Produced by D.R. Thompson
HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
FREDERICK THE GREAT
By Thomas Carlyle
BOOK XXI.--AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF FRIEDRICH'S LIFE--1763-1786.
Chapter I.--PREFATORY.
The Twelve Hercules-labors of this King have ended here; what was
required of him in World-History is accomplished. There remain to
Friedrich Twenty-three Years more of Life, which to Prussian History are
as full of importance as ever; but do not essentially concern European
History, Europe having gone the road we now see it in. On the grand
World-Theatre the curtain has fallen for a New Act; Friedrich's part,
like everybody's for the present, is played out. In fact, there is,
during the rest of his Reign, nothing of World-History to be dwelt on
anywhere. America, it has been decided, shall be English; Prussia be a
Nation. The French, as finis of their attempt to cut Germany in Four,
find themselves sunk into torpor, abeyance and dry-rot; fermenting
towards they know not what. Towards Spontaneous Combustion in the year
1789, and for long years onwards!
There, readers, there is the next milestone for you, in the History of
Mankind! That universal Burning-up, as in hell-fire, of Human Shams. The
oath of Twenty-five Million men, which has since become that of all men
whatsoever, "Rather than live longer under lies, we will die!"--that
is the New Act in World-History. New Act,--or, we may call it New PART;
Drama of World-History, Part Third. If Part SECOND was 1,800 years ago,
this I reckon will be Part THIRD. This is the truly celestial-infernal
Event: the strangest we have seen for a thousand years. Celestial in
one part; in the other, infernal. For it is withal the breaking out
of universal mankind into Anarchy, into the faith and practice
of NO-Government,--that is to say (if you will be candid), into
unappeasable Revolt against Sham-Governors and Sham-Teachers,--which
I do charitably define to be a Search, most unconscious, yet in deadly
earnest, for true Governors and Teachers. That is the one fact of
World-History worth dwelling on at this day; and Friedrich cannot be
said to have had much hand farther in that.
Nor is the progress of a French or European world, all silently ripening
and rotting towards such issue, a thing one wishes to dwell on. Only
when the Spontaneous Combustion breaks out; and, many-colored, with loud
noises, envelops the whole world in anarchic flame for long hundreds of
years: then has the Event come; there is the thing for all men to
mark, and to study and scrutinize as the strangest thing they ever saw.
Centuries of it yet lying ahead of us; several sad Centuries, sordidly
tumultuous, and good for little! Say Two Centuries yet,--say even Ten of
such a process: before the Old is completely burnt out, and the New in
any state of sightliness? Millennium of Anarchies;--abridge it, spend
your heart's-blood upon abridging it, ye Heroic Wise that are to
come! For it is the consummation of All the Anarchies that are and
were;--which I do trust always means the death (temporary death) of
them! Death of the Anarchies: or a world once more built wholly on Fact
better or worse; and the lying jargoning professor of Sham-Fact, whose
name is Legion, who as yet (oftenest little conscious of himself) goes
tumulting and swarming from shore to shore, become a species extinct,
and well known to be gone down to Tophet!--
There were bits of Anarchies before, little and greater: but till that
of France in 1789, there was none long memorable; all were pygmies in
comparison, and not worth mentioning separately. In 1772 the Anarchy of
Poland, which had been a considerable Anarchy for about three
hundred years, got itself extinguished,--what we may call
extinguished;--decisive surgery being then first exercised upon it: an
Anarchy put in the sure way of extinction. In 1775, again, there began,
over seas, another Anarchy much more considerable,--little dreaming that
IT could be called an Anarchy; on the contrary, calling itself Liberty,
Rights of Man; and singing boundless Io-Paeans to itself, as is common
in such cases; an Anarchy which has been challenging the Universe
to show the like ever since. And which has, at last, flamed up as an
independent Phenomenon, unexampled in the hideously SUICIDAL way;--and
does need much to get burnt out, that matters may begin anew on truer
conditions. But neither the PARTITION OF POLAND nor the AMERICAN WAR OF
INDEPENDENCE have much general importance, or, except as precursors
of 1789, are worth dwelling on in History. From us here, so far as
Friedrich is concerned with them, they may deserve some transient
mention, more or less: but World-History, eager to be at the general
Funeral-pile and ultimate Burning-up of Shams in this poor World, will
have less and less to say of small tragedies and premonitory symptoms.
Curious how the busy and continually watchful and speculating Friedrich,
busied about his dangers from Austrian encroachments, from Russian-Turk
Wars, Bavarian Successions, and other troubles and anarchies close
by, saw nothing to dread in France; nothing to remark there, except
carelessly, from time to time, its beggarly decaying condition, so
strangely sunk in arts, in arms, in finance; oftenest an object of pity
to him, for he still has a love for France;--and reads not the least
sign of that immeasurable, all-engulfing FRENCH REVOLUTION which was in
the wind! Neither Voltaire nor he have the least anticipation of such a
thing. Voltaire and he see, to their contentment, Superstition
visibly declining: Friedrich rather disapproves the heat of Voltaire's
procedures on the INFAME. "Why be in such heat? Other nonsense, quite
equal to it, will be almost sure to follow. Take care of your own skin!"
Voltaire and he are deeply alive, especially Voltaire is, to the
horrors and miseries which have issued on mankind from a Fanatic Popish
Superstition, or Creed of Incredibilities,--which (except from the
throat outwards, from the bewildered tongue outwards) the orthodox
themselves cannot believe, but only pretend and struggle to believe.
This Voltaire calls "THE INFAMOUS;" and this--what name can any of us
give it? The man who believes in falsities is very miserable. The man
who cannot believe them, but only struggles and pretends to believe;
and yet, being armed with the power of the sword, industriously keeps
menacing and slashing all round, to compel every neighbor to do like
him: what is to be done with such a man? Human Nature calls him a Social
Nuisance; needing to be handcuffed, gagged and abated. Human Nature, if
it be in a terrified and imperilled state, with the sword of this fellow
swashing round it, calls him "Infamous," and a Monster of Chaos. He
is indeed the select Monster of that region; the Patriarch of all the
Monsters, little as he dreams of being such. An Angel of Heaven the poor
caitiff dreams himself rather, and in cheery moments is conscious of
being:--Bedlam holds in it no madder article. And I often think he will
again need to be tied up (feeble as he now is in comparison, disinclined
though men are to manacling and tying); so many helpless infirm souls
are wandering about, not knowing their right hand from their left, who
fall a prey to him. "L'INFAME" I also name him,--knowing well enough how
little he, in his poor muddled, drugged and stupefied mind, is conscious
of deserving that name. More signal enemy to God, and friend of the
Other Party, walks not the Earth in our day.
Anarchy in the shape of religious slavery was what Voltaire and
Friedrich saw all round them. Anarchy in the shape of Revolt against
Authorities was what Friedrich and Voltaire had never dreamed of as
possible, and had not in their minds the least idea of. In one, or
perhaps two places you may find in Voltaire a grim and rather glad
forethought, not given out as prophecy, but felt as interior assurance
in a moment of hope, How these Priestly Sham Hierarchies will be pulled
to pieces, probably on the sudden, once people are awake to them. Yes,
my much-suffering M. de Voltaire, be pulled to pieces; or go aloft,
like the awakening of Vesuvius, one day,--Vesuvius awakening after
ten centuries of slumber, when his crater is all grown grassy, bushy,
copiously "tenanted by wolves" I am told; which, after premonitory
grumblings, heeded by no wolf or bush, he will hurl bodily aloft, ten
acres at a time, in a very tremendous manner! [First modern Eruption of
Vesuvius, A.D. 1631, after long interval of rest.] A thought like this,
about the Priestly Sham-Hierarchies, I have found somewhere in Voltaire:
but of the Social and Civic Sham-Hierarchies (which are likewise
accursed, if they knew it, and indeed are junior co-partners of the
Priestly; and, in a sense, sons and products of them, and cannot escape
being partakers of their plagues), there is no hint, in Voltaire, though
Voltaire stood at last only fifteen years from the Fact (1778-1793); nor
in Friedrich, though he lived almost to see the Fact beginning.
Friedrich's History being henceforth that of a Prussian King, is
interesting to Prussia chiefly, and to us little otherwise than as the
Biography of a distinguished fellow-man, Friedrich's Biography, his
Physiognomy as he grows old, quietly on his own harvest-field, among his
own People: this has still an interest, and for any feature of this we
shall be eager enough; but this withal is the most of what we now want.
And not very much even of this; Friedrich the unique King not having
as a man any such depth and singularity, tragic, humorous, devotionally
pious, or other, as to authorize much painting in that aspect. Extreme
brevity beseems us in these circumstances: and indeed there are,--as has
already happened in different parts of this Enterprise (Nature
herself, in her silent way, being always something of an Artist in such
things),--other circumstances, which leave us no choice as to that of
detail. Available details, if we wished to give them, of Friedrich's
later Life, are not forthcoming: masses of incondite marine-stores,
tumbled out on you, dry rubbish shot with uncommon diligence for a
hundred years, till, for Rubbish-Pelion piled on Rubbish-Ossa, you lose
sight of the stars and azimuths; whole mountain continents, seemingly
all of cinders and sweepings (though fragments and remnants do lie
hidden, could you find them again):---these are not details that will be
available! Anecdotes there are in quantity; but of uncertain quality;
of doubtful authenticity, above all. One recollects hardly any
Anecdote whatever that seems completely credible, or renders to us the
Physiognomy of Friedrich in a convincing manner. So remiss a creature
has the Prussian Clio been,--employed on all kinds of loose errands over
the Earth and the Air; and as good as altogether negligent of this most
pressing errand in her own House. Peace be with her, poor slut;
why should we say one other hard word on taking leave of her to all
eternity!--
The Practical fact is, what we have henceforth to produce is more of
the nature of a loose Appendix of Papers, than of a finished Narrative.
Loose Papers,--which, we will hope, the reader can, by industry, be made
to understand and tolerate: more we cannot do for him. No continuous
Narrative is henceforth possible to us. For the sake of Friedrich's
closing Epoch, we will visit, for the last time, that dreary imbroglio
under which the memory of Friedrich, which ought to have been, in all
the epochs of it, bright and legible, lies buried; and will try to
gather, as heretofore, and put under labels. What dwells with oneself
as human may have some chance to be humanly interesting. In the wildest
chaos of marine-stores and editorial shortcomings (provided only the
editors speak truth, as these poor fellows do) THIS can be done.
Part the living from the dead; pick out what has some meaning, leave
carefully what has none; you will in some small measure pluck up the
memory of a hero, like drowned honor by the locks, and rescue it, into
visibility.
That Friedrich, on reaching home, made haste to get out, of the bustle
of joyances and exclamations on the streets; proceeded straight to his
music-chapel in Charlottenburg, summoning the Artists, or having them
already summoned; and had there, all alone, sitting invisible wrapt in
his cloak, Graun's or somebody's grand TE-DEUM pealed out to him, in
seas of melody,--soothing and salutary to the altered soul, revolving
many things,--is a popular myth, of pretty and appropriate character;
but a myth only, with no real foundation, though it has some loose
and apparent. [In PREUSS, ii. 46, all the details of it.] No doubt,
Friedrich had his own thoughts on entering Berlin again, after such
a voyage through the deeps; himself, his Country still here, though
solitary and in a world of wild shipwrecks. He was not without piety;
but it did not take the devotional form, and his habits had nothing of
the clerical.
What is perfectly known, and much better worth knowing, is the
instantaneous practical alacrity with which he set about repairing that
immense miscellany of ruin; and the surprising success he had in dealing
with it. His methods, his rapid inventions and procedures, in this
matter, are still memorable to Prussia; and perhaps might with advantage
be better known than they are in some other Countries. To us, what is
all we can do with them here, they will indicate that this is still the
old Friedrich, with his old activities and promptitudes; which indeed
continue unabated, lively in Peace as in War, to the end of his life and
reign.
The speed with which Prussia recovered was extraordinary. Within little
more than a year (June 1st, 1764), the Coin was all in order again; in
1765, the King had rebuilt, not to mention other things, "in Silesia
8,000 Houses, in Pommern 6,500." [Rodenbeck, ii. 234, 261.] Prussia has
been a meritorious Nation; and, however cut and ruined, is and was in a
healthy state, capable of recovering soon. Prussia has defended itself
against overwhelming odds,--brave Prussia; but the real soul of its
merit was that of having merited such a King to command it. Without this
King, all its valors, disciplines, resources of war, would have availed
Prussia little. No wonder Prussia has still a loyalty to its great
Friedrich, to its Hohenzollern Sovereigns generally. Without these
Hohenzollerns, Prussia had been, what we long ago saw it, the unluckiest
of German Provinces; and could never have had the pretension to exist
as a Nation at all. Without this particular Hohenzollern, it had been
trampled out again, after apparently succeeding. To have achieved a
Friedrich the Second for King over it, was Prussia's grand merit.
An accidental merit, thinks the reader? No, reader, you may believe me,
it is by no means altogether such. Nay, I rather think, could we look
into the Account-Books of the Recording Angel for a course of centuries,
no part of it is such! There are Nations in which a Friedrich is, or can
be, possible; and again there are Nations in which he is not and
cannot. To be practically reverent of Human Worth to the due extent,
and abhorrent of Human Want of Worth in the like proportion, do
you understand that art at all? I fear, not,--or that you are much
forgetting it again! Human Merit, do you really love it enough, think
you;--human Scoundrelism (brought to the dock for you, and branded as
scoundrel), do you even abhor it enough? Without that reverence and
its corresponding opposite-pole of abhorrence, there is simply no
possibility left. That, my friend, is the outcome and summary of all
virtues in this world, for a man or for a Nation of men. It is the
supreme strength and glory of a Nation;--without which, indeed, all
other strengths, and enormities of bullion and arsenals and warehouses,
are no strength. None, I should say;--and are oftenest even the REVERSE.
Nations who have lost this quality, or who never had it, what Friedrich
can they hope to be possible among them? Age after age they grind
down their Friedrichs contentedly under the hoofs of cattle on their
highways; and even find it an excellent practice, and pride themselves
on Liberty and Equality. Most certain it is, there will no Friedrich
come to rule there; by and by, there will none be born there. Such
Nations cannot have a King to command them; can only have this or
the other scandalous swindling Copper Captain, constitutional Gilt
Mountebank, or other the like unsalutary entity by way of King; and the
sins of the fathers are visited upon the children in a frightful and
tragical manner, little noticed in the Penny Newspapers and Periodical
Literatures of this generation. Oh, my friends--! But there is plain
Business waiting us at hand.
Chapter II.--REPAIRING OF A RUINED PRUSSIA.
That of Friedrich's sitting wrapt in a cloud of reflections
Olympian-Abysmal, in the music-chapel at Charlottenburg, while he had
the Ambrosian Song executed for him there, as the preliminary step, was
a loose myth; but the fact lying under it is abundantly certain. Few
Sons of Adam had more reason for a piously thankful feeling towards the
Past, a piously valiant towards the Future. What king or man had seen
himself delivered from such strangling imbroglios of destruction, such
devouring rages of a hostile world? And the ruin worked by them lay
monstrous and appalling all round. Friedrich is now Fifty-one gone;
unusually old for his age; feels himself an old man, broken with years
and toils; and here lies his Kingdom in haggard slashed condition, worn
to skin and bone: How is the King, resourceless, to remedy it? That is
now the seemingly impossible problem. "Begin it,--thereby alone will it
ever cease to be impossible!" Friedrich begins, we may say, on the
first morrow morning. Labors at his problem, as he did in the march to
Leuthen; finds it to become more possible, day after day, month after
month, the farther he strives with it.
"Why not leave it to Nature?" think many, with the Dismal Science
at their elbow. Well; that was the easiest plan, but it was not
Friedrich's. His remaining moneys, 25 million thalers ready for a
Campaign which has not come, he distributes to the most necessitous:
"all his artillery-horses" are parted into plough-teams, and given to
those who can otherwise get none: think what a fine figure of rye
and barley, instead of mere windlestraws, beggary and desolation, was
realized by that act alone. Nature is ready to do much; will of herself
cover, with some veil of grass and lichen, the nakedness of ruin: but
her victorious act, when she can accomplish it, is that of getting YOU
to go with her handsomely, and change disaster itself into new wealth.
Into new wisdom and valor, which are wealth in all kinds; California
mere zero to them, zero, or even a frightful MINUS quantity! Friedrich's
procedures in this matter I believe to be little less didactic than
those other, which are so celebrated in War: but no Dryasdust, not even
a Dryasdust of the Dismal Science, has gone into them, rendered men
familiar with them in their details and results. His Silesian Land-Bank
(joint-stock Moneys, lent on security of Land) was of itself, had I room
to explain it, an immense furtherance. [Preuss, iii. 75; _OEuvres de
Frederic,_ vi. 84.] Friedrich, many tell us, was as great in Peace as
in War: and truly, in the economic and material provinces, my own
impression, gathered painfully in darkness, and contradiction of the
Dismal-Science Doctors, is much to that effect. A first-rate Husbandman
(as his Father had been); who not only defended his Nation, but made it
rich beyond what seemed possible; and diligently sowed annuals into it,
and perennials which flourish aloft at this day.
Mirabeau's _Monarchie Prussienne,_ in 8 thick Volumes 8vo,--composed, or
hastily cobbled together, some Twenty years after this period,--contains
the best tabular view one anywhere gets of Friedrich's economics,
military and other practical methods and resources:--solid exact Tables
these are, and intelligent intelligible descriptions, done by Mauvillon
FILS, the same punctual Major Mauvillon who used to attend us in Duke
Ferdinand's War;--and so far as Mirabeau is concerned, the Work consists
farther of a certain small Essay done in big type, shoved into the belly
of each Volume, and eloquently recommending, with respectful censures
and regrets over Friedrich, the Gospel of Free Trade, dear to Papa
Mirabeau. The Son is himself a convert; far above lying, even to
please Papa: but one can see, the thought of Papa gives him new fire of
expression. They are eloquent, ruggedly strong Essays, those of Mirabeau
Junior upon Free Trade:--they contain, in condensed shape, everything
we were privileged to hear, seventy years later, from all organs,
coach-horns, jews-harps and scrannel-pipes, PRO and CONTRA, on the same
sublime subject: "God is great, and Plugson of Undershot is his Prophet.
Thus saith the Lord, Buy in the cheapest market, sell in the dearest!"
To which the afflicted human mind listens what it can;--and after
seventy years, mournfully asks itself and Mirabeau, "M. le Comte, would
there have been in Prussia, for example, any Trade at all, any Nation at
all, had it always been left 'Free'? There would have been mere sand and
quagmire, and a community of wolves and bisons, M. le Comte. Have the
goodness to terminate that Litany, and take up another!"
We said, Friedrich began his problem on the first morrow morning; and
that is literally true, that or even MORE. Here is how Friedrich takes
his stand amid the wreck, speedy enough to begin: this view of our old
friend Nussler and him is one of the Pieces we can give,--thanks to Herr
Busching and his _Beitrage_ for the last time! Nussler is now something
of a Country Gentleman, so to speak; has a pleasant place out to east of
Berlin; is LANDRATH (County Chairman) there, "Landrath of Nether-Barnim
Circle;" where we heard of the Cossacks spoiling him: he, as who not,
has suffered dreadfully in these tumults. Here is Busching's welcome
Account.
LANDRATH NUSSLER AND THE KING (30th March-3d April, 1763).
"MARCH 30th, 1763, Friedrich, on his return to Berlin, came by the route
of Tassdorf,"--Tassdorf, in Nether-Barnim Circle (40 odd miles from
Frankfurt, and above 15 from Berlin);--"and changed horses there. During
this little pause, among a crowd assembled to see him, he was addressed
by Nussler, Landrath of the Circle, who had a very piteous story to
tell. Nussler wished the King joy of his noble victories, and of the
glorious Peace at last achieved: 'May your Majesty reign in health
and happiness over us many years, to the blessing of us all!'--and
recommended to his gracious care the extremely ruined, and, especially
by the Russians, uncommonly devastated Circle, for which," continues
Busching "this industrious Landrath had not hitherto been able to
extract any effective help." Generally for the Provinces wasted by the
Russians there had already some poor 300,000 thalers (45,000 pounds)
been allowed by a helpful Majesty, not over-rich himself at the moment;
and of this, Nether-Barnim no doubt gets its share: but what is this to
such ruin as there is? A mere preliminary drop, instead of the bucket
and buckets we need!--Busching, a dull, though solid accurate kind
of man, heavy-footed, and yet always in a hurry, always slipshod, has
nothing of dramatic here; far from it; but the facts themselves fall
naturally into that form,--in Three Scenes:--
I. TASSDORF (still two hours from Berlin), KING, NUSSLER AND A CROWD OF
PEOPLE, Nussler ALONE DARING TO SPEAK.
KING (from his Carriage, ostlers making despatch). "What is your Circle
most short of?"
LANDRATH NUSSLER. "Of horses for ploughing the seedfields of rye to sow
them, and of bread till the crops come."
KING. "Rye for bread, and to sow with, I will give; with horses I cannot
assist."
NUSSLER. "On representation of Privy-Councillor van Brenkenhof [the
Minister concerned with such things], your Majesty has been pleased to
give the Neumark and Pommern an allowance of Artillery and Commissariat
Horses: but poor Nether-Barnim, nobody will speak for it; and unless
your Majesty's gracious self please to take pity on it, Nether-Barnim is
lost!" (A great many things more he said, in presence of a large crowd
of men who had gathered round the King's Carriage as the horses were
being changed; and spoke with such force and frankness that the King was
surprised, and asked:)--
KING. "Who are you?" (has forgotten the long-serviceable man!)
NUSSLER. "I am the Nussler who was lucky enough to manage the Fixing of
the Silesian Boundaries for your Majesty!"
KING. "JA, JA, now I know you again! Bring me all the Landraths of the
Kurmark [Mark of Brandenburg Proper, ELECTORAL Mark] in a body; I will
speak with them."
NUSSLER. "All of them but two are in Berlin already."
KING. "Send off estafettes for those two to come at once to Berlin; and
on Thursday," day after to-morrow, "come yourself, with all the others,
to the Schloss to me: I will then have some closer conversation, and
say what I can and will do for helping of the country," (King's Carriage
rolls away, with low bows and blessings from Nussler and everybody).
II. THURSDAY, APRIL 1st, NUSSLER AND ASSEMBLED LANDRATHS AT THE SCHLOSS
OF BERLIN. To them, enter KING....
NUSSLER (whom they have appointed spokesman).... "Your Majesty has given
us Peace; you will also give us Well-being in the Land again: we
leave it to Highest-the-Same's gracious judgment [no limit to
Highest-the-Same's POWER, it would seem] what you will vouchsafe to us
as indemnification for the Russian plunderings."
KING. "Be you quiet; let me speak. Have you got a pencil (HAT ER
CRAYON)? Yes! Well then, write, and these Gentlemen shall dictate to
you:--
"'How much rye for bread; How much for seed; How many Horses, Oxen,
Cows, their Circles do in an entirely pressing way require?'
"Consider all that to the bottom; and come to me again the day after
to-morrow. But see that you fix everything with the utmost exactitude,
for I cannot give much." (EXIT King.)
NUSSLER (to the Landraths). "MEINE HERREN, have the goodness to
accompany me to our Landschaft House [we have a kind of County Hall, it
seems]; there we will consider everything."
And Nussler, guiding the deliberations, which are glad to follow him
on every point, and writing as PRO-TEMPORE Secretary, has all things
brought to luminous Protocol in the course of this day and next.
III. SATURDAY, APRIL 3d, IN THE SCHLOSS AGAIN: NUSSLER AND LANDRATHS. To
them, the KING.
Nussler. "We deliver to your Majesty the written Specification you
were graciously pleased to command of us. It contains only the
indispensablest things that the Circles are in need of. Moreover, it
regards only the STANDE [richer Nobility], who pay contribution; the
Gentry [ADEL], and other poor people, who have been utterly plundered
out by the Russians, are not included in it:--the Gentry too have
suffered very much by the War and the Plundering."
KING. "What EDELLEUTE that are members of STANDE have you [ER] got in
your Circle?"
NUSSLER (names them; and, as finis of the list, adds):... "I myself,
too, your Majesty, I have suffered more than anybody: I absolutely could
not furnish those 4,000 bushels of meal ordered of me by the Russians;
upon which they--"
KING. "I cannot give to all: but if you have poor Nobles in your Circle,
who can in no way help themselves, I will give them something."
NUSSLER (has not any in Nether-Barnim who are altogether in that extreme
predicament; but knows several in Lebus Circle, names them to the
King;--and turning to the Landrath of Lebus, and to another who is
mute): "Herr, you can name some more in Lebus; and you, in Teltow
Circle, Herr Landrath, since his Majesty permits."... In a word, the
King having informed himself and declared his intention, Nussler leads
the Landraths to their old County Hall, and brings to Protocol what had
taken place.
Next day, the Kammer President (Exchequer President), Van der Groben,
had Nussler, with other Landraths, to dinner. During dinner, there came
from Head Secretary Eichel (Majesty's unwearied Clerk of the PELLS,
Sheepskins, or PAPERS) an earnest request to Von der Groben for
help,--Eichel not being able to remember, with the requisite precision,
everything his Majesty had bid him put down on this matter. "You will
go, Herr von Nussler; be so kind, won't you?" And Nussler went, and
fully illuminated Eichel....
To the poorest of the Nobility, Busching tells us, what is otherwise
well known, the King gave considerable sums: to one Circle 12,000
pounds, to another 9,000 pounds, 6,000 pounds, and so on. By help
of which bounties, and of Nussler laboring incessantly with all his
strength, Nieder-Barnim Circle got on its feet again, no subject having
been entirely ruined, but all proving able to recover. [Busching,
_Beitrage_ (Nussler), i. 401-405.]
This Busching Fragment is not in the style of the Elder Dramatists, or
for the Bankside Theatre; but this represents a Fact which befell in
God's Creation, and may have an interest of its own to the Practical
Soul, especially in anarchic Countries, far advanced in the "Gold-nugget
and Nothing to Buy with it" Career of unexampled Prosperities.
On these same errands the King is soon going on an Inspection Journey,
where we mean to accompany. But first, one word, and one will suffice,
on the debased Coin. The Peace was no sooner signed, than Friedrich
proceeded on the Coin. The third week after his arrival home, there came
out a salutary Edict on it, April 21st; King eager to do it without loss
of time, yet with the deliberation requisite. Not at one big leap, which
might shake, to danger of oversetting, much commercial arrangement; but
at two leaps, with a halfway station intervening. Halfway station, with
a new coinage ready, much purer of alloy (and marked HOW much, for
the benefit of parties with accounts to settle), is to commence on
TRINITATIS (Whitsunday) instant; from and after Whitsunday the improved
new coin to be sole legal tender, till farther notice. Farther notice
comes accordingly, within a year, March 29th, 1764: "Pure money of
the standard of 1750 [honest silver coinage: readers may remember
Linsenbarth, the CANDIDATUS THEOLOGIAE, and his sack of Batzen,
confiscated at the Paekhof] shall be ready on the 1st of June instant;"
[Rodenbeck, ii. 214, 234.]--from and after which day we hear no more of
that sad matter. Finished off in about fourteen months. Here, meanwhile,
is the Inspection Journey.
KRIEGSRATH RODEN AND THE KING (6th-13th June, 1763).
JUNE 2d, 1763, Friedrich left Potsdam for Westphalia; got as far as
Magdeburg that day. Intends seeing into matters with his own eyes in
that region, as in others, after so long and sad an absence. There are
with him Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia, a tall young fellow of
nineteen; General-Adjutant von Anhalt; and one or two Prussian
military people. From Magdeburg and onwards the great Duke Ferdinand
accompanies,--who is now again Governor of Magdeburg, and a quiet
Prussian Officer as heretofore, though with excellent Pensions from
England, and glory from all the world.
The Royal Party goes by Halberstadt, which suffered greatly in the War;
thence by MINDEN (June 4th); and the first thing next day, Friedrich
takes view of the BATTLE-FIELD there,--under Ferdinand's own guidance,
doubtless; and an interesting thing to both Friedrich and him, though
left silent to us. This done, they start for Lippstadt, are received
there under joyous clangorous outburst of all the bells and all
the honors, that same afternoon; and towards sunset, Hamm being the
Night-quarter ahead, are crossing VELLINGHAUSEN BATTLE-GROUND,--where
doubtless Ferdinand again, like a dutiful apprentice, will explain
matters to his old master, so far as needful or permissible. The
conversation, I suppose, may have been lively and miscellaneous:
Ferdinand mentions a clever business-person of the name of Roden,
whom he has known in these parts; "Roden?" the King carefully makes
note;--and, in fact, we shall see Roden presently; and his bit of
DIALOGUE with the King (recorded by his own hand) is our chief errand on
this Journey. From Hamm, next morning (June 6th), they get to Wesel
by 11 A.M. (only sixty miles); Wesel all in gala, as Lippstadt was,
or still more than Lippstadt; and for four days farther, they continue
there very busy. As Roden is our chief errand, let us attend to Roden.
WESEL, MONDAY, JUNE 6th, "Dinner being done," says an authentic
Third-Party, [Rodenbeck, ii. 217.] "the King had Kammer-Director Meyen
summoned to him with his Register-Books, Schedules and Reports [what
they call ETATS]; and was but indifferently contented with Meyen and
them." And in short, "ordering Meyen to remodel these into a more
distinct condition,"--we may now introduce the Herr Kriegsrath Roden,
a subaltern, in rank, but who has perhaps a better head than Meyen, to
judge of these ETATS. Roden himself shall now report. This is the Royal
Dialogue with Roden; accurately preserved for us by him;--I wish it had
been better worth the reader's trouble; but its perfect credibility in
every point will be some recommendation to it.
"MONDAY, 6th JUNE, 1763, about 11 A.M., his Majesty arrived in Wesel,"
says Roden (confirming to us the authentic Third-Party); "I waited on
Adjutant-General Colonel von Anhalt to announce myself; who referred
me to Kriegsrath Coper ["MEIN SEGRETER KOPER" is a name we have heard
before], who told me to be ready so soon as Dinner should be over.
