their domestic symphony was liable to furious flaws,--let +us hope at great distances apart:--that 'plates' in presence of the +lackeys, actual crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to +end of the dinner-table; nay they mention 'knives' (though only in the +way of oratorical action); and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, the +sombre and majestic voice of him risen to a very high pitch: _'Ne me +regardez tant de ces yeux hagards et louches,_ Don't fix those haggard +sidelong eyes on me in that way!'--mere shrillness of pale rage +presiding over the scene. But we hope it was only once in the quarter, +or seldomer: after which the element would be clearer for some time. A +lonesome literary man, who has got a Brood Phoenix to preside over him, +and fly at the face of gods and men for him in that manner, ought to be +grateful. + +"Perhaps we shall one day glance, personally, as it were, into Cirey +with our readers;"--Not with this Editor or his!--"It will turn out beyond +the reader's expectation. Tolerable illicit resting-place, so far as the +illicit can be tolerable, for a lonesome Man of Letters, who goes into +the illicit. Helpfulness, affection, or the flattering image of such, +are by no means wanting: squalls of infirm temper are not more frequent +than in the most licit establishments of a similar sort. Madame, about +this time, has a swift Palfrey, 'ROSSIGNOL (Nightingale)' the name of +him; and gallops fairy-like through the winding valleys; being an +ardent rider, and well-looking on horseback. Voltaire's study is inlaid +with--the Grafigny knows all what:--mere china tiles, gilt sculptures, +marble slabs, and the supreme of taste and expense: study fit for the +Phoebus Apollo of France, so far as Madame could contrive it. Takes +coffee with Madame, in the Gallery, about noon. And his bedroom, I +expressly discern, [_Letters of Voltaire._] looks out upon a running +brook, the murmur of which is pleasant to one." + +Enough, enough. We can perceive what kind of Voltaire it was to whom the +Crown-Prince now addressed himself; and how luminous an object, shining +afar out of the solitudes of Champagne upon the ardent young man, still +so capable of admiration. Model Epic, HENRIADE; model History, CHARLES +DOUZE; sublime Tragedies, CISAR, ALZIRE and others, which readers still +know though with less enthusiasm, are blooming fresh in Friedrich's +memory and heart; such Literature as man never saw before; and in the +background Friedrich has inarticulately a feeling as if, in this man, +there were something grander than all Literatures: a Reform of human +Thought itself; a new "Gospel," good-tidings or God's-Message, by this +man;--which Friedrich does not suspect, as the world with horror does, +to be a new BA'SPEL, or Devil's-Message of bad-tidings! A sublime enough +Voltaire; radiant enough, over at Cirey yonder. To all lands, a visible +Phoebus Apollo, climbing the eastern steeps; with arrows of celestial +"new light" in his quiver; capable of stretching many a big foul Python, +belly uppermost, in its native mud, and ridding the poor world of her +Nightmares and Mud-Serpents in some measure, we may hope!-- + +And so there begins, from this point, a lively Correspondence between +Friedrich and Voltaire; which, with some interruptions of a notable +sort, continued during their mutual Life; and is a conspicuous feature +in the Biographies of both. The world talked much of it, and still +talks; and has now at last got it all collected, and elucidated into a +dimly legible form for studious readers. [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_ +(xxi. xxii. xxiii., Berlin, 1853); who supersedes the lazy French +Editors in this matter.] It is by no means the diabolically wicked +Correspondence it was thought to be; the reverse, indeed, on both +sides;--but it has unfortunately become a very dull one, to the actual +generation of mankind. Not without intrinsic merit; on the contrary +(if you read intensely, and bring the extinct alive again), it sparkles +notably with epistolary grace and vivacity; and, on any terms, it has +still passages of biographical and other interest: but the substance +of it, then so new and shining, has fallen absolutely commonplace, the +property of all the world, since then; and is now very wearisome to the +reader. No doctrine or opinion in it that you have not heard, with clear +belief or clear disbelief, a hundred times, and could wish rather not +to hear again. The common fate of philosophical originalities in this +world. As a Biographical Document, it is worth a very strict perusal, +if you are interested that way in either Friedrich or Voltaire: finely +significant hints and traits, though often almost evanescent, so slight +are they, abound in this Correspondence; frankness, veracity under +graceful forms, being the rule of it, strange to say! As an illustration +of Two memorable Characters, and of their Century; showing on what +terms the sage Plato of the Eighteenth Century and his Tyrant Dionysius +correspond, and what their manners are to one another, it may long have +a kind of interest to mankind: otherwise it has not much left. + +In Friedrich's History it was, no doubt, an important fact, that there +lived a Voltaire along with him, twenty years his senior. With another +Theory of the Universe than the Voltaire one, how much OTHER had +Friedrich too been! But the Theory called by Voltaire's name was +not properly of Voltaire's creating, but only of his uttering and +publishing; it lay ready for everybody's finding, and could not well +have been altogether missed by such a one as Friedrich. So that perhaps +we exaggerate the effects of Voltaire on him, though undoubtedly they +were considerable. Considerable; but not derived from this express +correspondence, which seldom turns on didactic points at all; derived +rather from Voltaire's Printed WORKS, where they lay derivable to +all the world. Certain enough it is, Voltaire was at this time, +and continued all his days, Friedrich's chief Thinker in the world; +unofficially, the chief Preacher, Prophet and Priest of this Working +King;--no better off for a spiritual Trismegistus was poor Friedrich in +the world! On the practical side, Friedrich soon outgrew him,--perhaps +had already outgrown, having far more veracity of character, and an +intellect far better built in the silent parts of it, and trained too +by hard experiences to know shadow from substance;--outgrew him, +and gradually learned to look down upon him, occasionally with much +contempt, in regard to the practical. But in all changes of humor +towards Voltaire, Friedrich, we observe, considers him as plainly +supreme in speculative intellect; and has no doubt but, for thinking +and speaking, Nature never made such another. Which may be taken as +a notable feature of Friedrich's History; and gives rise to passages +between Voltaire and him, which will make much noise in time coming. + +Here, meanwhile, faithfully presented though in condensed form, is the +starting of the Correspondence; First Letter of it, and first Response. +Two Pieces which were once bright as the summer sunrise on both sides, +but are now fallen very dim; and have much needed condensation, and +abridgment by omission of the unessential,--so lengthy are they, so +extinct and almost dreary to us! Sublime "Wolf" and his "Philosophy," +how he was hunted out of Halle with it, long since; and now shines from +Marburg, his "Philosophy" and he supreme among mankind: this, and other +extinct points, the reader's fancy will endeavor to rekindle in some +slight measure:-- + +TO M. DE VOLTAIRE, AT CIREY (from the Crown-Prince). + +"BERLIN, 8th August, 1736. + +"MONSIEUR,--Although I have not the satisfaction of knowing you +personally, you are not the less known to me through your Works. They +are treasures of the mind, if I may so express myself; and they reveal +to the reader new beauties at every fresh perusal. I think I have +recognized in them the character of their ingenious Author, who does +honor to our age and to human nature. If ever the dispute on the +comparative merits of the Moderns and the Ancients should be revived, +the modern great men will owe it to you, and to you only, that the scale +is turned in their favor. With the excellent quality of Poet you join +innumerable others more or less related to it. Never did Poet before +put Metaphysics into rhythmic cadence: to you the honor was reserved of +doing it first. + +"This taste for Philosophy manifested in your writings, induces me to +send you a translated Copy of the _Accusation and defence of M. Wolf,_ +the most celebrated Philosopher of our days; who, for having carried +light into the darkest places of Metaphysics, is cruelly accused of +irreligion and atheism. Such is the destiny of great men; their superior +genius exposes them to the poisoned arrows of calumny and envy. I am +about getting a Translation made of the _Treatise on God, the Soul, +and the World,"_--Translation done by an Excellency Suhm, as has been +hinted,--"from the pen of the same Author. I will send it you when it +is finished; and I am sure that the force of evidence in all his +propositions, and their close geometrical sequence, will strike you. + +"The kindness and assistance you afford to all who devote themselves to +the Arts and Sciences, makes me hope that you will not exclude me from +the number of those whom you find worthy of your instructions:--it is so +I would call your intercourse by Correspondence of Letters; which cannot +be other than profitable to every thinking being.... + +... "beauties without number in your works. Your HENRIADE delights me. +The tragedy of CESAR shows us sustained characters; the sentiments in it +are magnificent and grand, and one feels that Brutus is either a Roman, +or else an Englishman _(ou un Romain ou un Anglais)._ Your ALZIRE, to +the graces of novelty adds... + +"Monsieur, there is nothing I wish so much as to possess all your +Writings," even those not printed hitherto. "Pray, Monsieur, do +communicate them to me without reserve. If there be amongst your +Manuscripts any that you wish to conceal from the eyes of the public, +I engage to keep them in the profoundest secrecy. I am unluckily aware, +that the faith of Princes is an object of little respect in our days; +nevertheless I hope you will make an exception from the general rule in +my favor. I should think myself richer in the possession of your Works +than in that of all the transient goods of Fortune. These the same +chance grants and takes away: your Works one can make one's own by means +of memory, so that they last us whilst it lasts. Knowing how weak my own +memory is, I am in the highest degree select in what I trust to it. + +"If Poetry were what it was before your appearance, a strumming of +wearisome idyls, insipid eclogues, tuneful nothings, I should renounce +it forever:" but in your hands it becomes ennobled; a melodious "course +of morals; worthy of the admiration and the study of cultivated minds +(DES HONNETES GENS). You"--in fine, "you inspire the ambition to follow +in your footsteps. But I, how often have I said to myself: 'MALHEUREUX, +throw down a burden which is above thy strength! One cannot imitate +Voltaire, without being Voltaire!' + +"It is in such moments that I have felt how small are those advantages +of birth, those vapors of grandeur, with which vanity would solace us! +They amount to little, properly to nothing (POUR MIEUX DIRE, RIEN). +Nature, when she pleases, forms a great soul, endowed with faculties +that can advance the Arts and Sciences; and it is the part of Princes to +recompense his noble toils. Ah, would Glory but make use of me to crown +your successes! My only fear would be, lest this Country, little fertile +in laurels, proved unable to furnish enough of them. + +"If my destiny refuse me the happiness of being able to possess you, may +I, at least, hope one day to see the man whom I have admired so long now +from afar; and to assure you, by word of mouth, that I am,--With all the +esteem and consideration due to those who, following the torch of +truth for guide, consecrate their labors to the Public,--Monsieur, your +affectionate friend, + +"FREDERIC, P. R. of Prussia." + +[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxi. 6.] + + +By what route or conveyance this Letter went, I cannot say. In general, +it is to be observed, these Friedrich-Voltaire Letters--liable perhaps +to be considered contraband at BOTH ends of their course--do not go by +the Post; but by French-Prussian Ministers, by Hamburg Merchants, and +other safe subterranean channels. Voltaire, with enthusiasm, and no +doubt promptly, answers within three weeks:-- + +TO THE CROWN-PRINCE, AT REINSBERG (from Voltaire). + +"CIREY, 26th August, 1736. + +"MONSEIGNEUR,--A man must be void of all feeling who were not infinitely +moved by the Letter which your Royal Highness has deigned to honor me +with. My self-love is only too much flattered by it: but my love of +Mankind, which I have always nourished in my heart, and which, I venture +to say, forms the basis of my character, has given me a very much purer +pleasure,--to see that there is, now in the world, a Prince who thinks +as a man; a PHILOSOPHER Prince, who will make men happy. + +"Permit me to say, there is not a man on the earth but owes thanks for +the care you take to cultivate by sound philosophy a soul that is born +for command. Good kings there never were except those that had begun by +seeking to instruct themselves; by knowing-good men from bad; by loving +what was true, by detesting persecution and superstition. No Prince, +persisting in such thoughts, but might bring back the golden age into +his Countries! And why do so few Princes seek this glory? You feel it, +Monseigneur, it is because they all think more of their Royalty than of +Mankind. Precisely the reverse is your case:--and, unless, one day, +the tumult of business and the wickedness of men alter so divine a +character, you will be worshipped by your People, and loved by the whole +world. Philosophers, worthy of the name, will flock to your States; +thinkers will crowd round that throne, as the skilfulest artisans do to +the city where their art is in request. The illustrious Queen Christina +quitted her kingdom to go in search of the Arts; reign you, Monseigneur, +and the Arts will come to seek you. + +"May you only never be disgusted with the Sciences by the quarrels of +their Cultivators! A race of men no better than Courtiers; often +enough as greedy, intriguing, false and cruel as these," and still more +ridiculous in the mischief they do. "And how sad for mankind that the +very Interpreters of Heaven's commandments, the Theologians, I mean, +are sometimes the most dangerous of all! Professed messengers of the +Divinity, yet men sometimes of obscure ideas and pernicious behavior; +their soul blown out with mere darkness; full of gall and pride, in +proportion as it is empty of truths. Every thinking being who is not of +their opinion is an Atheist; and every King who does not favor them +will be damned. Dangerous to the very throne; and yet intrinsically +insignificant:" best way is, leave their big talk and them alone; speedy +collapse will follow.... + +"I cannot sufficiently thank your Royal Highness for the gift of that +little Book about Monsieur Wolf. I respect Metaphysical ideas; rays of +lightning they are in the midst of deep night. More, I think, is not +to be hoped from Metaphysics. It does not seem likely that the +First-principles of things will ever be known. The mice that nestle +in some little holes of an immense Building, know not whether it is +eternal, or who the Architect, or why he built it. Such mice are we; and +the Divine Architect who built the Universe has never, that I know +of, told his secret to one of us. If anybody could pretend to guess +correctly, it is M. Wolf." Beautiful in your Royal Highness to protect +such a man. And how beautiful it will be, to send me his chief Book, +as you have the kindness to promise! "The Heir of a Monarchy, from his +palace, attending to the wants of a recluse far off! Condescend to +afford me the pleasure of that Book, Monseigneur.... + +"What your Royal Highness thinks of poetry is just: verses that do not +teach men new and touching truths, do not deserve to be read." As to +my own poor verses--But, after all, "that HENRIADE is the writing of an +Honest Man: fit, in that sense, that it find grace with a Philosopher +Prince. + +"I will obey your commands as to sending those unpublished Pieces. You +shall be my public, Monseigneur; your criticisms will be my reward: +it is a price few Sovereigns can pay. I am sure of your secrecy: +your virtue and your intellect must be in proportion. I should indeed +consider it a precious happiness to come and pay my court to your Royal +Highness! One travels to Rome to see paintings and ruins: a Prince such +as you is a much more singular object; worthier of a long journey! But +the friendship [divine Emilie's] which keeps me in this retirement does +not permit my leaving it. No doubt you think with Julian, that great and +much calumniated man, who said, 'Friends should always be preferred to +Kings.' + +"In whatever corner of the world I may end my life, be assured, +Monseigneur, my wishes will continually be for you,--that is to say, +for a whole People's happiness. My heart will rank itself among your +subjects; your glory will ever be dear to me. I shall wish, May you +always be like yourself, and may other Kings be like you!--I am, with +profound respect, your Royal Highness's most humble + +"VOLTAIRE." + +[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxi. 10.] + + +The Correspondence, once kindled, went on apace; and soon burst forth, +finding nourishment all round, into a shining little household fire, +pleasant to the hands and hearts of both parties. Consent of opinions on +important matters is not wanting; nor is emphasis in declaring the same. +The mutual admiration, which is high,--high and intrinsic on Friedrich's +side; and on Voltaire's, high if in part extrinsic,--by no means wants +for emphasis of statement: superlatives, tempered by the best art, +pass and repass. Friedrich, reading Voltaire's immortal Manuscripts, +confesses with a blush, before long, that he himself is a poor +Apprentice that way. Voltaire, at sight of the Princely Productions, +is full of admiration, of encouragement; does a little in correcting, +solecisms of grammar chiefly; a little, by no means much. But it is a +growing branch of employment; now and henceforth almost the one +reality of function Voltaire can find for himself in this beautiful +Correspondence. For, "Oh what a Crown-Prince, ripening forward to be the +delight of human nature, and realize the dream of sages, Philosophy upon +the Throne!" And on the other side, "Oh what a Phoebus Apollo, mounting +the eastern sky, chasing the Nightmares,--sowing the Earth with Orient +pearl, to begin with!"--In which fine duet, it must be said, the Prince +is perceptibly the truer singer; singing within compass, and from the +heart; while the Phoebus shows himself acquainted with art, and warbles +in seductive quavers, now and then beyond the pitch of his voice. We +must own also, Friedrich proves little seducible; shows himself laudably +indifferent to such siren-singing;--perhaps more used to flattery, and +knowing by experience how little meal is to be made of chaff. Voltaire, +in an ungrateful France, naturally plumes himself a good deal on such +recognition by a Foreign Rising Sun; and, of the two, though so many +years the elder, is much more like losing head a little. + +Elegant gifts are despatched to Cirey; gold-amber trinkets for Madame, +perhaps an amber inkholder for Monsieur: priceless at Cirey as the gifts +of the very gods. By and by, a messenger goes express: the witty Colonel +Keyserling, witty but experienced, whom we once named at Reinsberg; +he is to go and see with his eyes, since his Master cannot. What a +messenger there; ambassador from star to star! Keyserling's report at +Reinsberg is not given; but we have Grafigny's, which is probably the +more impartial. Keyserling's embassy was in the end of next year; [3d +November, 1737 (as we gather from the Correspondence).] and there is +plenty of airy writing about it and him, in these Letters. + +Friedrich has translated the name KEYSERLING (diminutive of KAISER) into +"Caesarion;"--and I should have said, he plays much upon names and also +upon things, at Reinsberg, in that style; and has a good deal of airy +symbolism, and cloud-work ingeniously painted round the solidities of +his life there. Especially a "Bayard Order," as he calls it: Twelve of +his selectest Friends made into a Chivalry Brotherhood, the names of +whom are all changed, "Caesarion" one of them; with dainty devices, and +mimetic procedures of the due sort. Which are not wholly mummery; but +have a spice of reality, to flavor them to a serious young heart. +For the selection was rigorous, superior merit and behavior a strict +condition; and indeed several of these Bayard Chevaliers proved notable +practical Champions in time coming;--for example Captain Fouquet, +of whom we have heard before, in the dark Custrin days. This is a +mentionable feature of the Reinsberg life, and of the young Prince's +character there: pleasant to know of, from this distance; but not now +worth knowing more in detail. + +The Friedrich-Voltaire Correspondence contains much incense; due whiffs +of it, from Reinsberg side, to the "divine Emilie," Voltaire's quasi +better-half or worse-half; who responds always in her divinest manner +to Reinsberg, eager for more acquaintance there. The Du Chatelets had +a Lawsuit in Brabant; very inveterate, perhaps a hundred years old or +more; with the "House of Honsbrouck:" [_Lettres Inedites de Voltaire_ +(Paris, 1826), p. 9.] this, not to speak of other causes, flights from +French peril and the like, often brought Voltaire and his Dame +into those parts; and gave rise to occasional hopes of meeting with +Friedrich; which could not take effect. In more practical style, +Voltaire solicits of him: "Could not your Royal Highness perhaps +graciously speak to some of those Judicial Big wigs in Brabant, and flap +them up a little!" Which Friedrich, I think, did, by some good means. +Happily, by one means or other, Voltaire got the Lawsuit ended,--1740, +we might guess, but the time is not specified;--and Friedrich had a +new claim, had there been need of new, to be regarded with worship by +Madame. [Record of all this, left, like innumerable other things there, +in an intrinsically dark condition, lies in Voltaire's LETTERS,--not +much worth hunting up into clear daylight, the process being so +difficult to a stranger.] But the proposed meeting with Madame could +never take effect; not even when Friedrich's hands were free. Nay +I notice at last, Friedrich had privately determined it never +should--Madame evidently an inconvenient element to him. A young man not +wanting in private power of eyesight; and able to distinguish chaff from +meal! Voltaire and he will meet; meet, and also part; and there will +be passages between them:--and the reader will again hear of this +Correspondence of theirs, where it has a biographical interest. We are +to conceive it, at present, as a principal light of life to the +young heart at Reinsberg; a cheerful new fire, almost an altar-fire, +irradiating the common dusk for him there. + +Of another Correspondence, beautifully irradiative for the young heart, +we must say almost nothing: the Correspondence with Suhm. Suhm the Saxon +Minister, whom we have occasionally heard of, is an old Friend of the +Crown-Prince's, dear and helpful to him: it is he who is now doing those +_Translations of Wolf,_ of which Voltaire lately saw specimens; translate +at large, for the young man's behoof. The young man, restless to know +the best Philosophy going, had tried reading of Wolf's chief Book; found +it too abstruse, in Wolf's German: wherefore Suhm translates; sends it +to him in limpid French; fascicle by fascicle, with commentaries; +young man doing his best to understand and admire,--gratefully, not too +successfully, we can perceive. That is the staple of the famous SUHM +CORRESPONDENCE; staple which nobody could now bear to be concerned with. + +Suhm is also helpful in finance difficulties, which are pretty frequent; +works out subventions, loans under a handsome form, from the Czarina's +and other Courts. Which is an operation of the utmost delicacy; +perilous, should it be heard of at Potsdam. Wherefore Suhm and the +Prince have a covert language for it: and affect still to be speaking +of "Publishers" and "new Volumes," when they mean Lenders and +Bank-Draughts. All these loans, I will hope, were accurately paid one +day, as that from George II. was, in "rouleaus of new gold." We need not +doubt the wholesome charm and blessing of so intimate a Correspondence +to the Crown-Prince: and indeed his real love of the amiable Suhm, +as Suhm's of him, comes beautifully to light in these Letters: +but otherwise they are not now to be read without weariness, even +dreariness, and have become a biographical reminiscence merely. + +Concerning Graf von Manteufel, a third Literary Correspondent, and the +only other considerable one, here, from a German Commentator on this +matter, is a Clipping that will suffice:-- + +"Manteufel was Saxon by birth, long a Minister of August the Strong, but +quarrelled with August, owing to some frail female it is said, and +had withdrawn to Berlin a few years ago. He shines there among the +fashionable philosophical classes; underhand, perhaps does a little +in the volunteer political line withal; being a very busy pushing +gentleman. Tall of stature, 'perfectly handsome at the age of sixty;' +[Formey, _Souvenirs d'un Citoyen,_ i. 39-45.] great partisan of Wolf and +the Philosophies, awake to the Orthodoxies too. Writes flowing elegant +French, in a softly trenchant, somewhat too all-knowing style. High +manners traceable in him; but nothing of the noble loyalty, natural +politeness and pious lucency of Suhm. One of his Letters to Friedrich +has this slightly impertinent passage;--Friedrich, just getting settled +in Reinsberg, having transiently mentioned 'the quantity of fair sex' +that had come about him there:-- + +"'BERLIN, 26th AUGUST, 1736 (to the Crown-Prince).... I am well +persuaded your Royal Highness will regulate all that to perfection, and +so manage that your fair sex will be charmed to find themselves with you +at Reinsberg, and you charmed to have them there. But permit me, your +Royal Highness, to repeat in this place, what I one day took the liberty +of saying here at Berlin: Nothing in the world would better suit the +present interests of your Royal Highness and of us all, than some Heir +of your Royal Highness's making! Perhaps the tranquil convenience with +which your Royal Highness at Reinsberg can now attend to that object, +will be of better effect than all those hasty and transitory visits at +Berlin were. At least I wish it with the best of my heart. I beg pardon, +Monseigneur, for intruding thus into everything which concerns your +Royal Highness;'--In truth, I am a rather impudent busybodyish fellow, +with superabundant dashing manner, speculation, utterance; and shall get +myself ordered out of the Country, by my present correspondent, by and +by.--'Being ever,' with the due enthusiasm, 'MANTEUFEL.' [_OEuvres de +Frederic,_ xxv. 487;--Friedrich's Answer is, Reinsberg, 23d September +(Ib. 489).] + +"To which Friedrich's Answer is of a kind to put a gag in the foul mouth +of certain extraordinary Pamphleteerings, that were once very copious in +the world; and, in particular, to set at rest the Herr Dr. Zimmermann, +and his poor puddle of calumnies and credulities, got together in that +weak pursuit of physiology under obscene circumstances;-- + +"Which is the one good result I have gathered from the Manteufel +Correspondence," continues our German friend; whom I vote with!--Or +if the English reader never saw those Zimmermann or other dog-like +Pamphleteerings and surmisings, let this Excerpt be mysterious and +superfluous to the thankful English reader. + +On the whole, we conceive to ourselves the abundant nature of +Friedrich's Correspondence, literary and other; and what kind of event +the transit of that Post functionary "from Fehrbellin northwards," with +his leathern bags, "twice a week," may have been at Reinsberg, in those +years. + + + + +Chapter III. -- CROWN-PRINCE MAKES A MORNING CALL. + +Thursday, 25th October, 1736, the Crown-Prince, with Lieutenant +Buddenbrock and an attendant or two, drove over into Mecklenburg, to +a Village and serene Schloss called Mirow, intending a small act of +neighborly civility there; on which perhaps an English reader of our +time will consent to accompany him. It is but some ten or twelve miles +off, in a northerly direction; Reinsberg being close on the frontier +there. A pleasant enough morning's-drive, with the October sun shining +on the silent heaths, on the many-colored woods and you. + +Mirow is an Apanage for one of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz junior +branches: Mecklenburg-Strelitz being itself a junior compared to the +Mecklenburg-Schwerin of which, and its infatuated Duke, we have heard so +much in times past. Mirow and even Strelitz are not in--a very shining +state,--but indeed, we shall see them, as it were, with eyes. And the +English reader is to note especially those Mirow people, as perhaps of +some small interest to him, if he knew it. The Crown-Prince reports to +papa, in a satirical vein, not ungenially, and with much more freedom +than is usual in those Reinsberg letters of his:-- + +"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince). + +"REINSBERG, 26th October, 1736. + +... "Yesterday I went across to Mirow. To give my Most All-gracious +Father an idea of the place, I cannot liken it to anything higher than +Gross-Kreutz [term of comparison lost upon us; say GARRAT, at a venture, +or the CLACHAN OF ABERFOYLE]: the one house in it, that can be called +a house, is not so good as the Parson's there. I made straight for the +Schloss; which is pretty much like the Garden-house in Bornim: only +there is a rampart round it; and an old Tower, considerably in ruins, +serves as a Gateway to the House. + +"Coming on the Drawbridge, I perceived an old stocking-knitter disguised +as Grenadier, with his cap, cartridge-box and musket laid to a side, +that they might not hinder him in his knitting-work. As I advanced, he +asked, 'Whence I came, and whitherward I was going?' I answered, that 'I +came from the Post-house, and was going over this Bridge:' whereupon the +Grenadier, quite in a passion, ran to the Tower; where he opened a door, +and called out the Corporal. The Corporal seemed to have hardly been out +of bed; and in his great haste, had not taken time to put on his shoes, +nor quite button his breeches; with much flurry he asked us, 'Where we +were for, and how we came to treat the Sentry in that manner?' Without +answering him at all, we went our way towards the Schloss. + +"Never in my life should I have taken this for a Schloss, had it not +been that there were two glass lamps fixed at the door-posts, and the +figures of two Cranes standing in front of them, by way of Guards. +We made up to the House; and after knocking almost half an hour to no +purpose, there peered out at last an exceedingly old woman, who looked +as if she might have nursed the Prince of Mirow's father. The poor +woman, at sight of strangers, was so terrified, she slammed the door to +in our faces. We knocked again; and seeing there could nothing be made +of it, we went round to the stables; where a fellow told us, 'The young +Prince with his Consort was gone to Neu-Strelitz, a couple of miles off +[ten miles English]; and the Duchess his Mother, who lives here, had +given him, to make the better figure, all her people along with him; +keeping nobody but the old woman to herself.' + +"It was still early; so I thought I could not do better than profit by +the opportunity, and have a look at Neu-Strelitz. We took post-horses; +and got thither about noon. Neu-Strelitz is properly a Village; with +only one street in it, where Chamberlains, Office-Clerks, Domestics all +lodge, and where there is an Inn. I cannot better describe it to my Most +All-gracious Father than by that street in Gumbinnen where you go up to +the Town-hall,--except that no house here is whitewashed. The Schloss is +fine, and lies on a lake, with a big garden; pretty much like Reinsberg +in situation. + +"The first question I asked here was for the Prince of Mirow: but they +told me he had just driven off again to a place called Kanow; which +is only a couple of miles English from Mirow, where we had been. +Buddenbrock, who is acquainted with Neu-Strelitz, got me, from a +chamberlain, something to eat; and in the mean while, that Bohme came +in, who was Adjutant in my Most All-gracious Father's Regiment [not of +Goltz, but King's presumably]: Bohme did not know me till I hinted +to him who I was. He told me, 'The Duke of Strelitz was an excellent +seamster;'" fit to be Tailor to your Majesty in a manner, had not Fate +been cruel, "'and that he made beautiful dressing-gowns (CASSAQUINS) +with his needle.' This made me curious to see him: so we had ourselves +presented as Foreigners; and it went off so well that nobody recognized +me. I cannot better describe the Duke than by saying he is like old +Stahl [famed old medical man at Berlin, dead last year, physiognomy not +known to actual readers], in a blond Abbe's-periwig. He is extremely +silly (BLODE); his Hofrath Altrock tells him, as it were, everything he +has to say." About fifty, this poor Duke; shrunk into needlework, for a +quiet life, amid such tumults from Schwerin and elsewhere. + +"Having taken leave, we drove right off to Kanow; and got thither about +six. It is a mere Village; and the Prince's Pleasure-House (LUSTHAUS) +here is nothing better than an ordinary Hunting-Lodge, such as any +Forest-keeper has. I alighted at the Miller's; and had myself +announced" at the LUSTHAUS, "by his maid: upon which the Major-Domo +(HAUS-HOFMEISTER) came over to the Mill, and complimented me; with whom +I proceeded to the Residenz," that is, back again to Mirow, "where +the whole Mirow Family were assembled. The Mother is a Princess of +Schwartzburg, and still the cleverest of them all," still under sixty; +good old Mother, intent that her poor Son should appear to advantage, +when visiting the more opulent Serenities. "His Aunt also," mother's +sister, "was there. The Lady Spouse is small; a Niece to the Prince +of Hildburghausen, who is in the Kaiser's service: she was in the +family-way; but (ABER) seemed otherwise to be a very good Princess. + +"The first thing they entertained me with was, the sad misfortune +come upon their best Cook; who, with the cart that was bringing the +provisions, had overset, and broken his arm; so that the provisions had +all gone to nothing. Privately I have had inquiries made; there was +not a word of truth in the story. At last we went to table; and, sure +enough, it looked as if the Cook and his provisions had come to some +mishap; for certainly in the Three Crowns at Potsdam [worst inn, one may +guess, in the satirical vein], there is better eating than here. + +"At table, there was talk of nothing but of all the German Princes who +are not right in their wits (NICHT RECHT KLUG)," as Mirow himself, +your Majesty knows, is reputed to be!" There was Weimar, [Wilhelmina's +acquaintance; wedded, not without difficulty, to a superfluous Baireuth +Sister-in-law by Wilhelmina (_ Memoires de Wilhelmina,_ ii. 185-194): +Grandfather of Goethe's Friend;--is nothing like fairly out of his wits; +only has a flea (as we may say) dancing occasionally in the ear of him. +Perhaps it is so with the rest of these Serenities, here fallen upon +evil tongues?] Gotha, Waldeck, Hoym, and the whole lot of them, brought +upon the carpet:--and after our good Host had got considerably drunk, we +rose,--and he lovingly promised me that 'he and his whole Family would +come and visit Reinsberg.' Come he certainly will; but how I shall get +rid of him, God knows. + +"I most submissively beg pardon of my Most All-gracious Father for +this long Letter; and"--we will terminate here. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ +xxvii. part 3d, pp. 104-106.] + +Dilapidated Mirow and its inmates, portrayed in this satirical way, +except as a view of Serene Highnesses fallen into Sleepy Hollow, excites +little notice in the indolent mind; and that little, rather pleasantly +contemptuous than really profitable. But one fact ought to kindle +momentary interest in English readers: the young foolish Herr, in this +dilapidated place, is no other than our "Old Queen Charlotte's" Father +that is to be,--a kind of Ancestor of ours, though we little guessed +it! English readers will scan him with new curiosity, when he pays that +return visit at Reinsberg. Which he does within the fortnight:-- + +"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince). + +"REINSBERG, 6th November, 1736. + +... "that my Most All-gracious Father has had the graciousness to send +us some Swans. My Wife also has been exceedingly delighted at the fine +Present sent her.... General Praetorius," Danish Envoy, with whose Court +there is some tiff of quarrel, "came hither yesterday to take leave of +us; he seems very unwilling to quit Prussia. + +"This morning about three o'clock, my people woke me, with word that +there was a Stafette come with Letters,"--from your Majesty or Heaven +knows whom! "I spring up in all haste; and opening the Letter,--find it +is from the Prince of Mirow; who informs me that 'he will be here to-day +at noon.' I have got all things in readiness to receive him, as if he +were the Kaiser in person; and I hope there will be material for some +amusement to my Most All-gracious Father, by next post."--Next post is +half a week hence:-- + +"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince). + +"REINSBERG, 11th Novemher. + +... "The Prince of Mirow's visit was so curious, I must give my Most +All-gracious Father a particular report of it. In my last, I mentioned +how General Praetorius had come to us: he was in the room, when I +entered with the Prince of Mirow; at sight of him Praetorius exclaimed, +loud enough to be heard by everybody, 'VOILA LE PRINCE CAJUCA!' +[Nickname out of some Romance, fallen extinct long since.] Not one of us +could help laughing; and I had my own trouble to turn it so that he did +not get angry. + +"Scarcely was the Prince got in, when they came to tell me, for his +worse luck, that Prince Heinrich," the Ill Margraf, "was come;--who +accordingly trotted him out, in such a way that we thought we should all +have died with laughing. Incessant praises were given him, especially +for his fine clothes, his fine air, and his uncommon agility in dancing. +And indeed I thought the dancing would never end. + +"In the afternoon, to spoil his fine coat,"--a contrivance of the Ill +Margraf's, I should think,--"we stept out to shoot at target in the +rain: he would not speak of it, but one could observe he was in much +anxiety about the coat. In the evening, he got a glass or two in his +head, and grew extremely merry; said at last, 'He was sorry that, for +divers state-reasons and businesses of moment, he must of necessity +return home;'--which, however, he put off till about two in the morning. +I think, next day he would not remember very much of it. + +"Prince Heinrich is gone to his Regiment again;" Praetorius too is +off;--and we end with the proper KOW-TOW. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvii. +part 3d, p. 109.] + +These Strelitzers, we said, are juniors to infatuated Schwerin; and poor +Mirow is again junior to Strelitz: plainly one of the least opulent +of Residences. At present, it is Dowager Apanage (WITTWEN-SITZ) to the +Widow of the late Strelitz of blessed memory: here, with her one Child, +a boy now grown to what manhood we see, has the Serene Dowager lived, +these twenty-eight years past; a Schwartzburg by birth, "the cleverest +head among them all." Twenty-eight years in dilapidated Mirow: so long +has that Tailoring Duke, her eldest STEP-SON (child of a prior wife) +been Supreme Head of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; employed with his needle, or +we know not how,--collapsed plainly into tailoring at this date. There +was but one other Son; this clever Lady's, twenty years junior,--"Prince +of Mirow" whom we now see. Karl Ludwig Friedrich is the name of this +one; age now twenty-eight gone. He, ever since the third month of him, +when the poor Serene Father died ("May, 1703"), has been at Mirow with +Mamma; getting what education there was,--not too successfully, as would +appear. Eight years ago, "in 1726," Mamma sent him off upon his +travels; to Geneva, Italy, France: he looked in upon Vienna, too; got a +Lieutenant-Colonelcy in the Kaiser's Service, but did not like it; +soon gave it up; and returned home to vegetate, perhaps to seek a +wife,--having prospects of succession in Strelitz. For the Serene +Half-Brother proves to have no children: were his tailoring once +finished in the world, our Prince of Mirow is Duke in Chief. On this +basis the wedded last year; the little Wife has already brought him one +child, a Daughter; and has (as Friedrich notices) another under way, +if it prosper. No lack of Daughters, nor of Sons by and by: eight years +hence came the little Charlotte,--subsequently Mother of England: much +to her and our astonishment. [Born (at Mirow) 19th May, 1744; married +(London), 8th September, 1761; died, 18th November, 1818 (Michaelis, ii. +445, 446; Hubner, t. 195; OErtel, pp. 43, 22).] + +The poor man did not live to be Duke of Strelitz; he died, 1752, in +little Charlotte's eighth year; Tailor Duke SURVIVING him a few months. +Little Charlotte's Brother did then succeed, and lasted till 1794; after +whom a second Brother, father of the now Serene Strelitzes;--who also +is genealogically notable. For from him there came another still more +famous Queen: Louisa of Prussia; beautiful to look upon, as "Aunt +Charlotte" was not, in a high degree; and who showed herself a Heroine +in Napoleon's time, as Aunt Charlotte never was called to do. Both Aunt +and Niece were women of sense, of probity, propriety; fairly beyond the +average of Queens. And as to their early poverty, ridiculous to this +gold-nugget generation, I rather guess it may have done them benefits +which the gold-nugget generation, in its Queens and otherwise, stands +far more in want of than it thinks. + +But enough of this Prince of Mirow, whom Friedrich has accidentally +unearthed for us. Indeed there is no farther history of him, for or +against. He evidently was not thought to have invented gunpowder, by +the public. And yet who knows but, in his very simplicity, there lay +something far beyond the Ill Margraf to whom he was so quizzable? Poor +down-pressed brother mortal; somnambulating so pacifically in Sleepy +Hollow yonder, and making no complaint! + +He continued, though soon with less enthusiasm, and in the end very +rarely, a visitor of Friedrich's during this Reinsberg time. Patriotic +English readers may as well take the few remaining vestiges, too, before +quite dismissing him to Sleepy Hollow. Here they are, swept accurately +together, from that Correspondence of Friedrich with Papa:-- + +"REINSBERG, 18th NOVEMBER, 1736.... report most submissively that +the Prince of Mirow has again been here, with his Mother, Wife, Aunt, +Hofdames, Cavaliers and entire Household; so that I thought it was the +Flight out of Egypt [Exodus of the Jews]. I begin to have a fear of +those good people, as they assured me they would have such pleasure in +coming often!" + +"REINSBERG, 1st FEBRUARY, 1737." Let us give it in the Original too, as +a specimen of German spelling:-- + +_"Der Prints von Mihrau ist vohr einigen thagen hier gewessen und haben +wier einige Wasser schwermer in der See ihm zu Ehren gesmissen, seine +frau ist mit eber thoten Printzesin nieder geKomen.--Der General +schulenburg ist heute hier gekommen und wirdt morgen"_--That is to say:-- + +"The Prince of Mirow was here a few days ago; and we let off, in honor +of him, a few water-rockets over the Lake: his Wife has been brought to +bed of a dead Princess. General Schulenburg [with a small s] came hither +to-day; and to-morrow will"... + +"REINSBERG, 28th MARCH, 1737.... Prince von Mirow was here yesterday; +and tried shooting at the popinjay with us; he cannot see rightly, and +shoots always with help of an opera-glass." + +"RUPPIN, 20th OCTOBER, 1737. The Prince of Mirow was with us last +Friday; and babbled much in his high way; among other things, white-lied +to us, that the Kaiserinn gave him a certain porcelain snuff-box he was +handling; but on being questioned more tightly, he confessed to me he +had bought it in Vienna." [_Briefe an Vater,_ p. 71 (CARET in _OEuvres_ +); pp. 85-114.