Dinner was no sooner over [2 P.M. or so], than the Herr Kammer-Director
Meyen with his ETATS was called in. His Majesty was not content with
these, Herr Meyen was told; and they were to be remodelled into a more
distinct condition. The instant Herr Meyen stept out, I was called in.
His Majesty was standing with his back to the fire; and said:--
KING. "'Come nearer [Roden comes nearer]. Prince Ferdinand [of
Brunswick, whom we generally call DUKE and great, to distinguish him
from a little Prussian Prince Ferdinand] has told me much good of you:
where do you come from?'
RODEN. "'From Soest' [venerable "stone-old" little Town, in
Vellinghausen region].
KING. "'Did you get my Letter?'
RODEN. "'Yea, IHRO MAJESTAT.'
KING. "'I will give you some employment. Have you got a pencil?'
RODEN. "'Yea' [and took out his Note-book and tools, which he had
"bought in a shop a quarter of an hour before"].
KING. "'Listen. By the War many Houses have got ruined: I mean that
they shall be put in order again; for which end,--to those that cannot
themselves help, particularly to Soest, Hamm, Lunen and in part Wesel,
as places that have suffered most,--I intend to give the moneys. Now you
must make me an exact List of what is to be done in those places. Thus
[King, lifting his finger, let us fancy, dictates; Roden, with brand-new
pencil and tablets, writes:]
"'1. In each of those Towns, how many ruined Houses there are which
the proprietors themselves can manage to rebuild. 2. How many which
the proprietors cannot. 3. The vacant grounds or steadings of such
proprietors as are perhaps dead, or gone else-whither, must be given to
others that are willing to build: but in regard to this, Law also must
do its part, and the absent and the heirs must be cited to say, Whether
they will themselves build? and in case they won't, the steadings can
then be given to others.'" Roden having written,--
KING. "'In the course of six days you must be ready [what an
expeditious King! Is to be at Cleve the sixth day hence: Meet me there,
then],--longer I cannot give you.'
RODEN (considering a moment). "'If your Majesty will permit me to use
ESTAFETTES [express messengers] for the Towns farthest off,--as I
cannot myself, within the time, travel over all the Towns,--I hope to be
ready.'
KING. "'That I permit; and will repay you the ESTAFETTE moneys.--Tell
me, How comes the decrease of population in these parts? Recruits I got
none.'
RODEN. "'Under favor of your Majesty, Regiment Schenkendorf got, every
year, for recompletion, what recruits were wanted, from its Canton in
the Grafschaft Mark here.'
KING. "'There you may be right: but from Cleve Country we had no
recruits; not we, though the Austrians had, [with a slight sarcasm of
tone].
RODEN. "'Out of Cleve, so far as I know, there were no recruits
delivered to the Austrians.'
KING. "'You could not know; you were with the Allied Army' [Duke
Ferdinand's, commissariating and the like, where Duke Ferdinand
recognized you to have a head].
RODEN. "'There have been many epidemic diseases too; especially in
Soest;--after the Battle of Vellinghausen all the wounded were brought
thither, and the hospitals were established there.'
KING. "'Epidemic diseases they might have got without a Battle [dislikes
hearing ill of the soldier trade]. I will have Order sent to the Cleve
Kammer, Not to lay hindrance in your way, but the contrary. Now God keep
you (GOTT BEWAHRE IHN).'"--EXIT Roden;--"DARAUF RETIRIRTE MICH," says
he;--but will reappear shortly.
Sunday, 12th June, is the sixth day hence; later than the end of Sunday
is not permissible to swift Roden; nor does he need it.
Friday, 10th, Friedrich left Wesel; crossed the Rhine, intending for
Cleve; went by CREFELD,--at Crefeld had view of another BATTLE-FIELD,
under good ciceroneship; remarks or circumstances otherwise not
given:--and, next day, Saturday, 11th, picked up D'Alembert, who, by
appointment, is proceeding towards Potsdam, at a more leisurely rate.
That same Saturday, after much business done, the King was at Kempen,
thence at Geldern; speeding for Cleve itself, due there that night. At
Geldern, we say, he picked up D'Alembert;--concerning whom, more by and
by. And finally, "on Saturday night, about half-past 8, the King entered
Cleve," amid joyances extraordinary, hut did not alight; drove direct
through by the Nassau Gate, and took quarter "in the neighboring
Country-house of Bellevue, with the Dutch General von Spaen there,"--an
obliging acquaintance once, while LIEUTENANT Spaen, in our old
Crown-Prince times of trouble! Had his year in Spandau for us there,
while poor Katte lost his head! To whom, I have heard, the King talked
charmingly on this occasion, but was silent as to old Potsdam matters.
[Supra, vii. 165.]--
By his set day, Roden is also in Cleve, punctual man, finished or just
finishing; and ready for summons by his Majesty. And accordingly:--
"CLEVE, MONDAY, JUNE 13th, At 9 in the morning," records he, "I had
audience of the King's Majesty. [In Spaen's Villa of Bellevue, shall
we still suppose? Duke Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia and the rest, have
bestowed themselves in other fit houses; D'Alembert too,--who is to make
direct for Potsdam henceforth, by his own route; and will meet us on
arriving.]--I handed him my Report, with the Tabular Schedule. His
Majesty read it carefully through, in my presence; and examined all
of it with strictness. Was pleased to signify his satisfaction with
my work. Resolved to allow 250,000 thalers (37,500 pounds) for this
business of Rebuilding; gave out the due Orders to his Kammer, in
consequence, and commanded me to arrange with the Kammer what was
necessary. This done, his Majesty said:--
KING. "'What you were described to me, I find you to be. You are a
diligent laborious man; I must have you nearer to me;--in the Berlin
Hammer you ought to be. You shall have a good, a right good Salary;
your Patent I will give you gratis; also a VORSPANN-PASS [Standing
Order available at all Prussian Post-Stations] for two carriages [rapid
Program of the thing, though yet distant, rising in the Royal fancy!].
Now serve on as faithfully as you have hitherto done.'
RODEN. "'That is the object of all my endeavors.'" (EXIT:--I did
not hear specially whitherward just now; but he comes to be supreme
Kammer-President in those parts by and by.)
"The Herr Kriegsrath Coper was present, and noted all the Orders to
he expedited." [Preuss, ii. 442; Rodenbeck, ii. 217, 218: in regard to
D'Alembert, see _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiv. 190.]
These snatches of notice at first-hand, and what the reader's fancy
may make of these, are all we can bestow on this Section of Friedrich's
Labors; which is naturally more interesting to Prussian readers than
to English. He has himself given lucid and eloquent account of it,--Two
ample Chapters, "DES FINANCES;" "DU MILITAIRE," [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
vii. 73-90, 91-109.]--altogether pleasant reading, should there still
be curiosity upon it. There is something of flowingly eloquent in
Friedrich's account of this Battle waged against the inanimate Chaos;
something of exultant and triumphant, not noticeable of him in regard
to his other Victories. On the Leuthens, Rossbachs, he is always cold
as water, and nobody could gather that he had the least pleasure in
recording them. Not so here. And indeed here he is as beautiful as
anywhere; and the reader, as a general son of Adam,--proud to see human
intellect and heroism slaying that kind of lions, and doing what
in certain sad epochs is unanimously voted to be impossible and
unattemptable,--exults along with him; and perhaps whispers to his own
poor heart, nearly choked by the immeasurable imbroglio of Blue-books
and Parliamentary Eloquences which for the present encumber Heaven
and Earth, "MELIORA SPERO." To Mirabeau, the following details, from
first-hand, but already of twenty-three years distance, were not known,
[Appeared first in Tome v. of _"OEuvres Posthumes de Frederic II."_ (are
in Tome vi. of Preuss's Edition of OEUVRES), "Berlin, 1788;"--above a
year after Mirabeau had left.] while he sat penning those robust Essays
on the Duty of LEAVE-ALONE.
"To form an idea of the general subversion," says the King, in regard
to 1763, "and how great were the desolation and discouragement, you must
represent to yourself Countries entirely ravaged, the very traces of
the old habitations hardly discoverable; Towns, some ruined from top to
bottom, others half destroyed by fire;--13,000 Houses, of which the
very vestiges were gone. No field in seed; no grain for the food of the
inhabitants; 60,000 horses needed, if there was to be ploughing carried
on: in the Provinces generally Half a Million Population (500,000) less
than in 1756,--that is to say, upon only Four Millions and a Half, the
ninth man was wanting. Noble and Peasant had been pillaged, ransomed,
foraged, eaten out by so many different Armies; nothing now left them
but life and miserable rags.
"There was no credit, by trading people, even for the daily necessaries
of life." And furthermore, what we were not prepared for, "No police in
the Towns: to habits of equity and order had succeeded a vile greed of
gain and an anarchic disorder. The Colleges of Justice and of Finance
had, by these frequent invasions of so many enemies, been reduced to
inaction:" no Judge, in many places not even a Tax-gatherer: the silence
of the Laws had produced in the people a taste for license; boundless
appetite for gain was their main rule of action: the noble, the
merchant, the farmer, the laborer, raising emulously each the price of
his commodity, seemed to endeavor only for their mutual ruin. Such, when
the War ended, was the fatal spectacle over these Provinces, which had
once been so flourishing: however pathetic the description may be, it
will never approach the touching and sorrowful impression which the
sight of it produced."
Friedrich found that it would never do to trust to the mere aid of Time
in such circumstances: at the end of the Thirty-Years War, "Time"
had, owing to absolute want of money, been the one recipe of the Great
Elector in a similar case; and Time was then found to mean "about a
hundred Years." Friedrich found that he must at once step in with active
remedies, and on all hands strive to make the impossible possible.
Luckily he had in readiness, as usual, the funds for an Eighth Campaign,
had such been needed. Out of these moneys he proceeded to rebuild the
Towns and Villages; "from the Corn-Stores (GRANARIES D'ABONDANCE,"
Government establishments gathered from plentiful harvests against
scarce, according to old rule) "were taken the supplies for food of the
people and sowing of the ground: the horses intended for the artillery,
baggage and commissariat," 60,000 horses we have heard, "were
distributed among those who had none, to be employed in tillage of the
land. Silesia was discharged from all taxes for six months; Pommern and
the Neumark for two years. A sum of about Three Million sterling [in
THALERS 20,389,000] was given for relief of the Provinces, and as
acquittance of the impositions the Enemy had wrung from them.
"Great as was this expense, it was necessary and indispensable. The
condition of these Provinces after the Peace of Hubertsburg recalled
what we know of them when the Peace of Munster closed the famous
Thirty-Years War. On that occasion the State failed of help from want
of means; which put it, out, of the Great Elector's power to assist
his people: and what happened? That a whole century elapsed before his
Successors could restore the Towns and Champaigns to what they were.
This impressive example was admonitory to the King: that to repair the
Public Calamities, assistance must be prompt and effective. Repeated
gifts (LARGESSES) restored courage to the poor Husbandmen, who began to
despair of their lot; by the helps given, hope in all classes sprang
up anew: encouragement of labor produced activity; love of Country rose
again with fresh life: in a word [within the second year in a markedly
hopeful manner, and within seven years altogether], the fields were
cultivated again, manufacturers had resumed their work; and the Police,
once more in vigor, corrected by degrees the vices that had taken root
during the time of anarchy." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 74, 75.]
To Friedrich's difficulties, which were not inconsiderable, mark only
this last additament: "During this War, the elder of the Councillors,
and all the Ministers of the Grand Directorium [centre of Prussian
Administration], had successively died: and in such time of trouble
it had been impossible to replace them. The embarrassment was, To find
persons capable of filling these different employments [some would have
very soon done it, your Majesty; but their haste would not have tended
to speed!]--We searched the Provinces (ON FOUILLA, sifted), where
good heads were found as rare as in the Capital: at length five Chief
Ministers were pitched upon,"--who prove to be tolerable, and even
good. Three of them were, the VONS Blumenthal, Massow, Hagen, unknown
to readers here: fourth and fifth were, the Von Wedell as War-Minister,
once Dictator at Zullichan; and a Von der Horst, who had what we might
partially call the Home Department, and who may by accident once or so
be namable again.
Nor was War all, says the King: "accidental Fires in different places,"
while we struggled to repair the ravagings of War, "were of unexampled
frequency, and did immense farther damage. From 1765 to 1769, here is
the list of places burnt: In East Preussen, the City of Konigsberg
twice over; in Silesia, the Towns of Freystadt, Ober-Glogau [do readers
recollect Manteuffel of Foot and "WIR WOLLEN IHM WAS"!], Parchwitz,
Naumburg-on-Queiss, and Goldberg; in the Mark, Nauen; in the Neumark,
Calies and a part of Lansberg; in Pommern, Belgard and Tempelburg. These
accidents required incessantly new expenditures to repair them."
Friedrich was not the least of a Free Trader, except where it
suited him: and his continual subventions and donations, guidances,
encouragements, commandings and prohibitions, wise supervision and
impulsion,--are a thing I should like to hear an intelligent Mirabeau
(Junior or Senior) discourse upon, after he had well studied them! For
example: "ON RENDIT LES PRETRES UTILES, The Priests, Catholic Priests,
were turned to use by obliging all the rich Abbeys to establish
manufactures: here it was weavers making damasks and table-cloths; there
oil-mills [oil from linseed]; or workers in copper, wire-drawers; as
suited the localities and the natural products,--the flaxes and
the metals, with water-power, markets, and so on." What a charming
resuscitation of the rich Abbeys from their dormant condition!
I should like still better to explain how, in Lower Silesia, "we (ON)
managed to increase the number of Husbandmen by 4,000 families. You will
be surprised how it was possible to multiply to this extent the people
living by Agriculture in a Country where already not a field was waste.
The reason was this. Many Lords of Land, to increase their Domain, had
imperceptibly appropriated to themselves the holdings (TERRES) of their
vassals. Had this abuse been suffered to go on, in time a great"--But
the commentary needed would be too lengthy; we will give only the
result: "In the long-run, every Village would have had its Lord, but
there would have been no tax-paying Farmers left." The Landlord, ruler
of these Landless, might himself (as Majesty well knows) have been made
to PAY, had that been all; but it was not. "To possess something; that
is what makes the citizen attached to his Country; those who have no
property, and have nothing to lose, what tie have they?" A weak one, in
comparison!"All these things being represented to the Landlord Class,
their own advantage made them consent to replace their Peasants on the
old footing."...
"To make head against so many extraordinary demands," adds the King
(looking over to a new Chapter, that of the MILITARY, which Department,
to his eyes, was not less shockingly dilapidated than the CIVIL,
and equally or more needed instant repair), "new resources had to
be devised. For, besides what was needed for re-establishment of the
Provinces, new Fortifications were necessary; and all our Cannon,
E'VASES (worn too wide in the bore), needed to be refounded; which
occasioned considerable new expense. This led us to improvement of the
Excises,"--concerning which there will have to be a Section by itself.
OF FRIEDRICH'S NEW EXCISE SYSTEM.
In his late Inspection-Journey to Cleve Country, D'Alembert, from Paris,
by appointment waited for the King; [In (_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiv.
377-380 (D'Alembert's fine bits of Letters in prospect of Potsdam,
"Paris, 7th March-29th April, 1763;" and two small Notes while there,
"Sans-Souci, 6th July-15th August, 1763").]--picked up at Geldern (June
11th), as we saw above. D'Alembert got to Potsdam June 22d; stayed till
middle of August. He had met the King once before, in 1755; who found
him "a BON GARCON," as we then saw. D'Alembert was always, since that
time, an agreeable, estimable little man to Friedrich. Age now about
forty-six; has lately refused the fine Russian post of "Tutor to the
Czarowitsh" (Czarowitsh Paul, poor little Boy of eight or nine, whom we,
or Herr Busching for us, saw galloping about, not long since, "in his
dressing-gown," under Panin's Tutorage); refuses now, in a delicate
gradual manner, the fine Prussian post of Perpetual President, or
Successor to Maupertuis;--definitely preferring his frugal pensions at
Paris, and garret all his own there. Continues, especially after this
two months' visit of 1763, one of the King's chief correspondents for
the next twenty years. ["29th October, 1783," D'Alembert died: "born
16th November, 1717;"--a Foundling, as is well known; "Mother a
Sister of Cardinal Tencin's; Father," accidental, "an Officer in the
Artillery."] A man of much clear intellect; a thought SHRIEKY in his
ways sometimes; but always prudent, rational, polite, and loyally
recognizing Friedrich as a precious article in this world. Here is a
word of D'Alembert's to Madame du Deffand, at Paris, some ten or twelve
days after the Cleve meeting, and the third day after his arrival
here:--
"POTSDAM, 25th JUNE, 1763. MADAME,--... I will not go into the praises
of this Prince," King Friedrich, my now Host; "in my mouth it might
be suspicious: I will merely send you two traits of him, which will
indicate his way of thinking and feeling. When I spoke to him [at
Geldern, probably, on our first meeting] of the glory he had acquired,
he answered, with the greatest simplicity, That there was a furious
discount to be deducted from said glory; that chance came in for almost
the whole of it; and that he would far rather have done Ratine's ATHALIE
than all this War:--ATHALIE is the work he likes, and rereads oftenest;
I believe you won't disapprove his taste there. The other trait I have
to give you is, That on the day [15th February last] of concluding this
Peace, which is so glorious to him, some one saying, 'It is the finest
day of your Majesty's life:' 'The finest day of life,' answered he, 'is
the day on which one quits it.'...--Adieu, Madame." [_"OEuvres Posthumes
de D'Alembert_ (Paris, 1799). i. 197:" cited in PREUSS, ii. 348.]
The meeting in Cleve Country was, no doubt, a very pretty passage, with
Two pretty Months following;--and if it be true that HELVETIUS was a
consequence, the 11th of June, 1763, may almost claim to be a kind
of epoch in Friedrich's later history. The opulent and ingenious M.
Helvetius, who wrote DE L'ESPRIT, and has got banished for that feat
(lost in the gloom of London in those months), had been a mighty
Tax-gatherer as well; D'Alembert, as brother Philosophe, was familiar
with Helvetius. It is certain, also, King Friedrich, at this time, found
he would require annually two million thalers more;--where to get them,
seemed the impossibility. A General Krockow, who had long been in French
Service, and is much about the King, was often recommending the French
Excise system;--he is the Krockow of DOMSTADTL, and that SIEGE OF
OLMUTZ, memorable to some of us:--"A wonderful Excise system," Krockow
is often saying, in this time of straits. "Who completely understands
it?" the King might ask. "Helvetius, against the world!" D'Alembert
could justly answer. "Invite Helvetius to leave his London exile, and
accept an asylum here, where he may be of vital use to me!" concludes
Friedrich.
Helvetius came in March, 1765; stayed till June, 1766: [Rodenbeck, ii.
254; Preuss, iii. 11.]--within which time a French Excise system, which
he had been devising and putting together, had just got in gear, and
been in action for a month, to Helvetius's satisfaction. Who thereupon
went his way, and never returned;--taking with him, as man and
tax-gatherer, the King's lasting gratitude; but by no means that of the
Prussian Nation, in his tax-gathering capacity! All Prussia, or all of
it that fell under this Helvetius Excise system, united to condemn it,
in all manner of dialects, louder and louder: here, for instance, is
the utterance of Herr Hamann, himself a kind of Custom-house Clerk (at
Konigsberg, in East Preussen), and on modest terms a Literary man of
real merit and originality, who may be supposed to understand this
subject: "And so," says Hamann, "the State has declared its own subjects
incapable of managing its Finance system; and in this way has intrusted
its heart, that is the purse of its subjects, to a company of Foreign
Scoundrels, ignorant of everything relating to it!" ["Hamann to Jacobi"
(see Preuss, iii. 1-35), "Konigsberg, 18th January, 1786."]
This lasted all Friedrich's lifetime; and gave rise to not a little
buzzing, especially in its primary or incipient stages. It seems to
have been one of the unsuccessfulest Finance adventures Friedrich ever
engaged in. It cost his subjects infinite small trouble; awakened very
great complaining; and, for the first time, real discontent,--skin-deep
but sincere and universal,--against the misguided Vater Fritz. Much
noisy absurdity there was upon it, at home, and especially abroad:
"Griping miser," "greedy tyrant," and so forth! Deducting all which,
everybody now admits that Friedrich's aim was excellent and proper; but
nobody denies withal that the means were inconsiderate, of no profit in
proportion to the trouble they gave, and improper to adopt unless the
necessity compelled.
Friedrich is forbidden, or forbids himself, as we have often mentioned,
to impose new taxes: and nevertheless now, on calculations deep, minute
and no doubt exact, he judges That for meeting new attacks of War (or
being ready to meet, which will oftenest mean averting them),--a thing
which, as he has just seen, may concern the very existence of the
State,--it is necessary that there should be on foot such and such
quantities and kinds of Soldiery and War-furniture, visible to all
neighbors; and privately in the Treasury never less than such and such
a sum. To which end Arithmetic declares that there is required about Two
Million thalers more of yearly revenue than we now have. And where, in
these circumstances, are the means of raising such a sum?
Friedrich imposes no new taxes; but there may be stricter methods of
levying the old;--there may, and in fact there must, be means found!
Friedrich has consulted his Finance Ministers; put the question SERIATIM
to these wise heads: they answer with one voice, "There are no means."
[Rodenbeck, ii. 256.] Friedrich, therefore, has recourse to Helvetius;
who, on due consideration, and after survey of much documentary and
tabulary raw-material, is of opinion, That the Prussian Excises would,
if levied with the punctuality, precision and vigilant exactitude of
French methods, actually yield the required overplus. "Organize me the
methods, then; get them put in action here; under French hands, if that
be indispensable." Helvetius bethought him of what fittest French hands
there were to his knowledge,--in France there are a great many hands
flung idle in the present downbreak of finance there:--Helvetius appears
to have selected, arranged and contrived in this matter with his best
diligence. De Launay, the Head-engineer of the thing, was admitted by
all Prussia, after Twenty-two years unfriendly experience of him, to
have been a suitable and estimable person; a man of judicious ways,
of no small intelligence, prudence, and of very great skill in
administering business.
Head-engineer De Launay, one may guess, would be consulted by Helvetius
in choice of the subaltern Officials, the stokers and steerers in this
new Steam-Machinery, which had all to be manned from France. There were
Four heads of departments immediately under De Launay, or scarcely under
him, junior brothers rather:--who chose these I did not hear; but these
latter, it is evident, were not a superior quality of people. Of these
Four,--all at very high salaries, from De Launay downwards; "higher than
a Prussian Minister of State!" murmured the public,--two, within the
first year, got into quarrel; fought a duel, fatal to one of them; so
that there were now only Three left. "Three, with De Launay, will do,"
opined Friedrich; and divided the vacant salary among the survivors: in
which form they had at least no more duelling.
As to the subaltern working-parties, the VISITATEURS, CONTROLLEURS,
JAUGEURS (Gaugers), PLOMBEURS (Lead-stampers), or the strangest kind of
all, called "Cellar-Rats (COMMIS RATS-DE-CAVE), "they were so detested
and exclaimed against, by a Public impatient of the work itself, there
is no knowing what their degree of scoundrelism was, nor even, within
amazingly wide limits, what the arithmetical number of them was. About
500 in the whole of Prussia, says a quiet Prussian, who has made some
inquiry; ["Beguelin, ACCISE-UND ZOLL-VERFASSUNG, s. 138" (Preuss, iii,
18).] 1,500 says Mirabeau; 3,000 say other exaggerative persons, or even
5,000; De Launay's account is, Not at any time above 200. But we can
all imagine how vexatious they and their business were. Nobody now is
privileged with exemption: from one and all of you, Nobles, Clergy,
People, strict account is required, about your beers and liquors; your
coffee, salt; your consumptions and your purchases of all excisable
articles:--nay, I think in coffee and salt, in salt for certain, what
you will require, according to your station and domestic numbers, is
computed for you, to save trouble; such and such quantities you will
please to buy in our presence, or to pay duty for, whether you buy them
or not. Into all houses, at any hour of the day or of the night, these
cellar-rats had liberty,--(on warrant from some higher rat of their own
type, I know not how much higher; and no sure appeal for you, except
to the King; tolerably sure there, if you be INNOCENT, but evidently
perilous if you be only NOT-CONVICTED!)--had liberty, I say, to search
for contraband; all your presses, drawers, repositories, you must open
to these beautiful creatures; watch in nightcap, and candle in hand,
while your things get all tumbled hither and thither, in the search for
what perhaps is not there; nay, it was said and suspected, but I never
knew it for certain, that these poisonous French are capable of slipping
in something contraband, on purpose to have you fined whether or not.
Readers can conceive, though apparently Friedrich did not, what a world
of vexation all this occasioned; and how, in the continual annoyance to
all mankind, the irritation, provocation and querulous eloquence spread
among high and low. Of which the King knew something; but far from the
whole. His object was one of vital importance; and his plan once fixed,
he went on with it, according to his custom, regardless of little rubs.
The Anecdote Books are full of details, comic mostly, on this subject:
How the French rats pounced down upon good harmless people, innocent
frugal parsonages, farm-houses; and were comically flung prostrate by
native ready wit, or by direct appeal to the King. Details, never so
authentic, could not be advisable in this place. Perhaps there are not
more than Two authentic Passages, known to me, which can now have the
least interest, even of a momentary sort, to English readers. The first
is, Of King Friedrich caricatured as a Miser grinding Coffee. I give it,
without essential alteration of any kind, in Herr Preuss's words, copied
from those of one who saw it:--the second, which relates to a Princess
or Ex-Princess of the Royal House, I must reserve for a little while.
Herr Preuss says:--
"Once during the time of the 'Regie' [which lasted from 1766 to 1786 and
the King's death: no other date assignable, though 1768, or so, may be
imaginable for our purpose], as the King came riding along the Jager
Strasse, there was visible near what is called the Furstenhaus," kind of
Berlin Somerset House, [Nicolai, i. 155.] "a great crowd of people. 'See
what it is!' the King sent his one attendant, a heiduc or groom, into
it, to learn what it was. 'They have something posted up about your
Majesty,' reported the groom; and Friedrich, who by this time had ridden
forward, took a look at the thing; which was a Caricature figure of
himself: King in very melancholy guise, seated on a Stool, a Coffee-mill
between his knees; diligently grinding with the one hand, and with the
other picking up any bean that might have fallen. 'Hang it lower,' said
the King, beckoning his groom with a wave of the finger: 'Lower, that
they may not have to hurt their necks about it!' No sooner were the
words spoken, which spread instantly, than there rose from the whole
crowd one universal huzza of joy. They tore the Caricature into a
thousand pieces, and rolled after the King with loud (LEBE HOCH, Our
Friedrich forever!' as he rode slowly away." [Preuss, iii. 275 ("from
BERLIN CONVERSUTIONSBLATT &c. of 1827, No. 253").) That is their
Friedrich's method with the Caricature Department. Heffner,
Kapellmeister in Upsala, reports this bit of memorability; he was then
of the King's Music-Chapel in Berlin, and saw this with his eyes.
The King's tendency at all times, and his practice generally, when
we hear of it, was to take the people's side; so that gradually these
French procedures were a great deal mitigated; and DIE REGIE--so they
called this hateful new-fangled system of Excise machinery--became much
more supportable, "the sorrows of it nothing but a tradition to the
younger sort," reports Dohm, who is extremely ample on this subject.
[Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, _Denkwurdigkeiten meiner Zeit_ (Lemgo und
Hanover, 1819), iv. 500 et seq.] De Launay was honorably dismissed, and
the whole Regie abolished, a month or two after Friedrich's death.
With a splenetic satisfaction authentic Dohm, who sufficiently condemns
the REGIE, adds that it was not even successful; and shows by evidence,
and computation to the uttermost farthing, that instead of two million
thalers annually, it yielded on the average rather less than one. The
desired overplus of two millions, and a good deal more did indeed come
in, says he: but it was owing to the great prosperity of Prussia at
large, after the Seven-Years War; to the manifold industries awakening,
which have gone on progressive ever since. Dohm declares farther, that
the very object was in a sort fanciful, nugatory; arguing that nobody
did attack Friedrich;--but omitting to prove that nobody would have done
so, had Friedrich NOT stood ready to receive him. We will remark only,
what is very indisputable, that Friedrich, owing to the Regie, or to
other causes, did get the humble overplus necessary for him; and did
stand ready for any war which might have come (and which did in a
sort come); that he more and more relaxed the Regie, as it became less
indispensable to him; and was willing, if he found the Caricatures and
Opposition Placards too high posted, to save the poor reading people any
trouble that was possible.
A French eye-witness testifies: "They had no talent, these Regie
fellows, but that of writing and ciphering; extremely conceited too, and
were capable of the most ridiculous follies. Once, for instance, they
condemned a common soldier, who had hidden some pounds of tobacco, to a
fine of 200 thalers. The King, on reviewing it for confirmation, wrote
on the margin: 'Before confirming this sentence, I should wish to know
where the Soldier, who gets 8 groschen [ninepence halfpenny] in the
5 days, will find the 200 crowns for paying this Fine!'" [Laveaux (2d
edition), iii. 228.] Innumerable instances of a constant disposition
that way, on the King's part, stand on record. "A crown a head on the
import of fat cattle, Tax on butcher's-meat?" writes he once to De
Launay: "No, that would fall on the poorer classes: to that I must
say No. I am, by office, Procurator of the Poor (L'AVOCAT DU PAUVRE)."
Elsewhere it is "AVOCAT DEC PAUVRE ET DU SOLDAT (of the working-man and
of the soldier); and have to plead their cause." [Preuss, iii. 20.]