--See Ib. 6th November, 1737, for faint trace of a visit; +and 25th September, 1739, for another still fainter, the last there is.] + +And so let him somnambulate yonder, till the two Queens, like winged +Psyches, one after the other, manage to emerge from him. + +Friedrich's Letters to his Father are described by some Prussian Editors +as "very attractive, SEHR ANZIEHENDE BRIEFE;" which, to a Foreign +reader, seems a strange account of them. Letters very hard to understand +completely; and rather insignificant when understood. They turn on Gifts +sent to and sent from, "swans," "hams," with the unspeakable thanks for +them; on recruits of so many inches; on the visitors that have been; +they assure us that "there is no sickness in the regiment," or tell +expressly how much:--wholly small facts; nothing of speculation, and of +ceremonial pipe-clay a great deal. We know already under what +nightmare conditions Friedrich wrote to his Father! The attitude of the +Crown-Prince, sincerely reverent and filial, though obliged to appear +ineffably so, and on the whole struggling under such mountains of +encumbrance, yet loyally maintaining his equilibrium, does at last +acquire, in these Letters, silently a kind of beauty to the best class +of readers. But that is nearly their sole merit. By far the most human +of them, that on the first visit to Mirow, the reader has now seen; +and may thank us much that we show him no more of them. [_Friedrich +des Grossen Briefe an seinen Vater_ (Berlin, 1838)]. Reduced in size, +by suitable omissions; and properly spelt; but with little other +elucidation for a stranger: in _OEuvres,_ xxvii. part 3d, pp, 1-123 +(Berlin, 1856). + + + + +Chapter IV. -- NEWS OF THE DAY. + +While these Mirow visits are about their best, and much else at +Reinsberg is in comfortable progress, Friedrich's first year there just +ending, there come accounts from England of quarrels broken out between +the Britannic Majesty and his Prince of Wales. Discrepancies risen now +to a height; and getting into the very Newspapers;--the Rising Sun too +little under the control of the Setting, in that unquiet Country! + +Prince Fred of England did not get to the Rhine Campaign, as we saw: +he got some increase of Revenue, a Household of his own; and finally +a Wife, as he had requested: a Sachsen-Gotha Princess; who, peerless +Wilhelmma being unattainable, was welcome to Prince Fred. She is in the +family-way, this summer 1737, a very young lady still; result thought to +be due--When? Result being potential Heir to the British Nation, there +ought to have been good calculation of the time when! But apparently +nobody had well turned his attention that way. Or if Fred and Spouse +had, as is presumable, Fred had given no notice to the Paternal +Majesty,--"Let Paternal Majesty, always so cross to me, look out +for himself in that matter." Certain it is, Fred and Spouse, in the +beginning of August, 1737, are out at Hampton Court; potential Heir due +before long, and no preparation made for it. August 11th in the evening, +out at solitary Hampton Court; the poor young Mother's pains came on; no +Chancellor there, no Archbishop to see the birth,--in fact, hardly +the least medical help, and of political altogether none. Fred, in +his flurry, or by forethought,--instead of dashing off expresses, at +a gallop as of Epsom, to summon the necessary persons and appliances, +yoked wheeled vehicles and rolled off to the old unprovided Palace of +St. James's, London, with his poor Wife in person! Unwarned, unprovided; +where nevertheless she was safely delivered that same night,--safely, +as if by miracle. The crisis might have taken her on the very highway: +never was such an imprudence. Owing, I will believe, to Fred's sudden +flurry in the unprovided moment,--unprovided, by reason of prior +desuetudes and discouragements to speech, on Papa's side. A shade of +malice there might also be. Papa doubts not, it was malice aforethought +all of it. "Had the potential Heir of the British Nation gone to wreck, +or been born on the highway, from my quarrels with this bad Fred, what +a scrape had I been in!" thinks Papa, and is in a towering permanence +of wrath ever since; the very Newspapers and coffee-houses and populaces +now all getting vocal with it. + +Papa, as it turned out, never more saw the face of Fred. Judicious +Mamma, Queen Caroline, could not help a visit, one visit to the poor +young Mother, so soon as proper: coming out from the visit, Prince Fred +obsequiously escorting her to her carriage, found a crowd of people and +populace, in front of St. James's; and there knelt down on the street, +in his fine silk breeches, careless of the mud, to "beg a Mother's +blessing," and show what a son he was, he for his part, in this +sad discrepancy that had risen! Mamma threw a silent glance on him, +containing volumes of mixed tenor; drove off; and saw no more of Fred, +she either. I fear, this kneeling in the mud tells against Prince Fred; +but in truth I do not know, nor even much care. [Lord Hervey, _Memoirs +of George the Second,_ ii. 362-370, 409.] What a noise in England about +nothing at all!--What a noisy Country, your Prussian Majesty! Foolish +"rising sun" not restrainable there by the setting or shining one; +opposition parties bowling him about among the constellations, like a +very mad object!-- + +But in a month or two, there comes worse news out of England; falling +heavy on the heart of Prussian Majesty: news that Queen Caroline herself +is dead. ["Sunday evening, 1st December (20th Nov.), 1737." Ib. pp. +510-539.] Died as she had lived, with much constancy of mind, with a +graceful modest courage and endurance; sinking quietly under the load of +private miseries long quietly kept hidden, but now become too heavy, +and for which the appointed rest was now here. Little George blubbered +a good deal; fidgeted and flustered a good deal: much put about, poor +foolish little soul. The dying Caroline recommended HIM to Walpole; +advised his Majesty to marry again. _"Non, j'aurai des maitresses_ (No, +I'll have mistresses)!" sobbed his Majesty passionately. _"Ah, mon Dieu, +cela n'empeche pas_" (that does not an experience of the case). There is +something stoically tragic in the history of Caroline with her flighty +vaporing little King: seldom had foolish husband so wise a wife. "Dead!" +thought Friedrich Wilhelm, looking back through the whirlwinds of life, +into sunny young scenes far enough away: "Dead!"--Walpole continued to +manage the little King; but not for long; England itself rising in +objection. Jenkins's Ear, I understand, is lying in cotton; and there +are mad inflammable strata in that Nation, capable of exploding at a +great rate. + +From the Eastern regions our Newspapers are very full of events: War +with the Turk going on there; Russia and Austria both doing their best +against the Turk. The Russians had hardly finished their Polish-Election +fighting, when they decided to have a stroke at the Turk,--Turk always +an especial eye-sorrow to them, since that "Treaty of the Pruth," and +Czar Peter's sad rebuff there:--Munnich marched direct out of Poland +through the Ukraine, with his eye on the Crimea and furious business +in that quarter. This is his second Campaign there, this of 1737; and +furious business has not failed. Last year he stormed the Lines of +Perecop, tore open the Crimea; took Azoph, he or Lacy under him; +took many things: this year he had laid his plans for Oczakow;--takes +Oczakow,--fiery event, blazing in all the Newspapers, at Reinsberg +and elsewhere. Concerning which will the reader accept this condensed +testimony by an eye-witness? + +"OCZAKOW, 13th JULY, 1737. Day before yesterday, Feldmarschall Munnich +got to Oczakow, as he had planned,"--strong Turkish Town in the nook +between the Black Sea and the estuary of the Dnieper;--"with intention +to besiege it. Siege-train, stores of every sort, which he had set +afloat upon the Dnieper in time enough, were to have been ready for +him at Oczakow. But the flotilla had been detained by shallows, by +waterfalls; not a boat was come, nor could anybody say when they were +coming. Meanwhile nothing is to be had here; the very face of the earth +the Turks have burnt: not a blade of grass for cavalry within eight +miles, nor a stick of wood for engineers; not a hole for covert, and +the ground so hard you cannot raise redoubts on it: Munnich perceives he +must attempt, nevertheless. + +"On his right, by the sea-shore, Munnich finds some remains of gardens, +palisades; scrapes together some vestige of shelter there (five +thousand, or even ten thousand pioneers working desperately all that +first night, 11th July, with only half success); and on the morrow +commences firing with what artillery he has. Much outfired by the +Turks inside;--his enterprise as good as desperate, unless the Dnieper +flotilla come soon. July 12th, all day the firing continues, and all +night; Turks extremely furious: about an hour before daybreak, we notice +burning in the interior, 'Some wooden house kindled by us, town got on +fire yonder,'--and, praise to Heaven, they do not seem to succeed in +quenching it again. Munnich turns out, in various divisions; intent +on trying something, had he the least engineer furniture;--hopes +desperately there may be promise for him in that internal burning still +visible. + +"In the centre of Munnich's line is one General Keith, a deliberate +stalwart Scotch gentleman, whom we shall know better; Munnich himself is +to the right: Could not one try it by scalade; keep the internal burning +free to spread, at any rate? 'Advance within musket-shot, General +Keith!' orders Munnich's Aide-de-Camp cantering up. 'I have been +this good while within it,' answers Keith, pointing to his dead men. +Aide-de-Camp canters up a second time: 'Advance within half musket-shot, +General Keith, and quit any covert you have!' Keith does so; sends, with +his respects to Feldmarschall Munnich, his remonstrance against such +a waste of human life. Aide-de-Camp canters up a third time: +'Feldmarschall Munnich is for trying a scalade; hopes General Keith will +do his best to co-operate!' 'Forward, then!' answers Keith; advances +close to the glacis; finds a wet ditch twelve feet broad, and has not a +stick of engineer furniture. Keith waits there two hours; his men, +under fire all the while, trying this and that to get across; Munnich's +scalade going off ineffectual in like manner:--till at length Keith's +men, and all men, tire of such a business, and roll back in great +confusion out of shot-range. Munnich gives himself up for lost. And +indeed, says Mannstein, had the Turks sallied out in pursuit at that +moment, they might have chased us back to Russia. But the Turks did not +sally. And the internal conflagration is not quenched, far from it;--and +about nine A.M. their Powder-Magazine, conflagration reaching it, roared +aloft into the air, and killed seven thousand of them," [Mannstein, pp. +151-156.]-- + +So that Oczakow was taken, sure enough; terms, life only: and every +remaining Turk packs off from it, some "twenty thousand inhabitants +young and old" for one sad item.--A very blazing semi-absurd event, to +be read of in Prussian military circles,--where General Keith will be +better known one day. + +Russian War with the Turk: that means withal, by old Treaties, aid of +thirty thousand men from the Kaiser to Russia. Kaiser, so ruined lately, +how can he send thirty thousand, and keep them recruited, in such +distant expedition? Kaiser, much meditating, is advised it will be +better to go frankly into the Turk on his own score, and try for slices +of profit from him in this game. Kaiser declares war against the Turk; +and what is still more interesting to Friedrich Wilhelm and the +Berlin Circles, Seckendorf is named General of it. Feldzeugmeister now +Feldmarschall Seckendorf, envy may say what it will, he has marched this +season into the Lower-Donau Countries,--going to besiege Widdin, they +say,--at the head of a big Army (on paper, almost a hundred and fifty +thousand, light troops and heavy)--virtually Commander-in-Chief; though +nominally our fine young friend Franz of Lorraine bears the title +of Commander, whom Seckendorf is to dry-nurse in the way sometimes +practised. Going to besiege Widdin, they say. So has the poor Kaiser +been advised. His wise old Eugene is now gone; [Died 30th April, +1736.] I fear his advisers,--a youngish Feldzeugmeister, Prince of +Hildburghausen, the chief favorite among them,--are none of the wisest. +All Protestants, we observe, these favorite Hildburghausens, Schmettaus, +Seckendorfs of his; and Vienna is an orthodox papal Court;--and there +is a Hofkriegsrath (Supreme Council of War), which has ruined many +a General, poking too meddlesomely into his affairs! On the whole, +Seckendorf will have his difficulties. Here is a scene, on the +Lower Donau, different enough from that at Oczakow, not far from +contemporaneous with it. The Austrian Army is at Kolitz, a march or two +beyond Belgrade:-- + +"KOLITZ, 2d JULY, 1737. This day, the Army not being on march, but +allowed to rest itself, Grand Duke Franz went into the woods to hunt. +Hunting up and down, he lost himself; did not return at evening; and, as +the night closed in and no Generalissimo visible, the Generalissimo AD +LATUS (such the title they had contrived for Seckendorf) was in much +alarm. Generalissimo AD LATUS ordered out his whole force of drummers, +trumpeters: To fling themselves, postwise, deeper and deeper into the +woods all round; to drum there, and blow, in ever-widening circle, in +prescribed notes, and with all energy, till the Grand Duke were found. +Grand Duke being found, Seckendorf remonstrated, rebuked; a thought +too earnestly, some say, his temper being flurried,"--voice snuffling +somewhat in alt, with lisp to help:--"so that the Grand Duke took +offence; flung off in a huff: and always looked askance on the +Feldmarschall from that time;" [See _Lebensgeschichte des Grafen van +Schmettau_ (by his Son: Berlin, 1806), i. 27.]--quitting him altogether +before long; and marching with Khevenhuller, Wallis, Hildburghausen, or +any of the subordinate Generals rather. Probably Widdin will not go +the road of Oczakow, nor the Austrians prosper like the Russians, this +summer. + +Pollnitz, in Tobacco-Parliament, and in certain Berlin circles foolishly +agape about this new Feldmarschall, maintains always, Seckendorf will +come to nothing; which his Majesty zealously contradicts,--his +Majesty, and some short-sighted private individuals still favorable to +Seckendorf. [Pollnitz, _Memoiren,_ ii. 497-502.] Exactly one week after +that singular drum-and-trumpet operation on Duke Franz, the Last of the +Medici dies at Florence; [9th July (_Fastes de Louis XV._, p. 304).] +and Serene Franz, if he knew it, is Grand Duke of Tuscany, according to +bargain: a matter important to himself chiefly, and to France, who, for +Stanislaus and Lorraine's sake, has had to pay him some 200,000 pounds a +year during the brief intermediate state. + + + + +OF BERG AND JULICH AGAIN; AND OF LUISCIUS WITH THE ONE RAZOR. + +These remote occurrences are of small interest to his Prussian Majesty, +in comparison with the Pfalz affair, the Cleve-Julich succession, which +lies so near home. His Majesty is uncommonly anxious to have this +matter settled, in peace, if possible. Kaiser and Reich, with the other +Mediating Powers, go on mediating; but when will they decide? This year +the old Bishop of Augsburg, one Brother of the older Kur-Pfalz Karl +Philip, dies; nothing now between us and the event itself, but Karl +Philip alone, who is verging towards eighty: the decision, to be +peaceable, ought to be speedy! Friedrich Wilhelm, in January last, sent +the expert Degenfeld, once of London, to old Karl Philip; and has +him still there, with the most conciliatory offers: "Will leave your +Sulzbachs a part, then; will be content with part, instead of the whole, +which is mine if there be force in sealed parchment; will do anything +for peace!" To which the old Kur-Pfalz, foolish old creature, is +steadily deaf; answers vaguely, negatively always, in a polite manner; +pushing his Majesty upon extremities painful to think of. "We hate war; +but cannot quite do without justice, your Serenity," thinks Friedrich +Wilhelm: "must it be the eighty thousand iron ramrods, then?" Obstinate +Serenity continues deaf; and Friedrich Wilhelm's negotiations, there +at Mannheim, over in Holland, and through Holland with England, not to +speak of Kaiser and Reich close at hand, become very intense; vehemently +earnest, about this matter, for the next two years. The details of +which, inexpressibly uninteresting, shall be spared the reader. + +Summary is, these Mediating Powers will be of no help to his Majesty; +not even the Dutch will, with whom he is specially in friendship: nay, +in the third year it becomes fatally manifest, the chief Mediating +Powers, Kaiser and France, listening rather to political convenience, +than to the claims of justice, go direct in Kur-Pfalz's favor;--by +formal treaty of their own, ["Versailles, 13th January, 1739" (Olrich, +_Geschichte der Schlesischen Kriege,_ i. 13); Mauvillon, ii 405-446; +&c.] France and the Kaiser settle, "That the Sulzbachers shall, as a +preliminary, get provisional possession, on the now Serenity's decease; +and shall continue undisturbed for two years, till Law decide between +his Prussian Majesty and them." Two years; Law decide;--and we know what +are the NINE-POINTS in a Law-case! This, at last, proved too much +for his Majesty. Majesty's abstruse dubitations, meditations on such +treatment by a Kaiser and others, did then, it appears, gloomily settle +into fixed private purpose of trying it by the iron ramrods, when old +Kur-Pfalz should die,--of marching with eighty thousand men into the +Cleve Countries, and SO welcoming any Sulzbach or other guests that +might arrive. Happily old Kur-Pfalz did not die in his Majesty's time; +survived his Majesty several years: so that the matter fell into other +hands,--and was settled very well, near a century after. + +Of certain wranglings with the little Town of Herstal,--Prussian Town +(part of the Orange Heritage, once KING PEPIN'S Town, if that were +any matter now) in the Bishop of Liege's neighborhood, Town highly +insignificant otherwise,--we shall say nothing here, as they will fall +to be treated, and be settled, at an after stage. Friedrich Wilhelm was +much grieved by the contumacies of that paltry little Herstal; and +by the Bishop of Liege's high-flown procedures in countenancing +them;--especially in a recruiting ease that had fallen out there, +and brought matters to a head. ["December, 1738," is crisis of the +recruiting case (_Helden-Geschichte,_ ii. 63); "17th February, 1739," +Bishop's high-flown appearance in it (ib. 67); Kaiser's in consequence, +"10th April, 1739."] The Kaiser too was afflictively high in +countenancing the Bishop;---for which both Kaiser and Bishop got due +payment in time. But his Prussian Majesty would not kindle the world for +such a paltriness; and so left it hanging in a vexatious condition. Such +things, it is remarked, weigh heavier on his now infirm Majesty than +they were wont. He is more subject to fits of hypochondria, to talk of +abdicating. "All gone wrong!" he would say, if any little flaw rose, +about recruiting or the like. "One might go and live at Venice, were one +rid of it!" [Forster (place LOST).] And his deep-stung clangorous growl +against the Kaiser's treatment of him bursts out, from time to time; +though he oftenest pities the Kaiser, too; seeing him at such a pass +with his Turk War and otherwise. + +It was in this Pfalz business that Herr Luiscius, the Prussian +Minister in Holland, got into trouble; of whom there is a light dash +of outline-portraiture by Voltaire, which has made him memorable to +readers. This "fat King of Prussia," says Voltaire, was a dreadfully +avaricious fellow, unbeautiful to a high degree in his proceedings with +mankind:-- + +"He had a Minister at the Hague called Luiscius; who certainly of all +Ministers of Crowned Heads was the worst paid. This poor man, to warm +himself, had made some trees be felled in the Garden of Honslardik, +which belonged at that time to the House of Prussia; he thereupon +received despatches from the King, intimating that a year of his salary +was forfeited. Luiscius, in despair, cut his throat with probably the +one razor he had (SEUL RASOIR QU'IL EUT); an old valet came to his +assistance, and unhappily saved his life. In after years, I found his +Excellency at the Hague; and have occasionally given him an alms at the +door of the VIEILLE COUR (Old Court), a Palace belonging to the King of +Prussia, where this poor Ambassador had lived a dozen years. It must be +owned, Turkey is a republic in comparison to the despotism exercised by +Friedrich Wilhelm." [_OEuvres de Voltaire (Vie Pricee,_ or what they +now call _Memoires_ ), ii. 15.] + +Here truly is a witty sketch; consummately dashed off, as nobody but +Voltaire could; "round as Giotto's O," done at one stroke. Of which +the prose facts are only as follows. Luiscius, Prussian Resident, +not distinguished by salary or otherwise, had, at one stage of these +negotiations, been told, from head-quarters, He might, in casual +extra-official ways, if it seemed furthersome, give their High +Mightinesses the hope, or notion, that his Majesty did not intend actual +war about that Cleve-Julich Succession,--being a pacific Majesty, and +unwilling to involve his neighbors and mankind. Luiscius, instead of +casual hint delicately dropped in some good way, had proceeded by direct +declaration; frank assurance to the High Mightinesses, That there would +be no war. Which had never been quite his Majesty's meaning, and perhaps +was now becoming rather the reverse of it. Disavowal of Luiscius had +to ensue thereupon; who produced defensively his instruction from +head-quarters; but got only rebukes for such heavy-footed clumsy +procedure, so unlike Diplomacy with its shoes of felt;--and, in +brief, was turned out of the Diplomatic function, as unfit for it; and +appointed to manage certain Orange Properties, fragments of the +Orange Heritage which his Majesty still has in those Countries. This +misadventure sank heavily on the spirits of Luiscius, otherwise none of +the strongest-minded of men. Nor did he prosper in managing the Orange +Properties: on the contrary, he again fell into mistakes; got soundly +rebuked for injudicious conduct there,--"cutting trees," planting trees, +or whatever it was;--and this produced such an effect on Luiscius, that +he made an attempt on his own throat, distracted mortal; and was only +stopped by somebody rushing in. "It was not the first time he had tried +that feat," says Pollnitz, "and been prevented; nor was it long till he +made a new attempt, which was again frustrated: and always afterwards +his relations kept him close in view:" Majesty writing comfortable +forgiveness to the perturbed creature, and also "settling a pension +on him;" adequate, we can hope, and not excessive; "which Luiscius +continued to receive, at the Hague, so long as he lived." These are the +prose facts; not definitely dated to us, but perfectly clear otherwise. +[Pollnitz, ii. 495, 496;--the "NEW attempt" seems to have been "June, +1739" (_ Gentleman's Magazine,_ in mense, p. 331).] + +Voltaire, in his Dutch excursions, did sometimes, in after years, lodge +in that old vacant Palace, called VIEILLE COUR, at the Hague; where he +gracefully celebrates the decayed forsaken state of matters; dusky vast +rooms with dim gilding; forgotten libraries "veiled under the biggest +spider-webs in Europe;" for the rest, an uncommonly quiet place, +convenient for a writing man, besides costing nothing. A son of this +Luiscius, a good young lad, it also appears, was occasionally Voltaire's +amanuensis there; him he did recommend zealously to the new King +of Prussia, who was not deaf on the occasion. This, in the fire of +satirical wit, is what we can transiently call "giving alms to a +Prussian Excellency;"--not now excellent, but pensioned and cracked; and +the reader perceives, Luiscius had probably more than one razor, had not +one been enough, when he did the rash act. Friedrich employed Luiscius +Junior, with no result that we hear of farther; and seems to have +thought Luiscius Senior an absurd fellow, not worth mentioning again: +"ran away from the Cleve Country [probably some mad-house there] above a +year ago, I hear; and what is the matter where such a crack-brain end?" +[Voltaire, _OEuvres_ (Letter to Friedrich, 7th October, 1740), lxxii. +261; and Fredrich's answer (wrong dated), ib. 265; Preuss, xxii. 33.] + + + + +Chapter V. -- VISIT AT LOO. + +The Pfalz question being in such a predicament, and Luiscius +diplomatizing upon it in such heavy-footed manner, his Majesty thinks +a journey to Holland, to visit one's Kinsfolk there, and incidentally +speak a word with the High Mightinesses upon Pfalz, would not be amiss. +Such journey is decided on; Crown-Prince to accompany. Summer of 1738: +a short visit, quite without fuss; to last only three days;--mere sequel +to the Reviews held in those adjacent Cleve Countries; so that +the Gazetteers may take no notice. All which was done accordingly: +Crown-Prince's first sight of Holland; and one of the few reportable +points of his Reinsberg life, and not quite without memorability to him +and us. + +On the 8th of July, 1738, the Review Party got upon the road for Wesel: +all through July, they did their reviewing in those Cleve Countries; and +then struck across for the Palace of Loo in Geldern, where a Prince of +Orange countable kinsman to his Prussian Majesty, and a Princess still +more nearly connected,--English George's Daughter, own niece to his +Prussian Majesty,--are in waiting for this distinguished honor. The +Prince of Orange we have already seen, for a moment once; at the siege +of Philipsburg four years ago, when the sale of Chasot's horses went +off so well. "Nothing like selling horses when your company have dined +well," whispered he to Chasot, at that time; since which date we have +heard nothing of his Highness. + +He is not a beautiful man; he has a crooked back, and features +conformable; but is of prompt vivacious nature, and does not want for +sense and good-humor. Paternal George, the gossips say, warned his +Princess, when this marriage was talked of, "You will find him very +ill-looking, though!" "And if I found him a baboon--!" answered she; +being so heartily tired of St. James's. And in fact, for anything I +have heard, they do well enough together. She is George II.'s eldest +Princess;--next elder to our poor Amelia, who was once so interesting +to us! What the Crown-Prince now thought of all that, I do not know; +but the Books say, poor Amelia wore the willow, and specially wore the +Prince's miniature on her breast all her days after, which were many. +Grew corpulent, somewhat a huddle in appearance and equipment, "eyelids +like upper-LIPS," for one item: but when life itself fled, the miniature +was found in its old place, resting on the old heart after some sixty +years. O Time, O Sons and Daughters of Time!-- + +His Majesty's reception at Loo was of the kind he liked,--cordial, +honorable, unceremonious; and these were three pleasant days he had. +Pleasant for the Crown-Prince too; as the whole Journey had rather been; +Papa, with covert satisfaction, finding him a wise creature, after all, +and "more serious" than formerly. "Hm, you don't know what things are in +that Fritz!" his Majesty murmured sometimes, in these later years, with +a fine light in his eyes. + +Loo itself is a beautiful Palace: "Loo, close by the Village Appeldoorn, +is a stately brick edifice, built with architectural regularity; has +finely decorated rooms, beautiful gardens, and round are superb alleys +of oak and linden." [Busching, _Erdbeschreibung,_ viii. 69.] There +saunters pleasantly our Crown-Prince, for these three days;--and one +glad incident I do perceive to have befallen him there: the arrival of a +Letter from Voltaire. Letter much expected, which had followed him from +Wesel; and which he answers here, in this brick Palace, among the superb +avenues and gardens. [_OEuvres,_ xxi. 203, the Letter, "Cirey, June, +1738;" Ib. 222, the Answer to it, "Loo, 6th August, 1738."] + +No doubt a glad incident, irradiating, as with a sudden sunburst in gray +weather, the commonplace of things. Here is news worth listening to; +news as from the empyrean! Free interchange of poetries and proses, +of heroic sentiments and opinions, between the Unique of Sages and the +Paragon of Crown-Princes; how charming to both! Literary business, we +perceive, is brisk on both hands; at Cirey the _Discours sur l'Homme_ +("Sixth DISCOURS" arrives in this packet at Loo, surely a deathless +piece of singing); nor is Reinsberg idle: Reinsberg is copiously doing +verse, such verse! and in prose, very earnestly, an "ANTI-MACHIAVEL;" +which soon afterwards filled all the then world, though it has now +fallen so silent again. And at Paris, as Voltaire announces with a +flourish, "M. de Maupertuis's excellent Book, _Figure de la T'erre,_ +is out;" [Paris, 1738: Maupertuis's "measurement of a degree," in the +utmost North, 1736-1737 (to prove the Earth flattened there). Vivid +Narrative; somewhat gesticulative, but duly brief. The only Book of +that great Maupertuis which is now readable to human nature.] M. de +Maupertuis, home from the Polar regions and from measuring the Earth +there; the sublimest miracle in Paris society at present. Might build, +new-build, an ACADEMY OF SCIENCES at Berlin for your Royal Highness, +one day? suggests Voltaire, on this occasion: and Friedrich, as we shall +see, takes the hint. One passage of the Crown-Prince's Answer is in +these terms;--fixing this Loo visit to its date for us, at any rate:-- + +"LOO IN HOLLAND, 6th AUGUST, 1739.... I write from a place where there +lived once a great man [William III. of England, our Dutch William]; +which is now the Prince of Orange's House. The demon of Ambition sheds +its unhappy poisons over his days. He might be the most fortunate of +men; and he is devoured by chagrins in his beautiful Palace here, in the +middle of his gardens and of a brilliant Court. It is pity in truth; +for he is a Prince with no end of wit (INFINIMENT D'ESPRIT), and has +respectable qualites." Not Stadtholder, unluckily; that is where the +shoe pinches; the Dutch are on the Republican tack, and will not have +a Stadtholder at present. No help for it in one's beautiful gardens and +avenues of oak and linden. + +"I have talked a great deal about Newton with the Princess,"--about +Newton; never hinted at Amelia; not permissible!--"from Newton we passed +to Leibnitz; and from Leibnitz to the Late Queen of England," Caroline +lately gone, "who, the Prince told me, was of Clarke's sentiment" on +that important theological controversy now dead to mankind.--And of +Jenkins and his Ear did the Princess say nothing? That is now becoming a +high phenomenon in England! But readers must wait a little. + +Pity that we cannot give these two Letters in full; that no reader, +almost, could be made to understand them, or to care for them when +understood. Such the cruelty of Time upon this Voltaire-Friedrich +Correspondence, and some others; which were once so rosy, sunny, and are +now fallen drearily extinct,--studiable by Editors only! In itself +the Friedrich-Voltaire Correspondence, we can see, was charming; very +blossomy at present: businesses increasing; mutual admiration now risen +to a great height,--admiration sincere on both sides, most so on +the Prince's, and extravagantly expressed on both sides, most so on +Voltaire's. + + + + +CROWN-PRINCE BECOMES A FREEMASON; AND IS HARANGUED BY MONSIEUR DE +BIELFELD. + +His Majesty, we said, had three pleasant days at Loo; discoursing, as +with friends, on public matters, or even on more private matters, in +a frank unconstrained way. He is not to be called "Majesty" on this +occasion; but the fact, at Loo, and by the leading Mightinesses of +the Republic, who come copiously to compliment him there, is well +remembered. Talk there was, with such leading Mightinesses, about the +Julich-and-Berg question, aim of this Journey: earnest enough private +talk with some of them: but it availed nothing; and would not be worth +reporting now to any creature, if we even knew it. In fact, the Journey +itself remains mentionable chiefly by one very trifling circumstance; +and then by another, not important either, which followed out of that. +The trifling circumstance is,--That Friedrich, in the course of this +Journey, became a Freemason: and the unimportant sequel was, That he +made acquaintance with one Bielfeld, on the occasion; who afterwards +wrote a Book about him, which was once much read, though never much +worth reading, and is still citable, with precaution, now and then. +[Monsieur le Baron de Bielfeld, _Lettres Familieres et Autres,_ +1763;--second edition, 2 vols. a Leide, 1767, is the one we use here.] +Trifling circumstance, of Freemasonry, as we read in Bielfeld and in +many Books after him, befell in manner following. + +Among the dinner-guests at Loo, one of those three days, was a Prince of +Lippe-Buckeburg,--Prince of small territory, but of great speculation; +whose territory lies on the Weser, leading to Dutch connections; and +whose speculations stretch over all the Universe, in a high fantastic +style:--he was a dinner-guest; and one of the topics that came up was +Freemasonry; a phantasmal kind of object, which had kindled itself, or +rekindled, in those years, in England first of all; and was now hovering +about, a good deal, in Germany and other countries; pretending to be +a new light of Heaven, and not a bog-meteor of phosphorated hydrogen, +conspicuous in the murk of things. Bog-meteor, foolish putrescent +will-o'-wisp, his Majesty promptly defined it to be: Tom-foolery and +KINDERSPIEL, what else? Whereupon ingenious Buckeburg, who was himself +a Mason, man of forty by this time, and had high things in him of the +Quixotic type, ventured on defence; and was so respectful, eloquent, +dexterous, ingenious, he quite captivated, if not his Majesty, at +least the Crown-Prince, who was more enthusiastic for high things. +Crown-Prince, after table, took his Durchlaucht of Buckeburg +aside; talked farther on the subject, expressed his admiration, his +conviction,--his wish to be admitted into such a Hero Fraternity. +Nothing could be welcomer to Durchlaucht. And so, in all privacy, it +was made up betweeen them, That Durchlaucht, summoning as many mystic +Brothers out of Hamburg as were needful, should be in waiting with them, +on the Crown-Prince's road homeward,--say at Brunswick, night before +the Fair, where we are to be,--and there make the Crown-Prince a Mason. +[Bielfeld, i. 14-16; Preuss, i. 111; Preuss, _Buch fur Jedermann,_ i. +41.] + +This is Bielfeld's account, repeated ever since; substantially correct, +except that the scene was not Loo at all: dinner and dialogue, it now +appears, took place in Durchlaucht's own neighborhood, during the Cleve +Review time; "probably at Minden, 17th July;" and all was settled into +fixed program before Loo came in sight. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ +xvs. 201: Friedrich's Letter to this Durchlaucht, "Comte de +Schaumbourg-Lippe" he calls him; date, "Moyland, 26th July, 1738: +"Moyland, a certain SCHLOSS, or habitable Mansion, of his Majesty's, +few miles to north of Mors in the Cleve Country; where his Majesty +used often to pause;--and where (what will be much more remarkable to +readers) the Crown-Prince and Voltaire had their first meeting, +two years hence.] Bielfeld's report of the subsequent procedure at +Brunswick, as he saw it and was himself part of it, is liable to no +mistakes, at least of the involuntary kind; and may, for anything we +know, be correct in every particular. + +He says (veiling it under discreet asterisks, which are now decipherable +enough), The Durchlaucht of Lippe-Buckeburg had summoned six Brethren of +the Hamburg Lodge; of whom we mention only a Graf von Kielmannsegge, a +Baron von Oberg, both from Hanover, and Bielfeld himself, a Merchant's +Son, of Hamburg; these, with "Kielmannsegge's Valet to act as Tiler," +Valet being also a Mason, and the rule equality of mankind,--were to +have the honor of initiating the Crown-Prince. They arrived at the +Western Gate of Brunswick on the 11th of August, as prearranged; +Prussian Majesty not yet come, but coming punctually on the morrow. It +is Fair-time; all manner of traders, pedlers, showmen rendezvousing; +many neighboring Nobility too, as was still the habit. "Such a bulk +of light luggage?" said the Custom-house people at the Gate;--but were +pacified by slipping them a ducat. Upon which we drove to "Korn's Hotel" +(if anybody now knew it); and there patiently waited. No great things +of a Hotel, says Bielfeld; but can be put up with;--worst feature is, we +discover a Hanover acquaintance lodging close by, nothing but a wooden +partition between us: How if he should overhear!-- + +Prussian Majesty and suite, under universal cannon-salvos, arrived, +Sunday the 12th; to stay till Wednesday (three days) with his august +Son-in-law and Daughter here. Durchlaucht Lippe presents himself at +Court, the rest of us not; privately settles with the Prince: "Tuesday +night, eve of his Majesty's departure; that shall be the night: at +Korn's Hotel, late enough!" And there, accordingly, on the appointed +night, 14th-15th August, 1738, the light-luggage trunks have yielded +their stage-properties; Jachin and Boaz are set up, and all things are +ready; Tiler (Kielmannsegge's Valet) watching with drawn sword +against the profane. As to our Hanover neighbor, on the other side +the partition, says Bielfeld, we waited on him, this day after dinner, +successively paying our respects; successively pledged him in so +many bumpers, he is lying dead drunk hours ago, could not overhear a +cannon-battery, he. And soon after midnight, the Crown-Prince glides in, +a Captain Wartensleben accompanying, who is also a candidate; and the +mysterious rites are accomplished on both of them, on the Crown-Prince +first, without accident, and in the usual way. + +Bielfeld could not enough admire the demeanor of this Prince, his +clearness, sense, quiet brilliancy; and how he was so "intrepid," +and "possessed himself so gracefully in the most critical instants." +Extremely genial air, and so young, looks younger even than his years: +handsome to a degree, though of short stature. Physiognomy, features, +quite charming; fine auburn hair (BEAU BRUN), a negligent plenty of it; +"his large blue eyes have something at once severe, sweet and gracious." +Eligible Mason indeed. Had better make despatch at present, lest Papa +be getting on the road before him!--Bielfeld delivered a small address, +composed beforehand; with which the Prince seemed to be content. And +so, with masonic grip, they made their adieus for the present; and the +Crown-Prince and Wartensleben were back at their posts, ready for the +road along with his Majesty. + +His Majesty came on Sunday; goes on Wednesday, home now at a stretch; +and, we hope, has had a good time of it here, these three days. Daughter +Charlotte and her Serene Husband, well with their subjects, well with +one another, are doing well; have already two little Children; a Boy +the elder, of whom we have heard: Boy's name is Karl, age now three; +sprightly, reckoned very clever, by the fond parents;--who has many +things to do in the world, by and by; to attack the French Revolution, +and be blown to pieces by it on the Field of Jena, for final thing! +That is the fate of little Karl, who frolics about here, so sunshiny and +ingenuous at present. + +Karl's Grandmother, the Serene Dowager Duchess, Friedrich's own +Mother-in-law, his Majesty and Friedrich would also of course see +here. Fine Younger Sons of hers are coming forward; the reigning Duke +beautifully careful about the furtherance of these Cadets of the House. +Here is Prince Ferdinand, for instance; just getting ready for the Grand +Tour; goes in a month hence: [Mauvillon (FILS, son of him whom we cite +otherwise), _Geschichte Ferdinands Herzogs von Braunschweig-Luneburg_ +(Leipzig, 1794), i. 17-25.] a fine eupeptic loyal young fellow; who, +in a twenty years more, will be Chatham's Generalissimo, and fight +the French to some purpose. A Brother of his, the next elder, is now +fighting the Turks for his Kaiser; does not like it at all, under such +Seckendorfs and War-Ministries as there are. Then, elder still, eldest +of all the Cadets, there is Anton Ulrich, over at Petersburg for some +years past, with outlooks high enough: To wed the Mecklenburg Princess +there (Daughter of the unutterable Duke), and be as good as Czar of +all the Russias one day. Little to his profit, poor soul!--These, +historically ascertainable, are the aspects of the Brunswick Court +during those three days of Royal Visit, in Fair-time; and may serve to +date the Masonic Transaction for us, which the Crown-Prince has just +accomplished over at Korn's. + +As for the Transaction itself, there is intrinsically no harm in this +initiation, we will hope: but it behooves to be kept well hidden from +Papa. Papa's good opinion of the Prince has sensibly risen, in the +course of this Journey, "so rational, serious, not dangling about among +the women as formerly;"--and what a shock would this of Korn's Hotel be, +should Papa hear of it! Poor Papa, from officious tale-bearers he hears +many things: is in distress about Voltaire, about Heterodoxies;--and +summoned the Crown-Prince, by express, from Reinsberg, on one occasion +lately, over to Potsdam, "to take the Communion" there, by way of +case-hardening against Voltaire and Heterodoxies! Think of it, human +readers!--We will add the following stray particulars, more or less +illustrative of the Masonic Transaction; and so end that trifling +affair. + +The Captain Wartensleben, fellow-recipient of the mysteries at +Brunswick, is youngest son, by a second marriage, of old Feldmarschall +Wartensleben, now deceased; and is consequently Uncle, Half-Uncle, of +poor Lieutenant Katte, though some years younger than Katte would now +have been. Tender memories hang by Wartensleben, in a silent way! He +is Captain in the Potsdam Giants; somewhat an intimate, and not +undeservedly so, of the Crown-Prince;--succeeds Wolden as Hofmarschall +at Reinsberg, not many months after this; Wolden having died of an +apoplectic stroke. Of Bielfeld comes a Book, slightly citable; from +no other of the Brethren, or their Feat at Kern's, comes (we may say) +anything whatever. The Crown-Prince prosecuted his Masonry, at Reinsberg +or elsewhere, occasionally, for a year or two; but was never ardent +in it; and very soon after his Accession, left off altogether: +"Child's-play and IGNIS FATUUS mainly!" A Royal Lodge was established at +Berlin, of which the new King consented to be patron; but he never once +entered the place; and only his Portrait (a welcomely good one, still +to be found there) presided over the mysteries in that Establishment. +Harmless "fire," but too "fatuous;" mere flame-circles cut in the air, +for infants, we know how!-- + +With Lippe-Buckeburg there ensued some Correspondence, high enough on +his Serenity's side; but it soon languished on the Prince's side; and +in private Poetry, within a two years of this Brunswick scene, we find +Lippe used proverbially for a type-specimen of Fools. ["Taciturne, +Caton, avec mes bons parents, Aussi fou que la Lippe met les jeunes +gens." _OEuvres,_ xi. 80 (_Discours sur la Faussete,_ written 1740).] +A windy fantastic individual;--overwhelmed in finance-difficulties too! +Lippe continued writing; but "only Secretaries now answered him" from +Berlin. A son of his, son and successor, something of a Quixote too, but +notable in Artillery-practice and otherwise, will turn up at a future +stage. + +Nor is Bielfeld with his Book a thing of much moment to Friedrich or to +us. Bielfeld too has a light airy vein of talk; loves Voltaire and the +Philosophies in a light way;--knows the arts of Society, especially +the art of flattering; and would fain make himself agreeable to the +Crown-Prince, being anxious to rise in the world. His Father is a +Hamburg Merchant, Hamburg "Sealing-wax Manufacturer," not ill off +for money: Son has been at schools, high schools, under tutors, +posture-masters; swashes about on those terms, with French ESPRIT in his +mouth, and lace ruffles at his wrists; still under thirty; showy enough, +sharp enough; considerably a coxcomb, as is still evident. He did +transiently get about Friedrich, as we shall see; and hoped to have sold +his heart to good purpose there;--was, by and by, employed in slight +functions; not found fit for grave ones. In the course of some years, +he got a title of Baron; and sold his heart more advantageously, to some +rich Widow or Fraulein; with whom he retired to Saxony, and there lived +on an Estate he had purchased, a stranger to Prussia thenceforth. + +His Book (_Lettres Familieres et Autres,_ all turning on Friedrich), +which came out in 1763, at the height of Friedrich's fame, and was +much read, is still freely cited by Historians as an Authority. But the +reading of a few pages sufficiently intimates that these "Letters" +never can have gone through a terrestrial Post-office; that they are an +afterthought, composed from vague memory and imagination, in that fine +Saxon retreat;--a sorrowful ghost-like "TRAVELS OF ANACHARSIS," instead +of living words by an eye-witness! Not to be cited "freely" at all, +but sparingly and under conditions. They abound in small errors, +in misdates, mistakes; small fictions even, and impossible +pretensions:--foolish mortal, to write down his bit of knowledge in that +form! For the man, in spite of his lace ruffles and gesticulations, has +brisk eyesight of a superficial kind: he COULD have done us this little +service (apparently his one mission in the world, for which Nature gave +him bed and board here); and he, the lace ruffles having gone into his +soul, has been tempted into misdoing it!--Bielfeld and Bielfeld's +Book, such as they are, appear to be the one conquest Friedrich got of +Freemasonry; no other result now traceable to us of that adventure in +Korn's Hotel, crowning event of the Journey to Loo. + + + + +SECKENDORF GETS LODGED IN GRATZ. + +Feldmarschall Seckendorf, after unheard-of wrestlings with the Turk +War, and the Vienna War-Office (HOFKRIEGSRATH), is sitting, for the last +three weeks,--where thinks the reader?--in the Fortress of Gratz among +the Hills of Styria; a State-Prisoner, not likely to get out soon! +Seckendorf led forth, in 1737, "such an Army, for number, spirit and +equipment," say the Vienna people, "as never marched against the Turk +before;" and it must be owned, his ill success has been unparalleled. +The blame was not altogether his; not chiefly his, except for his rash +undertaking of the thing, on such terms as there were. But the truth +is, that first scene we saw of him,--an Army all gone out trumpeting and +drumming into the woods to FIND its Commander-in-Chief,--was an emblem +of the Campaign in general. Excellent Army; but commanded by nobody in +particular; commanded by a HOFKRIEGSRATH at Vienna, by a Franz Duke +of Tuscany, by Feldmarschall Seckendorf, and by subordinates who were +disobedient to him: which accordingly, almost without help of the Turk +and his disorderly ferocity, rubbed itself to pieces before long. Roamed +about, now hither now thither, with plans laid and then with plans +suddenly altered, Captain being Chaos mainly; in swampy countries, by +overflowing rivers, in hunger, hot weather, forced marches; till it was +marched gradually off its feet; and the clouds of chaotic Turks, who +did finally show face, had a cheap pennyworth of it. Never was such a +campaign seen as this of Seckendorf in 1737, said mankind. Except +indeed that the present one, Campaign of 1738, in those parts, under a +different hand, is still worse; and the Campaign of 1739, under still a +different, will be worst of all!