We will now give our Second Anecdote; which has less of memorability
to us strangers at present, though doubtless it was then, in Berlin
society, the more celebrated of the two; relating, as it did, to a high
Court-Lady, almost the highest, and who was herself only too celebrated
in those years. The heroine is Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick, King's
own Niece and a pretty woman; who for four years (14th July, 1765-18th
April, 1769) of her long life was Princess Royal of Prussia,--Wife of
that tall young Gentleman whom we used to see dancing about, whom we
last saw at Schweidnitz getting flung from his horse, on the day of
Pirch's saddle there:--his Wife for four years, but in the fourth year
ceased to be so [Rodenbeck, ii. 241, 257.] (for excellent reasons,
on both sides), and lived thenceforth in a divorced eclipsed state at
Stettin, where is laid the scene of our Anecdote. I understand it to be
perfectly true; but cannot ascertain from any of the witnesses in what
year the thing happened; or whether it was at Stettin or Berlin,--though
my author has guessed, "Stettin, in the Lady's divorced state," as
appears.
"This Princess had commissioned, direct from Lyon, a very beautiful
dress; which arrived duly, addressed to her at Stettin. As this kind of
stuffs is charged with very heavy dues, the DOUANIER, head Custom-house
Personage of the Town, had the impertinence to detain the dress till
payment were made. The Princess, in a lofty indignation, sent word to
this person, To bring the dress instantly, and she would pay the dues on
it. He obeyed: but,"--mark the result,--"scarcely had the Princess got
eye on him, when she seized her Lyon Dress; and, giving the Douanier a
couple of good slaps on the face, ordered him out of her apartment and
house.
"The Douanier, thinking himself one and somewhat, withdrew in high
choler; had a long PROCES-VERBAL of the thing drawn out; and sent it to
the King with eloquent complaint, 'That he had been dishonored in
doing the function appointed him.' Friedrich replied as follows: TO
THE DOUANIER AT STETTIN: 'The loss of the Excise-dues shall fall to my
score; the Dress shall remain with the Princess; the slaps to him who
has received them. As to the pretended Dishonor, I entirely relieve
the complainant from that: never can the appliance of a beautiful hand
dishonor the face of an Officer of Customs.--F.'" [Laveaux (abridged),
iii. 229.]
Northern Tourists, Wraxall and others, passing that way, speak of this
Princess, down to recent times, as a phenomenon of the place. Apparently
a high and peremptory kind of Lady, disdaining to be bowed too low by
her disgraces. She survived all her generation, and the next and the
next, and indeed into our own. Died 18th February, 1840: at the age
of ninety-six. Threescore and eleven years of that eclipsed Stettin
Existence; this of the Lyon gown, and caitiff of a Custom-houser slapped
on the face, her one adventure put on record for us!--
She was signally blamable in that of the Divorce; but not she alone,
nor first of the Two. Her Crown-Prince, Friedrich Wilhelm, called
afterwards, as King, "DER DICKE (the Fat, or the Big)," and held in
little esteem by Posterity,--a headlong, rather dark and physical
kind of creature, though not ill-meaning or dishonest,--was himself a
dreadful sinner in that department of things; and had BEGUN the bad
game against his poor Cousin and Spouse! Readers of discursive turn
are perhaps acquainted with a certain "Grafin von Lichtenau," and her
MEMOIRS so called:--not willingly, but driven, I fish up one specimen,
and one only, from that record of human puddles and perversities:--
"From the first year of our attachment," says this precious Grafin, "I
was already the confidant of his," the Prince of Prussia's, "most secret
thoughts. One day [in 1767, second year of his married life, I then
fifteen, slim Daughter of a Player on the French Horn, in his Majesty's
pay], the Prince happened to be very serious; and was owning to me with
frankness that he had some wrongs towards my sex to reproach himself
with,"--alas, yes, some few:--"and he swore that he would never forsake
ME; and that if Heaven disposed of my life before his, none but he
should close my eyes. He was fingering with a penknife at the time; he
struck the point of it into the palm of his left hand, and wrote with
his blood [the unclean creature], on a little bit of paper, the Oath
which his lips had just pronounced in so solemn a tone. Vainly should I
undertake to paint my emotion on this action of his! The Prince saw what
I felt; and took advantage of it to beg that I would follow his example.
I hastened to satisfy him; and traced, as he had done, with my blood,
the promise to remain his friend to the tomb, and never to forsake
him. This Promise must have been found among his Papers after his death
[still in the Archives? we will hope not!]--Both of us stood faithful to
this Oath. The tie of love, it is true, we broke: but that was by mutual
consent, and the better to fix ourselves in the bonds of an inviolable
friendship. Other mistresses reigned over his senses; but I"--ACH GOTT,
no more of that. [_Memoires de la Comtesse de Lichtenau_ (a Londres,
chez Colburn Libraire, Conduit-street, Bond-street, 2 tomes, small 8vo,
1809), i. 129.]
The King's own account of the affair is sufficiently explicit. His words
are: "Not long ago [about two years before this of the penknife] we
mentioned the Prince of Prussia's marriage with Elizabeth of Brunswick
[his Cousin twice over, her Mother, Princess Charlotte of Prussia, being
his Father's Sister and mine, and her Father HIS Mother's Brother,--if
you like to count it]. This engagement, from which everybody had
expected happy consequences, did not correspond to the wishes of the
Royal House." Only one Princess could be realized (subsequently Wife to
the late Duke of York),--she came this same year of the penknife,--and
bad outlooks for more. "The Husband, young and dissolute (SANS MOEURS),
given up to a crapulous life, from which his relatives could not correct
him, was continually committing infidelities to his Wife. The Princess,
who was in the flower of her beauty, felt outraged by such neglect
of her charms; her vivacity, and the good opinion she had of herself,
brought her upon the thought of avenging her wrongs by retaliation.
Speedily she gave in to excesses, scarcely inferior to those of her
Husband. Family quarrels broke out, and were soon publicly known. The
antipathy that ensued took away all hope of succession [had it been
desirable in these sad circumstances!]. Prince Henri [JUNIOR, this
hopeful Prince of Prussia's Brother], who was gifted with all the
qualities to be wished in a young man [witness my tears for him], had
been carried off by small-pox. ["26th May, 1767," age 19 gone; ELOGE
of him by Friedrich ("MS. still stained with tears"), in _OEuvres de
Frederic_, vii. 37 et seq.] The King's Brothers, Princes Henri and
Ferdinand, avowed frankly that they would never consent to have, by some
accidental bastard, their rights of succession to the crown carried
off. In the end, there was nothing for it but proceeding to a divorce."
[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 23.]
Divorce was done in a beautiful private manner; case tried with strictly
shut doors; all the five judges under oath to carry into the grave
whatever they came to know of it: [Preuss, iv. 180-186.] divorce
completed 18th April, 1769; and, within three months, a new marriage
was accomplished, Princess Frederika Luisa of Hessen-Darmstadt the happy
woman. By means of whom there was duly realized a Friedrich Wilhelm, who
became "King Friedrich Wilhelm III." (a much-enduring, excellent, though
inarticulate man), as well as various other Princes and Princesses,
in spite of interruptions from the Lichtenau Sisterhood. High-souled
Elizabeth was relegated to Stettin; her amount of Pension is not
mentioned; her Family, after the unhappy proofs communicated to them,
had given their consent and sanction;--and she stayed there, idle, or
her own mistress of work, for the next seventy-one years.--Enough of HER
Lyon Dress, surely, and of the Excise system altogether!--
THE NEUE PALAIS, IN SANS-SOUCI NEIGHBORHOOD, IS FOUNDED AND FINISHED
(1763-1770).
If D'Alembert's Visit was the germ of the Excise system, it will be
curious to note,--and indeed whether or not, it will be chronologically
serviceable to us here, and worth noting,--that there went on a small
synchronous affair, still visible to everybody: namely, That in the very
hours while Friedrich and D'Alembert were saluting mutually at Geldern
(11th June, 1763), there was laid the foundation of what they call the
NEUE PALAIS; New Palace of Sans-Souci: [Rodenbeck, ii. 219.] a sumptuous
Edifice, in the curious LOUIS-QUINZE or what is called "Rococo" style
of the time; Palace never much inhabited by Friedrich or his successors,
which still stands in those ornamental Potsdam regions. Why built,
especially in the then down-pressed financial circumstances, some have
had their difficulties to imagine. It appears, this New Palace had been
determined on before the War broke out; and Friedrich said to
himself: "We will build it now, to help the mechanical classes in
Berlin,--perhaps also, in part [think some, and why should not they, a
little?] to show mankind that we have still ready money; and are nothing
like so ruined as they fancy."
"This NEUE PALAIS," says one recent Tourist, "is a pleasant quaint
object, nowadays, to the stranger. It has the air DEGAGE POCOCURANTE;
pleasantly fine in aspect and in posture;--spacious expanses round
it, not in a waste, but still less in a strict condition; and (in its
deserted state) has a silence, especially a total absence of needless
flunkies and of gaping fellow-loungers, which is charming. Stands mute
there, in its solitude, in its stately silence and negligence, like
some Tadmor of the Wilderness in small. The big square of Stables,
Coach-houses, near by, was locked up,--probably one sleeping groom in
it. The very CUSTOS of the grand Edifice (such the rarity of fees to
him) I could not awaken without difficulty. In the gray autumn zephyrs,
no sound whatever about this New Palace of King Friedrich's, except the
rustle of the crisp brown leaves, and of any faded or fading memories
you may have.
"I should say," continues he, "it somehow reminds you of the City of
Bath. It has the cut of a battered Beau of old date; Beau still extant,
though in strangely other circumstances; something in him of pathetic
dignity in that kind. It shows excellent sound masonries; which have
an over-tendency to jerk themselves into pinnacles, curvatures and
graciosities; many statues atop,--three there are, in a kind of grouped
or partnership attitude; 'These,' said diligent scandal, 'note them;
these mean Maria Theresa, Pompadour and CATIN DU NORD' (mere Muses, I
believe, or of the Nymph or Hamadryad kind, nothing of harm in them).
In short, you may call it the stone Apotheosis of an old French Beau.
Considerably weather-beaten (the brown of lichens spreading visibly
here and there, the firm-set ashlar telling you, 'I have stood a hundred
years');--Beau old and weather-beaten, with his cocked-hat not in the
fresh condition, all his gold-laces tarnished; and generally looking
strange, and in a sort tragical, to find himself, fleeting
creature, become a denizen of the Architectural Fixities and earnest
Eternities!"--
From Potsdam Palace to the New Palace of Sans-Souci may be a mile
distance; flat ground, parallel to the foot of Hills; all through
arbors, parterres, water-works, and ornamental gardenings and cottagings
or villa-ings,--Cottage-Villa for Lord Marischal is one of them. This
mile of distance, taking the COTTAGE Royal of Sans-Souci on its
hill-top as vertex, will be the base of an isosceles or nearly isosceles
triangle, flatter than equilateral. To the Cottage Royal of Sans-Souci
may be about three-quarters of a mile northeast from this New Palace,
and from Potsdam Palace to it rather less. And the whole square-mile or
so of space is continuously a Garden, not in the English sense, though
it has its own beauties of the more artificial kind; and, at any rate,
has memories for you, and footsteps of persons still unforgotten by
mankind.--Here is a Notice of Lord Marischal; which readers will not
grudge; the chronology of the worthy man, in these his later epochs,
being in so hazy a state:--
Lord Marischal, we know well and Pitt knows, was in England in
1761,--ostensibly on the Kintore Heritage; and in part, perhaps, really
on that errand. But he went and came, at dates now uncertain; was back
in Spain after that, had difficult voyagings about; [King's Letters to
him, in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xx. 282-285.]--and did not get to rest
again, in his Government of Neufchatel, till April, 1762. There is a
Letter of the King's, which at least fixes that point:--
"BRESLAU, 10th APRIL, 1762. My nose is the most impertinent nose in
the universe, MON CHER MYLORD [Queen-Dowager snuff, SPANIOL from
the fountain-head, of Marischal's providing; quality exquisite, but
difficult to get transmitted in the Storms of War]; I am ashamed of the
trouble it costs you! I beg many pardons;--and should be quite abashed,
did I not know how you compassionate the weak points of your friends,
and that, for a long time past, you have a singular indulgence for my
nose. I am very glad to know you happily returned to your Government,
safe at Colombier (DOVE-COTE) in Neufchatel again." This is 10th April,
1762. There, as I gather, quiet in his Dove-cote, Marischal continued,
though rather weary of the business, for about a year more; or till the
King got home,--who delights in companionship, and is willing to let an
old man demit for good.
It was in Summer, 1762 (about three months after the above Letter from
the King), that Rousseau made his celebrated exodus into Neufchatel
Country, and found the old Governor so good to him,--glad to be allowed
to shelter the poor skinless creature. And, mark as curious, it must
have been on two of those mornings, towards the end of the Siege of
Schweidnitz, when things were getting so intolerable, and at times
breaking out into electricity, into "rebuke all round," that Friedrich
received that singular pair of Laconic Notes from Rousseau in
Neufchatel: forwarded, successively, by Lord Marischal; NOTE FIRST, of
date, "Motier-Travers, Neufchatel, September," nobody can guess what
day, "1762:" "I have said much ill of you, and don't repent it. Now
everybody has banished me; and it is on your threshold that I sit down.
Kill me, if you have a mind!" And then (after, not death, but the gift
of 100 crowns), NOTE SECOND, "October, 1762:"... "Take out of my sight
that sword, which dazzles and pains me; IT has only too well done its
duty, while the sceptre is abandoned:" Make Peace, can't you! [_OEuvres
completes de Rousseau_ (a Geneve, 1782-1789), xxxiii. 64, 65.]--What
curious reading for a King in such posture, among the miscellaneous
arrivals overnight! Above six weeks before either of these NOTES,
Friedrich, hearing of him from Lord Marischal, had answered: "An asylum?
Yes, by all means: the unlucky cynic!" It is on September 1st, that he
sends, by the same channel, 100 crowns for his use, with advice to "give
them in NATURA, lest he refuse otherwise;" as Friedrich knows to be
possible. In words, the Rousseau Notes got nothing of Answer. "A GARCON
SINGULIER," says Friedrich: odd fellow, yes indeed, your Majesty;--and
has such a pungency of flattery in him too, presented in the way of
snarl! His Majesty might take him, I suppose, with a kind of relish,
like Queen-Dowager snuff.
There was still another shift of place, shift which proved temporary,
in old Marischal's life: Home to native Aberdeenshire. The two childless
Brothers, Earls of Kintore, had died successively, the last of them
November 22d, 1761: title and heritage, not considerable the latter,
fell duly, by what preparatives we know, to old Marischal; but his Keith
kinsfolk, furthermore, would have him personally among them,--nay, after
that, would have him to wed and produce new Keiths. At the age of 78;
decidedly an inconvenient thing! Old Marischal left Potsdam "August,
1763," [Letter of his to the King ("LONDRES, 14 AOUT, 1763"), in
_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xx. 293.--In _Letters of Eminent Persons to
David Hume_ (Edinburgh, 1849), pp. 57-71, are some Nine from the Old
Marischal; in curiously mixed dialect, cheerful, but indistinct; the two
chief dates of which are: "Touch" (guttural TuCH, in Aberdeenshire),
"28 October, 1763," and "Potsdam, 20 February, 1765."]--NEW-PALACE
scaffoldings and big stone blocks conspicuous in those localities;
pleasant D'Alembert now just about leaving, in the other
direction;--much to Friedrich's regret, the old Marischal especially, as
is still finely evident.
FRIEDRICH TO LORD MARISCHAL (in Scotland for the last six months).
"SANS-SOUCI, 16th February, 1764.
"I am not surprised that the Scotch fight to have you among them; and
wish to have progeny of yours, and to preserve your bones. You have in
your lifetime the lot of Homer after death: Cities arguing which is your
birthplace;--I myself would dispute it with Edinburgh to possess you.
If I had ships, I would make a descent on Scotland, to steal off my CHER
MYLORD, and bring him hither. Alas, our Elbe Boats can't do it. But you
give me hopes;--which I seize with avidity! I was your late Brother's
friend, and had obligations to him; I am yours with heart and soul.
These are my titles, these are my rights:--you sha'n't be forced in
the matter of progeny here (FAIRE L'ETALON ICI), neither priests nor
attorneys shall meddle with you; you shall live here in the bosom of
friendship, liberty and philosophy." Come to me!...--F. [_OEuvres de
Frederic,_ xx. 295.]
Old Marischal did come; and before long. I know not the precise month:
but "his Villa-Cottage was built for him," the Books say, "in 1764." He
had left D'Alembert just going; next year he will find Helvetius coming.
He lived here, a great treasure to Friedrich, till his death, 25th May,
1778, age 92.
The New Palace was not finished till 1770;--in which year, also,
Friedrich reckons that the general Problem of Repairing Prussia was
victoriously over. New Palace, growing or complete, looks down on all
these operations and occurrences. In its cradle, it sees D'Alembert go,
Lord Marischal go; Helvetius come, Lord Marischal come; in its
boyhood or maturity, the Excise, and French RATS-DE-CAVE, spring up;
Crown-Prince Friedrich Wilhelm prick his hand for a fit kind of ink;
Friedrich Wilhelm's Divorced Wife give her Douanier two slaps in
the face, by way of payment. Nay, the same Friedrich Wilhelm, become
"Friedrich Wilhelm II., or DER DICKE," died in it,--his Lichtenau AND
his second Wife, jewel of women, nursing him in his last sickness there.
["Died 16th November, 1797."]
The violent stress of effort for repairing Prussia, Friedrich intimates,
was mostly over in 1766: till which date specifically, and in a looser
sense till 1770, that may be considered as his main business. But it was
not at any time his sole business; nor latterly at all equal in interest
to some others that had risen on him, as the next Chapter will now
show. Here, first, is a little Fraction of NECROLOGY, which may be worth
taking with us. Readers can spread these fateful specialties over the
Period in question; and know that each of them came with a kind of
knell upon Friedrich's heart, whatever he might be employed about.
Hour striking after hour on the Horologe of Time; intimating how the
Afternoon wore, and that Night was coming. Various meanings there would
be to Friedrich in these footfalls of departing guests, the dear, the
less dear, and the indifferent or hostile; but each of them would mean:
"Gone, then, gone; thus we all go!"
"OBITUARY IN FRIEDRICH'S CIRCLE TILL 1771."
Of Polish Majesty's death (5th October, 1763), and then (2d December
following) of his Kurprinz or Successor's, with whom we dined at
Moritzburg so recently, there will be mention by and by. November 28th,
1763, in the interval between these two, the wretched Bruhl had died.
April 14th, 1764, died the wretched Pompadour;--"To us not known, JE NE
LA CONNAIS PAS:"--hapless Butterfly, she had been twenty years in the
winged condition; age now forty-four: dull Louis, they say, looked out
of window as her hearse departed, "FROIDEMENT," without emotion of any
visible kind. These little concern Friedrich or us; we will restrict
ourselves to Friends.
"DIED IN 1764. At Pisa, Algarotti (23d May, 1764, age fifty-two); with
whom Friedrich has always had some correspondence hitherto (to himself
interesting, though not to us), and will never henceforth have more.
Friedrich raised a Monument to him; Monument still to be seen in the
Campo-Santo of Pisa: 'HIC JACET OVIDII AEMULUS ET NEUTONI DISCIPULUS;'
friends have added 'FREDERICUS MAGNUS PONI FECIT;' and on another part
of the Monument, 'ALGAROTTUS NON OMNIS.' [Preuss, iv. 188.]
"--IN 1765. At the age of eighty, November 18th, Grafin Camas, 'MA BONNE
MAMAN' (widow since 1741); excellent old Lady,--once brilliantly young,
German by birth, her name Brandt;--to whom the King's LETTERS used to
be so pretty." This same year, too, Kaiser Franz died; but him we will
reserve, as not belonging to this Select List.
"--IN 1766. At Nanci, 23d February, age eighty-six, King Stanislaus
Leczinsky: 'his clothes caught fire' (accidental spark or sputter on
some damask dressing-gown or the like); and the much-enduring innocent
old soul ended painfully his Titular career.
"DIED IN 1767. October 22d, the Grand-Duchess of Sachsen-Gotha, age
fifty-seven; a sad stroke this also, among one's narrowing List of
Friends.--I doubt if Friedrich ever saw this high Lady after the Visit
we lately witnessed. His LETTERS to her are still in the Archives of
Gotha: not hers to him; all lost, these latter, but an accidental
Two, which are still beautiful in their kind. [Given in _OEuvres de
Frederic,_ xviii. 165, 256.]
"--IN 1770. Bielfeld, the fantastic individual of old days. Had long
been out of Friedrich's circle,--in Altenburg Country, I think;--without
importance to Friedrich or us: the year of him will do, without search
for day or month.
"---IN 1771. Two heavy deaths come this year. January 28th, 1771, at
Berlin, dies our valuable old friend Excellency Mitchell,--still here on
the part of England, in cordial esteem as a man and companion; though
as Minister, I suppose, with function more and more imaginary. This
painfully ushers in the year. To usher it out, there is still worse:
faithful D'Argens dies, 26th December, 1771, on a visit in his native
Provence,--leaving, as is still visible, [Friedrich's two Letters to the
Widow (Ib. xix. 427-429).] a big and sad blank behind him at Potsdam."
But we need not continue; at least not at present.
Long before all these, Friedrich had lost friends; with a sad but quiet
emotion he often alludes to this tragic fact, that all the souls he
loved most are gone. His Winterfelds, his Keiths, many loved faces, the
War has snatched: at Monbijou, at Baireuth, it was not War; but they too
are gone. Is the world becoming all a Mausoleum, then; nothing of divine
in it but the Tombs of vanished loved ones? Friedrich makes no noise on
such subjects: loved and unloved alike must go.
We have still to mark Kaiser Franz's sudden death; a thing politically
interesting, if not otherwise. August, 1765, at Innspruck, during the
Marriage-festivities of his Second Son, Leopold (Duke of Florence, who
afterwards, on Joseph's death, was Kaiser),--Kaiser Franz, sauntering
about in the evening gala, "18th August, about 9 P.M.," suddenly
tottered, staggered as falling; fell into Son Joseph's arms; and was
dead. Above a year before, this same Joseph, his Eldest Son, had
been made King of the Romans: "elected 26th March; crowned 3d April,
1764;"--Friedrich furthering it, wishful to be friendly with his late
enemies. [Rodenbeck, ii. 234.]
On this Innspruck Tragedy, Joseph naturally became Kaiser,--Part-Kaiser;
his Dowager-Mother, on whom alone it depends, having decided that way.
The poor Lady was at first quite overwhelmed with her grief. She had the
death-room of her Husband made into a Chapel; she founded furthermore a
Monastery in Innspruck, "Twelve Canonesses to pray there for the repose
of Franz;" was herself about to become Abbess there, and quit the
secular world; but in the end was got persuaded to continue, and take
Son Joseph as Coadjutor. [Hormayr, OESTERREICHISCHER PLUTARCH (º Maria
Theresa), iv. (2tes Bandchen) 6-124; MARIA THERESIENS LEBEN, p. 30.] In
which capacity we shall meet the young man again.
Chapter III.--TROUBLES IN POLAND.
April 11th, 1764, one year after his Seven-Years labor of Hercules,
Friedrich made Treaty of Alliance with the new Czarina Catharine.
England had deserted him; France was his enemy, especially Pompadour and
Choiseul, and refused reconcilement, though privately solicited: he was
without an Ally anywhere. The Russians had done him frightful damage in
the last War, and were most of all to be dreaded in the case of any new
one. The Treaty was a matter of necessity as well as choice. Agreement
for mutual good neighborhood and friendly offices; guarantee of each
other against intrusive third parties: should either get engaged in war
with any neighbor, practical aid to the length of 12,000 men, or else
money in lieu. Treaty was for eight years from day of date.
As Friedrich did not get into war, and Catharine did, with the Turks and
certain loose Polacks, the burden of fulfilment happened to fall wholly
on Friedrich; and he was extremely punctual in performance,--eager now,
and all his life after, to keep well with such a Country under such a
Czarina. Which proved to be the whole rule of his policy on that Russian
side. "Good that Country cannot bring me by any quarrel with it; evil
it can, to a frightful extent, in case of my quarrelling with others! Be
wary, be punctual, magnanimously polite, with that grandiose Czarina and
her huge territories and notions:" this was Friedrich's constant rule
in public and in private. Nor is it thought his CORRESPONDENCE WITH
THE EMPRESS CATHARINE, when future generations see it in print,
will disclose the least ground of offence to that high-flying Female
Potentate of the North. Nor will it ever be known what the silently
observant Friedrich thought of her, except indeed what we already know,
or as good as know, That he, if anybody did, saw her clearly enough for
what she was; and found good to repress into absolute zero whatever had
no bearing upon business, and might by possibility give offence in that
quarter. For we are an old King, and have learned by bitter experiences!
No more nicknames, biting verses, or words which a bird of the air could
carry; though this poor Lady too has her liabilities, were not we old
and prudent;--and is entirely as weak on certain points (deducting the
devotions and the brandy-and-water) as some others were! The Treaty
was renewed when necessary; and continued valid and vital in every
particular, so long as Friedrich ruled.
By the end of the first eight years, by strictly following this passive
rule, Friedrich, in counterbalance of his losses, unexpectedly found
himself invested with a very singular bit of gain,--"unjust gain!" cried
all men, making it of the nature of gain and loss to him,--which is
still practically his, and which has made, and makes to this day, an
immense noise in the world. Everybody knows we mean West-Preussen;
Partition of Poland; bloodiest picture in the Book of Time, Sarmatia's
fall unwept without a crime;--and that we have come upon a very
intricate part of our poor History.
No prudent man--especially if to himself, as is my own poor case
in regard to it, the subject have long been altogether dead and
indifferent--would wish to write of the Polish Question. For almost a
hundred years the Polish Question has been very loud in the world; and
ever and anon rises again into vocality among Able Editors, as a thing
pretending not to be dead and buried, but capable of rising again, and
setting itself right, by good effort at home and abroad. Not advisable,
beyond the strict limits of compulsion, to write of it at present! The
rather as the History of it, any History we have, is not an intelligible
series of events, but a series of vociferous execrations, filling all
Nature, with nothing left to the reader but darkness, and such remedies
against despair as he himself can summon or contrive.
"Rulhiere's on that subject," says a Note which I may cite, "is the
only articulate-speaking Book to which mankind as yet can apply; [Cl.
Rulhiere, _Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne_ (Paris, 1807), 4 vols.
12mo.] and they will by no means find that a sufficient one. Rulhiere's
Book has its considerable merits; but it absolutely wants those of a
History; and can be recognized by no mind as an intelligible cosmic
Portraiture of that chaotic Mass of Occurrences: chronology, topography,
precision of detail by time and place; scene, and actors on scene,
remain unintelligible. Rulhiere himself knew Poland, at least had looked
on it from Warsaw outwards, year after year, and knew of it what an
inquiring Secretary of Legation could pick up on those terms, which
perhaps, after all, is not very much. His Narrative is drowned in
beautiful seas of description and reflection; has neither dates nor
references; and advances at an intolerable rate of slowness; in fact,
rather turns on its axis than advances; produces on you the effect of a
melodious Sonata, not of a lucid and comfortably instructive History.
"I forget for how long Rulhiere had been in Poland, as Ambassador's
Assistant: but the Country, the King and leading Personages were
personally known to him, more or less; Events with all details of them
were known: 'Why not write a History of the Anarchy and Wreck they fell
into?' said the Official people to him, on his return home: 'For behoof
of the Dauphin [who is to be Louis XVI. shortly]; may not he perhaps
draw profit from it? At the top of the Universe, experience is sometimes
wanted. Here are the Archives, here is Salary, here are what appliances
you like to name: Write!' It is well known he was appointed, on a
Pension of 250 pounds a year, with access to all archives, documents and
appliances in possession of the French Government, and express charge to
delineate this subject for benefit of the Dauphin's young mind. Nor can
I wonder, considering everything, that the process on Rulhiere's part,
being so full of difficulties, was extremely deliberate; that this Book
did not grow so steadily or fast as the Dauphin did; and that in
fact the poor Dauphin never got the least benefit from it,--being
guillotined, he, in 1793, and the Book intended for him never coming to
light for fourteen years afterwards, it too in a posthumous and still
unfinished condition.
"Rulhiere has heard the voices of rumor, knows an infinitude of events
that were talked of; but has not discriminated which were the vital,
which were the insignificant; treats the vital and the insignificant
alike; seldom with satisfactory precision; mournfully seldom giving
any date, and by no chance any voucher or authority;--and instead of
practical terrestrial scene of action, with distances, milestones,
definite sequence of occurrences, and of causes and effects, paints us
a rosy cloudland, which if true at all, as he well intends it to be, is
little more than symbolically or allegorically so; and can satisfy no
clear-headed Dauphin or man. Rulhiere strives to be authentic,
too; gives you no suspicion of his fairness. There is really fine
high-colored painting in Rulhiere! and you hope always he will let you
into the secret of the matter: but the sad fact is, he never does. He
merely loses himself in picturesque details, philosophic eloquences,
elegancies; takes you to a Castle of Choczim, a Monastery of
Czenstochow, a Bay of Tschesme, and lets off extensive fire-works that
contain little or no shot; leads you on trackless marches, inroads or
outroads, through the Lithuanian Peat-bogs, on daring adventures and
hair-breadth escapes of mere Pulawski, Potocki and the like;--had not
got to understand the matter himself, you perceive: how hopeless to make
you understand it!"
English readers, however, have no other shift; the rest of the Books I
have seen,--_Histoire des Revolutions de Pologne;_ [1778 (A WARSOVIE, ET
SE TROUVE A PARIS), 2 vols. 8vo.] _Histoire des Trois Demembremens de la
Pologne;_ [Anonymous (by one FERRAND, otherwise unknown to me), Paris,
1820, 3 vols. 8vo.] _Letters on Poland;_ [Anonymous (by a "Reverend
Mr. Lindsey," it would seem), LETTERS CONCERNING THE PRESENT STATE OF
POLAND, TOGETHER WITH &c. (London, 1773; 1 vol. 8vo): of these LETTERS,
or at least of Reverend Lindsey, Author of them, "Tutor to King
Stanislaus's Nephew," and a man of painfully loud loose tongue, there
may perhaps be mention afterwards.] and many more,--are not worth
mentioning at all. Comfortable in the mad dance of these is Hermann's
recent dull volume; [Hermann, _Geschichte des Russischen Staats,_ vol.
v. (already cited in regard to the Peter-Catharine tragedy); seems to be
compiled mainly from the Saxon Archives, from DESPATCHES written on
the spot and at the time.]--commonplace, dull, but steady and faithful;
yielding us at least dates, and an immunity from noise. By help of
Hermann and the others, distilled to CAPUT MORTUUM, a few dated facts
(cardinal we dare not call them) may be extracted;--dimly out of these,
to the meditating mind, some outline of the phenomenon may begin to
become conceivable. King of Poland dies; and there ensue huge Anarchies
in that Country.
KING OF POLAND DIES; AND THERE ENSUE HUGE ANARCHIES IN THAT COUNTRY.
The poor old King of Poland--whom we saw, on that fall of the curtain
at Pirna seven years ago, rush off for Warsaw with his Bruhl, with
expressive speed and expressive silence, and who has been waiting there
ever since, sublimely confident that his powerful terrestrial friends,
Austria, Russia, France, not to speak of Heaven's justice at all, would
exact due penalty, of signal and tremendous nature, on the Prussian
Aggressor--has again been disappointed. The poor old Gentleman got no
compensation for his manifold losses and woes at Pirna or elsewhere; not
the least mention of such a thing, on the final winding-up of that War
of Seven Years, in which his share had been so tragical; no alleviation
was provided for him in this world. His sorrows in Poland have been
manifold; nothing but anarchies, confusions and contradictions had been
his Royal portion there: in about Forty different Diets he had tried to
get some business done,--no use asking what; for the Diets, one and
all, exploded in NIE POZWALAM; and could do no business, good, bad or
indifferent, for him or anybody. An unwise, most idle Country; following
as chief employment perpetual discrepancy with its idle unwise King and
self; Russia the virtual head of it this long while, so far as it has
any head.
FEBRUARY-AUGUST, 1763, just while the Treaty of Hubertsburg was blessing
everybody with the return of Peace, and for long months after Peace had
returned to everybody, Polish Majesty was in sore trouble. Trouble in
regard to Courland, to his poor Son Karl, who fancied himself elected,
under favor and permission of the late Czarina our gracious Protectress
and Ally, to the difficult post of Duke in Courland; and had proceeded,
three or four years ago, to take possession,--but was now interrupted
by Russian encroachments and violences. Not at all well disposed to him,
these new Peters, new Catharines. They have recalled their Bieren from
Siberia; declare that old Bieren is again Duke, or at least that young
Bieren is, and not Saxon Karl at all; and have proceeded, Czarina
Catharine has, to install him forcibly with Russian soldiers. Karl
declares, "You shall kill ME before you or he get into this Palace of
Mietau!"--and by Domestics merely, and armed private Gentlemen, he does
maintain himself in said Palatial Mansion; valiantly indignant, for
about six months; the Russian Battalions girdling him on all sides,
minatory more and more, but loath to begin actual bloodshed. [Rulhiere,
ii. (livre v.) 81 et antea; Hermann, v. 348 et seq.] A transaction very
famed in those parts, and still giving loud voice in the Polish Books,
which indeed get ever noisier from this point onward, till they end in
inarticulate shrieks, as we shall too well hear.
Empress Catharine, after the lapse of six months, sends an Ambassador
to Warsaw (Kayserling by name), who declares, in tone altogether
imperative, that Czarish Majesty feels herself weary of such contumacy,
weary generally of Polish Majesty's and Polish Republic's multifarious
contumacies; and, in fine, cruelest of all, that she has troops on the
frontier; that Courland is not the only place where she has troops.
What a stab to the poor old man! "Contumacies?" Has not he been Russia's
patient stepping-stone, all along; his anarchic Poland and he accordant
in that, if in nothing else? "Let us to Saxony," decides he passionately,
"and leave all this." In Saxony his poor old Queen is dead long since;
much is dead: Saxony and Life generally, what a Golgotha! He immediately
sends word to Karl, "Give up Courland; I am going home!"--and did
hastily make his packages, and bid adieu to Warsaw, and, in a few weeks
after to this anarchic world altogether. Died at Dresden, 5th October,
1763.
Polish Majesty had been elected 5th October, 1733; died, you observe,
5th October, 1763;--was King of Poland ("King," save the mark!) for 30
years to a day. Was elected--do readers still remember how? Leaves a
ruined Saxony lying round him; a ruined life mutely asking him, "Couldst
thou have done no better, then?" Wretched Bruhl followed him in four or
five weeks. Nay, in about two months, his Son and Successor, "Friedrich
Christian" (with whom we dined at Moritzburg), had followed him; [Prince
died 17th December (Bruhl, 18th November), 1763.] leaving a small
Boy, age 13, as new Kurfurst, "Friedrich August" the name of him, with
guardians to manage the Minority; especially with his Mother as chief
guardian,--of whom, for two reasons, we are now to say something. Reason
FIRST is, That she is really a rather brilliant, distinguished creature,
distinguished more especially in Friedrich's world; whose LETTERS to
her are numerous, and, in their kind, among the notablest he wrote;--of
which we would gladly give some specimen, better or worse; and reason
SECOND, That in so doing, we may contrive to look, for a moment or two,
into the preliminary Polish Anarchies at first-hand; and, transiently
and far off, see something of them as if with our own eyes.
Marie-Antoine, or Marie-Antoinette, Electress of Saxony, is still a
bright Lady, and among the busiest living; now in her 40th year: "born
17th July, 1724; second child of Kaiser Karl VII.;"--a living memento to
us of those old times of trouble. Papa, when she came to him, was in his
27th year; this was his second daughter; three years afterwards he had
a son (born 1727; died 1777), who made the "Peace of Fussen," to
Friedrich's disgust, in 1745, if readers recollect;--and who, dying
childless, will give rise to another War (the "Potato War" so called),
for Friedrich's behoof and ours. This little creature would be in
her teens during that fatal Kaisership (1742-1745, her age then
18-21),--during those triumphs, flights and furnished-lodging
intricacies. Her Mamma, whom we have seen, a little fat bullet given to
devotion, was four years younger than Papa. Mamma died "11th December,
1756," Germany all blazing out in War again; she had been a Widow eleven
years.
Marie-Antoine was wedded to Friedrich Christian, Saxon Kurprinz, "20th
June, 1747;" her age 23, his 25:--Chronology itself is something, if
one will attend to it, in the absence of all else! The young pair were
Cousins, their Mothers being Sisters; Polish Majesty one's Uncle, age
now 51,--who was very fond of us, poor indolent soul, and glad of
our company on an afternoon, "being always in his dressing-gown by 2
o'clock." Concerning which the tongue of Court scandal was not entirely
idle,--Hanbury chronicling, as we once noticed. All which I believe to
be mere lying wind. The young Princess was beautiful; extremely clever,
graceful and lively, we can still see for ourselves: no wonder poor
Polish Majesty, always in his dressing-gown by 2, was charmed to have
her company,--the rather as I hope she permitted him a little smoking
withal.
Her husband was crook-backed; and, except those slight, always perfectly
polite little passages, in Schmettau's Siege (1759), in the Hubertsburg
Treaty affair, in the dinner at Moritzburg, I never heard much history
of him. He became Elector 5th October, 1763; but enjoyed the dignity
little more than two months. Our Princess had borne him seven
children,--three boys, four girls,--the eldest about 13, a Boy, who
succeeded; the youngest a girl, hardly 3. The Boy is he who sent Gellert
the caparisoned Horse, and had estafettes on the road while Gellert lay
dying. This Boy lived to be 77, and saw strange things in the world; had
seen Napoleon and the French Revolution; was the first "King of Saxony"
so called; saw Jena, retreat of Moscow; saw the "Battle of the Nations"
(Leipzig, 15th-18th October, 1813), and his great Napoleon terminate in
bankruptcy. He left no Son. A Brother, age 72, succeeded him as King for
a few years; whom again a Brother would have succeeded, had not he (this
third Brother, age now 66) renounced, in favor of HIS Son, the present
King of Saxony. Enough, enough!--
August 28th, 1763, while afflicted Polish Majesty is making his packages
at Warsaw, far away,--Marie-Antoinette, in Dresden, had sent Friedrich
an Opera of her composing, just brought out by her on her Court-theatre
there. Here is Friedrich's Answer,--to what kind of OPERA I know not,
but to a Letter accompanying it which is extremely pretty.
FRIEDRICH TO THE ELECTORAL PRINCESS (at Dresden).
"POTSDAM, 5th September, 1763.
"MADAM MY SISTER,--The remembrance your Royal Highness sends is the more
flattering to me, as I regret infinitely not to have been spectator and
hearer of the fine things [Opera THALESTRIS, words and music entirely
lost to us] which I have admired for myself in the silent state.
"I wish I could send you things as pleasant out of these parts: but,
Madam, I am obliged to give you a hint, which may be useful if you can
have it followed. In Saxony, however, my Letters get opened;--which
obliges me to send this by a special Messenger; and him, that he may
cause no suspicion, I have charged with fruits from my garden. You will
have the goodness to say [if anybody is eavesdropping] that you asked
them of me at Moritzburg, when I was happy enough to see you there [six
months ago, coming home from the Seven-Years War]. The hint I had to
give was this:--
"In Petersburg people's minds are getting angry at the stubbornness your
friends show in refusing to recognize Duke Bieren [home from Siberia,
again Duke of Courland, by Russian appointment, as if Russia had that
right; Polish Majesty and his Prince Karl resisting to the uttermost].
I counsel you to induce the powerful in your circle to have this
condescension [they have had it, been obliged to have it, though
Friedrich does not yet know]; for it will turn out ill to them, if they
persist in being obstinately stiff. It begins already to be said That
there are more than a million Russian subjects at this time refugees in
Poland; whom, by I forget what cartel, the Republic was bound to deliver
up. Orders have been given to Detachments of Military to enter certain
places, and bring away these Russians by force. In a word, you will
ruin your affairs forever, unless you find means to produce a change of
conduct on the part of him they complain of. Take, Madam, what I now say
as a mark of the esteem and profound regard with which--"--F. [_OEuvres
de Frederic,_ xxiv. 46.]
This hint, if the King knew, had been given, in a less kind shape,
by Necessity itself; and had sent Polish Majesty, and his Bruhls and
"powerful people," bodily home, and out of that Polish Russian welter,
in a headlong and tragically passionate condition. Electoral Princess,
next time she writes, is become Electress all at once.
ELECTRESS MARIE-ANTOINE TO FRIEDRICH.
"DRESDEN, 5th October, 1763.
"SIRE,--Your Majesty has given me such assurance of your goodness
and your friendship, that I will now appeal to that promise. You have
assured us, too, that you would with pleasure contribute to secure
Poland for us. The moment is come for accomplishing that promise. The
King is dead [died this very day; see if _I_ lose time in sentimental
lamentations!]--with him these grievances of Russia [our stiffness
on Courland and the like] must be extinct; the rather as we [the now
reigning] will lend ourselves willingly to everything that can be
required of us for perfect reconcilement with that Power.
"You can do all, if you will it; you can contribute to this
reconcilement. You can render it favorable to us. You will, give me
that proof of the flattering sentiments I have been so proud of
hitherto,"--won't you, now? "Russia cannot disapprove the mediation you
might deign to offer on that behalf;--our intentions being so honestly
amicable, and all ground of controversy having died with the late
King. Russia reconciled, our views on the Polish Crown might at once be
declared (ECLATER)." Oh, do it, your Majesty;--"my gratitude shall only
end with life!--M. A." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiv. 47.]
Friedrich, who is busy negotiating his Treaty with Russia (perfected
11th April next), and understands that they will mean not to have
a Saxon, but to have a Piast, and perhaps dimly even what Piast
(Stanislaus Poniatowski, the EMERITUS Lover), who will be their own,
and not Saxony's at all,--must have been a little embarrassed by such an
appeal from his fair friend at this moment. "Wait a little; don't
answer yet," would have occurred to the common mind. But that was not
Friedrich's resource: he answers by return of post, as always in such
cases;--and in the following adroit manner brushes off, without hurt
to it, with kisses to it rather, the beautiful hand that has him by the
button:--
TO THE ELECTRESS MARIE-ANTOINE (at Dresden).
"BERLIN, 8th October, 1763.
"MADAM MY SISTER,--I begin by making my condolences and my
congratulations to your Electoral Highness on the death of the King your
Father-in-law, and on your Accession to the Electorate.
"Your Electoral Highness will remember what I wrote, not long since,
on the affairs of Poland. I am afraid, Madam, that Russia will be more
contrary to you than you think. M. de Woronzow [famous Grand-Chancellor
of Russia; saved himself dexterously in the late Peter-Catharine
overturn; has since fallen into disfavor for his notions about our
Gregory Orlof, and is now on his way to Italy, "for health's sake," in
consequence], who is just arrived here, ["Had his audience 7th October"
(yesterday): Rodenbeck, ii. 224.] told me, too, of some things which
raise an ill augury of this affair. If you do not disapprove of my
speaking frankly to you, it seems to me that it would be suitable in
you to send some discreet Diplomatist to that Court to notify the King's
death; and you would learn by him what you have to expect from her
Czarish Majesty [the Empress, he always calls her, knowing she prefers
that title]. It seems to me, Madam, that it would be precipitate
procedure should I wish to engage you in an Enterprise, which appears to
myself absolutely dubious (HASARDEE), unless approved by that Princess.
As to me, Madam, I have not the ascendant there which you suppose: I
act under rule of all the delicacies and discretions with a Court which
separated itself from my Enemies when all Europe wished to crush me: but
I am far from being able to regulate the Empress's way of thinking.
"It is the same with the quarrels about the Duke of Courland; one cannot
attempt mediation except by consent of both parties. I believe I am
not mistaken in supposing that the Court of Russia does not mean to
terminate that business by foreign mediation. What I have heard about
it (what, however, is founded only on vague news) is, That the Empress
might prevail upon herself (POURRAIT SE RESOUDRE) to purchase from Bruhl
the Principality of Zips [Zips, on the edge of Hungary; let readers take
note of that Principality, at present in the hand of Bruhl,--who has
much disgusted Poland by his voracity for Lands; and is disgorging them
all again, poor soul!], to give it to Prince Karl in compensation: but
that would lead to a negotiation with the Court of Vienna, which might
involve the affair in other contentions.
"I conjure you, Madam, I repeat it, Be not precipitate in anything;
lest, as my fear is, you replunge Europe into the troubles it has only
just escaped from! As to me, I have found, since the Peace, so much
to do within my own borders, that I have not, I assure you, had time,
Madam, to think of going abroad. I confine myself to forming a thousand
wishes for the prosperity of your Electoral Highness, assuring you of
the high esteem with which I am,--F." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiv. 48.]
After some farther Letters, of eloquently pressing solicitation on the
part of the Lady, and earnest advising, as well as polite fencing, on
the part of Friedrich, the latter writes:--
FRIEDRICH TO ELECTRESS.
"MADAM MY SISTER,--At this moment I receive a Letter from the
Empress of Russia, the contents of which do not appear to me favorable,
Madam, to your hopes. She requires (EXIGE) that I should instruct my
Minister in Poland to act entirely in concert with the Count Kayserling;
and she adds these very words: 'I expect, from the friendship of your
Majesty, that you will not allow a passage through your territory, nor
the entry into Poland, to Saxon troops, who are to be regarded there
absolutely as strangers.'
"Unless your Letters, Madam [Madam had said that she had written to the
Empress, assuring her &c.] change the sentiments of the Empress, I do
not see in what way the Elector could arrive at the throne of Poland;
and consequently, whether I deferred to the wishes of the Empress in
this point, or refused to do so, you would not the more become Queen;
and I might commit myself against a Power which I ought to keep well
with (MENAGER). I am persuaded, Madam, that your Electoral Highness
enters into my embarrassment; and that, unless you find yourself
successful in changing the Empress's own ideas on this matter, you
will not require of me that I should embroil myself fruitlessly with a
neighbor who deserves the greatest consideration from me.
"All this is one consequence of the course which Count Bruhl induced his
late Polish Majesty to take with regard to the interests of Prince Karl
in Courland; and your Electoral Highness will remember, that I often
represented to you the injury which would arise to him from it.
"I will wish, Madam, that other opportunities may occur, where it may be
in my power to prove to your Electoral Highness the profound esteem and
consideration with which I am--"--F. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiv. 52.]
ELECTRESS TO FRIEDRICH.
"DRESDEN, 11th November, 1763.
"SIRE,--I am not yet disheartened. I love to flatter myself with your
friendship, Sire, and I will not easily renounce the hope that you will
give me a real mark of it in an affair which interests me so strongly.
Nobody has greater ascendency over the mind of the Empress of Russia
than your Majesty; use it, Sire, to incline it to our favor. Our
obligation will be infinite.... Why should she be absolutely against us?
What has she to fear from us? The Courland business, if that sticks with
her, could be terminated in a suitable manner."--Troops into Poland,
Sire?"My Husband so little thinks of sending troops thither, that he has
given orders for the return of those already there. He does not wish
the Crown except from the free suffrages of the Nation: if the Empress
absolutely refuse to help him with her good offices, let her, at least,
not be against him. Do try, Sire." [Ib. xxiv. 53.]--Friedrich answers,
after four days, or by return of post--But we will give the rest in the
form of Dialogue.
FRIEDRICH (after four days).... "If, Madam, I had Crowns to give away, I
would place the first on your head, as most worthy to bear it. But I am
far from such a position. I have just got out of a horrible War, which
my enemies made upon me with a rage almost beyond example; I endeavor
to cultivate friendship with all my neighbors, and to get embroiled with
nobody. With regard to the affairs of Poland, an Empress whom I ought to
be well with, and to whom I owe great obligations, requires me to enter
into her measures; you, Madam, whom I would fain please if I could, you
want me to change the sentiments of this Empress. Do but enter into my
embarrassment!... According to all I hear from Russia, it appears to me
that every resolution is taken there; and that the Empress is resolved
even to sustain the party of her partisans in Poland with the forces
she has all in readiness at the borders. As for me, Madam, I wish, if
possible, not to meddle at all with this business, which hitherto is
not complicated, but which may, any day, become so by the neighbors
of Poland taking a too lively part in it. Ready, otherwise, on all
occasions, to give to your Electoral Highness proofs of my--" [_OEuvres
de Frederic,_ xxiv, 54: "Potsdam, 16th November, 1763."]
Electress (after ten days).... "Why should the Empress be so much
against us? We have not deserved her hatred. On the contrary, we seek
her friendship. She declares, however, that she will uphold the freedom
of the Poles in the election of their King. You, Sire"--[Ib. xxiv. 55:
"Dresden, 26th November, 1763."] But we must cut short, though it lasts
long months after this. Great is the Electress's persistence,--"My poor
Husband being dead, cannot our poor Boy, cannot his uncle Prince
Xavier try? O Sire!" Our last word shall be this of Friedrich's; actual
Election-time now drawing nigh:--
FRIEDRICH. "I am doing like the dogs who have fought bitterly till they
are worn down: I sit licking my wounds. I notice most European Powers
doing the same; too happy if, whilst Kings are being manufactured to
right and left, public tranquillity is not disturbed thereby, and if
every one may continue to dwell in peace beside his hearth and his
household gods." ["Sans-Souci, 26th June, 1764" (Ib. p. 69).] Adieu,
bright Madam.
No reader who has made acquaintance with Polish History can well doubt
but Poland was now dead or moribund, and had well deserved to die.
Anarchies are not permitted in this world. Under fine names, they are
grateful to the Populaces, and to the Editors of Newspapers; but to
the Maker of this Universe they are eternally abhorrent; and from the
beginning have been forbidden to be. They go their course, applauded or
not applauded by self and neighbors,--for what lengths of time none of
us can know; for a long term sometimes, but always for a fixed term; and
at last their day comes. Poland had got to great lengths, two centuries
ago, when poor John Casimir abdicated his Crown of Poland, after a
trial of twenty years, and took leave of the Republic in that remarkable
SPEECH to the Diet of 1667.
This John is "Casimir V.," last Scion of the Swedish House of
Vasa,--with whom, in the Great Elector's time, we had some slight
acquaintance; and saw at least the three days' beating he got (Warsaw,
28th-30th July, 1656) from Karl Gustav of Sweden and the Great Elector,
[Supra, v. 284-286.] ancestors respectively of Karl XII. and of our
present Friedrich. He is not "Casimir the Great" of Polish Kings; but he
is, in our day, Casimir the alone Remarkable. It seems to me I once had
IN EXTENSO this Valedictory Speech of his; but it has lapsed again into
the general Mother of Dead Dogs, and I will not spend a week in fishing
for it. The gist of the Speech, innumerable Books and Dead Dogs tell
you, [HISTOIRE DES TROIS DEMEMBREMENS does, and many others do;--copied
in _Biographie Universelle,_ vii. 278 (? Casimir).] is "lamentation over
the Polish Anarchies" and "a Prophecy," which is very easily remembered.
The poor old Gentleman had no doubt eaten his peck of dirt among those
Polacks, and swallowed chagrins till he felt his stomach could no more,
and determined to have done with it. To one's fancy, in abridged form,
the Valediction must have run essentially as follows:--
"Magnanimous Polack Gentlemen, you are a glorious Republic, and have NIE
POZWALAM, and strange methods of business, and of behavior to your Kings
and others. We have often fought together, been beaten together, by our
enemies and by ourselves; and at last I, for my share, have enough of
it. I intend for Paris; religious-literary pursuits, and the society of
Ninon de l'Enclos. I wished to say before going, That according to all
record, ancient and modern, of the ways of God Almighty in this world,
there was not heretofore, nor do I expect there can henceforth be, a
Human Society that would stick together on those terms. Believe me, ye
Polish Chivalries, without superior except in Heaven, if your glorious
Republic continue to be managed in such manner, not good will come
of it, but evil. The day will arrive [this is the Prophecy, almost
IN IPSISSIMIS VERBIS], the day perhaps is not so far off, when this
glorious Republic will get torn into shreds, hither, thither; be stuffed
into the pockets of covetous neighbors, Brandenburg; Muscovy, Austria;
and find itself reduced to zero, and abolished from the face of the
world.
"I speak these words in sorrow of soul; words which probably you will
not believe. Which only Fate can compel you to believe, one day, if
they are true words:--you think, probably, they are not? Me at least, or
interest of mine, they do not regard. I speak them from the fulness of
my heart, and on behest of friendship and conviction alone; having the
honor at this moment to bid you and your Republic a very long farewell.
Good-morning, for the last time!" and so EXIT: to Rome (had been
Cardinal once); to Paris and the society of Ninon's Circle for the few
years left him of life. ["Died 16th December, 1672, age 63."]
This poor John had had his bitter experiences: think only of one
instance. In 1662, the incredible Law of LIBERUM VETO had been
introduced, in spite of John and his endeavors. LIBERUM VETO; the power
of one man to stop the proceedings of Polish Parliament by pronouncing
audibly "NIE POZWALAM, I don't permit!"--never before or since
among mortals was so incredible a Law. Law standing indisputable,
nevertheless, on the Polish Statute-Book for above two hundred years:
like an ever-flowing fountain of Anarchy, joyful to the Polish Nation.
How they got any business done at all, under such a Law? Truly they did
but little; and for the last thirty years as good as none. But if Polish
Parliament was universally in earnest to do some business, and Veto came
upon it, Honorable Members, I observe, gathered passionately round the
vetoing Brother; conjured, obtested, menaced, wept, prayed; and, if the
case was too urgent and insoluble otherwise, the NIE POZWALAM Gentleman
still obstinate, they plunged their swords through him, and in that way
brought consent. The commoner course was to dissolve and go home again,
in a tempest of shrieks and curses.
The Right of Confederation, too, is very curious: do readers know it? A
free Polack gentleman, aggrieved by anything that has occurred or been
enacted in his Nation, has the right of swearing, whether absolutely by
himself I know not, but certainly with two or three others of like mind,
that he will not accept said occurrence or enactment, and is hereby got
into arms against its abettors and it. The brightest jewel in the cestus
of Polish Liberty is this right of confederating; and it has been, till
of late, and will be now again practised to all lengths: right of every
Polish, gentleman to confederate with every other against, or for,
whatsoever to them two may seem good; and to assert their particular
view of the case by fighting for it against all comers, King and Diet
included. It must be owned, there never was in Nature such a Form
of Government before; such a mode of social existence, rendering
"government" impossible for some generations past.
On the strength of Saxony and its resources and connections, the two
Augusts had contrived to exist with the name of Kings; with the name,
but with little or nothing more. Under this last August, as we heard,
there have been about forty Diets, and in not one of them the least
thing of business done; all the forty, after trying their best, have
stumbled on NIE POZWALAM, and been obliged to vanish in shrieks and
curses. [Buchholz (_Preussisch-Brandenburgische Geschichte,_ ii. 133,
134, &c. &c.) gives various samples, and this enumeration.] As to August
the Physically Strong, such treatment had he met with,--poor August, if
readers remember, had made up his mind to partition Poland; to give away
large sections of it in purchase of the consent of neighbors, and plant
himself hereditarily in the central part;--and would have done so, had
not Grumkow and he drunk so deep, and death by inflammation of the foot
suddenly come upon the poor man. Some Partition of Poland has been more
than once thought of by practical people concerned. Poland, as "a house
chronically smoking through the slates," which usually brings a new
European War every time it changes King, does require to be taken charge
of by its neighbors.
Latterly, as we observed, there has been little of confederating;
indeed, for the last thirty years, as Rulhiere copiously informs us,
there has been no Government, consequently no mutiny needed; little or
no National business of any kind,--the Forty Diets having all gone
the road we saw. Electing of the Judges,--that, says Rulhiere, and
wearisomely teaches by example again and ever again, has always been an
interesting act, in the various Provinces of Poland; not with the hope
of getting fair or upright Judges, but Judges that will lean in the
desirable direction. In a country overrun with endless lawsuits, debts,
credits, feudal intricacies, claims, liabilities, how important to
get Judges with the proper bias! And these once got, or lost till next
term,--what is there to hope or to fear? Russia does our Politics,
fights her Seven-Years War across us; and we, happy we, have no
fighting;--never till this of Courland was there the least ill-nature
from Russia! We are become latterly the peaceable stepping-stone of
Russia into Europe and out of it;--what may be called the door-mat of
Russia, useful to her feet, when she is about paying visits or receiving
them! That is not a glorious fact, if it be a safe and "lucky" one; nor
do the Polish Notabilities at all phrase it in that manner. But a fact
it is; which has shown itself complete in the late Czarina's and late
August's time, and which had been on the growing hand ever since Peter
the Great gained his Battle of Pultawa, and rose to the ascendency,
instead of Karl and Sweden.
The Poles put fine colors on all this; and are much contented with
themselves. The Russians they regard as intrinsically an inferior
barbarous people; and to this day you will hear indignant Polack
Gentlemen bursting out in the same strain: "Still barbarian, sir; no
culture, no literature,"--inferior because they do not make verses
equal to ours! How it may be with the verses, I will not decide: but
the Russians are inconceivably superior in respect that they have, to a
singular degree among Nations, the gift of obeying, of being commanded.
Polack Chivalry sniffs at the mention of such a gift. Polack Chivalry
got sore stripes for wanting this gift. And in the end, got striped to
death, and flung out of the world, for continuing blind to the want of
it, and never acquiring it.
Beyond all the verses in Nature, it is essential to every Chivalry and
Nation and Man. "Polite Polish Society for the last thirty years
has felt itself to be in a most halcyon condition," says Rulhiere:
[Rulhiere, i. 216 (a noteworthy passage).] "given up to the agreeable,
and to that only;" charming evening-parties, and a great deal of
flirting; full of the benevolences, the philanthropies, the new
ideas,--given up especially to the pleasing idea of "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, and
everything will come right of itself." "What a discovery!" said every
liberal Polish mind: "for thousands of years, how people did torment
themselves trying to steer the ship; never knowing that the plan was,
To let go the helm, and honestly sit down to your mutual amusements and
powers of pleasing!"
To this condition of beautifully phosphorescent rot-heap has Poland
ripened, in the helpless reigns of those poor Augusts;--the fulness
of time not now far off, one would say? It would complete the picture,
could I go into the state of what is called "Religion" in Poland.
Dissenterism, of various poor types, is extensive; and, over against
it, is such a type of Jesuit Fanaticism as has no fellow in that day. Of
which there have been truly savage and sanguinary outbreaks, from
time to time; especially one at Thorn, forty years ago, which shocked
Friedrich Wilhelm and the whole Protestant world. [See supra, vi. 64
(and many old Pamphlets on it).] Polish Orthodoxy, in that time, and
perhaps still in ours, is a thing worth noting. A late Tourist informs
me, he saw on the streets of Stettin, not long since, a drunk human
creature staggering about, who seemed to be a Baltic Sailor, just
arrived; the dirtiest, or among the dirtiest, of mankind; who, as he
reeled along, kept slapping his hands upon his breast, and shouting, in
exultant soliloquy, "Polack, Catholik!" _I_ am a Pole and Orthodox, ye
inferior two-legged entities!.--In regard to the Jesuit Fanaticisms, at
Thorn and elsewhere, no blame can attach to the poor Augusts, who always
leant the other way, what they durst or could. Nor is specialty of
blame due to them on any score; it was "like People, like King," all
along;--and they, such their luck, have lived to bring in the fulness of
time.
The Saxon Electors are again aspirants for this enviable Throne. We have
seen the beautiful Electress zealously soliciting Friedrich for help in
that project; Friedrich, in a dexterously graceful manner, altogether
declining. Hereditary Saxons are not to be the expedient this time, it
would seem; a grandiose Czarina has decided otherwise. Why should not
she? She and all the world are well aware, Russia has been virtual
lord of Poland this long time. Credible enough that Russia intends
to continue so; and also that it will be able, without very much
expenditure of new contrivance for that object.