--Kaiser Karl and his Austrians do not +prosper in this Turk War, as the Russians do,--who indeed have got +a General equal to his task: Munnich, a famed master in the art of +handling Turks and War-Ministries: real father of Russian Soldiering, +say the Russians still. [See MANNSTEIN for Munnich's plans with the +Turk (methods and devices of steady Discipline in small numbers VERSUS +impetuous Ferocity in great); and Berenhorst (_Betrachtungen uber die +Kriegskunst,_ Leipzig, 1796), a first-rate Authority, for examples and +eulogies of them.] + +Campaign 1737, with clouds of chaotic Turks now sabring on the skirts of +it, had not yet ended, when Seckendorf was called out of it; on polite +pretexts, home to Vienna; and the command given to another. At the +gates of Vienna, in the last days of October, 1737, an Official Person, +waiting for the Feldmarschall, was sorry to inform him, That he, +Feldmarschall Seckendorf, was under arrest; arrest in his own house, +in the KOHLMARKT (Cabbage-market so called), a captain and twelve +musketeers to watch over him with fixed bayonets there; strictly +private, till the HOFKRIEGSRATH had satisfied themselves in a point +or two. "Hmph!" snuffled he; with brow blushing slate-color, I should +think, and gray eyes much alight. And ever since, for ten months or so, +Seckendorf, sealed up in the Cabbage-market, has been fencing for +life with the HOFKRIEGSRATH; who want satisfaction upon "eighty-six" +different "points;" and make no end of chicaning to one's clear answers. +And the Jesuits preach, too: "A Heretic, born enemy of Christ and his +Kaiser; what is the use of questioning!" And the Heathen rage, and all +men gnash their teeth, in this uncomfortable manner. + +Answering done, there comes no verdict, much less any acquittal; the +captain and twelve musketeers, three of them with fixed bayonets in +one's very bedroom, continue. One evening, 21st July, 1738, glorious +news from the seat of War--not TILL evening, as the Imperial Majesty +was out hunting--enters Vienna; blowing trumpets; shaking flags: "Grand +Victory over the Turks!" so we call some poor skirmish there has been; +and Vienna bursting all into three-times-three, the populace get very +high. Populace rush to the Kohlmarkt: break the Seckendorf windows; +intent to massacre the Seckendorf; had not fresh military come, who were +obliged to fire and kill one or two. "The house captain and his twelve +musketeers, of themselves, did wonders; Seckendorf and all his domestics +were in arms:" "JARNI-BLEU" for the last time!--This is while the +Crown-Prince is at Wesel; sound asleep, most likely; Loo, and the +Masonic adventure, perhaps twinkling prophetically in his dreams. + +At two next morning, an Official Gentleman informs Seckendorf, That +he, for his part, must awaken, and go to Gratz. And in one hour more (3 +A.M.), the Official Gentleman rolls off with him; drives all day; and +delivers his Prisoner at Gratz:--"Not so much as a room ready there; +Prisoner had to wait an hour in the carriage," till some summary +preparation were made. Wall-neighbors of the poor Feldmarschall, in his +Fortress here, were "a GOLD-COOK (swindling Alchemist), who had gone +crazy; and an Irish Lieutenant, confined thirty-two years for some +love-adventure, likewise pretty crazy; their noises in the night-time +much disturbed the Feldmarschall." [_Seckendorfs Leben,_ ii. 170-277 +pp. 27-59.] One human thing there still is in his lot, the +Feldmarschall's old Grafinn. True old Dame, she, both in the Kohlmarkt +and at Gratz, stands by him, "imprisoned along with him" if it must be +so; ministering, comforting, as only a true Wife can;--and hope has not +quite taken wing. + +Rough old Feldmarschall; now turned of sixty: never made such a Campaign +before, as this of 1737 followed by 1738! There sits he; and will not +trouble us any more during the present Kaiser's lifetime. Friedrich +Wilhelm is amazed at these sudden cantings of Fortune's wheel, and +grieves honestly as for an old friend: even the Crown-Prince finds +Seckendorf punished unjustly; and is almost, sorry for him, after all +that has come and gone. + + + + +THE EAR OF JENKINS RE-EMERGES. + +We must add the following, distilled from the English Newspapers, though +it is now almost four months after date:-- + +"LONDON, 1st APRIL, 1738. In the English House of Commons, much more +in the English Public, there has been furious debating for a fortnight +past: Committee of the whole House, examining witnesses, hearing +counsel; subject, the Termagant of Spain, and her West-Indian +procedures;--she, by her procedures somewhere, is always cutting out +work for mankind! How English and other strangers, fallen-in with in +those seas, are treated by the Spaniards, readers have heard, nay have +chanced to see; and it is a fact painfully known to all nations. Fact +which England, for one nation, can no longer put up with. Walpole and +the Official Persons would fain smooth the matter; but the West-India +Interest, the City, all Mercantile and Navigation Interests are in dead +earnest: Committee of the whole House, 'Presided by Alderman Perry,' has +not ears enough to hear the immensities of evidence offered; slow Public +is gradually kindling to some sense of it. This had gone on for two +weeks, when--what shall we say?--the EAR OF JENKINS re-emerged for the +second time; and produced important effects! + +"Where Jenkins had been all this while,--steadfastly navigating to and +fro, steadfastly eating tough junk with a wetting of rum; not thinking +too much of past labors, yet privately 'always keeping his lost Ear in +cotton' (with a kind of ursine piety, or other dumb feeling),--no mortal +now knows. But to all mortals it is evident he was home in London at +this time; no doubt a noted member of Wapping society, the much-enduring +Jenkins. And witnesses, probably not one but many, had mentioned him to +this Committee, as a case eminently in point. Committee, as can still +be read in its Rhadamanthine Journals, orders: 'DIE JOVIS, 16* +MARTII 1737-1738, That Captain Robert Jenkins do attend this House +immediately;' and then more specially, '17* MARTII' captious objections +having risen in Official quarters, as we guess,--'That Captain Robert +Jenkins do attend upon Tuesday morning next.' [_Commons Journals,_ +xxiii. (in diebus).] Tuesday next is 21st March,--1st of April, 1738, by +our modern Calendar;--and on that day, not a doubt, Jenkins does attend; +narrates that tremendous passage we already heard of, seven years ago, +in the entrance of the Gulf of Florida; and produces his Ear wrapt in +cotton:--setting all on flame (except the Official persons) at sight of +it." + +Official persons, as their wont is in the pressure of debate, endeavored +to deny, to insinuate in their vile Newspapers, That Jenkins lost his +Ear nearer home and not for nothing; as one still reads in the History +Books. [Tindal (xx. 372). Coxe, &c.] Sheer calumnies, we now find. +Jenkins's account was doubtless abundantly emphatic; but there is no +ground to question the substantial truth of him and it. And so, after +seven years of unnoticeable burning upon the thick skin of the English +Public, the case of Jenkins accidentally burns through, and sets England +bellowing; such a smart is there of it,--not to be soothed by Official +wet-cloths; but getting worse and worse, for the nineteen months +ensuing. And in short--But we will not anticipate! + + + + +Chapter VI. -- LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG; JOURNEY TO PREUSSEN. + +The Idyllium of Reinsberg--of which, except in the way of sketchy +suggestion, there can no history be given--lasted less than four years; +and is now coming to an end, unexpectedly soon. A pleasant Arcadian +Summer in one's life;--though it has not wanted its occasional discords, +flaws of ill weather in the general sunshine. Papa, always in uncertain +health of late, is getting heavier of foot and of heart under his heavy +burdens; and sometimes falls abstruse enough, liable to bewilderments +from bad people and events: not much worth noticing here. [See Pollnitz, +ii. 509-515; Friedrich's Letter to Wilhelmina ("Berlin, 20th January, +1739:" in _OEuvres,_ xxvii. part 1st, pp. 60, 61); &c. &c.] But the +Crown-Prince has learned to deal with all this; all this is of +transient nature; and a bright long future seems to lie ahead at +Reinsberg;--brightened especially by the Literary Element; which, in +this year of 1739, is brisker than it had ever been. Distinguished +Visitors, of a literary turn, look in at Reinsberg; the Voltaire +Correspondence is very lively; on Friedrich's part there is copious +production, various enterprise, in the form of prose and verse; thoughts +even of going to press with some of it: in short, the Literary Interest +rises very prominent at Reinsberg in 1739. Biography is apt to forget +the Literature there (having her reasons); but must at last take some +notice of it, among the phenomena of the year. + +To the young Prince himself, "courting tranquillity," as his door-lintel +intimated, [_"Frederico tranquillitatem colenti"_ (Infra, p. 123).] +and forbidden to be active except within limits, this of Literature was +all along the great light of existence at Reinsberg; the supplement +to all other employments or wants of employment there. To Friedrich +himself, in those old days, a great and supreme interest; while again, +to the modern Biographer of him, it has become dark and vacant; a thing +to be shunned, not sought. So that the fact as it stood with Friedrich +differs far from any description that can be given of the fact. Alas, we +have said already, and the constant truth is, Friedrich's literatures, +his distinguished literary visitors and enterprises, which were once +brand-new and brilliant, have grown old as a garment, and are a sorrow +rather than otherwise to existing mankind! Conscientious readers, who +would represent to themselves the vanished scene at Reinsberg, in this +point more especially, must make an effort. + +As biographical documents, these Poetries and Proses of the young man +give a very pretty testimony of him; but are not of value otherwise. In +fact, they promise, if we look well into them, That here is probably a +practical faculty and intellect of the highest kind; which again, on +the speculative, especially on the poetical side, will never be +considerable, nor has even tried to be so. This young soul does not deal +in meditation at all, and his tendencies are the reverse of sentimental. +Here is no introspection, morbid or other, no pathos or complaint, +no melodious informing of the public what dreadful emotions you labor +under: here, in rapid prompt form, indicating that it is truth and not +fable, are generous aspirations for the world and yourself, generous +pride, disdain of the ignoble, of the dark, mendacious;--here, in short, +is a swift-handed, valiant, STEEL-bright kind of soul; very likely for a +King's, if other things answer, and not likely for a Poet's. No doubt he +could have made something of Literature too; could have written Books, +and left some stamp of a veracious, more or less victorious intellect, +in that strange province too. But then he must have applied himself to +it, as he did to reigning: done in the cursory style, we see what it has +come to. + +It is certain, Friedrich's reputation suffers, at this day, from his +writing. From his NOT having written nothing, he stands lower with the +world. Which seems hard measure;--though perhaps it is the law of the +case, after all. "Nobody in these days," says my poor Friend, "has the +least notion of the sinful waste there is in talk, whether by pen or +tongue. Better probably that King Friedrich had written no Verses; nay +I know not that David's Psalms did David's Kingship any good!" Which +may be truer than it seems. Fine aspirations, generous convictions, +purposes,--they are thought very fine: but it is good, on various +accounts, to keep them rather silent; strictly unvocal, except on +call of real business; so dangerous are they for becoming conscious of +themselves! Most things do not ripen at all except underground. And it +is a sad but sure truth, that every time you SPEAK of a fine purpose, +especially if with eloquence and to the admiration of by-standers, +there is the LESS chance of your ever making a fact of it in your poor +life.--If Reinsberg, and its vacancy of great employment, was the cause +of Friedrich's verse-writing, we will not praise Reinsberg on that +head! But the truth is, Friedrich's verses came from him with uncommon +fluency; and were not a deep matter, but a shallow one, in any sense. +Not much more to him than speaking with a will; than fantasying on the +flute in an animated strain. Ever and anon through his life, on small +hint from without or on great, there was found a certain leakage of +verses, which he was prompt to utter;--and the case at Reinsberg, or +afterwards, is not so serious as we might imagine. + + + + +PINE'S HORACE; AND THE ANTI-MACHIAVEL. + +In late months Friedrich had conceived one notable project; which +demands a word in this place. Did modern readers ever hear of "John +Pine, the celebrated English Engraver"? John Pine, a man of good +scholarship, good skill with his burin, did "Tapestries of the House +of Lords," and other things of a celebrated nature, famous at home and +abroad: but his peculiar feat, which had commended him at Reinsberg, was +an Edition of HORACE: exquisite old FLACCUS brought to perfection, as it +were; all done with vignettes, classical borderings, symbolic marginal +ornaments, in fine taste and accuracy, the Text itself engraved; all by +the exquisite burin of Pine. ["London, 1737" (_Biographie Universelle,_ +xxxiv. 465).] This Edition had come out last year, famous over the +world; and was by and by, as rumor bore, to be followed by a VIRGIL done +in the like exquisite manner. + +The Pine HORACE, part of the Pine VIRGIL too, still exist in the +libraries of the curious; and are doubtless known to the proper parties, +though much forgotten by others of us. To Friedrich, scanning the Pine +phenomenon with interest then brand-new, it seemed an admirable tribute +to classical genius; and the idea occurred to him, "Is not there, by +Heaven's blessing, a living genius, classical like those antique Romans, +and worthy of a like tribute?" Friedrich's idea was, That Voltaire being +clearly the supreme of Poets, the HENRIADE, his supreme of Poems, ought +to be engraved like FLACCUS; text and all, with vignettes, tail-pieces, +classical borderings beautifully symbolic and exact; by the exquisite +burin of Pine. Which idea the young hero-worshipper, in spite of his +finance-difficulties, had resolved to realize; and was even now busy +with it, since his return from Loo. "Such beautiful enthusiasm," say +some readers; "and in behalf of that particular demi-god!" Alas, yes; to +Friedrich he was the best demi-god then going; and Friedrich never had +any doubt about him. + +For the rest, this heroic idea could not realize itself; and we +are happy to have nothing more to do with Pine or the HENRIADE. +Correspondences were entered into with Pine, and some pains taken: +Pine's high prices were as nothing; but Pine was busy with his VIRGIL; +probably, in fact, had little stomach for the HENRIADE; "could not for +seven years to come enter upon it:" so that the matter had to die away; +and nothing came of it but a small DISSERTATION, or Introductory Essay, +which the Prince had got ready,--which is still to be found printed +in Voltaire's Works [_OEuvres, xiii. 393-402._] and in Friedrich's, if +anybody now cared much to read it. Preuss says it was finished, "the +10th August, 1739;" and that minute fact in Chronology, with the above +tale of Hero-worship hanging to it, will suffice my readers and me. + +But there is another literary project on hand, which did take +effect;--much worthy of mention, this year; the whole world having risen +into such a Chorus of TE DEUM at sight of it next year. In this year +falls, what at any rate was a great event to Friedrich, as literary man: +the printing of his first Book,--assiduous writing of it with an eye to +print. The Book is that "celebrated ANTI-MACHIAVEL," ever-praiseworthy +Refutation of Machiavel's PRINCE; concerning which there are such +immensities of Voltaire Correspondence, now become, like the Book +itself, inane to all readers. This was the chosen soul's employment of +Friedrich, the flower of life to him, at Reinsberg, through the yea? +1739. It did not actually get to press till Spring 1740; nor actually +come out till Autumn,--by which time a great change had occurred in +Friedrich's title and circumstances: but we may as well say here what +little is to be said of it for modern readers. + +"The Crown-Prince, reading this bad Book of Machiavel's, years ago, had +been struck, as all honest souls, especially governors or apprentices +to governing, must be, if they thought of reading such a thing, with +its badness, its falsity, detestability; and came by degrees, obliquely +fishing out Voltaire's opinion as he went along, on the notion of +refuting Machiavel; and did refute him, the best he could. Set down, +namely, his own earnest contradiction to such ungrounded noxious +doctrines; elaborating the same more and more into clear logical +utterance; till it swelled into a little Volume; which, so excellent +was it, so important to mankind, Voltaire and friends were clear for +publishing. Published accordingly it was; goes through the press next +Summer (1740), under Voltaire's anxious superintendence: [Here, gathered +from Friedrich's Letters to Voltaire, is the Chronology of the little +Enterprise:--1738, MARCH 21, JUNE 17, "Machiavel a baneful man," +thinks Friedrich. "Ought to be refuted by somebody?" thinks he (date not +known). 1739, MARCH 22, Friedrich thinks of doing it himself. Has done +it, DECEMBER 4;--"a Book which ought to be printed," say Voltaire and +the literary visitors. 1740, APRIL 26, Book given up to Voltaire for +finished; Book appears, "end of SEPTEMBER," when a great change had +occurred in Friedrich's title and position.] for the Prince has at +length consented; and Voltaire hands the Manuscript, with mystery yet +with hints, to a Dutch Bookseller, one Van Duren at the Hague, who +is eager enough to print such an article. Voltaire himself--such his +magnanimous friendship, especially if one have Dutch Lawsuits, or +business of one's own, in those parts--takes charge of correcting; +lodges himself in the 'Old Court' (Prussian Mansion, called VIEILLE +COUR, at the Hague, where 'Luiscius,' figuratively speaking, may 'get +an alms' from us); and therefrom corrects, alters; corresponds with the +Prince and Van Duren, at a great rate. Keeps correcting, altering, till +Van Duren thinks he is spoiling it for sale;--and privately determines +to preserve the original Manuscript, and have an edition of that, with +only such corrections as seem good to Van Duren. A treasonous step +on this mule of a Bookseller's part, thinks Voltaire; but mulishly +persisted in by the man. Endless correspondence, to right and left, +ensues; intolerably wearisome to every reader. And, in fine, there came +out, in Autumn next,"--the Crown-Prince no longer a Crown-Prince by +that time, but shining conspicuous under Higher Title,--"not one +ANTI-MACHIAVEL only, but a couple or a trio of ANTI-MACHIAVELS; as +printed 'at the Hague;' as reprinted 'at London' or elsewhere; the +confused Bibliography of which has now fallen very insignificant. First +there was the Voltaire text, Authorized Edition, 'end of September, +1740;' then came, in few weeks, the Van Duren one; then, probably, a +third, combining the two, the variations given as foot-notes:--in short, +I know not how many editions, translations, printings and reprintings; +all the world being much taken up with such a message from the upper +regions, and eager to read it in any form. + +"As to Friedrich himself, who of course says nothing of the +ANTI-MACHIAVEL in public, he privately, to Voltaire, disowns all these +editions; and intends to give a new one of his own, which shall be the +right article; but never did it, having far other work cut out for him +in the months that came. But how zealous the worlds humor was in that +matter, no modern reader can conceive to himself. In the frightful +Compilation called HELDEN-GESCHICHTE, which we sometimes cite, there +are, excerpted from the then 'Bibliotheques' (NOUVELLE BIBLIOTHEQUE +and another; shining Periodicals of the time, now gone quite dead), +two 'reviews' of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, which fill modern readers with +amazement: such a DOMINE DIMITTAS chanted over such an article!--These +details, in any other than the Biographical point of view, are now +infinitely unimportant." + +Truly, yes! The Crown-Prince's ANTI-MACHIAVEL, final correct edition (in +two forms, Voltaire's as corrected, and the Prince's own as written), +stands now in clear type; [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_ viii. +61-163.] and, after all that jumble of printing and counter-printing, we +can any of us read it in a few hours; but, alas, almost none of us +with the least interest, or, as it were, with any profit whatever. +So different is present tense from past, in all things, especially +in things like these! It is sixscore years since the ANTI-MACHIAVEL +appeared. The spectacle of one who was himself a King (for the +mysterious fact was well known to Van Duren and everybody) stepping +forth to say with conviction, That Kingship was not a thing of attorney +mendacity, to be done under the patronage of Beelzebub, but of human +veracity, to be set about under quite Other patronage; and that, in +fact, a King was the "born servant of his People" (DOMESTIQUE Friedrich +once calls it), rather than otherwise: this, naturally enough, rose upon +the then populations, unused to such language, like the dawn of a new +day; and was welcomed with such applauses as are now incredible, after +all that has come and gone! Alas, in these sixscore years, it has been +found so easy to profess and speak, even with sincerity! The actual +Hero-Kings were long used to be silent; and the Sham-Hero kind grow +only the more desperate for us, the more they speak and profess!--This +ANTI-MACHIAVEL of Friedrich's is a clear distinct Treatise; confutes, +or at least heartily contradicts, paragraph by paragraph, the incredible +sophistries of Machiavel. Nay it leaves us, if we sufficiently force +our attention, with the comfortable sense that his Royal Highness is +speaking with conviction, and honestly from the heart, in the affair: +but that is all the conquest we get of it, in these days. Treatise +fallen more extinct to existing mankind it would not be easy to name. + +Perhaps indeed mankind is getting weary of the question altogether. +Machiavel himself one now reads only by compulsion. "What is the use of +arguing with anybody that can believe in Machiavel?" asks mankind, +or might well ask; and, except for Editorial purposes, eschews any +ANTI-MACHIAVEL; impatient to be rid of bane and antidote both. Truly +the world has had a pother with this little Nicolo Machiavelli and his +perverse little Book:--pity almost that a Friedrich Wilhelm, taking +his rounds at that point of time, had not had the "refuting" of him; +Friedrich Wilhelm's method would have been briefer than Friedrich's! But +let us hope the thing is now, practically, about completed. And as to +the other question, "Was the Signor Nicolo serious in this perverse +little Book; or did he only do it ironically, with a serious inverse +purpose?" we will leave that to be decided, any time convenient, by +people who are much at leisure in the world!