So far as can be guessed and assiduously deduced from RULHIERE, with
your best attention, Russian Catharine's interference seems first of
all to have been grounded on the grandiose philanthropic principle.
Astonishing to the liberal mind; yet to appearance true. Rulhiere
nowhere says so; but that is gradually one's own perception of
the matter; no other refuge for you out of flat inconceivability.
Philanthropic principle, we say, which the Voltaires and Sages of that
Epoch are prescribing as one's duty and one's glory: "O ye Kings, why
won't you do good to mankind, then?" Catharine, a kind of She-Louis
Quatorze, was equal to such a thing. To put one's cast Lover into
a throne,--poor soul, console him in that manner;--and reduce the
long-dissentient Country to blessed composure under him: what a thing!
Foolish Poniatowski, an empty, windy creature, redolent of macassar and
the finer sensibilities of the heart: him she did make King of Poland;
but to reduce the long-dissentient Country to composure,--that was
what she could not do. Countries in that predicament are sometimes very
difficult to compose. The Czarina took, for above five years, a great
deal of trouble, without losing patience. The Czarina, after every new
effort, perceived with astonishment that she was farther from success
than ever. With astonishment; and gradually with irritation, thickening
and mounting towards indignation.
There is no reason to believe that the grandiose Woman handled, or
designed to handle, a doomed Poland in the merciless feline-diabolic
way set forth with wearisome loud reiteration in those distracted Books;
playing with the poor Country as cat does with mouse; now lifting her
fell paw, letting the poor mouse go loose in floods of celestial joy and
hope without limit; and always clutching the hapless creature back into
the blackness of death, before eating and ending it. Reason first is,
that the Czarina, as we see her elsewhere, never was in the least a Cat
or a Devil, but a mere Woman; already virtual proprietress of Poland,
and needing little contrivance to keep it virtually hers. Reason second
is, that she had not the gift of prophecy, and could not foreknow
the Polish events of the next ten years, much less shape them out
beforehand, and preside over them, like a Devil or otherwise, in the way
supposed.
My own private conjecture, I confess, has rather grown to be, on much
reading of those RULHIERES and distracted Books, that the Czarina,--who
was a grandiose creature, with considerable magnanimities, natural
and acquired; with many ostentations, some really great qualities and
talents; in effect, a kind of She-Louis Quatorze (if the reader will
reflect on that Royal Gentleman, and put him into petticoats in Russia,
and change his improper females for improper males),--that the Czarina,
very clearly resolute to keep Poland hers, had determined with herself
to do something very handsome in regard to Poland; and to gain glory,
both with the enlightened Philosophe classes and with her own proud
heart, by her treatment of that intricate matter. "On the one hand,"
thinks she, or let us fancy she thinks, "here is Poland; a Country
fallen bedrid amid Anarchies, curable or incurable; much tormented with
religious intolerance at this time, hateful to the philosophic mind; a
hateful fanaticism growing upon it for forty years past [though it
is quite against Polish Law]; and the cries of oppressed Dissidents
[Dissenters, chiefly of the Protestant and of the Greek persuasion]
becoming more and more distressing to hear. And, on the other hand, here
is Poniatowski who, who--!"
Readers have not forgotten the handsome, otherwise extremely paltry,
young Polack, Stanislaus Poniatowski, whom Excellency Williams took
with him 8 or 9 years ago, ostensibly as "Secretary of Legation,"
unostensibly as something very different? Handsome Stanislaus did
duly become Lover of the Grand-Duchess; and has duly, in the course of
Nature, some time ago (date uncertain to me), become discarded Lover;
the question rising, What is to be done with that elegant inane
creature, and his vaporous sentimentalisms and sublime sorrows and
disappointments? "Let us make him King of Poland!" said the Czarina,
who was always much the gentleman with her discarded Lovers (more so,
I should say, than Louis Quatorze with his;--and indeed it is computed
they cost her in direct moneys about twenty millions sterling,--being
numerous and greedy; but never the least tiff of scolding or ill
language): [Castera (_Vie de Catharine II._) has an elaborate Appendix
on this part of his subject.]--"King of Poland, with furnishings, and
set him handsomely up in the world! We will close the Dissident Business
for him, cure many a curable Anarchy of Poland, to the satisfaction of
Voltaire and all leading spirits of mankind. He shall have outfit of
Russian troops, poor creature; and be able to put down Anarchies, and
show himself a useful and grateful Viceroy for us there. Outfit
of 10,000 troops, a wise Russian Manager: and the Question of the
Dissidents to be settled as the first glory of his reign!"
Ingenuous readers are invited to try, in their diffuse vague RULHIERES,
and unintelligible shrieky Polish Histories, whether this notion does
not rise on them as a possible human explanation, more credible than
the feline-diabolic one, which needs withal such a foreknowledge,
UNattainable by cat or devil? Poland must not rise to be too strong
a Country, and turn its back on Russia. No, truly; nor, except by
miraculous suspension of the Laws of Nature, is there danger of that.
But neither need Poland lie utterly lame and prostrate, useless to
Russia; and be tortured on its sick-bed with Dissident Questions and
Anarchies, curable by a strong Sovereign, of whom much is expected by
Voltaire and the leading spirits of mankind.
What we shall have to say with perfect certainty, and what alone
concerns us in our own affair, is, FIRST, that Catharine did proceed
by this method, of crowning, fitting out and otherwise setting up
Stanislaus; did attempt settlement (and at one time thought she had
settled) the Dissident Question and some curable Anarchies,--but stirred
up such legions of incurable, waxing on her hands, day after day, year
after year, as were abundantly provoking and astonishing:--and that
within the next eight years she had arrived, with Poland and her cargo
of anarchies, at results which struck the whole world dumb. Dumb with
astonishment, for some time; and then into tempests of vociferation
more or less delirious, which have never yet quite ended, though sinking
gradually to lower and lower stages of human vocality. Fact FIRST is
abundantly manifest. Nor is fact SECOND any longer doubtful, That King
Friedrich, in regard to all this, till a real crisis elsewhere had
risen, took little or no visible interest whatever; had one unvarying
course of conduct, that of punctually following Czarish Majesty in
every respect; instructing his Minister at Warsaw always to second
and reinforce the Russian one, as his one rule of policy in that
Country,--whose distracted procedures, imbecilities and anarchies, are,
beyond this point of keeping well with a grandiose Czarina concerned in
it, of no apparent practical interest to Prussia or its King.
Friedrich, for a long time, passed with the Public for contriver of the
Catastrophe of Poland,--"felonious mortal," "monster of maleficence,"
and what not, in consequence. Rulhiere, whose notion of him is none of
the friendliest nor correctest, acquits him of this atrocity; declares
him, till the very end, mainly or altogether passive in it. Which I
think is a little more than the truth,--and only a little, as perhaps
may appear by and by. Beyond dispute, these Polish events did at last
grow interesting enough to Prussia and its King;--and it will be our
task, sufficient in this place, to extricate and riddle out what few of
these had any cardinal or notable quality, and put them down (dated, if
possible, and in intelligible form), as pertinent to throwing light
on this distressing matter, with careful exclusion of the immense mass
which can throw only darkness.
EX-LOVER PONIATOWSKI BECOMES KING OF POLAND (7th Sept. 1764), AND IS
CROWNED WITHOUT LOSS OF HIS HAIR.
WARSAW, 7th SEPTEMBER 1764, Stanislaus Poniatowski, by what management
of an Imperial Catharine upon an anarchic Nation readers shall imagine
AD LIBITUM, was elected, what they call elected, King of Poland. Of
course there had been preliminary Diets of Convocation, much dieting,
demonstrating and electing of imaginary members of Diet,--only "ten
persons massacred" in the business. There was a Saxon Party; but no
counter-candidate of that or any other nation. King Friedrich, solicited
by a charming Electress-Dowager, decides to remain accurately passive.
Polish emissaries came entreating him. A certain Mockranowski, who had
been a soldier under him (never of much mark in that capacity, though
now a flamingly conspicuous "General" and Politician, in the new scene
he has got into), came passionately entreating (Potsdam, Summer of 1764,
is all the date), "DONNEZ NOUS LE PRINCE HENRI, Give us Prince Henri for
a King!" the sound of which almost made Friedrich turn pale: "Have you
spoken or hinted of this to the Prince?" "No, your Majesty." "Home,
then, instantly; and not a whisper of it again to any mortal!"
[Rulhiere, ii. 268; Hermann, vi. 355-364.] which, they say, greatly
irritated Prince Henri, and left a permanent sore-place in his mind,
when he came to hear of it long after.
"A question rises here," says one of my Notes, which perhaps I had
better have burnt: "At or about what dates did this glorious Poniatowski
become Lover of the Grand-Duchess, and then become Ex-Lover? Nobody
will say; or perhaps can? [Preuss (iv. 12) seems to try, but does not
succeed.] Would have been a small satisfaction to us, and it is
denied! 'Ritter Williams' (that is, Hanbury) must have produced him at
Petersburg some time in 1756; '11th January, 1757,' finding it would
suit, Poniatowski appeared there on his own footing as 'Ambassador from
Warsaw,'"--(easy to get that kind of credential from a devoted Warsaw,
if you are succeeding at the Court of Petersburg; "Warsaw watchfully
makes that the rule of distributing its honors; and, from freezing-point
upwards, is the most delicate thermometer," says Hermann somewhere).
And this, is our one date, "Poniatowski in business, SPRING, 1757;" of
"Poniatowski fallen bankrupt," date is totally wanting.
"Poniatowski's age is 32 gone;--how long out of Russia, readers have to
guess. Made his first public appearance on the streets of Warsaw, in the
late Election time, as a Captain of Patriot Volunteers,--'Independence
of Poland! Shall Poland be dictated to!" cried Stanislaus and an
indignant Public at one stage of the affair. His Uncles Czartoryski were
piloting him in; and in that mad element, the cries, and shiftings of
tack, had to be many. [In HERMANN, v. 362-380 (still more in RULHIERE,
ii. 119-289), wearisome account of every particular.] He is Nephew, by
his mother, of these Czartoryskis; but is not by the father of very high
family. 'Ought he to be King of Poland?' argued some Polish Emissary at
Petersburg: 'His Grandfather was Land-steward to the Sapiehas.' 'And
if he himself had been it!' said the Empress, inflexible, though with
a blush.--It seems the family was really good, though fallen poor; and,
since that Land-steward phasis, had bloomed well out again. His Father
was conspicuous as a busy, shifting kind of man, in the Charles-Twelfth
and other troubles; had died two years ago, as 'Castellan of Cracow;'
always a dear friend of Stanislaus Leczinski, who gets his death two
years hence [in 1766, as we have seen].
"King Stanislaus Poniatowski had five Brothers: two of them dead long
before this time; a third, still alive, was Bishop of Something, Abbot
of Something; ate his revenues in peace, and demands silence from us.
The other two, Casimir and Andreas, are better worth naming,--especially
the Son of one of them is. Casimir, the eldest, is 'Grand
Crown-Chamberlain' in the days now coming, is also 'Starost of Zips
[a Country you may note the name of!]--and has a Son,' who is NOT the
remarkable one. Andreas, the second Brother (died 1773), was in the
Austrian Service, 'Ordnance-Master,' and a man of parts and weight;--who
has been here at Warsaw, ardently helping, in the late Election time.
He too had a Son (at this time a child in arms),--who is really the
remarkable 'Nephew of King Stanislaus,' and still deserves a word from
us.
"This Nephew, bred as an Austrian soldier, like his Father, is the
JOSEPH PONIATOWSKI, who was very famous in the Newspapers fifty years
ago. By all appearance, a man of some real patriotism, energy and worth.
He had tried to believe (though, I think, never rightly able) what his
omnipotent Napoleon had promised him, that extinct Poland should be
resuscitated; and he fought and strove very fiercely, his Poles and
he, in that faith or half-faith. And perished, fiercely fighting for
Napoleon, fiercely covering Napoleon's retreat when his game was lost:
horse and man plunged into the Elster River (Leipzig Country, October
19th, 1813, evening of the 'Battle of the Nations' there), and sank
forever;--and the last gleam of Poland along with him. [_Biographie
Universelle_ (Poniatowski, Joseph), xxxv. 349-359.] Not even a
momentary gleam of hope for her, in the sane or half-sane kind, since
that,--though she now and then still tries it in the insane: the more to
my regret, for her and others!
"Besides these three Brothers, King Stanislaus had two Sisters still
living: one of them Wife of a very high Zamoiski; the other of a
ditto Branicki (pronounce BraniTZki)--him whom our German Books call
KRON-GROSSFELDHERR; (Grand Crown-General,' if the Crown have any
soldiers at all; the sublime, debauched old Branicki, of whom Rulhiere
is continually talking, and never reports anything but futilities in
a futile manner. So much is futile, and not worth reporting, in this
Polish element!--King Stanislaus himself was born 17th January, 1732;
played King of shreds and patches till 1790,--or even farther (not till
1795 did Catharine pluck the paper tabard quite off him); he died in
Petersburg, February 11th or 12th) 1798." After such a life!--
Stanislaus was crowned 25th November, 1764. He needs, as preliminary,
to be anointed, on the bare scalp of him, with holy oil before crowning;
ought to have his head close-shaved with that view. Stanislaus, having
an uncommonly fine head of hair, shuddered at the barbarous idea;
absolutely would not: whereupon delay, consultation; and at length some
artificial scalp, or second skull, of pasteboard or dyed leather, was
contrived for the poor man, which comfortably took the oiling in a
vicarious way, with the ambrosial locks well packed out of sight
under it, and capable of flowing out again next day, as if nothing had
happened. [Rulhiere.] Not a sublime specimen of Ornamental Human Nature,
this poor Stanislaus! Ornamental wholly: the body of him, and the mind
of him, got up for representation; and terribly plucked to pieces on the
stage of the world. You may try to drop a tear over him, but will find
mostly that you cannot.
FOR SEVERAL YEARS THE DISSIDENT QUESTION CANNOT BE GOT SETTLED;
CONFEDERATION OF RADOM (23d June, 1767-5th March, 1768) PUSHES IT INTO
SETTLEMENT.
For several years after this feat of the false scalp, through long
volumes, wearisome even in RULHIERE, there turns up nothing which can
now be called memorable. The settling of the Dissident Question proves
extremely tedious to an impatient Czarina; as to curing of the other
curable Anarchies, there is absolutely nothing but a knitting up by A,
with a ravelling-out again by B, and no progress discernible
whatever. Impatient Czarina ardently pushes on some Dissident
settlement,--seconded by King Friedrich and the chief Protestant
Courts, London included, and by the European leading spirits
everywhere,--through endless difficulties: finds native Orthodoxy an
unexpectedly stiff matter; Bishops generally having a fanaticism which
is wonderful to think of, and which keeps mounting higher and higher.
Till at length there will Images of the Virgin take to weeping,--as
they generally do in such cases, when in the vicinity of brew-houses and
conveniences; [Nicolai, in his TRAVELS OVER GERMANY, doggedly undertook
to overhaul one of those weeping Virgins (somewhere in Austria, I
think); and found her, he says, to depend on subterranean percolation
of steam from a Brewery not far off.]--a Carmelite Monk go about the
country working miracles; and, in short, an extremely ugly phasis of
religious human nature disclose itself to the afflicted reader. King
Friedrich thinks, had it not been for this Dissident Question, things
would have taken their old Saxon complexion, and Poland might have
rotted on as heretofore, perhaps a good while longer.
As to the knitting-up and ravelling-out again, which is called curing of
the other anarchies, no reader can or need say anything: it seems to be
a most painful knitting-up, by the Czartoryskis chiefly, then an
instant ravelling out by malign Opposition parties of various indistinct
complexion; the knitting, the ravelling, and the malign Opposition
parties, alike indistinct and without interest to mankind. A certain
drunken, rather brutal Phantasm of a Prince Radzivil, who hates the
Czartoryskis, and is dreadfully given to drink, to wasteful ambitions
and debaucheries, figures much in these businesses; is got banished and
confiscated, by some Confederation formed; then, by new Confederations,
is recalled and reinstated,--worse if possible than ever. The thing is
reality; but it reads like a Phantasmagory produced by Lapland Witches,
under presidency of Diabolus (very certainly the Devil presiding, as you
see at all turns),--and is not worth understanding, were it even easy.
Much semi-intelligible, wholly forgettable stuff about King Stanislaus
and his difficulties, and his duplicities and treacherous imbecilities,
[Hermann, v. 400, &c.; Rulhiere PASSIM.] now of interest to no mortal.
Stanislaus is at one time out with the uncles Czartoryski, at another in
with these worthy gentlemen: a man not likely to cure Anarchies, unless
wishing would do it. On the Dissident Question itself he needs spurring:
a King of liberal ideas, yes; but with such flames of fanaticism under
the nose of him. In regard to the Dissident and all other curative
processes he is languid, evasive, for moments recalcitrant to Russian
suggestions; a lost imbecile,--forget him, with or without a tear. He
has still a good deal of so-called gallantry on his hands; flies to his
harem when outside things go contradictory. [Hermann, v. 402, &c.] Think
of malign Journalists printing this bit of Letter at one time, to do him
ill in a certain quarter: "Oh, come to me, my Princess! Dearer than all
Empresses:--imperial charms, what were they to thine for a heart that
has--" with more of the like stuff, for a Czarina's behoof.
WINTER OF 1766, Imperial Majesty, whether after or before that
miraculous Carmelite Monk, I do not remember, became impatient of these
tedious languors and tortuosities about the Dissident Question, and gave
express order, "Settle it straightway!" To which end, Confederations
and the other machinery were set agoing: Confederations among the
Protestants and Dissidents themselves, about Thorn and such places (got
up by Russian engineering), and much more extensively in the Lithuanian
parts; Confederations of great extent, imperative, minatory; ostensibly
for reinstating these poor people in their rights (which, by old Polish
Law, they quite expressly were, if that were any matter), but in reality
for bringing back drunken Radzivil, who has covenanted to carry that
measure. And so,
JUNE 23d, 1767, These multiplex Polish-Lithuanian Confederations,
twenty-four of them in all, with their sublime marshals and officials,
and above 80,000 noblemen in them, meet by deputies at Radom, a
convenient little Town within wind of Warsaw (lies 60 miles to south of
Warsaw); and there coalesce into one general "Confederation of
Radom," [Hermann, v. 420.] with drunken Radzivil atop, who, glad to be
reinstated in his ample Domains and Wine-cellars, and willing at any
rate to spite the Czartoryskis and others, has pledged himself to carry
that great measure in Diet, and quash any NIE POZWALAMS and difficulties
there may be. This is the once world-famous, now dimly discoverable,
CONFEDERATION OF RADOM, which--by preparatory declaring, under its hand
and seal, That the Law of the Land must again become valid, and "Free
Polacks of Dissident opinions concerning Religion (NOS DISSIDENTES DE
RELIGIONE)," as the old Law phrases it, "shall have equal rights of
citizenship"--was beautifully instrumental in achieving that bit of
Human Progress, and pushing it through the Diet, and its difficulties
shortly ensuing.
Not that the Diet did not need other vigorous treatment as well, the
flame of fanaticism being frightfully ardent; many of the poor Bishops
having run nearly frantic at this open spoliation of Mother Church,
and snatching of the sword from Peter. So that Imperial Majesty had to
decide on picking out a dozen, or baker's dozen, of the hottest Bishops;
and carrying them quietly into Russia under lock and key, till the thing
were done. Done it was, surely to the infinite relief of mankind;--I
cannot say precisely on what day: October 13th-14th (locking up of the
dozen Bishops), was one vital epoch of it; November 19th, 1767 (report
of Committee on it, under Radzivil's and Russia's coercion), was
another: first and last it took about five months baking in Diet. Diet
met Oct. 4th, 1767, Radzivil controlling as Grand-Marshal, and Russia as
minatory Phantom controlling Radzivil; Diet, after adjournments,
after one long adjournment, disappeared 5th March, 1768; and of
work mentionable it had done this of the Dissidents only. That of
contributing to "the sovereign contempt with which King Stanislaus is
regarded by all ranks of men," is hardly to be called peculiar work or
peculiarly mentionable.
At this point, to relieve the reader's mind, and, at any rate, as the
date is fully come, we will introduce a small NEWSPAPER ARTICLE from
a very high hand, little guessed till long afterwards as the
writer,--namely, from King Friedrich's own. It does not touch on the
Dissident Question, or the Polish troubles; but does, in a back-handed
way, on Prussian Rumors rising about them; and may obliquely show more
of the King's feeling on that subject than we quite suppose. It seems
the King had heard that the Berlin people were talking and rumoring
of "a War being just at hand;" whereupon--"MARCH 5th, 1767, IN THE
VOSSISCHE ZEITUNG (Voss's Chronicle), No. 28," an inquisitive Berlin
public read as follows:--
"We are advised from Potsdam, that, on the 27th of February, towards
evening, the sky began to get overcast; black clouds, presaging a
tempest of unexampled fury, covered all the horizon: the thunder, with
its lightnings, forked bolts of amazing brilliancy, burst out; and,
under its redoubled peals, there descended such a torrent of hail as
within man's memory had not been seen. Of two bullocks yoked in their
plough, with which a peasant was hastening home, one was struck on the
head by a piece of it, and killed outright. Many of the common people
were wounded in the streets; a brewer had his arm broken. Roofs are
destroyed by the weight of this hail; all the windows that looked
windward while it fell were broken. In the streets, hailstones were
found of the size of pumpkins (CITROUILLES), which had not quite melted
two hours after the storm ceased. This singular phenomenon has made a
very great impression. Scientific people say, the air had not buoyancy
enough to support these solid masses when congealed to ice; that
the small hailstones in these clouds getting so lashed about in the
impetuosity of the winds, had united the more the farther they fell,
and had not acquired that enormous magnitude till comparatively near the
earth. Whatever way it may have happened, it is certain that occurrences
of that kind are rare, and almost without example." [VOSSISCHE ZEITUNG,
ubi supra: _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xv. 204.]
Another singularity is, "Professor Johann Daniel Titius of Wittenberg,"
who teaches NATURAL PHILOSOPHY in that famous University, one may
judge with what effect, wrote a Monograph on this unusual Phenomenon!
[Rodenbeck (ii. 285) gives the Title of it, "CONSIDERATIONS ON THE
POTSDAM HAIL OF LAST YEAR (Wittenberg, 1768)."]
CONFEDERATION OF BAR ENSUES, ON THE PER-CONTRA SIDE (March 28th,
1768); AND, AS FIRST RESULT OF ITS ACHIEVEMENTS (October 6th, 1768), A
TURK-RUSSIAN WAR.
The Confederation of Radom, and its victorious Diet, had hardly begun
their Song of Triumph, when there ensued on the per-contra side a
flaming CONFEDERATION OF BAR;--which, by successive stages, does at
last burn out the Anarchies of Poland, and reduce them to ashes.
Confederation of Bar; and then, as progeny of that, for and against,
such a brood of Confederations, orthodox, heterodox, big, little,
short-lived, long-lived, of all complexions and degrees of noisy fury,
potent, at any rate, each of them for murder and arson, within a
certain radius, as the Earth never saw before. Now was the time of those
inextricable marchings (as inroads and outroads) through the Lithuanian
Bogs, of those death-defiant, unparalleled exploits, skirmishings,
scaladings, riding by the edge of precipices, of Pulawski, Potocki and
others,--in which Rulhiere loses himself and turns on his axis, amid
impatient readers.
For the Russian troops (summoned by a trembling Stanislaus and his
Senate, in terms of Treaty 1764), and in more languid manner, the
Stanislaus soldiery, as per law of the case, proceeded to strike
in,--generally, my impression was, with an eye to maintain the King's
Peace and keep down murder and arson:--and sure enough, the small bodies
of drilled Russians blew an infuriated orthodox Polack chivalry to right
and left at a short notice; but as to the Constable's Peace or King's,
made no improvement upon that, far the reverse. It is certain the
Confederate chivalry were driven about, at a terrible rate,--over
the Turk frontier for shelter; began to appeal to the Grand Turk, in
desperate terms: "Brother of the Sun and Moon, saw you ever such a
chance for finishing Russia? Polack chivalry is Orthodox Catholic, but
also it is Anti-Russian!" The Turk beginning to give ear to it, made the
matter pressing and serious. Here, more specifically, are some features
and successive phases,--unless the reader prefer to skip.
"BAR, MARCH, 1768. The Confederation of Radom, as efficient preliminary,
and chief agent in that Diet of emancipation to the Dissident human
mind, might long have been famous over Poland and the world; but there
instantly followed as corollary to it a CONFEDERATION OF BAR, which
quite dimmed the fame of Radom, and indeed of all Confederations prior
or posterior! As the Confederation of Bar and its Doings, or rather
sufferings and tragical misdoings and undoings, still hang like fitful
spectralities, or historical shadows, of a vague ghastly complexion,
in the human memory, one asks at least: Since they were on this Planet,
tell us where? Bar is in the Waiwodship Podol (what we call Podolia),
some 400 miles southeast of Warsaw; not far from the Dniester
River:--not far very from that mystery of the Dniester, the Zaporavian
Cossacks,--from those rapids or cataracts (quasi-cataracts of the
Dniester, with Islands in them, where those Cossack robbers live
unassailable):--across the Dniester lies Turkey, and its famed Fortress
of Choczim. This is a commodious station for Polish Gentlemen intending
mutiny by law.
"MARCH 8th, 1768, Three short days after the Diet of Radom had done its
fine feat, and retired to privacy, news came to Warsaw, That Podolia and
the Southern parts are all up, confederating with the highest animation;
in hot rage against such decision of a Diet, contrary to Holy Religion
and to much else; and that the said decision will have to fight for
itself, now that it has done voting. This interesting news is true; and
goes on intensifying and enlarging itself, one dreadful Confederation
springing up, and then another and ever another, day after day; till at
last we hear that on the 27th of the month, MARCH 27th, 1768, at Bar, a
little Town on the Southern or Turkish Frontier, all these more or less
dreadful Confederations have met by delegates, and coalesced into one
'Confederatiou of Bar,'--which did surely prove dreadful enough, to
itself especially, in the months now ensuing!"
No history of Bar Confederation shall we dream of; far be such an
attempt from us. It consists of many Confederations, and out of each,
PRO and CONTRA, spring many. Like the Lernean Hydra, or even Hydras in
a plural condition. A many-headed dog: and how many whelps it
had,--I cannot give even the cipher of them, or I would! One whelp
Confederation, that of Cracow, is distinguished by having frequently or
generally been "drunk;" and of course its procedures had often a vinous
character. [In HERMANN (v. 431-448); and especially in RULHIERE (ii.
livre 8 et seq.), details in superabundance.] I fancy to have read
somewhere that the number of them was one hundred and twenty-five. The
rumor and the furious barking of Bar and its whelps goes into all lands:
such rabid loud baying at mankind and the moon; and then, under Russia's
treatment, such shrill yelping and shrieking, was not heard in the world
before, though perhaps it has since.
Poor BAR'S exploits in the fighting way were highly inconsiderable; all
on the same scale; and spread over such a surface of country, mostly
unknown, as renders it impossible to give them head-room, were you never
so unfurnished. They can be read in eloquent Rulhiere; but by no mortal
held in memory. Anarchy is not a thing to be written of; a Lernean
Hydra, several Lernean Hydras, in chaotic genesis, getting their heads
lopped off, and at the same time sprouting new ones in such ratio, where
is the Zoologist that will give account of it? There was not anything
considerable of fighting; but of bullying, plundering, murdering and
being murdered, a frightful amount. There are seizures of castles,
convents, defensible houses; marches at a rate like that of antelopes,
through the Lithuanian parts, boggy, hungry, boundless, opening to the
fancy the Infinitude of Peat, in the solid and the fluid state. This,
perhaps, is the finest species of feats, though they never lead to
anything. There are heroes famed for these marches.
The Pulawskis, for example,--four of them, Lawyer people,--showed much
activity, and a talent for impromptu soldiering, in that kind. The
Magnates of the Confederation, I was surprised to learn, had all quitted
it, the instant it came to strokes: "You Lawyer people, with your
priests and orthodox peasantries, you do the fighting part; ours is
the consulting!" And except Potocki (and he worse than none), there
is presently not a Magnate of them left in Poland,--the rest all gone
across the Austrian Border, to Teschen, to Bilitz, a handy little town
and domain in that Duchy of Teschen;--and sit there as "Committee of
Government:" much at their ease in comparison, could they but agree
among themselves, which they cannot. Bilitz is one of the many domains
of Magnate Sulkowski:--do readers recollect the Sulkowski who at one
time "declared War" on King Friedrich; and was picked up, both War and
he, so compendiously by General Goltz, and locked in Glogau to cool?
This is the same Sulkowski; much concerned now in these matters; a rich
Magnate, glad to see his friends about him as Governing Committee; but
gets, and gives, a great deal of vexation in it, the element proving
again too hot!--
I said there were four famed Pulawskis; [Hermann, v. 465.] a father,
once Advocate in Warsaw, with three sons and a nephew; who, though
extremely active people, could do no good whatever. The father Pulawski
had the fine idea of introducing the British Constitution; clothing
Poland wholly in British tailorage, and so making it a new Poland: but
he never could get it done. This poor gentleman died in Turkish
prison, flung into jail at Constantinople, on calumnious accusation and
contrivance by a rival countryman; his sons and nephew, poor fellows,
all had their fame, more or less, in the Cause of Freedom so called; but
no other profit in this world, that I could hear of. Casimir, the eldest
son, went to America; died there, still in the Cause of Freedom so
called; Fort Pulawski, in the harbor of Charleston (which is at present,
on very singular terms, RE-engaged in the same so-called Cause!), was
named in memory of this Casimir. He had defended Czenstochow (if anybody
knew what Czenstochow was, or could find it in the Polish map); and it
was also he that contrived that wonderful plan of suddenly snapping up
King Stanislaus from the streets of Warsaw one night, ["3d November,
1771."] and of locking him away (by no means killing him), as the source
of all our woes. O my Pulawskis, men not without manhood, what a bedlam
of a Time have you and I fallen into, and what Causes of Freedom it has
got in hand!
Bar, a poor place, with no defences but a dry ditch and some miserable
earthworks, the Confederates had not the least chance to maintain;
Kaminiec, the only fortress of the Province, they never even got into,
finding some fraction of royal soldiery who stood for King Stanislaus
there, and who fired on the Confederates when applied to. Bar a small
Russian division, with certain Stanislaus soldieries conjoined, took by
capitulation; and (date not given) entered in a victorious manner. The
War-Epic of the Confederates, which Rulhiere sings at such length, is
blank of meaning.
Of "Cloister Czenstochow," a famed feat of Pulawski's, also without
result, I could not from my Rulhiere discover (what was altogether an
illuminative fact to me!) that the date of Czenstochow was not till
1771. A feat of "Cloister BERDICZOW," almost an exact facsimile by the
same Pulawski, also resultless, I did, under Hermann's guidance, at
once find;--and hope the reader will be satisfied to accept it instead:
Cloister Berdiczow, which lies in the Palatinate of Kiow; and which
has a miraculous Holy Virgin, not less venerated far and wide in those
eastern parts, than she of Cloister Czenstochow in the western: THIS
Cloister Berdiczow and its salutary Virgin, Pulawski (the Casimir, now
of Charleston Harbor) did defend, with about 1,000 men, in a really
obstinate way, The Monastery itself had in it gifts of the faithful,
accumulated for ages; and all the richest people in those Provinces,
Confederate or not, had lodged their preciosities there, as in an
impregnable and sure place, in those times of trouble. Intensely
desirous, accordingly, the Russians were to take it, but had no cannon;
desperately resolute Pulawski and his 1,000 to defend. Pulawski and his
1,000 fired intensely, till their cannon-balls were quite done; then
took to firing with iron-work, and hard miscellanies of every sort,
especially glad when they could get a haul of glass to load with;--and
absolutely would not yield till famine came; though the terms offered
were good,--had they been kept.
So that Pulawski, it would appear, did Two Cloister Defences? Two, each
with a miraculous Holy Virgin; an eastern, and then a westerly. This of
Berdiczow, not dated to me farther, is for certain of the year 1768;
and Pulawski, owing to famine, did yield here. In 1771, at miraculous
Cloister Czenstochow, in the western parts, Pulawski did an external
feat, or consented to see it done,--that of trying to snuff out poor
King Stanislaus on the streets (3d November, 10 P.M., "miraculously" in
vain, as most readers know),--which brought its obloquies and troubles
on the Defender of Czenstochow. Obloquies and troubles: but as to
surrendering Czenstochow on call of obloquy, or of famine itself,
Pulawski would not, not he for his own part; but solemnly left his men
to do it, and walked away by circuitous uncertain paths, which end in
Charleston Harbor, as we have seen. [At Savannah, in a stricter sense.
"Perished at the Siege [futile attempt to storm, by the French, which
they called a Siege] of Savannah, 9th October, 1779."] Defence of
Czenstochow in 1771 shall not concern us farther. Truly these two small
defences of monasteries by Pulawski are almost all, I do not say of
glorious, but even of creditable or human, that reward the poor wanderer
in that Polish Valley of Jehoshaphat, much of it peat-country; wherefore
I have, as before, marked the approximate localities, approximate dates,
for behoof of ingenuous readers.
The Russians, ever since 1764, from the beginnings of those Stanislaus
times, are pledged to maintain peace in Poland; and it is they that
have to deal with this affair,--they especially, or almost wholly, poor
Stanislaus having scarcely any power, military or other, and perhaps
being loath withal. There was more of investigating and parleying,
bargaining and intriguing, than of fighting, on Stanislaus's part. "June
11th, 1768," says a Saxon Note from Warsaw, "Mokranowski, Stanislaus's
General [the same that was with Friedrich], has been sent down to Bar to
look into those Confederates. Mokranowski does not think there are
above 8,000 of them; about 3,000 have got their death from Russian
castigation. The 8,000 might be treated with, only Russians are so
dreadfully severe, especially so intent on wringing money from them.
Confederates have been complaining to the Turk; Turk ambiguous; gives
them no definite ground of hope. 'What then, is your hope?' I inquired.
'Little or none, except in Heaven,' several answered: 'it is for our
religion and our liberty:' religion cut to pieces by this Dissident
Toleration-blasphemy; liberty ditto by the Russian guarantee of peace
among us: 'what can we do but trust in God and our own despair?'"
["Essen's Report, 11th June, 1768" (in HERMANN, v. 441).] "Prave worts,
Ancient Pistol,"--but much destitute of sense, and not to be realized in
present circumstances. Here is something much more critical:--
JUNE-JULY, 1768. "The peasants in the Southern regions, Palatinates
Podol, Kiow, Braclaw, called UKRAINE or Border-Country by the Poles,
are mostly of Greek and other schismatic creeds. Their Lords are of
an orthodox religion, and not distinguished by mild treatment of such
Peasantry, upon whom civil war and plunder have been latterly a
sore visitation. To complete the matter, the Confederates in certain
quarters, blown upon by fanatical priests, set about converting these
poor peasants, or forcing them, at the point of the bayonet, to swear
that they adopt the 'Greek united rite,' which I suppose to be a kind
of half-way house towards perfect orthodoxy. In one Village, which was
getting converted in this manner, the military party seemed to be small;
the Village boiled over upon it; trampled orthodoxy and military both
under foot, in a violent and sanguinary manner; and was extremely
frightened when it had done. Extremely frightened, not the Village only,
but the schismatic mind generally in those parts, dreading vengeance for
such a paroxysm. But the atrocious Russians whispered them, 'We are here
to protect you in your religions and rights, in your poor consciences
and skins.' Upon which hint of the atrocious Russians, the schismatic
mind and population one and all rose; and, 'with the cannibal's
ferocity, gave way to their appetite for plunder!'...
"Nay, the Russian Government [certain Russian Officials hard pressed]
had invited the Zaporavian Cossacks to step over from their Islands in
the Dniester, and assist in defending their Religion [true Greek, of
course]; who at once did so; and not only extinguished the last glimmer
of Confederation there, but overwhelmed the Country, thousands on
thousands of them, attended by revolted peasants,--say a 20,000 of
peasants under command of these Zaporavians,--who went about plundering
and burning. That they plundered the Jew pot-houses of their brandy,
and drank it, was a small matter. Very furious upon Jews, upon Noblemen,
Landlords, upon Catholic Priests. 'On one tree [tree should have been
noted] was found hanged a specimen of each of those classes, with a Dog
adjoined, as fit company.' In one little Town, Town of HUMAN [so called
in that foreign dialect], getting some provocation or other, they set to
massacring; and if brandy were plentiful, we can suppose they made short
work. By the lowest computation the number of slain Jews and Catholics
amounted to 10,000 odd [Hermann, v. 444; Rulhiere, iii. 93.]--Rulhiere
says '50,000, by some accounts 200,000.'" This I guess to have been at
its height about the end of June; this leads direct to the Catastrophe,
as will presently be seen.
Foreign States don't seem to pay much attention,--indeed, what sane
person would like to interfere, or hope to do it with profit? France,
Austria, both wish well to Poland, at least ill to Russia; Choiseul has
no finance, can do nothing but intrigue, and stir up trouble everywhere:
a devout Kaiserinn goes with Holy Church, and disapproves of these
Dissident Tolerations: it is remarked that all through 1768 the
Confederates of Bar are permitted to retire over the Austrian Frontier
into Austrian Silesia, and find themselves there in safety. Permitted to
buy arms, to make preparations, issue orders: at Sulkowski's Bilitz, in
the Duchy of Teschen, supreme Managing Committee sits there; no Kaunitz
or Official person meddling with it. About the beginning of next year
(1769), it is, ostensibly, a little discountenanced; and obliged to go
to Eperjes, on the Hungarian Frontier [See Busching: for Eperjes, ii.
1427; for Bilitz, viii. 885.] (as a more decent or less conspicuous
place),--such trouble now rising; a Turk War having broken
out, momentous not to the Confederation alone. March, 1769, the
ever-intriguing Choiseul--fancy with what rapturous effect--had sent
some kind of Agent or Visitor to Teschen; Vergennes in Turkey, from the
beginning of these things, has been plying night and day his diplomatic
bellows upon every live-coal ("I who myself kindled this Turk-War!"
brags he afterwards);--not till next year (1770) did Choiseul send
his Dumouriez to the Bilitz neighborhoods; not till next again, when
Choiseul was himself out, [Thrown out "2d December, 1770,"--by Louis's
NEW Pompadour.] did his Viomenil come: [Hermann, v. 469-471; in RULHIERE
(iv. 241-289) account of Dumouries and his fencings and spyings, still
more of Viomenil, who had "French Volunteers," and did some bits of real
fighting on the small scale.] neither of whom, by their own head alone,
without funds, without troops, could do other than with fine effort make
bad worse.
It is needless continuing such a subject. Here is one glimpse two years
later, and it shall be our last: "NEAR LUBLIN, 25th SEPTEMBER, 1770. It
is frightful, all this that is passing in these parts,--about the Town
of Labun, for example. The dead bodies remain without burial; they are
devoured by the dogs and the pigs. ... Everywhere reigns Pestilence; nor
do we fear contagion so much as famine. Offer 100 ducats for a fowl
or for a bit of bread, I swear you won't get it. General von Essen
[Russian, we will hope] has had to escape from Laticzew, then from" some
other place, "Pestilence chasing him everywhere."
To apply to the Turks,--afflicted Polish Patriots prostrating themselves
with the hope of despair, "Save us, your sublime Clemency; throw a ray
of pity on us, Brother of the Sun and Moon: oh, chastise our
diabolic oppressors!"--this was one of the first resources of the Bar
Confederates. The Turks did give ear; not inattentive, though pretending
to be rather deaf. M. de Vergennes,--of whose "diplomatic bellows" we
just heard (in fact, for diligence in this Turk element, in this young
time, the like of him was seldom seen; we knew him long afterwards as
a diligent old gentleman, in French-Revolution days),--M. de Vergennes
zealously supports; zealous to let loose the Turk upon Anti-French
parties. The Turks seem to wag their heads, for some time; and their
responses are ambiguous. For some time, not for long. Here, fast enough,
comes, in disguised shape, the Catastrophe itself, ye poor plaintive
Poles!
JULY-OCTOBER, 1768. Those Zaporavian and other Cossacks, with 20,000
peasants plundering about on both sides of the Dniester, had set fire to
the little Town of Balta, which is on the south side, and belongs to
the Turks: a very grave accident, think all political people, think
especially the Foreign Excellencies at Warsaw, when news of it arrives.
Burning of Balta, not to be quenched by the amplest Russian apologies,
proved a live-coal at Constantinople; and Vergennes says, he set
population and Divan on fire by it: a proof that the population and
Divan had already been in a very inflammable state. Not a wise Divan,
though a zealous. Plenty of fury in these people; but a sad deficiency
of every other faculty. They made haste, in their hot humor, to declare
War (6th October, 1768); [Hermann, v. 608-611.] not considering much how
they would carry it on. Declared themselves in late Autumn,--as if to
give the Russians ample time for preparing; those poor Turks
themselves being as yet ready with nothing, and even the season for
field-operations being over.
King Friedrich, who has still a Minister at the Porte, endeavored to
dissuade his old Turk friends, in this rash crisis; but to no purpose;
they would listen to nothing but Vergennes and their own fury. Friedrich
finds this War a very mad one on the part of his old Turk friends; their
promptitude to go into it (he has known them backward enough when
their chances were better!), and their way of carrying it on, are alike
surprising to him. He says: "Catharine's Generals were unacquainted with
the first elements of Castrametation and Tactic; but the Generals of the
Sultan had a still more prodigious depth of ignorance; so that to form a
correct idea of this War, you must figure a set of purblind people, who,
by constantly beating a set of altogether blind, end by gaining over
them a complete mastery." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 23, 24.] This,
as Friedrich knows, is what Austria cannot suffer; this is what
will involve Austria and Russia, and Friedrich along with them,
in--Friedrich, as the matter gradually unfolds itself, shudders to think
what. The beginnings of this War were perhaps almost comical to the
old Soldier-King; but as it gradually developed itself into complete
shattering to pieces of the stupid Blind by the ambitious Purblind, he
grew abundantly serious upon it.
It is but six months since Polish Patriotism, so effulgent to its own
eyes in Orthodoxy, in Love of glorious Liberty, confederated at Bar,
and got into that extraordinary whirlpool, or cesspool, of miseries
and deliriums we have been looking at; and now it has issued on a broad
highway of progress,--broad and precipitous,--and will rapidly arrive
at the goal set before it. All was so rapid, on the Polish and on the
Turkish part. The blind Turks, out of mere fanaticism and heat of humor,
have rushed into this adventure;--and go rushing forward into a series
of chaotic platitudes on the huge scale, and mere tragical disasters,
year after year, which would have been comical, had they not been so
hideous and sanguinary: constant and enormous blunders on the Turk
part, issuing in disasters of like magnitude; which in the course of
Two Campaigns had quite finished off their Polish friends, in a very
unexpected way; and had like to have finished themselves off, had not
drowned Poland served as a stepping-stone.
Not till March 26th, 1769, six months after declaring in such haste,
did the blind Turks "display their Banner of Mahomet," that is, begin
in earnest to assemble and make ready. Nor were the Russians shiningly
strategic, though sooner in the field,--a Prince Galitzin commanding
them (an extremely purblind person); till replaced by Romanzow, our old
Colberg acquaintance, who saw considerably better. Galitzin, early in
the season, made a rush on Choczim (ChoTzim), the first Turk Fort beyond
the Dniester; and altogether failed,--not by Turk prowess, but by his
own purblind mal-arrangements (want of ammunition, want of bread, or I
will forget what);--which occasioned mighty grumblings in Russia:
till in a month or two, by favor of Fortune and blindness of the Turk,
matters had come well round again; and Galitzin, walking up to Choczim
the second time, found there was not a Turk in the place, and that
Choczim was now his on those uncommonly easy terms!
Instead of farther details on such a War,--the shadow or reflex of
which, as mirrored in the Austrian mind, has an importance to Friedrich
and us; but the self or substance of which has otherwise little or
none,--we will close here with a bit of Russian satire on it, which is
still worth reading. The date is evidently Spring, 1769; the scene what
we are now treating of: Galitzin obliged to fall back from Choczim;
great rumor--"What a Galitzin; what a Turk War his, in contrast to
the last we had!" [Turk War of 1736-1739, under Munnich (supra, vii.
81-126).]--no Romanzow yet appointed in his room. And here is a small
Manuscript, which was then circulating fresh and new in Russian Society;
and has since gone over all the world (though mostly in an uncertain
condition, in old Jest-Books and the like), as a genuine bit of CAVIARE
from those Northern parts:--
MANUSCRIPT CIRCULATING IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY. Galitzin, much grieved about
Choczim, could not sleep; and, wandering about in his tent, overheard,
one night, a common soldier recounting his dream to the sentry outside
the door.
"A curious dream," said the soldier: "I dreamt I was in a battle; that
I got my head cut off; that I died; and, of course, went to Heaven.
I knocked at the door: Peter came with a bunch of Keys; and made such
rattling that he awoke God; who started up in haste, asking, 'What is
the matter?' 'Why,' says Peter, 'there is a great War on earth between
the Russians and the Turks.' 'And who commands my Russians?' said the
Supreme Being. 'Count Munnich,' answered Peter. 'Very well; I may go
to sleep again!'--But this was not the end of my dream," continued
the soldier; "I fell asleep and dreamt again, the very same as before,
except that the War was not Count Munnich's, but the one we are now in.
Accordingly, when God asked, 'Who commands my Russians?' Peter answered,
'Prince Galitzin.' 'Galitzin? Then get me my boots!' said the [Russian]
Supreme Being." [W. Richardson (then at Petersburg, Tutor to Excellency
Cathcart's Children; afterwards Professor at Glasgow, and a man of
Some reputation in his old age), _Anecdotes of the Russian Empire, in a
Series of Letters written a few years ago from St. Petersburg_ (London,
1784), p. 110: date of this Letter is "17th October, 1769."]
Chapter IV.--PARTITION OF POLAND.
These Polish phenomena were beginning to awaken a good deal of
attention, not all of it pleasant, on the part of Friedrich. From the
first he had, as usual, been a most clear-eyed observer of everything;
and found the business, as appears, not of tragical nature, but of
expensive-farcical, capable to shake the diaphragm rather than touch the
heart of a reflective on-looker. He has a considerable Poem on it,--WAR
OF THE CONFEDERATES by title (in the old style of the PALLADION,
imitating an unattainable JEANNE D'ARC),--considerable Poem, now
forming itself at leisure in his thoughts, ["LA GUERRE DES CONFEDERES
[_OEuvres,_ xiv. 183 et seq.], finished in November, 1771."] which
decidedly takes that turn; and laughs quite loud at the rabid
fanaticisms, blusterous inanities and imbecilities of these noisy
unfortunate neighbors:--old unpleasant style of the PALLADION and
PUCELLE; but much better worth reading; having a great deal of sharp
sense in its laughing guise, and more of real Historical Discernment
than you will find in any other Book on that delirious subject.
Much a laughing-stock to this King hitherto, such a "War of the
Confederates,"--consisting of the noisiest, emptiest bedlam tumults,
seasoned by a proportion of homicide, and a great deal of battery and
arson. But now, with a Russian-Turk War springing from it, or already
sprung, there are quite serious aspects rising amid the laughable. By
Treaty, this War is to cost the King either a 12,000 of Auxiliaries to
the Czarina, or a 72,000 pounds (480,000 thalers) annually; [_OEuvres
de Frederic,_ vi. 13.]--which latter he prefers to pay her, as the
alternative: not an agreeable feature at all; but by no means the worst
feature. Suppose it lead to Russian conquests on the Turk, to Austrian
complicacies, to one knows not what, and kindle the world round one
again! In short, we can believe Friedrich was very willing to stand well
with next-door neighbors at present, and be civil to Austria and its
young Kaiser's civilities.
FIRST INTERVIEW BETWEEN FRIEDRICH AND KAISER JOSEPH (Neisse, 25th-28th
August, 1769).
In 1766, the young Kaiser, who has charge of the Military Department,
and of little else in the Government, and is already a great traveller,
and enthusiastic soldier, made a pilgrimage over the Bohemian and Saxon
Battle-fields of the Seven-Years War. On some of them, whether on all
I do not know, he set up memorial-stones; one of which you still see
on the field of Lobositz;--of another on Prag field, and of reverent
salutation by Artillery to the memory of Schwerin there, we heard long
ago. Coming to Torgau on this errand, the Kaiser, through his Berlin
Minister, had signified his "particular desire to make acquaintance
with the King in returning;" to which the King was ready with the
readiest;--only that Kaunitz and the Kaiserinn, in the interim, judged
it improper, and stopped it. "The reported Interview is not to take
place," Friedrich warns the Newspapers; "having been given up, though
only from courtesy, on some points of ceremonial." ["FRIEDRICH TO ONE OF
HIS FOREIGN AMBASSADORS" (the common way of announcing in Newspapers):
Preuss, iv. 22 n.]
The young Kaiser felt a little huffed; and signified to Friedrich that
he would find a time to make good this bit of uncivility, which his
pedagogues had forced upon him. And now, after three years, August,
1769, on occasion of the Silesian Reviews, the Kaiser is to come across
from his Bohemian businesses, and actually visit him: Interview to be
at Neisse, 25th August, 1769, for three days. Of course the King was
punctual, everybody was punctual, glad and cordial after a sort,--no
ceremony, the Kaiser, officially incognito, is a mere Graf von
Falkenstein, come to see his Majesty's Reviews. There came with him four
or five Generals, Loudon one of them; Lacy had preceded: Friedrich is in
the palace of the place, ready and expectant. With Friedrich are: Prince
Henri; Prince of Prussia; Margraf of Anspach: Friedrich's Nephew (Lady
Craven's Margraf, the one remnant now left there); and some Generals and
Military functionaries, Seidlitz the notablest figure of these. And so,
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25th, shortly after noon--But the following Two Letters,
by an Eye-witness, will be preferable; and indeed are the only real
Narrative that can be given:--
No. 1. ENGINEER LEFEBVRE TO PERPETUAL SECRETARY FORMEY (at Berlin).
"NEISSE, 26th [partly 25th] August, 1769.
"MY MOST WORTHY FRIEND,-I make haste to inform you of the Kaiser's
arrival here at Neisse, this day, 25th August, 1769, at one in the
afternoon. The King had spent the morning in a proof Manoeuvre, making
rehearsal of the Manoeuvre that was to be. When the Kaiser was reported
just coming, the King went to the window of the grand Episcopal Saloon,
and seeing him alight from his carriage, turned round and said, 'JE L'AI
VU (I have seen him).' His Majesty then went to receive him on the
grand staircase [had hardly descended three or four steps], where they
embraced; and then his Majesty led by the hand his august Guest into
the Apartments designed for him, which were all standing open and
ready,"--which, however, the august Guest will not occupy except with
a grateful imagination, being for the present incognito, mere Graf von
Falkenstein, and judging that THE THREE-KINGS Inn will be suitabler.
"Arrived in the Apartments, they embraced anew; and sat talking together
for an hour and half.--[The talk, unknown to Lefebvre, began in this
strain. KAISER: "Now are my wishes fulfilled, since I have the honor to
embrace the greatest of Kings and Soldiers." KING: "I look upon this day
as the fairest of my life; for it will become the epoch of uniting Two
Houses which have been enemies too long, and whose mutual interests
require that they should strengthen, not weaken one another." KAISER:
"For Austria there is no Silesia farther." [Preuss, v. 23; _OEuvres de
Frederic,_ vi. 25, 26.] Talk, it appears, lasted an hour and half.]
--"The Kaiser [continues our Engineer] had brought with him the Prince
of Sachsen-Teschen [his august Brother-in-law, Duke of Teschen, son
of the late Polish Majesty of famous memory]: afterwards there came
Feldmarschall Lacy, Graf von Dietrichstein, General von Loudon," and
three others of no account to us. "At the King's table were the Kaiser,
the Prince of Prussia [dissolute young Heir-Apparent, of the polygamous
tendency], Prince Henri, the Margraf of Anspach [King's Nephew,
unfortunate Lady-Craven Margraf, ultimately of Hammersmith vicinity];
the above Generals of the Austrian suite, and Generals Seidlitz and
Tauentzien. The rest of the Court was at two other tables." Of the
dinner itself an Outside Individual will say nothing.
"The Kaiser, having expressly requested the King to let him lodge in an
Inn (THREE KINGS), under the name of Graf von Falkenstein, would not
go into the carriage which had stood expressly ready to conduct him
thither. He preferred walking on foot [the loftily scornful Incognito]
in spite of the rain; it was like a lieutenant of infantry stepping out
of his quarters. Some moments after, the King went to visit him; and
they remained together from 5 in the evening till 8. It was thought they
would be present (ASSISTER) at a Comic Opera which was to be played: but
after waiting till 7 o'clock, the people received orders to go on with
the Piece;"--both Majesties did afterwards look in; but finding it bad,
soon went their way again. (MAJOR LEFEBVRE STOPS WRITING FOR THE NIGHT.)
"This morning, 26th, the Manoeuvre [rehearsed yesterday] has been
performed before both their Majesties; the troops, by way of finish,
filing past them in the highest order. The Kaiser accompanied the King
to his abode; after which he returned to his own. This is all the news
I have to-day: the sequel by next Post (apparently a week hence). I am,
and shall ever be,--your true Friend, LEFEBVRE."
No. 2. SAME TO SAME.
"NEISSE, 2d September, 1769.
"MONSIEUR AND DEAREST FRIEND,--We had, as you heard, our first Manoeuvre
on Saturday, 26th, in presence of the Kaiser and the King, and of the
whole Court of each. That evening there was Opera; which their Majesties
honored by attending. Sunday was our Second Manoeuvre; OPERETTE in the
evening. Monday, 28th, was our last Manoeuvre; at the end of which the
two Majesties, without alighting from horseback, embraced each other;
and parted, protesting mutually the most constant and inviolable
friendship. One took the road for Breslau; the other that of
Konigsgratz. All the time the Kaiser was here, they have been
continually talking together, and exhibiting the tenderest
friendship,--from which I cannot but think there will benefit result.
"I am almost in the mind of coming to pass this Winter at Berlin; that
I may have the pleasure of embracing you,--perhaps as cordially as King
and Kaiser here. I am, and shall always be, with all my heart,--your
very good Friend, "LEFEBVRE." [Formey, _Souvenirs d'un Citoyen,_ ii.
145-148.]
The Lefebvre that writes here is the same who was set to manage the
last Siege of Schweidnitz, by Globes of Compression and other fine
inventions; and almost went out of his wits because he could not do it.
An expert ingenious creature; skilful as an engineer; had been brought
into Friedrich's service by the late Balbi, during Balbi's ascendency
(which ended at Olmutz long ago). At Schweidnitz, and often elsewhere,
Friedrich, who had an esteem for poor Lefebvre, was good to him; and
treated his excitabilities with a soft hand, not a rough. Once at Neisse
(1771, second year after these Letters), on looking round at the
works done since last review, in sight of all the Garrison he embraced
Lefebvre, while commending his excellent performance; which filled the
poor soul with a now unimaginable joy.
"HELAS," says Formey, "the poor Gentleman wrote to me of his endless
satisfaction; and how he hoped to get through his building, and retire
on half-pay this very season, thenceforth to belong to the Academy and
me; he had been Member for twenty years past." With this view, thinks
Formey, he most likely hastened on his buildings too fast: certain
it is, a barrack he was building tumbled suddenly, and some workmen
perished in the ruins. "Enemies at Court suggested," or the accident
itself suggested without any enemy, "Has not he been playing false,
using cheap bad materials?"--and Friedrich ordered him arrest in his own
Apartments, till the question were investigated. Excitable Lefebvre was
like to lose his wits, almost to leap out of his skin. "One evening at
supper, he managed to smuggle away a knife; and, in the course of the
night, gave himself sixteen stabs with it; which at length sufficed. The
King said, 'He has used himself worse than I should have done;' and was
very sorry." Of Lefebvre's scientific structures, globes of compression
and the rest, I know not whether anything is left; the above Two Notes,
thrown off to Formey, were accidentally a hit, and, in the great blank,
may last a long while.
The King found this young Kaiser a very pretty man; and could have
liked him considerably, had their mutual positions permitted. "He had a
frankness of manner which seemed natural to him," says the King; "in his
amiable character, gayety and great vivacity were prominent features."
By accidental chinks, however, one saw "an ambition beyond measure"
burning in the interior of this young man, [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ (in
_Memoires de 1763 jusqu'a_ 1775, a Chapter which yields the briefest,
and the one completely intelligible account we yet have of those
affairs), vi. 25.]--let an old King be wary. A three days, clearly,
to be marked in chalk; radiant outwardly to both; to a certain depth,
sincere; and uncommonly pleasant for the time. King and Kaiser were seen
walking about arm in arm. At one of the Reviews a Note was brought to
Friedrich: he read it, a Note from her Imperial Majesty; and handing it
to Kaiser Joseph, kissed it first. At parting, he had given Joseph,
by way of keepsake, a copy of Marechal de Saxe's REVERIES (a strange
Military Farrago, dictated, I should think, under opium ["MES REVERIES;
OUVRAGE POSTHUME, par" &c. (2 vols. 4to: Amsterdam et Leipzig, 1757).]):
this Book lay continually thereafter on the Kaiser's night-table; and
was found there at his death, Twenty-one years hence,--not a page of
it read, the leaves all sticking together under their bright gilding.
[Preuss, iv. 24 n.]
It was long believed, by persons capable of seeing into millstones,
that, under cover of this Neisse Interview, there were important
Political negotiations and consultings carried on;--that here, and in
a Second Interview or Return-Visit, of which presently, lay the real
foundation of the Polish Catastrophe. What of Political passed at the
Second Interview readers shall see for themselves, from an excellent
Authority. As to what passed at the present ("mutual word-of-honor:
should England and France quarrel, we will stand neutral" [_OEuvres
de Frederic,_ ubi supra.]), it is too insignificant for being shown to
readers. Dialogues there were, delicately holding wide of the mark, and
at length coming close enough; but, at neither the one Interview nor the
other, was Poland at all a party concerned,--though, beyond doubt, the
Turk War was; silently this first time, and with clear vocality on the
second occasion.
In spite of Galitzin's blunders, the Turk War is going on at a fine rate
in these months; Turks, by the hundred thousand, getting scattered
in panic rout:--but we will say nothing of it just yet. Polish
Confederation--horror-struck, as may be imagined, at its auxiliary
Brother of the Sun and Moon and his performances--is weltering in
violently impotent spasms into deeper and ever deeper wretchedness,
Friedrich sometimes thinking of a Burlesque Poem on the subject;--though
the Russian successes, and the Austrian grudgings and gloomings, are
rising on him as a very serious consideration. "Is there no method,
then, of allowing Russia to prosecute its Turk War in spite of Austria
and its umbrages?" thinks Friedrich sometimes, in his anxieties about
Peace in Europe:--"If the Ukraine, and its meal for the Armies, were
but Russia's! At present, Austria can strike in there, cut off the
provisions, and at once put a spoke in Russia's wheel." Friedrich tells
us, "he (ON," the King himself, what I do not find in any other Book)
"sent to Petersburg, under the name of Count Lynar, the seraphic
Danish Gentleman, who, in 1757, had brought about the Convention of
Kloster-Zeven, a Project, or Sketch of Plan, for Partitioning certain
Provinces of Poland, in that view;"--the Lynar opining, so far as I can
see, somewhat as follows: "Russia to lay hold of the essential bit of
Polish Territory for provisioning itself against the Turk, and allow to
Austria and Prussia certain other bits; which would content everybody,
and enable Russia and Christendom to extrude and suppress AD LIBITUM
that abominable mass of Mahometan Sensualism, Darkness and Fanaticism
from the fairest part of God's Creation." An excellent Project, though
not successful! "To which Petersburg, intoxicated with its own outlooks
on Turkey, paid not the least attention," says the King. [_OEuvres de
Frederic,_ vi. 26.] He gives no date to this curious statement; nor
does anybody else mention it at all; but we may fancy it to have been of
Winter, 1769-1770,--and leave it with the curious, or the idly curious,
since nothing came of it now or afterwards.