-- + +The printing of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL was not intrinsically momentous in +Friedrich's history; yet it might as well have been dispensed with. +He had here drawn a fine program, and needlessly placarded it for the +street populations: and afterwards there rose, as could not fail on +their part, comparison between program and performance; scornful cry, +chiefly from men of weak judgment, "Is this King an ANTI-Machiavel, +then? Pfui!" Of which,--though Voltaire's voice, too, was heard in +it, in angry moments,--we shall say nothing: the reader, looking +for himself, will judge by and by. And herewith enough of the +ANTI-MACHIAVEL. Composition of ANTI-MACHIAVEL and speculation of the +Pine HENRIADE lasted, both of them, all through this Year 1739, and +farther: from these two items, not to mention any other, readers can +figure sufficiently how literary a year it was. + + + + +FRIEDRICH IN PREUSSEN AGAIN; AT THE STUD OF TRAKEHNEN. A TRAGICALLY +GREAT EVENT COMING ON. + +In July this year the Crown-Prince went with Papa on the Prussian +Review-journey. ["Set out, 7th July" (_OEuvres,_ xxvii. part 1st, 67 +n.).] Such attendance on Review-journeys, a mark of his being well with +Papa, is now becoming usual; they are agreeable excursions, and cannot +but be instructive as well. On this occasion, things went beautifully +with him. Out in those grassy Countries, in the bright Summer, once more +he had an unusually fine time;--and two very special pleasures befell +him. First was, a sight of the Emigrants, our Salzburgers and other, in +their flourishing condition, over in Lithuania yonder. Delightful to see +how the waste is blossoming up again; busy men, with their industries, +their steady pious husbandries, making all things green and fruitful: +horse-droves, cattle-herds, waving cornfields;--a very "SCHMALZGRUBE +(Butter-pit)" of those Northern parts, as it is since called. [Busching, +Erdbeschreibung, ii. 1049.] The Crown-Prince's own words on this matter +we will give; they are in a Letter of his to Voltaire, perhaps already +known to some readers;--and we can observe he writes rather copiously +from those localities at present, and in a cheerful humor with +everybody. + +"INSTERBURG, 27th JULY, 1739 (Crown-Prince to Voltaire).... Prussian +Lithuania is a Country a hundred and twenty miles long, by from sixty +to forty broad; ["Miles ENGLISH," we always mean, UNLESS &c.] it was +ravaged by Pestilence at the beginning of this Century; and they say +three hundred thousand people died of disease and famine." Ravaged by +Pestilence and the neglect of King Friedrich I.; till my Father, once +his hands were free, made personal survey of it, and took it up, in +earnest. + +"Since that time," say twenty years ago, "there is no expense that the +King has been afraid of, in order to succeed in his salutary views. +He made, in the first place, regulations full of wisdom; he rebuilt +wherever the Pestilence had desolated: thousands of families, from the +ends of Europe," seventeen thousand Salzburgers for the last item, "were +conducted hither; the Country repeopled itself; trade began to flourish +again;--and now, in these fertile regions, abundance reigns more than it +ever did. + +"There are above half a million of inhabitants in Lithuania; there are +more towns than there ever were, more flocks than formerly, more wealth +and more productiveness than in any other part of Germany. And all +this that I tell you of is due to the King alone: who not only gave the +orders, but superintended the execution of them; it was he that devised +the plans, and himself got them carried to fulfilment; and spared +neither care nor pains, nor immense expenditures, nor promises nor +recompenses, to secure happiness and life to this half-million of +thinking beings, who owe to him alone that they have possessions and +felicity in the world. + +"I hope this detail does not weary you. I depend on your humanity +extending itself to your Lithuanian brethren, as well as to your French, +English, German, or other,--all the more as, to my great astonishment, +I passed through villages where you hear nothing spoken but French.--I +have found something so heroic, in the generous and laborious way in +which the King addressed himself to making this desert flourish with +inhabitants and happy industries and fruits, that it seemed to me you +would feel the same sentiments in learning the circumstances of such +a re-establishment. I daily expect news of you from Enghien" [in those +Dutch-Lawsuit Countries].... The divine Emilie;... the Duke [D'Aremberg, +Austrian Soldier, of convivial turn,--remote Welsh-Uncle to a certain +little Prince de Ligne, now spinning tops in those parts; [Born 23d +May, 1735, this latter little Prince; lasted till 13th December, 1814 +("DANSE, MAIS IL NE MARCHE PAS").] not otherwise interesting], whom +Apollo contends for against Bacchues.... Adieu. NE M'OUBLIEZ PAS, MON +CHER AMI." [_OEuvres,_ xxi. 304, 305.] + +This is one pleasant scene, to the Crown-Prince and us, in those grassy +localities. And now we have to mention that, about a fortnight later, +at Konigsberg one day, in reference to a certain Royal Stud or +Horse-breeding Establishment in those same Lithuanian regions, there had +a still livelier satisfaction happened him; satisfaction of a personal +and filial nature. The name of this Royal Stud, inestimable on such +ground, is Trakehnen,--lies south of Tilsit, in an upper valley of the +Pregel river;--very extensive Horse-Establishment, "with seven farms +under it," say the Books, and all "in the most perfect order," they need +hardly add, Friedrich Wilhelm being master of it. Well, the Royal +Party was at Konigsberg, so far on the road homewards again from those +outlying parts, when Friedrich Wilhelm said one day to his Son, quite in +a cursory manner, "I give thee that Stud of Trakehnen; thou must go back +and look to it;" which struck Fritz quite dumb at the moment. + +For it is worth near upon 2,000 pounds a year (12,000 thalers); a +welcome new item in our impoverished budget; and it is an undeniable +sign of Papa's good-humor with us, which is more precious still. Fritz +made his acknowledgments, eloquent with looks, eloquent with voice, +on coming to himself; and is, in fact, very proud of his gift, and +celebrates it to his Wilhelmina, to Camas and others who have a right to +know such a thing. Grand useful gift; and handed over by Papa grandly, +in three business words, as if it had been a brace of game: "I give it +thee, Fritz!" A thing not to be forgotten. "At bottom, Friedrich Wilhelm +was not avaricious" (not a miser, only a man grandly abhorring waste, +as the poor vulgar cannot do), "not avaricious," says Pollnitz once; +"he made munificent gifts, and never thought of them more." This of +Trakehnen,--perhaps there might be a whiff of coming Fate concerned in +it withal: "I shall soon be dead, not able to give thee anything, poor +Fritz!" To the Prince and us it is very beautiful; a fine effulgence of +the inner man of Friedrich Wilhelm. The Prince returned to Trakehnen, on +this glad errand; settled the business details there; and, after a +few days, went home by a route of his own;--well satisfied with this +Prussian-Review journey, as we may imagine. + + [SEE EARLIER---Prussian Review-journey (placing of hyphen)] + +One sad thing there was, though Friedrich did not yet know how sad, in +this Review-journey: the new fit of illness that overtook his Majesty. +From Pollnitz, who was of the party, we have details on that head. +In his Majesty's last bad illness, five years ago, when all seemed +hopeless, it appears the surgeons had relieved him,--in fact recovered +him, bringing off the bad humors in quantity,--by an incision in the +foot or leg. In the course of the present fatigues, this old wound broke +out again; which of course stood much in the way of his Majesty; and +could not be neglected, as probably the causes of it were. A regimental +surgeon, Pollnitz says, was called in; who, in two days, healed the +wound,--and declared all to be right again; though in fact, as we may +judge, it was dangerously worse than before. "All well here," writes +Friedrich; "the King has been out of order, but is now entirely +recovered (TOUT A FAIT REMIS)." ["Konigsberg, 30th July, 1739," to his +Wife (_OEuvres,_ xxvi. 6).] + +Much reviewing and heavy business followed at Konigsberg;--gift of +Trakehnen, and departure of the Crown-Prince for Trakehnen, winding it +up. Directly on the heel of which, his Majesty turned homewards, the +Crown-Prince not to meet him till once at Berlin again. Majesty's first +stage was at Pillau, where we have been. At Pillau, or next day at +Dantzig, Pollnitz observed a change in his Majesty's humor, which had +been quite sunshiny all this journey hitherto. At Dantzig Pollnitz +first noticed it; but at every new stage it grew worse, evil accidents +occurring to worsen it; and at Berlin it was worst of all;--and, alas, +his poor Majesty never recovered his sunshine in this world again! Here +is Pollnitz's account of the journey homewards:-- + +"Till now," till Pillau and Dantzig, "his Majesty had been in especially +good humor; but in Dantzig his cheerfulness forsook him;--and it never +came back. He arrived about ten at night in that City [Wednesday, 12th +August, or thereby]; slept there; and was off again next morning at +five. He drove only thirty miles this day; stopped in Lupow [coast road +through Pommern], with Herr von Grumkow [the late Grumkow's Brother], +Kammer President in this Pommern Province. From Lupow he went to a poor +Village near Belgard, EIGHTY miles farther;"--last village on the great +road, Belgard lying to left a little, on a side road;--"and stayed there +overnight. + +"At Belgard, next morning, he reviewed the Dragoon Regiment von +Platen; and was very ill content with it. And nobody, with the least +understanding of that business, but must own that never did Prussian +Regiment manoeuvre worse. Conscious themselves how bad it was, they lost +head, and got into open confusion. The King did all that was possible +to help them into order again. He withdrew thrice over, to give the +Officers time to recover themselves; but it was all in vain. The King, +contrary to wont, restrained himself amazingly, and would not show his +displeasure in public. He got into his carriage, and drove away with +the Furst of Anhalt," Old Dessauer, "and Von Winterfeld," Captain in the +Giant Regiment, "who is now Major-General von Winterfeld; [Major-General +since 1743, of high fame; fell in fight, 7th September, 1757.] not +staying to dine with General von Platen, as was always his custom with +Commandants whom he had reviewed. He bade Prince Wilhelm and the rest of +us stay and dine; he himself drove away,"--towards the great road again, +and some uncertain lodging there. + +"We stayed accordingly; and did full justice to the good cheer,"--though +poor Platen would certainly look flustered, one may fancy. "But as the +Prince was anxious to come up with his Majesty again, and knew not where +he would meet him, we had to be very swift with the business. + +"We found the King with Anhalt and Winterfeld, by and by; sitting in +a village, in front of a barn, and eating a cold pie there, which the +Furst of Anhalt had chanced to have with him; his Majesty, owing to what +he had seen on the parade-ground, was in the utmost ill-humor (HOCHST +UBLER LAUNE). Next day, Saturday, he went a hundred and fifty or two +hundred miles; and arrived in Berlin at ten at night. Not expected there +till the morrow; so that his rooms were locked,--her Majesty being over +in Monbijou, giving her children a Ball;" [Pollnitz, ii. 534-537.]--and +we can fancy what a frame of mind there was! + +Nobody, not at first even the Doctors, much heeded this new fit of +illness; which went and came: "changed temper," deeper or less deep +gloom of "bad humor," being the main phenomenon to by-standers. But the +sad truth was, his Majesty never did recover his sunshine; from Pillau +onwards he was slowly entering into the shadows of the total Last +Eclipse; and his journeyings and reviewings in this world were all done. +Ten months hence, Pollnitz and others knew better what it had been!-- + + + + +Chapter VII. -- LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER +PERSONS AND THINGS. + +Friedrich had not been long home again from Trakehnen and Preussen, +when the routine of things at Reinsberg was illuminated by Visitors, of +brilliant and learned quality; some of whom, a certain Signor Algarotti +for one, require passing mention here. Algarotti, who became a permanent +friend or satellite, very luminous to the Prince, and was much about him +in coming years, first shone out upon the scene at this time,--coming +unexpectedly, and from the Eastward as it chanced. + +On his own score, Algarotti has become a wearisome literary man to +modern readers: one of those half-remembered men; whose books seem to +claim a reading, and do not repay it you when given. Treatises, of a +serious nature, ON THE OPERA; setting forth, in earnest, the potential +"moral uses" of the Opera, and dedicated to Chatham; _Neutonianismo per +le Donne_ (Astronomy for Ladies): the mere Titles of such things are +fatally sufficient to us; and we cannot, without effort, nor with it, +recall the brilliancy of Algarotti and them to his contemporary world. + +Algarotti was a rich Venetian Merchant's Son, precisely about the +Crown-Prince's age; shone greatly in his studies at Bologna and +elsewhere; had written Poesies (RIME); written especially that +_Newtonianism for the Dames_ (equal to Fontenelle, said Fame, and +orthodox Newtonian withal, not heterodox or Cartesian); and had shone, +respected, at Paris, on the strength of it, for three or four years +past: friend of Voltaire in consequence, of Voltaire and his divine +Emilie, and a welcome guest at Cirey; friend of the cultivated world +generally, which was then laboring, divine Emilie in the van of it, +to understand Newton and be orthodox in this department of things. +Algarotti did fine Poesies, too, once and again; did Classical +Scholarships, and much else: everywhere a clear-headed, methodically +distinct, concise kind of man. A high style of breeding about him, +too; had powers of pleasing, and used them: a man beautifully lucent in +society, gentle yet impregnable there; keeping himself unspotted from +the world and its discrepancies,--really with considerable prudence, +first and last. + +He is somewhat of the Bielfeld type; a Merchant's Son, we observe, like +Bielfeld; but a Venetian Merchant's, not a Hamburg's; and also of better +natural stuff than Bielfeld. Concentrated himself upon his task with +more seriousness, and made a higher thing of it than Bielfeld; though, +after all, it was the same task the two had. Alas, our "Swan of +Padua" (so they sometimes called him) only sailed, paddling grandly, +no-whither,--as the Swan-Goose of the Elbe did, in a less stately +manner! One cannot well bear to read his Books. There is no light upon +Friedrich to tempt us; better light than Bielfeld's there could have +been, and much of it: but he prudently, as well as proudly, forbore such +topics. He approaches very near fertility and geniality in his writings, +but never reaches it. Dilettantism become serious and strenuous, in +those departments--Well, it was beautiful to young Friedrich and +the world at that time, though it is not to us!--Young Algarotti, +twenty-seven this year, has been touring about as a celebrity these four +years past, on the strength of his fine manners and _Newtonianism for +the Dames._ + +It was under escort of Baltimore, "an English Milord," recommended from +Potsdam itself, that Algarotti came to Reinsberg; the Signor had much to +do with English people now and after. Where Baltimore first picked him +up, I know not: but they have been to Russia together; Baltimore by +twelve years the elder of the two: and now, getting home towards +England again, they call at Reinsberg in the fine Autumn weather;--and +considerably captivate the Crown-Prince, Baltimore playing chief, +in that as in other points. The visit lasted five days: [20th-25th +September, 1739 (_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xiv. p. xiv).] there was copious +speech on many things;--discussion about Printing of the ANTI MACHIAVEL; +Algarotti to get it printed in England, Algarotti to get Pine and +his Engraved HENRIADE put under way; neither of which projects took +effect;--readers can conceive what a charming five days these were. +Here, in the Crown-Prince's own words, are some brief glimmerings which +will suffice us:-- + +REINSBERG, 25th SEPT. 1739 (Crown-Prince to Papa).... that "nothing new +has occurred in the Regiment, and we have few sick. Here has the English +Milord, who was at Potsdam, passing through [stayed five days, though +we call it passing, and suppress the Algarotti, Baltimore being indeed +chief]. He is gone towards Hamburg, to take ship for England there. As +I heard that my Most All-gracious Father wished I should show him +courtesy, I have done for him what I could. The Prince of Mirow has also +been here,"--our old Strelitz friend. Of Baltimore nothing more to +Papa. But to another Correspondent, to the good Suhm (who is now at +Petersburg, and much in our intimacy, ready to transact loans for us, +translate Wolf, or do what is wanted), there is this passage next day:-- + +REINSBERG, 26th SEPTEMBER, 1739 (to Suhm). "We have had Milord +Baltimore here, and the young Algarotti; both of them men who, by their +accomplishments, cannot but conciliate the esteem and consideration +of all who see them. We talked much of you [Suhm], of Philosophy, of +Science, Art; in short, of all that can be included in the taste of +cultivated people (HONNETES GENS)." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvi. 378.] +And again to another, about two weeks hence:-- + +REINSBERG, 10th OCTOBER, 1739 (to Voltaire). "We have had Milord +Baltimore and Algarotti here, who are going back to England. This Milord +is a very sensible man (HOMME TRESSENSE); who possesses a great deal of +knowledge, and thinks, like us, that sciences can be no disparagement to +nobility, nor degrade an illustrious rank. I admired the genius of this +ANGLAIS, as one does a fine face through a crape veil. He speaks French +very ill, yet one likes to hear him speak it; and as for his English, +he pronounces it so quick, there is no possibility of following him. He +calls a Russian 'a mechanical animal.' He says 'Petersburg is the eye +of Russia, with which it keeps civilized countries in sight; if you took +this eye from it, Russia would fall again into barbarism, out of which +it is just struggling.' [Ib. xxi. 326, 327.]... Young Algarotti, +whom you know, pleased me beyond measure. He promised that he"--But +Baltimore, promise or not, is the chief figure at present. + +Evidently an original kind of figure to us, CET ANGLAIS. And indeed +there is already finished a rhymed EPISTLE to Baltimore; _Epitre sur la +Liberte_ (copy goes in that same LETTER, for Voltaire's behoof), which +dates itself likewise October 10th; beginning,--_"L'esprit libre, +Milord, qui regne en Angleterre,"_ which, though it is full of fine +sincere sentiments, about human dignity, papal superstition, Newton, +Locke, and aspirations for progress of culture in Prussia, no reader +could stand at this epoch. + +What Baltimore said in answer to the EPITRE, we do not know; probably +not much: it does not appear he ever saw or spoke to Friedrich a second +time. Three weeks after, Friedrich writing to Algarotti, has these +words: "I pray you make my friendships to Milord Baltimore, whose +character and manner of thinking I truly esteem. I hope he has, by this +time, got my EPITRE on the English Liberty of Thought." [29th October +1739, To Algarotti in London (_OEuvres,_ xviii. 5).] And so Baltimore +passes on, silent in History henceforth,--though Friedrich seems to have +remembered him to late times, as a kind of type-figure when England came +into his head. For the sake of this small transit over the sun's disk, I +have made some inquiry about Baltimore; but found very little;--perhaps +enough:-- + +"He was Charles, Sixth Lord Baltimore, it appears; Sixth, and last +but one. First of the Baltimores, we know, was Secretary Calvert +(1618-1624), who colonized Maryland; last of them (1774) was the Son +of this Charles; something of a fool, to judge by the face of him in +Portraits, and by some of his doings in the world. He, that Seventh +Baltimore, printed one or two little Volumes "now of extreme +rarity"--(cannot be too rare); and winded up by standing an ugly Trial +at Kingston Assizes (plaintiff an unfortunate female). After which he +retired to Naples, and there ended, 1774, the last of these Milords. +[Walpole (by Park), _Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors_ (London, +1806), v. 278.] + +"He of the Kingston Assizes, we say, was not this Charles; but his +Son, whom let the reader forget. Charles, age forty at this time, had +travelled about the Continent a good deal: once, long ago, we imagined +we had got a glimpse of him (but it was a guess merely) lounging +about Luneville and Lorraine, along with Lyttelton, in the +Congress-of-Soissons time? Not long after that, it is certain enough, +he got appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince Fred; who was a +friend of speculative talkers and cultivated people. In which situation +Charles Sixth Baron Baltimore continued all his days after; and might +have risen by means of Fred, as he was anxious enough to do, had both of +them lived; but they both died; Baltimore first, in 1751, a year before +Fred. Bubb Doddington, diligent laborer in the same Fred vineyard, +was much infested by this Baltimore,--who, drunk or sober (for he +occasionally gets into liquor), is always putting out Bubb, and +stands too well with our Royal Master, one secretly fears! Baltimore's +finances, I can guess, were not in too good order; mostly an Absentee; +Irish Estates not managed in the first style, while one is busy in the +Fred vineyard! 