POTSDAM, 20th-29th OCTOBER, 1769. Only two months after Neisse, what
kindles Potsdam into sudden splendor, Electress Marie-Antoine makes a
Visit of nine days to the King. "In July last," says a certain Note of
ours, "the Electress was invited to Berlin, to a Wedding; 'would have
been delighted to come, but letter of invitation arrived too late. Will,
however, not give up the plan of seeing the great Friedrich.' Comes to
Potsdam 20th-29th October. Stays nine days; much delighted, both, with
the visit. 'Magnificent palaces, pleasant gardens, ravishing concerts,
charming Princes and Princesses: the pleasantest nine days I ever had
in my life,' says the Electress. Friedrich grants, to her intercession,
pardon for some culprit. 'DIVA ANTONIA' he calls her henceforth for some
time; she him, 'PLUS GRAND DES MORTELS,' 'SALOMON DU NORD,' and the
like names." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ (CORRESPONDANCE AVEC L'ELECTRICE
MARIE-ANTOINE), xxiv. 179-186.] Next year too (September 26th-October
5th, 1770), the bright Lady made a second visit; [Rodenbeck, iii. 24.]
no third,--the times growing too political, perhaps; the times not
suiting. The Correspondence continues to the end; and is really pretty.
And would be instructive withal, were it well edited. For example,--if
we might look backwards, and shoot a momentary spark into the vacant
darkness of the Past,--Friedrich wrote (the year before this):--
POTSDAM, 3d MAY, 1768.... "Jesuits have got all cut adrift: A dim rumor
spreads that his Holiness will not rest with that first anathema, but
that a fulminating Bull is coming out against the Most Christian, the
Most Catholic and the Most Faithful. If that be so, my notion is, Madam,
that the Holy Father, to fill his table, will admit the Defender of the
Faith [poor George III.] and your Servant; for it does not suit a Pope
to sit solitary....
"A pity for the human race, Madam, that men cannot be tranquil,--but
they never and nowhere can! Not even the little Town of Neufchatel but
has had its troubles; your Royal Highness will be astonished to learn
how. A Parson there [this was above seven years ago, in old Marischal's
reign [See Letters to Marischal, "Leipzig, 9th March, 1761," "Breslau,
14th May, 1762:" in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xx. 282, 287.]] had set forth
in a sermon, That considering the immense mercy of God, the pains of
Hell could not last forever. The Synod shouted murder at such scandal;
and has been struggling, ever since, to get the Parson exterminated. The
affair was of my jurisdiction; for your Royal Highness must know that I
am Pope in that Country;--here is my decision: Let the parsons, who make
for themselves a cruel and barbarous God, be eternally damned, as they
desire, and deserve; and let those parsons, who conceive God gentle and
merciful, enjoy the plenitude of his mercy! However, Madam, my sentence
has failed to calm men's minds; the schism continues; and the number of
the damnatory theologians prevails over the others." ["April 2d, 1768"
(a month before this Letter to Madam), there is "riot at Neufchatel; and
Avocat Gardot [heterodox Parson's ADVOCATE] killed in it" (Rodenbeck,
ii. 303).]--Or again:--
POTSDAM, 1st DECEMBER, 1766. "At present I have with me my Niece
[Sister's Daughter, of Schwedt], the Duchess of Wurtemberg; who
remembers with pleasure to have had the happiness of seeing your Royal
Highness in former times. She is very unhappy and much to be pitied;
her Husband [Eugen of Wurtemberg, whom we heard much of, and last at
Colberg] gives her a deal of trouble: he is a violent man, from whom
she has everything to fear; who gives her chagrins, and makes her
no allowances. I try my best to bring him to reason;"--but am little
successful. Three years after this, "May 3d, 1769," we find Eugen, who
once talked of running his august Reigning Brother through the body, has
ended by returning to Stuttgard and him; where, or at Mumpelgard, his
Apanage, he continued thenceforth. And was Reigning Duke himself, long
afterwards, for two years, at the very end of his life. ["Succeeded," on
his Brother Karl's death, "20th May, 1795; died 23d December, 1797, age
75."] At this date of 1766, "my poor Niece and he" have been married
thirteen years, and have half a score of children;--the eldest of them
Czar Paul's Second Wife that is to be, and Mother of the now Czars.
DECEMBER 17th, 1765.... "I have had 12,360 houses and barns to rebuild,
and am nearly through with that. But how many other wounds remain yet to
be healed!"
JULY 22d, 1766.... "Wedding festivities of Prince of Prussia. Duchess
of Kingston tipsy on the occasion!"--But we must not be tempted farther.
[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiv. 90-155.]
NEXT YEAR THERE IS A SECOND INTERVIEW; FRIEDRICH MAKING A RETURN-VISIT
DURING THE KAISER'S MORAVIAN REVIEWS (Camp of Mahrisch-Neustadt, 3d-7th
September, 1770).
The Russian-Turk especially in Second Campaign of it, "Liberation of
Greece," or, failing that, total destruction of the Turk Fleet in Greek
waters; conquest of Wallachia, as of Moldavia; in a word, imminency of
total ruin to the Turk by land and sea,--all this is blazing aloft at
such a pitch, in Summer, 1770, that a new Interview upon it may well, to
neighbors so much interested, seem more desirable than ever. Interview
accordingly there is to be: 3d September, and for four days following.
Kaunitz himself attends, this time; something of real business privately
probable to Kaunitz. Prince Henri is not there; Prince Henri is gone to
Sweden; on visit to his Sister, whom he has not seen since boyhood: of
which Visit there will be farther mention. Present with the King were:
[Rodenbeck, iii. 21.] the Prince of Prussia (luckier somewhat in his
second wedlock, little red-colored Son and Heir born to him just a
month ago); [Friedrich Wilhelm III., "born 3d August, 1770."] Prince
Ferdinand; two Brunswick Nephews, ERBPRINZ whom we used to hear of, and
Leopold a junior, of whom we shall once or so. No Seidlitz this
time. Except Lentulus, no General to name. But better for us than
all Generals, in the Kaiser's suite, besides Kaunitz, was Prince de
Ligne,--who holds a PEN, as will appear.
"Liberation of the Greeks" had kindled many people, Voltaire among the
number, who is still intermittently in correspondence with Friedrich: "A
magnificent Czarina about to revivify that true Temple of Mankind, or
at least to sweep the blockhead Turks out of it; what a prospect!"
Friedrich is quite cool on Greece; not too hot on any part of this
subject, though intensely concerned about it. Besides his ingenious
Count-Lynar Project, and many other businesses, Friedrich has just been
confuting Baron d'Holbach's _Systeme de la Nature;_ ["EXAMEN CRITIQUE
DU SYSTEME DE LA NATURE [in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ ix. 153 et seq.],
finished July, 1770."]--writing to Voltaire, POTSDAM, 18th AUGUST, 1770,
on this subject among others, he adds: "I am going for Silesia, on
the Reviews. I am to see the Kaiser, who has invited me to his Camp in
Mahren. That is an amiable and meritorious Prince; he values your Works,
reads them as diligently as he can; is anything but superstitious: in
brief, a Kaiser such as Germany has not for a great while had. Neither
he nor I have any love for the blockhead and barbaric sort;--but that
is no reason for extirpating them: if it were, your Turks [oppressors of
Greece] would not be the only victims!" [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiii.
165, 166.]
In a lengthy Letter, written by request, TO STANISLAUS, KING OF POLAND,
1735, or at a distance of fifteen years from this Interview at Neustadt,
Prince de Ligne, who was present there, has left us some record or
loose lively reminiscence of it; [Prince de Ligne, _Memoires et
Melanges Historiques_ (Par. 1827), i. 3-21.]--sputtering, effervescing,
epigrammatic creature, had he confined himself to a faithful
description, and burnt off for us, not like a pretty fire-work, but like
an innocent candle, or thing for seeing by! But we must take what we
have, and endeavor to be thankful. By great luck, the one topic he
insists on is Friedrich and his aspect and behavior on the occasion:
which is what, of all else in it, we are most concerned with.
"You have ordered me, Sire [this was written for him in 1785], to speak
to you of one of the greatest men of this Age. You admire him, though
his neighborhood has done you mischief enough; and, placing yourself at
the impartial distance of History, feel a noble curiosity on all that
belongs to this extraordinary genius. I will, therefore, give you
an exact account of the smallest words that I myself heard the great
Friedrich speak.... The I (LE JE) is odious to me; but nothing is
indifferent when"--Well, your account, then, your account, without
farther preambling, and in a more exact way than you are wont!--
"By a singular chance, in 1770 [3d-7th September, if you would but
date], the Kaiser was [for the second time] enabled to deliver himself
to the personal admiration which he had conceived for the King of
Prussia; and these Two great Sovereigns were so well together, that they
could pay visits. The Kaiser permitted me to accompany; and introduced
me to the King: it was at Neustadt in Moravia [MAHRISCH-NEUSTADT, short
way from AUSTERLITZ, which is since become a celebrated place]. I can't
recollect if I had, or had assumed, an air of embarrassment; but what I
do well remember is, that the Kaiser, who noticed my look, said to the
King, 'He has a timid expression, which I never observed in him before;
he will recover presently.' This he said in a graceful merry way; and
the two went out, to go, I believe, to the Play. On the way thither, the
King for an instant quitting his Imperial Friend, asked me if my LETTER
TO JEAN JACQUES [now an entirely forgotten Piece], which had been
printed in the Papers, was really by me? I answered, 'Sire, I am not
famous enough to have my name forged' [as a certain Other name has been,
on this same unproductive topic]. He felt what I meant. It is known that
Horace Walpole took the King's name to write his famous LETTRE A JEAN
JACQUES [impossible to attend to the like of it at present], which
contributed the most to drive mad that eloquent and unreasonable man of
genius.
"Coming out of the Play, the Kaiser said to the King of Prussia: 'There
is Noverre, the famous Composer of Ballets; he has been in Berlin, I
believe.' Noverre made thereupon a beautiful dancing-master bow. 'Ah,
I know him,' said the King: 'we saw him at Berlin; he was very droll;
mimicked all the world, especially our chief Dancing Women, to make you
split with laughing.' Noverre, ill content with this way of remembering
him, made another beautiful third-position bow; and hoped possibly the
King would say something farther, and offer him the opportunity of a
small revenge. 'Your Ballets are beautiful,' said the King to him; 'your
Dancing Girls have grace; but it is grace in a squattish form (DE LA
GRACE ENGONCEE). I think you make them raise their shoulders and their
arms too much. For, Monsieur Noverre, if you remember, our principal
Dancing Girl at Berlin wasn't so.' 'That is why she was at Berlin,
Sire,' replied Noverre [satirically, all he could].
"I was every day asked to sup with the King; too often the conversation
addressed itself to me. In spite of my attachment to the Kaiser, whose
General I like to be, but not whose D'Argens or Algarotti, I had not
beyond reason abandoned myself to that feeling. When urged by the King's
often speaking to me, I had to answer, and go on talking. Besides, the
Kaiser took a main share in the conversation; and was perhaps more at
his ease with the King than the King with him. One day, they got talking
of what one would wish to be in this world; and they asked my opinion. I
said, I should like to be 'a Pretty Woman till thirty; then, till sixty,
a fortunate and skilful General;'--and not knowing what more to say, but
for the sake of adding something, whatever it might be, 'a Cardinal till
eighty.' The King, who likes to banter the Sacred College, made himself
merry on this; and the Kaiser gave him a cheap bargain of Rome and its
upholders (SUPPOTS). That supper was one of the gayest and pleasantest
I have ever seen. The Two Sovereigns were without pretension and without
reserve; what did not always happen on other days; and the amiability of
two men so superior, and often so astonished to see themselves together,
was the agreeablest thing you can imagine. The King bade me come and
see him the first time he and I should have three or four hours to
ourselves.
"A storm such as there never was, a deluge compared with which that of
Deucalion was a summer shower, covered our Hills with water [cannot say
WHICH day of the four], and almost drowned our Army while attempting
to manoeuvre. The morrow was a rest-day for that reason. At nine in the
morning, I went to the King, and stayed till one. He spoke to me of
our Generals; I let him say, of his own accord, the things I think of
Marshals Lacy and Loudon; and I hinted that, as to the others, it was
better to speak of the dead than of the living; and that one never can
well judge of a General who has not in his lifetime actually played
high parts in War. He spoke to me of Feldmarschall Daun: I said, 'that
against the French I believed he might have proved a great man; but that
against him [you], he had never quite been all he was; seeing always
his opponent as a Jupiter, thunder-bolt in hand, ready to pulverize his
Army.' That appeared to give the King pleasure: he signified to me a
feeling of esteem for Daun; he spoke favorably of General Brentano [one
of the Maxen gentlemen]. I asked his reason for the praises I knew he
had given to General Beck. 'Why (MAIS), I thought him a man of
merit,' said the King. 'I do not think so, Sire; he didn't do you much
mischief.' 'He sometimes took Magazines from me.' 'And sometimes let
your Generals escape.' (Bevern at REICHENBACH, for instance, do you
reckon that his blame?)--'I have never beaten him,' said the King. 'He
never came near enough for that: and I always thought your Majesty
was only appearing to respect him, in order that we might have more
confidence in him, and that you might give him the better slap some day,
with interest for all arrears.'
KING. "'Do you know who taught me the little I know? It was your old
Marshal Traun: that was a man, that one.--You spoke of the French: do
they make progress?'
EGO. "'They are capable of everything in time of war, Sire: but in
Peace,--their chiefs want them to be what they are not, what they are
not capable of being.'
KING. "'How, then; disciplined? They were so in the time of M. de
Turenne.'
EGO. "'Oh, it isn't that. They were not so in the time of M. de Vendome,
and they went on gaining battles. But it is now wished that they become
your Apes and ours; and that does n't suit them.'
KING. "'Perhaps so: I have said of their busy people (FAISEURS,' St.
Germains and Army-Reformers), 'that they would fain sing without knowing
music.'
EGO. "'Oh, that is true! But leave them their natural notes; profit
by their bravery, their alertness (LEGERETE), by their very faults,--I
believe their confusion might confuse their enemies sometimes.'
KING. "'Well, yes, doubtless, if you have something to support them
with.'
EGO. "'Just so, Sire,--some Swiss and Germans.'
KING. "''T is a brave and amiable nation, the French; one can't help
loving them:--but, MON DIEU, what have they made of their Men of
Letters; and what a tone has now come up among them! Voltaire, for
example, had an excellent tone. D'Alembert, whom I esteem in many
respects, is too noisy, and insists too much on producing effect in
society:--was it the Men of Letters that gave the Court of Louis XIV.
its grace, or did they themselves acquire it from the many amiable
persons they found there? He was the Patriarch of Kings, that one [in
a certain sense, your Majesty!]. In his lifetime a little too much good
was said of him; but a great deal too much ill after his death.'
EGO. "'A King of France, Sire, is always the Patriarch of Clever People
(PATRIARCHE DES GENS D'ESPRIT:' You do not much mean this, Monsieur? You
merely grin it from the teeth outward?)
KING. "'That is the bad Number to draw: they are n't worth a doit (NE
VALENT PAS LE DIABLE, these GENS D'ESPRIT) at Governing. Better be
Patriarch of the Greek Church, like my sister the Empress of Russia!
That brings her, and will bring, advantages. There's a religion for
you; comprehending many Countries and different Nations! As to our
poor Lutherans, they are so few, it is not worth while being their
Patriarch.'
EGO. "'Nevertheless, Sire, if one join to them the Calvinists, and
all the little bastard Sects, it would not be so bad a post. [The King
appeared to kindle at this; his eyes were full of animation. But it did
not last when I said:] If the Kaiser were Patriarch of the Catholics,
that too wouldn't be a bad place.'
KING. "'There, there: Europe divided into Three Patriarchates. I was
wrong to begin; you see where that leads us: Messieurs, our dreams are
not those of the just, as M. le Regent used to say. If Louis XIV. were
alive, he would thank us.'
"All these patriarchal ideas, possible and impossible to realize, made
him, for an instant, look thoughtful, almost moody.
KING. "'Louis XIV., possessing more judgment than cleverness (ESPRIT),
looked out more for the former quality than for the latter. It was
men of genius that he wanted, and found. It could not be said that
Corneille, Bossuet, Racine and Conde were people of the clever sort (DES
HOMMES D'ESPRIT).'
EGO. "'On the whole, there is that in the Country which really deserves
to be happy, It is asserted that your Majesty has said, If one would
have a fine dream, one must--'
KING. "'Yes, it is true,--be King of France.'
EGO. "'If Francis I. and Henri IV. had come into the world after your
Majesty, they would have said, "be King of Prussia."'
KING. "'Tell me, pray, is there no citable Writer left in France?'
"This made me laugh; the King asked the reason. I told him, He reminded
me of the RUSSE A PARIS, that charming little piece of verse of M. de
Voltaire's; and we remembered charming things out of it, which made us
both laugh. He said,
KING. "'I have sometimes heard the Prince de Conti spoken of: what sort
of man is he?'
EGO. "'He is a man composed of twenty or thirty men. He is proud, he is
affable,'"--he is fiddle, he is diddle (in the seesaw epigrammatic way,
for a page or more); and is not worth pen and ink from us, since the
time old Marshal Traun got us rid of him,--home across the Rhine, full
speed, with Croats sticking on his skirts. [Supra, viii. 475.]
"This portrait seemed to amuse the King. One had to captivate him by
some piquant detail; without that, he would escape you, give you no time
to speak. The success generally began by the first words, no matter how
vague, of any conversation; these he found means to make interesting;
and what, generally, is mere talk about the weather became at once
sublime; and one never heard anything vulgar from him. He ennobled
everything; and the examples of Greeks and Romans, or of modern
Generals, soon dissipated everything of what, with others, would have
remained trivial and commonplace.
"'Have you ever,' said he, 'seen such a rain as yesterday's? Your
orthodox Catholics will say, "That comes of having a man without
religion among us: what are we to do with this cursed (MAUDIT) King; a
Protestant at lowest?" for I really think I brought you bad luck. Your
soldiers would be saying, "Peace we have; and still is this devil of a
man to trouble us!"'
EGO. "'Certainly, if your Majesty was the cause, it is very bad. Such
a thing is only permitted to Jupiter, who has always good reasons for
everything; and it would have been in his fashion, after destroying the
one set by fire, to set about destroying the others by water. However,
the fire is at an end; and I did not expect to revert to it.'
KING. "'I ask your pardon for having plagued you so often with that; I
regret it for the sake of all mankind. But what a fine Apprenticeship
of War! I have committed errors enough to teach you young people, all of
you, to do better. MON DIEU, how I love your grenadiers! How well they
defiled in my presence! If the god Mars were raising a body-guard for
himself, I should advise him to take them hand over head. Do you know
I was well pleased (BIEN CONTENT) with the Kaiser last night at supper?
Did you hear what he said to me about Liberty of the Press, and the
Troubling of Consciences (LA GENE DES CONSCIENCES)? There will be bits
of difference between his worthy Ancestors and him, on some points!'
EGO. "'I am persuaded, he will entertain no prejudices on anything; and
that your Majesty will be a great Book of Instruction to him.'
KING. "'How adroitly he disapproved, without appearing to mean anything,
the ridiculous Vienna Censorship; and the too great fondness of
his Mother (without naming her) for certain things which only make
hypocrites. By the by, she must detest you, that High Lady?'
EGO. "'Well, then, not at all. She has sometimes lectured me about my
strayings, but very maternally: she is sorry for me, and quite sure
that I shall return to the right path. She said to me, some time ago,
"I don't know how you do, you are the intimate friend of Father Griffet;
the Bishop of Neustadt has always spoken well of you; likewise the
Archbishop of Malines; and the Cardinal [name Sinzendorf, or else not
known to me, dignity and red hat sufficiently visible] loves you much."'
"Why cannot I remember the hundred luminous things which escaped the
King in this conversation! It lasted till the trumpet at Head-quarters
announced dinner. The King went to take his place; and I think it was on
this occasion that, some one having asked why M. de Loudon had not come
yet, he said, 'That is not his custom: formerly he often arrived before
me. Please let him take this place next me; I would rather have him at
my side than opposite.'"
That is very pretty. And a better authority gives it, The King said to
Loudon himself, on Loudon's entering, _"Mettez-vous aupres de moi, M.
de Loudon; j'aime mieux vous avoir a cote de moi que vis-a-vis."_ He was
very kind to Loudon; "constantly called him M. LE FELDMARECHAL [delicate
hint of what should have been, but WAS not for seven years yet]; and,
at parting, gave him [as he did to Lacy also] two superb horses,
magnificently equipped." [Pezzl, _Vie de Loudon,_ ii. 29.]
"Another day," continues Prince de Ligne, "the Manoeuvres being over
in good time, there was a Concert at the Kaiser's. Notwithstanding the
King's taste for music, he was pleased to give me the preference; and
came where I was, to enchant me with the magic of his conversation, and
the brilliant traits, gay and bold, which characterize him. He asked
me to name the general and particular Officers who were present, and
to tell him those who had served under Marshal Traun: 'For, ENFIN,' he
said, 'as I think I have told you already, he is my Master; he corrected
me in the Schooling I was at.'
EGO. "'Your Majesty was very ungrateful, then; you never paid him
his lessons. If it was as your Majesty says, you should at least have
allowed him to beat you; and I do not remember that you ever did.'
KING. "'I did not get beaten, because I did not fight.'
EGO. "'It is in this manner that the greatest Generals have often
conducted their wars against each other. One has only to look at the two
Campaigns of M. de Montecuculi and M. de Turenne, in the Valley of
the Rench [Strasburg Country, 1674 and 1675, two celebrated Campaigns,
Turenne killed by a cannon-shot in the last].
KING. "'Between Traun and the former there is not much difference; but
what a difference, BON DIEU, between the latter and me!'
"I named to him the Count d'Althan, who had been Adjutant-General, and
the Count de Pellegrini. He asked me twice which was which, from the
distance we were at; and said, He was so short-sighted, I must excuse
him.
EGO. "'Nevertheless, Sire, in the war your sight was good enough; and,
if I remember right, it reached very far!'
KING. "'It was not I; it was my glass.'
EGO. "'Ha, I should have liked to find that glass;--but, I fear it would
have suited my eyes as little as Scanderbeg's sword my arm.'
"I forget how the conversation changed; but I know it grew so free that,
seeing somebody coming to join in it, the King warned him to take care;
that it was n't safe to converse with a man doomed by the theologians
to Everlasting Fire. I felt as if he somewhat overdid this of his
'being doomed,' and that he boasted too much of it. Not to hint at
the dishonesty of these free-thinking gentlemen (MESSIEURS LES ESPRITS
FORTS), who very often are thoroughly afraid of the Devil, it is, at
least, bad taste to make display of such things: and it was with the
people of bad taste whom he has had about him, such as a Jordan, a
D'Argens, Maupertuis, La Beaumelle, La Mettrie, Abbe de Prades, and
some dull sceptics of his own Academy, that he had acquired the habit of
mocking at Religion; and of talking (DE PARLER) Dogma, Spinoism, Court
of Rome and the like. In the end, I did n't always answer when he
touched upon it. I now seized a moment's interval, while he was using
his handkerchief, to speak to him about some business, in connection
with the Circle of Westphalia, and a little COMTE IMMEDIAT [County
holding direct, of the Reich] which I have there. The King answered me:
'I, for my part, will do anything you wish; but what thinks the other
Director, my comrade, the Elector of Cologne, about it?'
EGO. "'I was not aware, Sire, that you were an Ecclesiastical Elector.'
KING. "'I am so; at least on my Protestant account.'
EGO. "'That is not to OUR account's advantage! Those good people of mine
believe your Majesty to be their protector.'
"He continued asking me the names of persons he saw. I was telling him
those of a number of young Princes who had lately entered the Service,
and some of whom gave hopes. 'That may be,' said he; 'but I think the
breed of the governing races ought to be crossed. I like the children of
love: look at the Marechal de Saxe, and my own Anhalt [severe Adjutant
von Anhalt, a bastard of Prinz Gustav, the Old Dessauer's Heir-Apparent,
who begot a good many bastards, but died before inheriting: bastards
were brought up, all of them to soldiering, by their Uncles,---this one
by Uncle Moritz; was thrown from his horse eight years HENCE, to the
great joy of many]; though I am afraid that SINCE [mark this SINCE,
alas!] his fall on his head, that latter is not so good as formerly.
I should be grieved at it, [Not for eight years yet, MON PRINCE, I am
sorry to say! Adjutant von Anhalt did, in reality, get this fall,
and damaging hurt on the head, in the "Bavarian War" (nicknamed
KARTOFFEL-KRIEG, "Potato-War"), 1778-1779. _Militair-Lexikon,_ i. 69:
see Preuss, ii. 356, iv. 578; &c.] both for his sake and for mine; he is
a man full of talents.'
"I am glad to remember this; for I have heard it said by silly
slanderous people (SOTS DENIGRANTS), who accuse the King of Prussia of
insensibility, that he was not touched by the accident which happened to
the man he seemed to love most. Too happy if one had only said that
of him! He was supposed to be jealous of the merit of Schwerin and of
Keith, and delighted to have got them killed. It is thus that mediocre
people seek to lower great men, to diminish the immense space that lies
between themselves and such.
"Out of politeness, the King, and his Suite as well, had put on white
[Austrian] Uniforms, not to bring back on us that blue which we had so
often seen in war. He looked as though he belonged to our Army and to
the Kaiser's suite. There was, in this Visit, I believe, on both
sides, a little personality, some distrust, and perhaps a beginning
of bitterness;--as always happens, says Philippe de Comines, when
Sovereigns meet. The King took Spanish snuff, and brushing it off with
his hand from his coat as well as he could, he said, 'I am not clean
enough for you, Messieurs; I am not worthy to wear your colors.' The
air with which he said this, made me think he would yet soil them with
powder, if the opportunity arose.
"I forgot a little Incident which gave me an opportunity of setting off
(FAIRE VALOIR) the two Monarchs to each other [Incident about the King's
high opinion of the Kaiser's drill-sergeantry in this day's manoeuvres,
and how I was the happy cause of the Kaiser's hearing it himself:
Incident omissible; as the whole Sequel is, except a sentence or two].--
... "On this Neustadt occasion, the King was sometimes too ceremonious;
which annoyed the Kaiser. For instance,--I know not whether meaning
to show himself a disciplined Elector of the Reich, but so it
was,--whenever the Kaiser put his foot in stirrup, the King was sure to
take his Majesty's horse by the bridle, stand respectfully waiting the
Kaiser's right foot, and fit it into ITS stirrup: and so with everything
else. The Kaiser had the more sincere appearance, in testifying his
great respect; like that of a young Prince to an aged King, and of a
young Soldier to the greatest of Captains....
"Sometimes there were appearances of cordiality between the two
Sovereigns. One saw that Friedrich II. loved Joseph II., but that the
preponderance of the Empire, and the contact of Bohemia and Silesia, a
good deal barred the sentiments of King and Kaiser. You remember, Sire
[Ex-Sire of Poland], their LETTERS [readers shall see them, in
1778,--or rather REFUSE to see them!'] on the subject of Bavaria; their
compliments, the explanations they had with regard to their intentions;
all carried on with such politeness; and that from politeness to
politeness, the King ended by invading Bohemia."
Well, here is legible record, with something really of portraiture in
it, valuable so far as it goes; record unique on this subject;--and
substantially true, though inexact enough in details. Thus, even in
regard to that of Anhalt's HEAD, which is so impossible in this First
Dialogue, Friedrich did most probably say something of the kind, in a
Second which there is, of date 1780; of which latter De Ligne is here
giving account as well,--though we have to postpone it till its time
come.
At this Neustadt Interview there did something of Political occur;
and readers ought to be shown exactly what. Kaunitz had come with the
Kaiser; and this something was intended as the real business among
the gayeties and galas at Neustadt. Poland, or its Farce-Tragedy now
playing, was not once mentioned that I hear of; though perhaps, as
FLEBILE LUDIBRIUM, it might turn up for moments in dinner-conversation
or the like: but the astonishing Russian-Turk War, which has sprung out
of Poland, and has already filled Stamboul and its Divans and Muftis
with mere horror and amazement; and, in fact, has brought the Grand Turk
to the giddy rim of the Abyss; nothing but ruin and destruction visible
to him: this, beyond all other things whatever, is occupying these high
heads at present;--and indeed the two latest bits of Russian-Turk news
have been of such a blazing character as to occupy all the world more
or less. Readers, some glances into the Turk War, I grieve to say, are
become inevitable to us!
RUSSIAN-TURK WAR, FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS.
"OCTOBER 6th, 1768, Turks declare War; Russian Ambassador thrown into
the Seven Towers as a preliminary, where he sat till Peace came to
be needed. MARCH 23d, 1769, Display their Banner of Mahomet, all in
paroxysm of Fanaticism risen to the burning point: 'Under pain of death,
No Giaour of you appear on the streets, nor even look out, of window,
this day!' Austrian Ambassador's Wife, a beautiful gossamer creature,
venturing to transgress on that point, was torn from her carriage by the
Populace, and with difficulty saved from destruction: Brother of the
Sun and Moon, apologizing afterwards down to the very shoe-tie, is
forgiven."