'The best and honestest man in the world, with a good +deal of jumbled knowledge,' Walpole calls him once: 'but not capable of +conducting a party.'" [Walpole's _Letters to Mann_ (London, 1843), ii. +175; 27th January, 1747. See ib. i. 82.] Oh no;--and died, at any rate, +Spring 1751: [_Peerage of Ireland_ (London, 1768), ii. 172-174.] and we +will not mention him farther. + + + + +BIELFELD, WHAT HE SAW AT REINSBERG AND AROUND. + +Directly on the rear of these fine visitors, came, by invitation, a pair +of the Korn's-Hotel people; Masonic friends; one of whom was Bielfeld, +whose dainty Installation Speech and ways of procedure had been of +promise to the Prince on that occasion. "Baron von Oberg" was the +other:--Hanoverian Baron: the same who went into the Wars, and was a +"General von Oberg" twenty years hence? The same or another, it does +not much concern us. Nor does the visit much, or at all; except that +Bielfeld, being of writing nature, professes to give ocular account +of it. Honest transcript of what a human creature actually saw at +Reinsberg, and in the Berlin environment at that date, would have had +a value to mankind: but Bielfeld has adopted the fictitious form; +and pretty much ruined for us any transcript there is. Exaggeration, +gesticulation, fantastic uncertainty afflict the reader; and prevent +comfortable belief, except where there is other evidence than +Bielfeld's. + +At Berlin the beautiful straight streets, Linden Avenues (perhaps a +better sample than those of our day), were notable to Bielfeld; bridges, +statues very fine; grand esplanades, and such military drilling and +parading as was never seen. He had dinner-invitations, too, in quantity; +likes this one and that (all in prudent asterisks),---likes Truchsess +von Waldburg very much, and his strange mode of bachelor housekeeping, +and the way he dines and talks among his fellow-creatures, or sits +studious among his Military Books and Paper-litters. But all is loose +far-off sketching, in the style of _Anacharsis the Younger;_ and makes +no solid impression. + +Getting to Reinsberg, to the Town, to the Schloss, he crosses the +esplanade, the moat; sees what we know, beautiful square Mansion among +its woods and waters;--and almost nothing that we do not know, except +the way the moat-bridge is lighted: "Bridge furnished," he says, "with +seven Statues representing the seven Planets, each holding in her hand +a glass lamp in the form of a globe;"--which is a pretty object in the +night-time. The House is now finished; Knobelsdorf rejoicing in his +success; Pesne and others giving the last touch to some ceilings of +a sublime nature. On the lintel of the gate is inscribed FREDERICO +TRANQUILLITATEM COLENTI (To Friedrich courting Tranquillity). The +gardens, walks, hermitages, grottos, are very spacious, fine: not yet +completed,--perhaps will never be. A Temple of Bacchus is just now on +hand, somewhere in those labyrinthic woods: "twelve gigantic Satyrs as +caryatides, crowned by an inverted Punch-bowl for dome;" that is the +ingenious Knobelsdorf's idea, pleasant to the mind. Knobelsdorf is of +austere aspect; austere, yet benevolent and full of honest sagacity; +the very picture of sound sense, thinks Bielfeld. M. Jordan is handsome, +though of small stature; agreeable expression of face; eye extremely +vivid; brown complexion, bushy eyebrows as well as beard are black. +[Bielfeld (abridged), i. 45.] + +Or did the reader ever hear of "M. Fredersdorf," Head Valet at this +time? Fredersdorf will become, as it were, Privy-Purse, House-Friend, +and domestic Factotum, and play a great part in coming years. "A tall +handsome man;" much "silent sense, civility, dexterity;" something +"magnificently clever in him," thinks Bielfeld (now, or else twenty +years afterwards); whom we can believe. [Ib. p. 49.] He was a gift +from General Schwerin, this Fredersdorf; once a Private in Schwerin's +regiment, at Frankfurt-on-Oder,--excellent on the flute, for one +quality. Schwerin, who had an eye for men, sent him to Friedrich, in the +Custrin time; hoping he might suit in fluting and otherwise. Which he +conspicuously did. Bielfeld's account, we must candidly say, appears +to be an afterthought; but readers can make their profit of it, all the +same. + +As to the Crown-Prince and Princess, words fail to express +their gracious perfections, their affabilities, polite +ingenuities:--Bielfeld's words do give us some pleasant shadowy +conceivability of the Crown-Princess:-- + +"Tall, and perfect in shape; bust such as a sculptor might copy; +complexion of the finest; features ditto; nose, I confess, smallish +and pointed, but excellent of that kind; hair of the supremest flaxen, +'shining' like a flood of sunbeams, when the powder is off it. A humane +ingenuous Princess; little negligences in toilet or the like, if such +occur, even these set her off, so ingenuous are they. Speaks little; +but always to the purpose, in a simple, cheerful and wise way. Dances +beautifully; heart (her soubrette assures me) is heavenly;--and 'perhaps +no Princess living has a finer set of diamonds.'" + +Of the Crown-Princess there is some pleasant shadow traced as on cobweb, +to this effect. But of the Crown-Prince there is no forming the +least conception from what he says:--this is mere cobweb with Nothing +elaborately painted on it. Nor do the portraits of the others attract +by their verisimilitude. Here is Colonel Keyserling, for instance; the +witty Courlander, famous enough in the Friedrich circle; who went on +embassy to Cirey, and much else: he "whirls in with uproar (FRACAS) +like Boreas in the Ballet;" fowling-piece on shoulder, and in his +"dressing-gown" withal, which is still stranger; snatches off Bielfeld, +unknown till that moment, to sit by him while dressing; and there, with +much capering, pirouetting, and indeed almost ground-and-lofty +tumbling, for accompaniment, "talks of Horses, Mathematics, Painting, +Architecture, Literature, and the Art of War," while he dresses. This +gentleman was once Colonel in Friedrich Wilhelm's Army; is now fairly +turned of forty, and has been in troubles: we hope he is not LIKE in the +Bielfeld Portrait;--otherwise, how happy that we never had the honor of +knowing him! Indeed, the Crown-Prince's Household generally, as Bielfeld +paints it in flourishes of panegyric, is but unattractive; barren to +the modern on-looker; partly the Painter's blame, we doubt not. He gives +details about their mode of dining, taking coffee, doing concert;--and +describes once an incidental drinking-bout got up aforethought by the +Prince; which is probably in good part fiction, though not ill done. +These fantastic sketchings, rigorously winnowed into the credible and +actual, leave no great residue in that kind; but what little they do +leave is of favorable and pleasant nature. + +Bielfeld made a visit privately to Potsdam, too: saw the Giants drill; +made acquaintance with important Captains of theirs (all in ASTERISKS) +at Potsdam; with whom he dined, not in a too credible manner, and even +danced. Among the asterisks, we easily pick out Captain Wartensleben +(of the Korn's-Hotel operation), and Winterfeld, a still more important +Captain, whom we saw dining on cold pie with his Majesty, at a barn-door +in Pommern, not long since. Of the Giants, or their life at Potsdam, +Bielfeld's word is not worth hearing,--worth suppressing rather; his +knowledge being so small, and hung forth in so fantastic a way. This +transient sight he had of his Majesty in person; this, which is +worth something to us,--fact being evidently lodged in it, "After +church-parade," Autumn Sunday afternoon (day uncertain, Bielfeld's +date being fictitious, and even impossible), Majesty drove out to +Wusterhausen, "where the quantities of game surpass all belief;" and +Bielfeld had one glimpse of him:-- + +"I saw his Majesty only, as it were, in passing. If I may judge by his +Portraits, he must have been of a perfect beauty in his young time; but +it must be confessed there is nothing left of it now. His eyes truly are +fine; but the glance of them is terrible: his complexion is composed +of the strongest tints of red, blue, yellow, green,"--not a lovely +complexion at all; "big head; the thick neck sunk between the shoulders; +figure short and heavy (COURTE ET RAMASSEE)." [Bielfeld, p. 35.] + +"Going out to Wusterhausen," then, that afternoon, "October, 1739." How +his Majesty is crushed down; quite bulged out of shape in that sad way, +by the weight of time and its pressures: his thoughts, too, most likely, +of a heavy-laden and abstruse nature! The old Pfalz Controversy has +misgone with him: Pfalz, and so much else in the world;--the world in +whole, probably enough, near ending to him; the final shadows, sombre, +grand and mournful, closing in upon him! + + + + +TURK WAR ENDS; SPANISH WAR BEGINS. A WEDDING IN PETERSBURG. + +Last news come to Potsdam in these days is, The Kaiser has ended his +disastrous Turk War; been obliged to end it; sudden downbreak, and as it +were panic terror, having at last come upon his unfortunate Generals in +those parts. Duke Franz was passionate to be out of such a thing; Franz, +General Neipperg and others; and now, "2d September, 1739," like lodgers +leaping from a burning house, they are out of it. The Turk gets Belgrade +itself, not to mention wide territories farther east,--Belgrade without +shot fired;--nay the Turk was hardly to be kept from hanging the +Imperial Messenger (a General Neipperg, Duke Franz's old Tutor, and +chief Confidant, whom we shall hear more of elsewhere), whose passport +was not quite right on this occasion!--Never was a more disgraceful +Peace. But also never had been worse fighting; planless, changeful, +powerless, melting into futility at every step:--not to be mended by +imprisonments in Gratz, and still harsher treatment of individuals. "Has +all success forsaken me, then, since Eugene died?" said the Kaiser; and +snatched at this Turk Peace; glad to have it, by mediation of France, +and on any terms. + +Has not this Kaiser lost his outlying properties at a fearful rate? +Naples is gone; Spanish Bourbon sits in our Naples; comparatively +little left for us in Italy. And now the very Turk has beaten us small; +insolently fillips the Imperial nose of us,--threatening to hang our +Neipperg, and the like. Were it not for Anne of Russia, whose big +horse-whip falls heavy on this Turk, he might almost get to Vienna +again, for anything we could do! A Kaiser worthy to be pitied;--whom +Friedrich Wilhelm, we perceive, does honestly pity. A Kaiser much +beggared, much disgraced, in late years; who has played a huge life-game +so long, diplomatizing, warring; and, except the Shadow of Pragmatic +Sanction, has nothing to retire upon. + +The Russians protested, with astonishment, against such Turk Peace on +the Kaiser's part. But there was no help for it. One ally is gone, the +Kaiser has let go this Western skirt of the Turk; and "Thamas Kouli +Khan" (called also Nadir Shah, famed Oriental slasher and slayer of that +time) no longer stands upon the Eastern skirt, but "has entered India," +it appears: the Russians--their cash, too, running low--do themselves +make peace, "about a month after;" restoring Azoph and nearly all their +conquests; putting off the ruin of the Turk till a better time. + +War is over in the East, then; but another in the West, England against +Spain (Spain and France to help), is about beginning. Readers remember +how Jenkins's Ear re-emerged, Spring gone a year, in a blazing +condition? Here, through SYLVANUS URBAN himself, are two direct +glimpses, a twelve-month nearer hand, which show us how the matter has +been proceeding since:-- + +"LONDON, 19th FEBRUARY, 1739. The City Authorities,"--laying or going to +lay "the foundation of the Mansion-House" (Edifice now very black in our +time), and doing other things of little moment to us, "had a Masquerade +at the Guildhall this night. There was a very splendid appearance at the +Masquerade; but among the many humorous and whimsical characters, what +seemed most to engage attention was a Spaniard, who called himself +'Knight of the Ear;' as Badge of which Order he wore on his breast the +form of a Star, with its points tinged in blood; and on the body of it +an Ear painted, and in capital letters the word JENKINS encircling it. +Across his shoulder there hung, instead of ribbon, a large Halter; which +he held up to several persons dressed as English Sailors, who seemed in +great terror of him, and falling on their knees suffered him to rummage +their pockets; which done, he would insolently dismiss them with strokes +of his halter. Several of the Sailors had a bloody Ear hanging down from +their heads; and on their hats were these words, EAR FOR EAR; on others, +NO SEARCH OR NO TRADE; with the like sentences." [_Gentleman's +Magazine_ for 1739, p. 103;--our DATES, as always, are N. 8.] The +conflagration evidently going on; not likely to be damped down again, by +ministerial art!-- + +"LONDON, 19th MARCH, 1739." Grand Debate in Parliament, on the late +"Spanish Convention," pretended Bargain of redress lately got from +Spain: Approve the Convention, or Not approve? "A hundred Members were +in the House of Commons before seven, this morning; and four hundred had +taken their seat by ten; which is an unheard-of thing. Prince of Wales," +Fred in person, "was in the gallery till twelve at night, and had his +dinner sent to him. Sir Robert Walpole rose: 'Sir, the great pains +that have been taken to influence all ranks and degrees of men in this +Nation--... But give me leave to'"--apply a wet cloth to Honorable +Gentlemen. Which he does, really with skill and sense. France and the +others are so strong, he urges; England so unprepared; Kaiser at such +a pass; 'War like to be, about the Palatinate Dispute [our friend +Friedrich Wilhelm's]: Where is England to get, allies?'--and hours long +of the like sort. A judicious wet cloth; which proved unavailing. + +For "William Pitts" (so they spell the great Chatham that is to be) was +eloquent on the other side: "Despairing Merchants," "Voice of England," +and so on. And the world was all in an inflamed state. And Mr. Pulteney +exclaimed: Palatinate? Allies? "We need no allies; the case of Mr. +Jenkins will raise us volunteers everywhere!" And in short,--after eight +months more of haggling, and applying wet cloths,--Walpole, in the +name of England, has to declare War against Spain; ["3d November (23d +October), 1739."] the public humor proving unquenchable on that matter. +War; and no Peace to be, "till our undoubted right," to roadway on +the oceans of this Planet, become permanently manifest to the Spanish +Majesty. + +Such the effect of a small Ear, kept about one in cotton, from ursine +piety or other feelings. Has not Jenkins's Ear re-emerged, with a +vengeance? It has kindled a War: dangerous for kindling other Wars, and +setting the whole world on fire,--as will be too evident in the sequel! +The EAR OF JENKINS is a singular thing. Might have mounted to be a +constellation, like BERENICE'S HAIR, and other small facts become +mythical, had the English People been of poetic turn! Enough of IT, for +the time being.-- + +This Summer, Anton Ulrich, at Petersburg, did wed his Serene Mecklenburg +Princess, Heiress of all the Russias: "July 14th, 1739,"--three months +before that Drive to Wusterhausen, which we saw lately. Little +Anton Ulrich, Cadet of Brunswick; our Friedrich's Brother-in-Law;--a +noticeably small man in comparison to such bulk of destiny, thinks +Friedrich, though the case is not without example! [A Letter of his to +Suhm; touching on Franz of Lorraine and this Anton Ulrich.] + +"Anton Ulrich is now five-and-twenty," says one of my Notebooks; +"a young gentleman of small stature, shining courage in battle, but +somewhat shy and bashful; who has had his troubles in Petersburg +society, till the trial came,--and will have. Here are the stages of +Anton Ulrich's felicity:-- + +"WINTER, 1732-1733. He was sent for to Petersburg (his Serene Aunt the +German Kaiserinn, and Kaiser Karl's diplomatists, suggesting it there), +with the view of his paying court to the young Mecklenburg Princess, +Heiress of all the Russias, of whom we have often heard. February, 1733, +he arrived on this errand;--not approved of at all by the Mecklenburg +Princess, by Czarina Anne or anybody there: what can be done with +such an uncomfortable little creature? They gave him the Colonelcy of +Cuirassiers: 'Drill there, and endure.' + +"SPRING, 1737. Much-enduring, diligently drilling, for four years past, +he went this year to the Turk War under Munnich;--much pleased Munnich, +at Oczakow and elsewhere; who reports in the War-Office high things of +him. And on the whole,--the serene Vienna people now again +bestirring themselves, with whom we are in copartnery in this Turk +business,--little Anton Ulrich is encouraged to proceed. Proceeds; +formally demands his Mecklenburg Princess; and, + +"JULY 14th, 1739, weds her; the happiest little man in all the Russias, +and with the biggest destiny, if it prosper. Next year, too, there +came a son and heir; whom they called Iwan, in honor of his Russian +Great-grandfather. Shall we add the subsequent felicities of Anton +Ulrich here; or wait till another opportunity?" + +Better wait. This is all, and more than all, his Prussian Majesty, +rolling out of Wusterhausen that afternoon, ever knew of them, or needed +to know!-- + + + + +Chapter VIII. -- DEATH OF FRIEDRICH WILHELM. + +At Wusterhausen, this Autumn, there is game as usual, but little or +no hunting for the King. He has to sit drearily within doors, for most +part; listening to the rustle of falling leaves, to dim Winter coming +with its rains and winds. Field-sports are a rumor from without: for him +now no joyous sow-baiting, deer-chasing;--that, like other things, is +past. + +In the beginning of November, he came to Berlin; was worse there, and +again was better;--strove to do the Carnival, as had been customary; +but, in a languid, lamed manner. One night he looked in upon an +evening-party which General Schulenburg was giving: he returned home, +chilled, shivering, could not, all night, be brought to heat again. +It was the last evening-party Friedrich Wilhelm ever went to. [Pollnitz +(ii. 538); who gives no date.] Lieutenant-General Schulenburg: the same +who doomed young Friedrich to death, as President of the Court-Martial; +and then wrote the Three Letters about him which we once looked into: +illuminates himself in this manner in Berlin society,--Carnival +season, 1740, weather fiercely cold. Maypole Schulenburg the lean Aunt, +Ex-Mistress of George I., over in London,--I think she must now be dead? +Or if not dead, why not! Memory, for the tenth time, fails me, of the +humanly unmemorable, whom perhaps even flunkies should forget; and I +will try it no more. The stalwart Lieutenant-General will reappear on +us once, twice at the utmost, and never again. He gave the last +evening-party Friedrich Wilhelm ever went to. + +Poor Friedrich Wilhelm is in truth very ill; tosses about all day, in +and out of bed,--bed and wheeled-chair drearily alternating; suffers +much;--and again, in Diplomatic circles, the rumors are rife and +sinister. Ever from this chill at Schulenburg's the medicines did him +no good, says Pollnitz: if he rallied, it was the effect of Nature, and +only temporary. He does daily, with punctuality, his Official business; +perhaps the best two hours he has of the four-and-twenty, for the +time hangs heavy on him. His old Generals sit round his bed, talking, +smoking, as it was five years ago; his Feekin and his Children much +about him, out and in: the heavy-laden, weary hours roll round as they +can. In general there is a kind of constant Tabaks-Collegium, old Flans, +Camas, Hacke, Pollnitz, Derschau, and the rest by turns always there; +the royal Patient cannot be left alone, without faces he likes: other +Generals, estimable in their way, have a physiognomy displeasing to the +sick man; and will smart for it if they enter,--"At sight of HIM every +pain grows painfuler!"--the poor King being of poetic temperament, as +we often say. Friends are encouraged to smoke, especially to keep up +a stream of talk; if at any time he fall into a doze and they cease +talking, the silence will awaken him. + +He is worst off in the night; sleep very bad: and among his sore bodily +pains, ennui falls very heavy to a mind so restless. He can paint, he +can whittle, chisel: at last they even mount him a table, in his +bed, with joiner's tools, mallets, glue-pots, where he makes small +carpentry,--the talk to go on the while;--often at night is the sound of +his mallet audible in the Palace Esplanade; and Berlin townsfolk pause +to listen, with many thoughts of a sympathetic or at least inarticulate +character: "HM, WEH, IHRO MAJESTAT: ACH GOTT, pale Death knocks with +impartial foot at the huts of poor men and the Palaces of Kings!" +[Pollnitz, ii. 539.] Reverend Herr Roloff, whom they call Provost +(PROBST, Chief Clergyman) Roloff, a pious honest man and preacher, he, +I could guess, has already been giving spiritual counsel now and then; +later interviews with Roloff are expressly on record: for it is the +King's private thought, ever and anon borne in upon him, that death +itself is in this business. + +Queen and Children, mostly hoping hitherto, though fearing too, live +in much anxiety and agitation. The Crown-Prince is often over from +Reinsberg; must not come too often, nor even inquire too much: his +affectionate solicitude might be mistaken for solicitude of another +kind! It is certain he is in no haste to be King; to quit the haunts of +the Muses, and embark on Kingship. Certain, too, he loves his Father; +shudders at the thought of losing HIM. And yet again there will gleams +intrude of a contrary thought; which the filial heart disowns, with a +kind of horror, "Down, thou impious thought!"--We perceive he manages in +general to push the crisis away from him; to believe that real danger is +still distant. His demeanor, so far as we can gather from his Letters or +other evidence, is amiable, prudent, natural; altogether that of a human +Son in those difficult circumstances. Poor Papa is heavy-laden: let us +help to bear his burdens;--let us hope the crisis is still far off!-- + +Once, on a favorable evening, probably about the beginning of April, +when he felt as if improving, Friedrich Wilhelm resolved to dress, and +hold Tobacco-Parliament again in a formal manner, Let us look in +there, through the eyes of Pollnitz, who was of it, upon the last +Tobacco-Parliament:-- + +"A numerous party; Schwerin, Hacke, Derschau, all the chiefs and +commandants of the Berlin Garrison are there; the old circle full; +social human speech once more, and pipes alight; pleasant to the King. +He does not himself smoke on this occasion; but he is unusually lively +in talk; much enjoys the returning glimpse of old days; and the Tobacco +circle was proceeding through its phases, successful beyond common. All +at once the Crown-Prince steps in; direct from Reinsberg: [12th April, +1740? (_OEuvres,_ xxvii. part lst, p. 29); Pollnitz is dateless] an +unexpected pleasure. At sight of whom the Tobacco circle, taken on +the sudden, simultaneously started up, and made him a bow. Rule is, in +Tobacco-Parliament you do not rise--for anybody; and they have risen. +Which struck the sick heart in a strange painful way. 'Hm, the Rising +Sun?' thinks he; 'Rules broken through, for the Rising Sun. But I am not +dead yet, as you shall know!' ringing for his servants in great wrath; +and had himself rolled out, regardless of protestations and excuses. +'Hither, you Hacke!' said he. + +"Hacke followed; but it was only to return on the instant, with the +King's order, 'That you instantly quit the Palace, all of you, and don't +come back!' Solemn respectful message to his Majesty was of no effect, +or of less; they had to go, on those terms; and Pollnitz, making for +his Majesty's apartment next morning as usual, was twitched by a +Gens-d'arme, 'No admittance!' And it was days before the matter would +come round again, under earnest protestations from the one side, and +truculent rebukes from the other." [Pollnitz (abridged), ii. 50.] Figure +the Crown-Prince, figure the poor sick Majesty; and what a time in those +localities! + +With the bright spring weather he seemed to revive; towards the end of +April he resolved for Potsdam, everybody thinking him much better, and +the outer Public reckoning the crisis of the illness over. He himself +knew other. It was on the 27th of the month that he went; he said, "Fare +thee well, then, Berlin; I am to die in Potsdam, then (ICH WERDE IN +POTSDAM STERBEN)!" The May-flowers came late; the weather was changeful, +ungenial for the sick man: this winter of 1740 had been the coldest +on record; it extended itself into the very summer; and brought great +distress of every kind;--of which some oral rumor still survives in +all countries. Friedrich Wilhelm heard complaints of scarcity among the +people; admonitions to open his Corn-granaries (such as he always has +in store against that kind of accident); but he still hesitated and +refused; unable to look into it himself, and fearing deceptions. + +For the rest, he is struggling between death and life; in general +persuaded that the end is fast hastening on. He sends for Chief Preacher +Roloff out to Potsdam; has some notable dialogues with Roloff, and with +two other Potsdam Clergymen, of which there is record still left us. +In these, as in all his demeanor at this supreme time, we see the big +rugged block of manhood come out very vividly; strong in his simplicity, +in his veracity. Friedrich Wilhelm's wish is to know from Roloff what +the chances are for him in the other world,--which is not less certain +than Potsdam and the giant grenadiers to Friedrich Wilhelm; and where, +he perceives, never half so clearly before, he shall actually peel off +his Kinghood, and stand before God Almighty, no better than a naked +beggar. Roloff's prognostics are not so encouraging as the King had +hoped. Surely this King "never took or coveted what was not his; kept +true to his marriage-vow, in spite of horrible examples everywhere; +believed the Bible, honored the Preachers, went diligently to Church, +and tried to do what he understood God's commandments were?" To all +which Roloff, a courageous pious man, answers with discreet words and +shakings of the head, "Did I behave ill, then; did I ever do injustice?" +Roloff mentions Baron Schlubhut the defalcating Amtmann, hanged at +Konigsberg without even a trial. "He had no trial; but was there any +doubt he had justice? A public thief, confessing he had stolen the taxes +he was set to gather; insolently offering, as if that were all, to +repay the money, and saying, It was not MANIER (good manners) to hang +a nobleman!" Roloff shakes his head, Too violent, your Majesty, and +savoring of the tyrannous. The poor King must repent. + +"Well,--is there anything more? Out with it, then; better now than too +late!"--Much oppression, forcing men to build in Berlin.--"Oppression? +was it not their benefit, as well as Berlin's and the Country's? I had +no interest in it other. Derschau, you who managed it?" and his Majesty +turned to Derschau. For all the smoking generals and company are still +here; nor will his Majesty consent to dismiss them from the presence +and be alone with Roloff: "What is there to conceal? They are people of +honor, and my friends." Derschau, whose feats in the building way are +not unknown even to us, answers with a hard face, It was all right and +orderly; nothing out of square in his building operations. To which +Roloff shakes his head: "A thing of public notoriety, Herr General."--"I +will prove everything before a Court," answers the Herr General with +still harder face; Roloff still austerely shaking his head. Hm!--And +then there is forgiveness of enemies; your Majesty is bound to forgive +all men, or how can you ask to be forgiven? "Well, I will, I do; you +Feekin, write to your Brother (unforgivablest of beings), after I am +dead, that I forgave him, died in peace with him."--Better her Majesty +should write at once, suggests Roloff.--"No, after I am dead," persists +the Son of Nature,--that will be safer! [Wrote accordingly, "not able to +finish without many tears;" honest sensible Letter (though indifferently +spelt), "Berlin, 1st June, 1740;"--lies now in State-Paper Office: +"ROYAL LETTERS, vol. xciv., Prussia, 1689-1777."] An unwedgeable and +gnarled big block of manhood and simplicity and sincerity; such as we +rarely get sight of among the modern sons of Adam, among the crowned +sons nearly never. At parting he said to Roloff, "You (ER, He) do not +spare me; it is right. You do your duty like an honest Christian man." +[_Notata ex ore Roloffi_ ("found among the Seckendorf Papers," no date +but "May 1740"), in Forster, ii. 154, 155; in a fragmentary state: +completed in Pollnitz, ii. 545-549.] + +Roloff, I perceive, had several Dialogues with the King; and stayed in +Potsdam some days for that object. The above bit of jotting is from +the Seckendorf Papers (probably picked up by Seckendorf Junior), and is +dated only "May." Of the two Potsdam Preachers, one of whom is "Oesfeld, +Chaplain of the Giant Grenadiers," and the other is "Cochius, Calvinist +Hofprediger," each published on his own score some Notes of dialogue and +circumstance; [Cochius the HOFPREDIGER'S (Calvinist Court-Chaplain's) +ACCOUNT of his Interviews (first of them "Friday, 27th May, 1740, about +9 P.M."); followed by ditto from Oesfeld (Chaplain of the Giants), who +usually accompanied Cochius,--are in Seyfarth, _Geschichte Friedrich +des Grossen_ (Leipzig, 1783-1788), i. (Beylage) 24-40. Seyfarth was +"Regiments-Auditor" in Halle: his Work, solid though stupid, consists +nearly altogether of multifarious BEYLAGEN (Appendices) and NOTES; which +are creditably accurate, and often curious; and, as usual, have no Index +for an unfortunate reader.] which are to the same effect, so far as they +concern us; and exhibit the same rugged Son of Nature, looking with +all his eyesight into the near Eternity, and sinking in a human and not +inhuman manner amid the floods of Time. "Wa, Wa, what great God is this, +that pulls down the strength of the strongest Kings!"-- + +The poor King's state is very restless, fluctuates from day to day; he +is impatient of bed; sleeps very ill; is up whenever possible; rolls +about in his wheeled-chair, and even gets into the air: at one time +looking strong, as if there were still months in him, and anon sunk +in fainting weakness, as if he had few minutes to live. Friedrich at +Reinsberg corresponds very secretly with Dr. Eller; has other friends at +Potsdam whose secret news he very anxiously reads. To the last he cannot +bring himself to think it "serious." [Letter to Eller, 25th May, 1740 +(_OEuvres_ ), xvi. 184.] + +On Thursday, 26th of May, an express from Eller, or the Potsdam friends, +arrives at Reinsberg: He is to come quickly, if he would see his Father +again alive! The step may have danger, too; but Friedrich, a world of +feelings urging him, is on the road next morning before the sun. His +journey may be fancied; the like of it falls to all men. Arriving at +last, turning hastily a corner of the Potsdam Schloss, Friedrich sees +some gathering in the distance: it is his Father in his ROLLWAGEN +(wheeled-chair),--not dying; but out of doors, giving orders about +founding a House, or seeing it done. House for one Philips, a crabbed +Englishman he has; whose tongue is none of the best, not even to Majesty +itself, but whose merits as a Groom, of English and other Horses, are +without parallel in those parts. Without parallel, and deserve a +House before we die. Let us see it set agoing, this blessed Mayday! +Of Philips, who survived deep into Friedrich's time, and uttered rough +sayings (in mixed intelligible dialect) when put upon in his grooming, +or otherwise disturbed, I could obtain no farther account: the man did +not care to be put in History (a very small service to a man); cared +to have a house with trim fittings, and to do his grooming well, the +fortunate Philips. + +At sight of his Son, Friedrich Wilhelm threw out his arms; the Son +kneeling sank upon his breast, and they embraced with tears. My Father, +my Father; My Son, my Son! It was a scene to make all by-standers and +even Philips weep.--Probably the emotion hurt the old King; he had to be +taken in again straightway, his show of strength suddenly gone, and +bed the only place for him. This same Friday he dictated to one of his +Ministers (Boden, who was in close attendance) the Instruction for his +Funeral; a rude characteristic Piece, which perhaps the English reader +knows. Too long and rude for reprinting here. [Copy of it, in Seyfarth +(ubi supra), i. 19-24. Translated in Mauvillon (ii. 432-437); in &c. +&c.] + +He is to be buried in his uniform, the Potsdam Grenadiers his escort; +with military decorum, three volleys fired (and take care they be +well fired, "NICHT PLACKEREN"), so many cannon-salvos;--and no fuss or +flaunting ceremony: simplicity and decency is what the tenant of that +oak coffin wants, as he always did when owner of wider dominions. The +coffin, which he has ready and beside him in the Palace this good +while, is a stout piece of carpentry, with leather straps and other +improvements; he views it from time to time; solaces his truculent +imagination with the look of it: "I shall sleep right well there," he +would say. The image he has of his Burial, we perceive, is of perfect +visuality, equal to what a Defoe could do in imagining. All is seen, +settled to the last minuteness: the coffin is to be borne out by so and +so, at such and such a door; this detachment is to fall-in here, that +there, in the attitude of "cover arms" (musket inverted under left arm); +and the band is to play, with all its blackamoors, _O Haupt voll Blut +und Wunden_ (O Head, all bleeding wounded); a Dirge his Majesty had +liked, who knew music, and had a love for it, after his sort. Good Son +of Nature: a dumb Poet, as I say always; most dumb, but real; the value +of him great, and unknown in these babbling times. It was on this same +Friday night that Cochius was first sent for; Cochius, and Oesfeld with +him, "about nine o'clock." + +For the next three days (Saturday to Monday) when his cough and +many sufferings would permit him, Friedrich Wilhelm had long private +dialogues with his Son; instructing him, as was evident, in the +mysteries of State; in what knowledge, as to persons and to things, he +reckoned might be usefulest to him. What the lessons were, we know not; +the way of taking them had given pleasure to the old man: he was heard +to say, perhaps more than once, when the Generals were called in, and +the dialogue interrupted for a while: "Am not I happy to have such a +Son to leave behind me!" And the grimly sympathetic Generals testified +assent; endeavored to talk a little, could at least smoke, and +look friendly; till the King gathered strength for continuing his +instructions to his Successor. All else was as if settled with him; this +had still remained to do. This once done (finished, Monday night), why +not abdicate altogether; and die disengaged, be it in a day or in a +month, since that is now the one work left? Friedrich Wilhelm does so +purpose. + +His state, now as all along, was fluctuating, uncertain, restless. He +was heard murmuring prayers; he would say sometimes, "Pray for me; BETET +BETET." And more than once, in deep tone: "Lord, enter not into judgment +with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified!" +The wild Son of Nature, looking into Life and Death, into Judgment +and Eternity, finds that these things are very great. This too is a +characteristic trait: In a certain German Hymn (_Why fret or murmur, +then?_ the title of it), which they often sang to him, or along with +him, as he much loved it, are these words, "Naked I came into the world, +and naked shall I go,"--"No," said he "always with vivacity," at this +passage; "not quite nakid, I shall have my uniform on:" Let us be exact, +since we are at it! After which the singing proceeded again. "The late +Graf Alexander von Wartenberg"--Captain Wartenberg, whom we know, and +whose opportunities--"was wont to relate this." [Busching (in 1786), +_Beitrage,_ iv. 100.] + +Tuesday, 31st May, "about one in the morning," Cochius was again sent +for. He found the King in very pious mood, but in great distress, and +afraid he might yet have much pain to suffer. Cochius prayed with him; +talked piously. "I can remember nothing," said the King; "I cannot pray, +I have forgotten all my prayers."--"Prayer is not in words, but in the +thought of the heart," said Cochius; and soothed the heavy-laden man +as he could. "Fare you well," said Friedrich Wilhelm, at length; "most +likely we shall not meet again in this world." Whereat Cochius burst +into tears, and withdrew. About four, the King was again out of bed; +wished to see his youngest Boy, who had been ill of measles, but was +doing well: "Poor little Ferdinand, adieu, then, my little child!" This +is the Father of that fine Louis Ferdinand, who was killed at Jena; +concerning whom Berlin, in certain emancipated circles of it, still +speaks with regret. He, the Louis Ferdinand, had fine qualities; but +went far a-roving, into radicalism, into romantic love, into +champagne; and was cut down on the threshold of Jena, desperately +fighting,--perhaps happily for him. + +From little Ferdinand's room Friedrich Wilhelm has himself rolled into +Queen Sophie's. "Feekin, O my Feekin, thou must rise this day, and help +me what thou canst. This day I am going to die; thou wilt be with me +this day!" The good Wife rises: I know not that it was the first time +she had been so called; but it did prove the last. Friedrich Wilhelm +has decided, as the first thing he will do, to abdicate; and all the +Official persons and companions of the sick-room, Pollnitz among them, +not long after sunrise, are called to see it done. Pollnitz, huddling on +his clothes, arrived about five: in a corridor he sees the wheeled-chair +and poor sick King; steps aside to let him pass: "'It is over (DAS IST +VOLLBRACHT),' said the King, looking up to me as he passed: he had on +his nightcap, and a blue mantle thrown round him." He was wheeled into +his anteroom; there let the company assemble; many of them are already +there. + +The royal stables are visible from this room: Friedrich Wilhelm orders +the horses to be ridden out: you old Furst of Anhalt-Dessau my oldest +friend, you Colonel Hacke faithfulest of Adjutant-Generals, take each +of you a horse, the best you can pick out: it is my last gift to you. +Dessau, in silence, with dumb-show of thanks, points to a horse, any +horse: "You have chosen the very worst," said Friedrich Wilhelm: "Take +that other, I will warrant him a good one!" The grim old Dessauer thanks +in silence; speechless grief is on that stern gunpowder face, and he +seems even to be struggling with tears. "Nay, nay, my friend," Friedrich +Wilhelm said, "this is a debt we have all to pay." + +The Official people, Queen, Friedrich, Minister Boden, Minister +Podewils, and even Pollnitz, being now all present, Friedrich Wilhelm +makes his Declaration, at considerable length; old General Bredow +repeating it aloud, [Pollnitz, ii. 561.] sentence by sentence, the +King's own voice being too weak; so that all may hear: "That he +abdicates, gives up wholly, in favor of his good Son Friedrich; that +foreign Ambassadors are to be informed; that you are all to be true and +loyal to my Son as you were to me"--and what else is needful. To which +the judicious Podewils makes answer, "That there must first be a written +Deed of his high Transaction executed, which shall be straightway set +about; the Deed once executed, signed and sealed,--the high Royal will, +in all points, takes effect." Alas, before Podewils has done speaking, +the King is like falling into a faint; does faint, and is carried to +bed: too unlikely any Deed of Abdication will be needed. + +Ups and downs there still were; sore fluctuating labor, as the poor King +struggles to his final rest, this morning. He was at the window again, +when the WACHT-PARADE (Grenadiers on Guard) turned out; he saw them make +their evolutions for the last time. [Pauli, viii. 280.] After which, new +relapse, new fluctuation. It was about eleven o'clock, when Cochius was +again sent for. The King lay speechless, seemingly still conscious, in +bed; Cochius prays with fervor, in a loud tone, that the dying King may +hear and join. "Not so loud!" says the King, rallying a little. He +had remembered that it was the season when his servants got their new +liveries; they had been ordered to appear this day in full new costume: +"O vanity! O vanity!" said Friedrich Wilhelm, at sight of the ornamented +plush. "Pray for me, pray for me; my trust is in the Saviour!" he often +said. His pains, his weakness are great; the cordage of a most tough +heart rending itself piece by piece. At one time, he called for a +mirror: that is certain:--rugged wild man, son of Nature to the last. +The mirror was brought; what he said at sight of his face is variously +reported: "Not so worn out as I thought," is Pollnitz's account, and the +likeliest;--though perhaps he said several things, "ugly face," "as +good as dead already;" and continued the inspection for some moments. +[Pollnitz, ii. 564; Wilhelmina, ii. 321.] A grim, strange thing. + +"Feel mv pulse, Pitsch," said he, noticing the Surgeon of his Giants: +"tell me how long this will last."--"Alas, not long," answered +Pitsch.--"Say not, alas; but how do you (He) know?"--"The pulse is +gone!"--"Impossible," said he, lifting his arm: "how could I move my +fingers so, if the pulse were gone?" Pitsch looked mournfully steadfast. +"Herr Jesu, to thee I live; Herr Jesu, to thee I die; in life and in +death thou art my gain (DU BIST MEIN GEWINN)." These were the last words +Friedrich Wilhelm spoke in this world. He again fell into a faint. Eller +gave a signal to the Crown-Prince to take the Queen away. Scarcely +were they out of the room, when the faint had deepened into death; and +Friedrich Wilhelm, at rest from all his labors, slept with the primeval +sons of Thor. + +No Baresark of them, nor Odin's self, I think, was a bit of truer human +stuff;--I confess his value to me, in these sad times, is rare +and great. Considering the usual Histrionic, Papin's-Digester, +Truculent-Charlatan and other species of "Kings," alone attainable for +the sunk flunky populations of an Era given up to Mammon and the worship +of its own belly, what would not such a population give for a Friedrich +Wilhelm, to guide it on the road BACK from Orcus a little? "Would give," +I have written; but alas, it ought to have been "SHOULD give." What THEY +"would" give is too mournfully plain to me, in spite of ballot-boxes: +a steady and tremendous truth from the days of Barabbas downwards and +upwards!--Tuesday, 31st May, 1740, between one and two o'clock in the +afternoon, Friedrich Wilhelm died; age fifty-two, coming 15th August +next. Same day, Friedrich his Son was proclaimed at Berlin; quilted +heralds, with sound of trumpet and the like, doing what is customary on +such occasions. + +On Saturday, 4th June, the King's body is laid out in state; all Potsdam +at liberty to come and see. He lies there, in his regimentals, in +his oaken coffin, on a raised place in the middle of the room; decent +mortuary draperies, lamps, garlands, banderols furnishing the room and +him: at his feet, on a black-velvet TABOURET (stool), are the chivalry +emblems, helmet, gauntlets, spurs; and on similar stools, at the right +hand and the left, lie his military insignia, hat and sash, sword, +guidon, and what else is fit. Around, in silence, sit nine veteran +military dignitaries; Buddenbrock, Waldau, Derschau, Einsiedel, and five +others whom we omit to name. Silent they sit. A grim earnest sight in +the shine of the lamplight, as you pass out of the June sun. Many went, +all day; looked once again on the face that was to vanish. Precisely at +ten at night, the coffin-lid is screwed down: twelve Potsdam Captains +take the coffin on their shoulders; four-and-twenty Corporals with +wax torches, four-and-twenty Sergeants with inverted halberts lowered; +certain Generals on order, and very many following as volunteers; these +perform the actual burial,--carry the body to the Garrison Church, where +are clergy waiting, which is but a small step off; see it lodged, oak +coffin and all, in a marble coffin in the side vault there, which is +known to Tourists. [Pauli, viii. 281.] It is the end of the week, and +the actual burial is done,--hastened forward for reasons we can guess. + +Filial piety by no means intends to defraud a loved Father of the +Spartan ceremonial contemplated as obsequies by him: very far from it. +Filial piety will conform to that with rigor; only adding what musical +and other splendors are possible, to testify his love still more. And +so, almost three weeks hence, on the 23d of the month, with the aid of +Dresden Artists, of Latin Cantatas and other pomps (not inexcusable, +though somewhat out of keeping), the due Funeral is done, no Corpse +but a Wax Effigy present in it;--and in all points, that of the +Potsdam Grenadiers not forgotten, there was rigorous conformity to the +Instruction left. In all points, even to the extensive funeral dinner, +and drinking of the appointed cask of wine, "the best cask in my +cellar." Adieu, O King. + +The Potsdam Grenadiers fired their three volleys (not "PLACKERING," as +I have reason to believe, but well); got their allowance, dinner-liquor, +and appointed coin of money: it was the last service required of them in +this world. That same night they were dissolved, the whole Four Thousand +of them, at a stroke; and ceased to exist as Potsdam Grenadiers. +Colonels, Captains, all the Officers known to be of merit, were +advanced, at least transferred. Of the common men, a minority, of not +inhuman height and of worth otherwise, were formed into a new Regiment +on the common terms: the stupid splay-footed eight-feet mass were +allowed to stalk off whither they pleased, or vegetate on frugal +pensions; Irish Kirkman, and a few others neither knock-kneed nor +without head, were appointed HEYDUCS, that is, porters to the King's or +other Palaces; and did that duty in what was considered an ornamental +manner. + +Here are still two things capable of being fished up from the sea of +nugatory matter; and meditated on by readers, till the following Books +open. + +The last breath of Friedrich Wilhelm having fled, Friedrich hurried to a +private room; sat there all in tears; looking back through the gulfs of +the Past, upon such a Father now rapt away forever. Sad all, and soft in +the moonlight of memory,--the lost Loved One all in the right as we +now see, we all in the wrong!--this, it appears, was the Son's fixed +opinion. Seven years hence, here is how Friedrich concludes the HISTORY +of his Father, written with a loyal admiration throughout: "We have left +under silence the domestic chagrins of this great Prince: readers must +have some indulgence for the faults of the Children, in consideration +of the virtues of such a Father." [_OEuvres,_ i. 174 (_Memoires de +Brandebourg:_ finished about 1747).] All in tears he sits at present, +meditating these sad things. + +In a little while the Old Dessauer, about to leave for Dessau, ventures +in to the Crown-Prince, Crown-Prince no longer; "embraces his knees;" +offers, weeping, his condolence, his congratulation;--hopes withal that +his sons and he will be continued in their old posts, and that he, +the Old Dessauer, "will have the same authority as in the late reign." +Friedrich's eyes, at this last clause, flash out tearless, strangely +Olympian. "In your posts I have no thought of making change: in your +posts, yes;--and as to authority, I know of none there can be but what +resides in the King that is sovereign!" Which, as it were, struck +the breath out of the Old Dessauer; and sent him home with a painful +miscellany of feelings, astonishment not wanting among them. + +At an after hour, the same night, Friedrich went to Berlin; met by +acclamation enough. He slept there, not without tumult of dreams, one +may fancy; and on awakening next morning, the first sound he heard was +that of the Regiment Glasenap under his windows, swearing fealty to +the new King. He sprang out of bed in a tempest of emotion; bustled +distractedly to and fro, wildly weeping. Pollnitz, who came into the +anteroom, found him in this state, "half-dressed, with dishevelled hair, +in tears, and as if beside himself." "These huzzaings only tell me what +I have lost!" said the new King.--"HE was in great suffering," suggested +Pollnitz; "he is now at rest." "True, he suffered; but he was here with +us: and now--!" [Ranke (ii. 46, 47)], from certain Fragments, still, in +manuscript, of Pollnits's _Memoiren._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, +Vol. X. (of XXI.), by Thomas Carlyle + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. *** + +***** This file should be named 2110.txt or 2110.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/1/2110/ + +Produced by D.R. 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