FIRST CAMPAIGN; 1769. "APRIL 26th-30th, Galitzin VERSUS Choczim;
can't, having no provender or powder. Falls back over Dniester
again,--overhears that extraordinary DREAM, as above recited,
betokening great rumor in Russian Society against such Purblind
Commanders-in-Chief. Purblind VERSUS Blind is fine play, nevertheless;
wait, only wait:--
"JULY 2d, Galitzin slowly gets on the advance again: 150,000 Turks,
still slower, are at last across the Donau (sharp enough French
Officers among them, agents of Choiseul; but a mass incurably
chaotic);--furiously intending towards Poland and extermination of the
Giaour. Do not reach Dniester River till September, and look across
on Poland,--for the first time, and also for the last, in this War.
SEPTEMBER 17th: Weather has been rainy; Dniester, were Galitzin
nothing, is very difficult for Turks; who try in two places, but cannot.
[Hermann, v. 611-613.] In a third place (name not given, perhaps has
no name), about 12,000 of them are across; when Dniester, raging into
flood, carries away their one Bridge, and leaves the 12,000 isolated
there. Purblind Galitzin, on express order, does attack these 12,000
(night of September 17th-18th):--'Hurrah' of the devouring Russians
about midnight, hoarse shriek of the doomed 12,000, wail of their
brethren on the southern shore, who cannot, help:--night of horrors
'from midnight till 2 A.M.;' and the 12,000 massacred or captive, every
man of them; Russian loss 600 killed and wounded. Whereupon the Turk
Army bursts into unanimous insanity; and flows home in deliquium of
ruin. Choczim is got on the terms already mentioned (15 sick men and
women lying in it, and 184 bronze cannon, when we boat across); Turk
Army can by no effort be brought to halt anywhere; flows across the
Donau, disappears into Chaos:--and the whole of Moldavia is conquered
in this cheap manner. What, perhaps is still better, Galitzin (28th
September) is thrown out; Romanzow, hitherto Commander of a second
smaller Army, kind of covering wing to Galitzin, is Chief for Second
Campaign.
"In the Humber, this Winter, to the surprise of incredulous mankind,
a Russian Fleet drops anchor for a few days: actual Russian Fleet
intending for the Greek waters, for Montenegro and intermediate errands,
to conclude with 'Liberation of Greece next Spring,'--so grandiose is
this Czarina." [Hermann, v. 617.]
SECOND CAMPAIGN; 1770. "This is the flower of Anti-Turk
Campaigns,--victorious, to a blazing pitch, both by land and sea.
Romanzow, master of Moldavia, goes upon Wallachia, and the new or
rehabilitated Turk Army; and has an almost gratis bargain of both.
Romanzow has some good Officers under him ('Brigadier Stoffeln,' much
more 'General Tottlenen,' 'General Bauer,' once Colonel Bauer of the
Wesel Free-Corps,--many of the Superior Officers seem to be German,
others have Swedish or Danish names);--better Officers; and knows better
how to use them than Galitzin did. August 1st, Romanzow has a Battle,
called of Kaghul, in Pruth Country. That is his one 'Battle' this
Summer; and brings him Ismail, Akkerman, all Wallachey, and no Turks
left in those parts. But first let us attend to sea-matters, and the
Liberation of Greece, which precede in time and importance.
"'Liberation of Greece:' an actual Fleet, steering from Cronstadt to
the Dardanelles to liberate Greece! The sound of it kindles all the warm
heads in Europe; especially Voltaire's, which, though covered with the
snow of age, is still warm internally on such points. As to liberating
Greece, Voltaire's hopes were utterly balked; but the Fleet from
Cronstadt did amazing service otherwise in those waters. FEBRUARY 28th,
1770, first squadron of the Russian Fleet anchors at Passawa,--not far
from Calamata, in the Gulf of Coron, on the antique Peloponnesian coast;
Sparta on your right hand, Arcadia on your left, and so many excellent
Ghosts (GREEK TEXT) of Heroes looking on:--Russian squadron has four big
ships, three frigates, more soon to follow: on board there are arms and
munitions of war; but unhappily only 500 soldiers. Admiral-in-Chief (not
yet come up) is Alexei Orlof, a brother of Lover Gregory's, an extremely
worthless seaman and man. Has under him 'many Danes, a good few English
too,'--especially Three English Officers, whom we shall hear of, when
Alexei and they come up. Meanwhile, on the Peloponnesian coast are
modern Spartans, to the number of 15,000, all sitting ready,
expecting the Russian advent: these rose duly; got Russian muskets,
cartridges,--only two Russian Officers:--and attacked the Turks
with considerable fury or voracity, but with no success of the least
solidity. Were foiled here, driven out there; in fine, were utterly
beaten, Russians and they: lost Tripolizza, by surprise; whereupon
(April 19th) the Russians withdrew to their Fleet; and the Affair
of Greece was at an end. [Hermann, v. 621.] It had lasted (28th
February-19th April) seven weeks and a day. The Russians retired to
their Fleet, with little loss; and rode at their ease again, in Navarino
Bay. But the 15,000 modern Spartans had nothing to retire to,--these had
to retire into extinction, expulsion and the throat of Moslem vengeance,
which was frightfully bloody and inexorable on them.
"Greece having failed, the Russian Fleet, now in complete tale, made for
Turkey, for Constantinople itself. 'Into the very Dardanelles' they say
they will go; an Englishman among them--Captain Elphinstone, a dashing
seaman, if perhaps rather noisy, whom Rulhiere is not blind to--has been
heard to declare, at least in his cups: 'Dardanelles impossible? Pshaw,
I will do it, as easily as drink this glass of wine!' Alexei Orlof is a
Sham-Admiral; but under him are real Sea-Officers, one or two.
"In the Turkish Fleet, it seems, there is an Ex-Algerine, Hassan Bey,
of some capacity in sea-matters; but he is not in chief command, only
in second; and can accomplish nothing. The Turkish Fleet, numerous but
rotten, retires daily,--through the famed Cyclades, and Isles of Greece,
Paros, Naxos, apocalyptic Patmos, on to Scio (old Chios of the wines);
and on July 5th takes refuge behind Scio, between Scio and the Coast
of Smyrna, in Tchesme Bay. 'Safe here!' thinks the chief Turk Admiral.
'Very far from safe!' remonstrates Hassan; though to no purpose. And
privately puts the question to himself, 'Have these Giaours a real
Admiral among them, or, like us, only a sham one?'"
TCHESME BAY, 7th JULY, 1770. "Nothing can be more imaginary than Alexei
Orlof as an Admiral: but he has a Captain Elphinstone, a Captain Gregg,
a Lieutenant Dugdale; and these determine to burn poor Hassan and his
whole Fleet in Tchesme here:--and do it totally, night of July 7th; with
one single fireship; Dugdale steering it; Gregg behind him, to support
with broadsides; Elphinstone ruling and contriving, still farther to
rear; helpless Turk Fleet able to make no debate whatever. Such a blaze
of conflagration on the helpless Turks as shone over all the world--one
of Rulhiere's finest fire-works, with little shot;--the light of which
was still dazzling mankind while the Interview at Neustadt took place.
Turk Fleet, fifteen ships, nine frigates and above 8,000 men, gone to
gases and to black cinders,--Hassan hardly escaping with I forget how
many score of wounds and bruises. [Hermann, v. 623.]
"'Now for the Dardanelles,' said Elphinstone: (bombard Constantinople,
starve it,--to death, or to what terms you will!' 'Cannot be done; too
dangerous; impossible!' answered the sham Admiral, quite in a tremor,
they say;--which at length filled the measure of Elphinstone's disgusts
with such a Fleet and Admiral. Indignant Elphinstone withdrew to his
own ship, 'Adieu, Sham-Admiral!'--sailed with his own ship, through the
impossible Dardanelles (Turk batteries firing one huge block of granite
at him, which missed; then needing about forty minutes to load
again); feat as easy to Elphinstone as this glass of wine. In sight of
Constantinople, Elphinstone, furthermore, called for his tea; took his
tea on deck, under flourishing of all his drums and all his trumpets:
tea done, sailed out again scathless; instantly threw up his
command,--and at Petersburg, soon after, in taking leave of the Czarina,
signified to her, in language perhaps too plain, or perhaps only too
painfully true, some Naval facts which were not welcome in that high
quarter." [Rulhiere, iii. 476-509.] This remarkable Elphinstone I take
to be some junior or irregular Balmerino scion; but could never much
hear of him except in RULHIERE, where, on vague, somewhat theatrical
terms, he figures as above.
"AUGUST 1st, Romanzow has a 'Battle of Kaghul,' so they call it;
though it is a 'Slaughtery' or SCHLACHTEREI, rather than a 'Slaught' or
SCHLACHT, say my German friends. Kaghul is not a specific place, but a
longish river, a branch of the Pruth; under screen of which the Grand
Turk Army, 100,000 strong, with 100,000 Tartars as second line, has
finally taken position, and fortified itself with earthworks and
abundant cannon. AUGUST 1st, 1770, Romanzow, after study and advising,
feels prepared for this Grand Army and its earthworks: with a select
20,000, under select captains, Romanzow, after nightfall, bursts in
upon it, simultaneously on three different points; and gains, gratis or
nearly so, such a victory as was never heard of before. The Turks, on
their earthworks, had 140 cannons; these the Turk gunners fired off two
times, and fled, leaving them for Romanzow's uses. The Turk cavalry then
tried if they could not make some attempt at charging; found they could
not; whirled back upon their infantry; set it also whirling: and in
a word, the whole 200,000 whirled, without blow struck; and it was a
universal panic rout, and delirious stampede of flight, which never
paused (the very garrisons emptying themselves, and joining in it) till
it got across the Donau again, and drew breath there, not to rally or
stand, but to run rather slower. And had left Wallachia, Bessarabia,
Dniester river, Donau river, swept clear of Turks; all Romanzow's
henceforth. To such astonishment of an invincible Grand Turk, and of his
Moslem Populations, fallen on such a set of Giaours ["ALLAH KERIM, And
cannot we abolish them, then?" Not we THEM, it would appear!],--as every
reader can imagine." Which shall suffice every reader here in regard
to the Turk War, and what concern he has in the extremely brutish
phenomenon.
Tchesme fell out July 7th; Elphinstone has hardly done his tea in the
Dardanelles, when (August 1st) this of Kaghul follows: both would be
fresh news blazing in every head while the Dialogues between Friedrich
and Kaunitz were going on. For they "had many dialogues," Friedrich
says; "and one of the days" (probably September 6th) was mainly devoted
to Politics, to deep private Colloquy with Kaunitz. Of which, and of the
great things that followed out of it, I will now give, from Friedrich's
own hand, the one entirely credible account I have anywhere met with in
writing.
Friedrich's account of Kaunitz himself is altogether life-like: a
solemn, arrogant, mouthing, browbeating kind of man,--embarrassed at
present by the necessity not to browbeat, and by the consciousness that
"King Friedrich is the only man who refuses to acknowledge my claims to
distinction:" [Rulhiere (somewhere) has heard this, as an utterance
of Kaunitz's in some plaintive moment.]--a Kaunitz whose arrogances,
qualities and claims this King is not here to notice, except as they
concern business on hand. He says, "Kaunitz had a clear intellect,
greatly twisted by perversities of temper (UN SENS DROIT, L'ESPRIT
REMPLI DE TRAVERS), especially by a self-conceit and arrogance
which were boundless. He did not talk, but preach. At the smallest
interruption, he would stop short in indignant surprise: it has happened
that, at the Council-Board in Schonbrunn, when Imperial Majesty herself
asked some explanation of a word or thing not understood by her, Kaunitz
made his bow (LUI TIRA SA REVERENCE), and quitted the room." Good to
know the nature of the beast. Listen to him, then, on those terms, since
it is necessary. The Kaunitz Sermon was of great length, imbedded in
circumlocutions, innuendoes and diplomatic cautions; but the gist of
it we gather to have been (abridged into dialogue form) essentially as
follows:--
KAUNITZ. "Dangerous to the repose of Europe, those Russian encroachments
on the Turk. Never will Imperial Majesty consent that Russia possess
Moldavia or Wallachia; War sooner,--all things sooner! These views of
Russia are infinitely dangerous to everybody. To your Majesty as well,
if I may say so; and no remedy conceivable against them,--to me none
conceivable,--but this only, That Prussia and Austria join frankly in
protest and absolute prohibition of them."
FRIEDRICH. "I have nothing more at heart than to stand well with
Austria; and always to be her ally, never her enemy. But your Highness
sees how I am situated: bound by express Treaty with Czarish Majesty;
must go with Russia in any War! What can I do? I can, and will with all
industry, labor to conciliate Czarish Majesty and Imperial; to produce
at Petersburg such a Peace with the Turks as may meet the wishes of
Vienna. Let us hope it can be done. By faithful endeavoring, on my part
and on yours, I persuade myself it can. Meanwhile, steadfastly together,
we two! All our little rubs, custom-house squabbles on the Frontier,
and such like, why not settle them here, and now? [and does so with
his Highness.] That there be nothing but amity, helpfulness and mutual
effort towards an object so momentous to us both, and to all mankind!"
KAUNITZ. "Good so far. And may a not intolerable Turk-Russian Peace
prove possible, without our fighting for it! Meanwhile, Imperial Majesty
[as she has been visibly doing for some time] must continue massing
troops and requisites on the Hungarian Frontier, lest the contrary
happen!"
This was the result arrived at. Of which Friedrich "judged it but polite
to inform the young Kaiser; who appeared to be grateful for this mark
of attention, being much held down by Kaunitz in his present state of
tutelage." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvi. 30.]
And by a singular chance, on the very morrow there arrived from the
Divan (dated August 12th) an Express to Friedrich: "Mediate a Peace for
us with Russia; not you alone, as we have often asked, but Austria AND
you!" For the Kaghul Slaughtery has come on us; Giaour Elphinstone
has taken tea in the Dardanelles; and we know not to what hand to
turn!--"The young Kaiser did not hide his joy at this Overture, as
Kaunitz did his, which was perhaps still greater:" the Kaiser warmly
expressed his thanks to Friedrich as the Author of it; Kaunitz, with
a lofty indifference (MORGUE), and nose in air as over a small matter,
"merely signified his approval of this step which the Turks had taken."
"Never was mediation undertaken with greater pleasure," adds the King.
And both did proceed upon it with all zeal; but only the King as real
"mediator," or MIDDLEman; Kaunitz from the first planting himself
immovably upon the Turk side of things, which is likewise the Austrian;
and playing in secret (as Friedrich probably expected he would) the
strangest tricks with his assumed function.
So that Friedrich had to take the burden of mediating altogether on
himself; and month after month, year after year, it is evident he
prosecutes the same with all the industry and faculty that are in
him,--in intense desire, and in hope often nearly desperate, to keep his
two neighbors' houses, and his own and the whole world along with
them, from taking fire. Apart from their conflicting interests, the two
Empresses have privately a rooted aversion to one another. What with
Russian exorbitancy (a Czarina naturally uplifted with her Tchesmes and
Kaghuls); what with Austrian cupidity, pride, mulishness, and private
trickery of Kaunitz; the adroit and heartily zealous Friedrich never had
such a bit of diplomacy to do. For many months hence, in spite of his
intensest efforts and cunningest appliances, no way of egress visible:
"The imbroglio MUST catch fire!" At last a way opens, "Ha, at last
a way!"--then, for above a twelvemonth longer, such a guiding of the
purblind quadrupeds and obstinate Austrian mules into said way: and
for years more such an urging of them, in pig-driver fashion, along the
same, till Peace did come!--
And here, without knowing it, we have insensibly got to the topmost
summit of our Polish Business; one small step more, and we shall be on
the brow of the precipitous inclined-plane, down which Poland and its
business go careering thenceforth, down, down,--and will need but few
words more from us. Actual discovery of "a way out" stands for next
Section.
First, however, we will notice, as prefatory, a curious occurrence
in the Country of Zips, contiguous to the Hungarian Frontier. Zips, a
pretty enough District, of no great extent, had from time immemorial
belonged to Hungary; till, above 300 years ago, it was--by Sigismund
SUPER GRAMMATICAM, a man always in want of money (whom we last saw, in
flaming color, investing Friedrich's Ancestor with Brandenburg instead
of payment for a debt of money)--pledged to the Crown of Poland for
a round sum to help in Sigismund's pressing occasions. Redemption by
payment never followed; attempt at redemption there had never been,
by Sigismund or any of his successors. Nay, one successor, in a Treaty
still extant, [Preuss, iv. 32 (date 1589; pawning had beep 1412).]
expressly gave up the right of redeeming: Pledge forfeited: a Zips
belonging to Polish Crown and Republic by every law.
Well; Imperial Majesty, as we have transiently seen, is assembling
troops on the Hungarian Frontier, for a special purpose. Poor Poland is,
by this time (1770), as we also saw, sunk in Pestilence,--pigs and dogs
devouring the dead bodies: not a loaf to be had for a hundred ducats,
and the rage of Pestilence itself a mild thing to that of Hunger, not to
mention other rages. So that both Austria and Prussia, in order to keep
out Pestilence at least, if they cannot the other rages, have had to
draw CORDONS, or lines of troops along the Frontiers. "The Prussian
cordon," I am informed, "goes from Crossen, by Frankfurt northward,
to the Weichsel River and border of Warsaw Country:" and "is under the
command of General Belling," our famous Anti-Swede Hussar of former
years. The Austrian cordon looks over upon Zips and other Starosties, on
the Hungarian Border: where, independently of Pestilence, an alarmed
and indignant Empress-Queen has been and is assembling masses of troops,
with what object we know. Looking over into Zips in these circumstances,
indignant Kaunitz and Imperial Majesty, especially HIS Imperial Majesty,
a youth always passionate for territory, say to themselves, "Zips was
ours, and in a sense is!"--and (precise date refused us, but after
Neustadt, and before Winter has quite come) push troops across into
Zips Starosty: seize the whole Thirteen Townships of Zips, and not only
these, but by degrees tract after tract of the adjacencies: "Must have
a Frontier to our mind in those parts: indefensible otherwise!" And
quietly set up boundary-pillars, with the Austrian double-eagle stamped
on them, and intimation to Zips and neighborhood, That it is now become
Austrian, and shall have no part farther in these Polish Confederatings,
Pestilences, rages of men, and pigs devouring dead bodies, but shall
live quiet under the double-eagle as others do. Which to Zips, for the
moment, might be a blessed change, welcome or otherwise; but which awoke
considerable amazement in the outer world,--very considerable in King
Stanislaus (to whom, on applying, Kaunitz would give no explanation the
least articulate);--and awoke, in the Russian Court especially, a rather
intense surprise and provocation.
PRINCE HENRI HAS BEEN TO SWEDEN; IS SEEN AT PETERSBURG IN MASQUERADE (on
or about New-year's Day, 1771); AND DOES GET HOME, WITH RESULTS THAT ARE
IMPORTANT.
Prince Henri, as we noticed, was not of this Second King-and-Kaiser
Interview; Henri had gone in the opposite direction,--to Sweden, on a
visit to his Sister Ulrique,--off for West and North, just in the same
days while the King was leaving Potsdam for Silesia and his other errand
in the Southeast parts. Henri got to Drottingholm, his Sister's country
Palace near Stockholm, by the "end of August;" and was there with Queen
Ulrique and Husband during these Neustadt manoeuvres. A changed Queen
Ulrique, since he last saw her "beautiful as Love," whirling off in the
dead of night for those remote Countries and destinies. [Supra, viii.
309.] She is now fifty, or on the edge of it, her old man sixty,--old
man dies within few months. They have had many chagrins, especially she,
as the prouder, has had, from their contumacious People,--contumacious
Senators at least (strong always both in POCKET-MONEY French or Russian,
and in tendency to insolence and folly),--who once, I remember, demanded
sight and count of the Crown-Jewels from Queen Ulrique: "There, VOILA,
there are they!" said the proud Queen; "view them, count them,--lock
them up: never more will I wear one of them!" But she has pretty Sons
grown to manhood, one pretty Daughter, a patient good old Husband; and
Time, in Sweden too, brings its roses; and life is life, in spite of
contumacious bribed Senators and doggeries that do rather abound. Henri
stayed with her six or seven weeks; leaves Sweden, middle of October,
1770,--not by the straight course homewards: "No, verily, and well knew
why!" shrieks the indignant Polish world on us ever since.
It is not true that Friedrich had schemed to send Henri round by
Petersburg. On the contrary, it was the Czarina, on ground of old
acquaintanceship, who invited him, and asked his Brother's leave to
do it. And if Poland got its fate from the circumstance, it was by
accident, and by the fact that Poland's fate was drop-ripe, ready to
fall by a touch.--Before going farther, here is ocular view of the
shrill-minded, serious and ingenious Henri, little conscious of being so
fateful a man:--PRINCE HENRI IN WHITE DOMINO. "Prince Henri of Prussia,"
says Richardson, the useful Eye-witness cited already, "is one of the
most celebrated Generals of the present age. So great are his military
talents, that his Brother, who is not apt to pay compliments, says of
him,--That, in commanding an army, he was never known to commit a fault.
This, however, is but a negative kind of praise. He [the King] reserves
to himself the glory of superior genius, which, though capable of
brilliant achievements, is yet liable to unwary mistakes: and allows him
no other than the praise of correctness.
"To judge of Prince Henri by his appearance, I should form no high
estimate of his abilities. But the Scythian Ambassadors judged in the
same manner of Alexander the Great. He is under the middle size; very
thin; he walks firmly enough, or rather struts, as if he wanted to
walk firmly; and has little dignity in his air or gesture. He is
dark-complexioned; and he wears his hair, which is remarkably thick,
clubbed, and dressed with a high toupee. His forehead is high; his eyes
large and blue, with a little squint; and when he smiles, his upper
lip is drawn up a little in the middle. His look expresses sagacity and
observation, but nothing very amiable; and his manner is grave and
stiff rather than affable. He was dressed, when I first saw him, in a
light-blue frock with silver frogs; and wore a red waistcoat and blue
breeches. He is not very popular among the Russians; and accordingly
their wits are disposed to amuse themselves with his appearance, and
particularly with his toupee. They say he resembles Samson; that all his
strength lies in his hair; and that, conscious of this, and recollecting
the fate of the son of Manoah, he suffers not the nigh approaches of any
deceitful Delilah. They say he is like the Comet, which, about fifteen
months ago, appeared so formidable in the Russian hemisphere; and which,
exhibiting a small watery body, but a most enormous train, dismayed the
Northern and Eastern Potentates with 'fear of change.'
"I saw him a few nights ago [on or about New-year's Day, 1771; come
back to us, from his Tour to Moscow, three weeks before; and nothing
but galas ever since] at a Masquerade in the Palace, said to be the most
magnificent thing of the kind ever seen at the Russian Court. Fourteen
large rooms and galleries were opened for the accommodation of the
masks; and I was informed that there were present several thousand
people. A great part of the company wore dominos, or capuchin dresses;
though, besides these, some fanciful appearances afforded a good deal
of amusement. A very tall Cossack appeared completely arrayed in the
'hauberk's twisted mail.' He was indeed very grim and martial. Persons
in emblematical dresses, representing Apollo and the Seasons, addressed
the Empress in speeches suited to their characters. The Empress herself,
at the time I saw her Majesty, wore a Grecian habit; though I was
afterwards told that she varied her dress two or three times during the
masquerade. Prince Henri of Prussia wore a white domino. Several persons
appeared in the dresses of different nations,--Chinese, Turks, Persians
and Armenians. The most humorous and fantastical figure was a Frenchman,
who, with wonderful nimbleness and dexterity, represented an overgrown
but very beautiful Parrot. He chattered with a great deal of spirit; and
his shoulders, covered with green feathers, performed admirably the part
of wings. He drew the attention of the Empress; a ring was formed; he
was quite happy; fluttered his plumage; made fine speeches in Russ,
French and tolerable English; the ladies were exceedingly diverted;
everybody laughed except Prince Henri, who stood beside the Empress, and
was so grave and so solemn, that he would have performed his part
most admirably in the shape of an owl. The Parrot observed him; was
determined to have revenge; and having said as many good things as he
could to her Majesty, he was hopping away; but just as he was going out
of the circle, seeming to recollect himself, he stopped, looked over his
shoulder at the formal Prince, and quite in the parrot tone and French
accent, he addressed him most emphatically with 'HENRI! HENRI! HENRI!'
and then, diving into the crowd, disappeared. His Royal Highness was
disconcerted; he was forced to smile in his own defence, and the company
were not a little amused.
"At midnight, a spacious hall, of a circular form, capable of containing
a vast number of people, and illuminated in the most magnificent manner,
was suddenly opened. Twelve tables were placed in alcoves around the
sides of the room, where the Empress, Prince Henri, and a hundred and
fifty of the chief nobility and foreign ministers sat down to supper.
The rest of the company went up, by stairs on the outside of the room,
into the lofty galleries placed all around on the inside. Such a row of
masked visages, many of them with grotesque features and bushy beards,
nodding from the side of the wall, appeared very ludicrous to those
below. The entertainment was enlivened with a concert of music: and
at different intervals persons in various habits entered the hall, and
exhibited Cossack, Chinese, Polish, Swedish and Tartar dances. The whole
was so gorgeous, and at the same time so fantastic, that I could not
help thinking myself present at some of the magnificent festivals
described in the old-fashioned romantes:--
'The marshal'd feast
Served up in hall with sewers and seneschals.'
The rest of the company, on returning to the rooms adjoining, found
prepared for them also a sumptuous banquet. The masquerade began at 6 in
the evening, and continued till 5 next morning.
"Besides the masquerade, and other festivities, in honor of, and
to divert Prince Henri, we had lately a most magnificent show of
fire-works. They were exhibited in a wide apace before the Winter
Palace; and, in truth, 'beggared description.' They displayed, by a
variety of emblematical figures, the reduction of Moldavia, Wallachia,
Bessarabia, and the various conquests and victories achieved since the
commencement of the present War. The various colors, the bright
green and the snowy white, exhibited in these fire-works, were truly
astonishing. For the space of twenty minutes, a tree, adorned with the
loveliest and most verdant foliage, seemed to be waving as with a gentle
breeze. It was entirely of fire; and during the whole of this stupendous
scene, an arch of fire, by the continued throwing of rockets and
fire-balls in one direction, formed as it were a suitable canopy.
"On this occasion a prodigious multitude of people were assembled; and
the Empress, it was surmised, seemed uneasy. She was afraid, it was
apprehended, lest any accident, like what happened at Paris at the
marriage of the Dauphin, should befall her beloved people. I hope I
have amused you; and ever am"--[W. Richardson, _Anecdotes of the Russian
Empire,_ pp. 325-331: "Petersburg, 4th January, 1771."]
The masquerades and galas in honor of Prince Henri, from a grandiose
Hostess, who had played with him in childhood, were many; but it is not
with these that we have to do. One day, the Czarina, talking to him of
the Austrian procedures at Zips, said with pique, "It seems, in Poland
you have only to stoop, and pick up what you like of it. If the Court
of Vienna have the notion to dismember that Kingdom, its neighbors will
have right to do as much." [Rulhiere, iv. 210; _Trois Demembremens,_
i. 142; above all, Henri himself, in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvi. 345,
"Petersburg, 8th January, 1771."] This is supposed, in all Books, to
be the PUNCTUM SALIENS, or first mention, of the astonishing Partition,
which was settled, agreed upon, within about a year hence, and has
made so much noise ever since. And in effect it was so; the idea rising
practically in that high head was the real beginning. But this was
not the first head it had been in; far from that. Above a year ago,
as Friedrich himself informed us, it had been in Friedrich's own
head,--though at the time it went for absolutely nothing, nobody even
bestowing a sneer on it (as Friedrich intimates), and disappeared
through the Horn-Gate of Dreams.
Friedrich himself appears to have quite forgotten the Count-Lynar idea;
and, on Henri's report from Russia, was totally incredulous; and even
suspected that there might be trickery and danger in this Russian
proposal. Not till Henri's return (FEBRUARY 18th, 1771) could he
entirely believe that the Czarina was serious;--and then, sure enough,
he did, with his whole heart, go into it: the EUREKA out of all these
difficulties, which had so long seemed insuperable. Prince Henri "had
an Interview with the Austrian Minister next day" (February 19th),
who immediately communicated with his Kaunitz,--and got discouraging
response from Kaunitz; discouraging, or almost negatory; which did not
discourage Friedrich. "A way out," thinks Friedrich: "the one way to
save my Prussia and the world from incalculable conflagration." And
entered on it without loss of a moment. And labored at it with such
continual industry, rapidity and faculty for guiding and pushing, as
all readers have known in him, on dangerous emergencies: at no moment
lifting his hand from it till it was complete.
His difficulties were enormous: what a team to drive; and on such a
road, untrodden before by hoof or wheel! Two Empresses that cordially
hate one another, and that disagree on this very subject. Kaunitz and
his Empress are extremely skittish in the matter, and as if quite refuse
it at first: "Zips will be better," thinks Kaunitz to himself; "Cannot
we have, all to ourselves, a beautiful little cutting out of Poland in
that part; and then perhaps, in league with the Turk, who has money,
beat the Russians home altogether, and rule Poland in their stead, or
'share it with the Sultan,' as Reis-Effendi suggests?" And the dismal
truth is, though it was not known for years afterward, Kaunitz does
about this time, in profoundest secret, actually make Treaty of Alliance
with the Turk ("so many million Piastres to us, ready money, year by
year, and you shall, if not by our mediating, then by our fighting, be
a contented Turk"); and all along at the different Russian-Turk
"Peace-Congresses," Kaunitz, while pretending to sit and mediate
along with Prussia, sat on that far other basis, privately thwarting
everything; and span out the Turk pacification in a wretched manner
for years coming. ["Peace of Kainardschi," not till "21st July,
1774,"--after four or five abortive attempts, two of them "Congresses,"
Kaunitz so industrious (Hermann, v. 664 et antea).] A dangerous,
hard-mouthed, high-stalking, ill-given old coach-horse of a Kaunitz:
fancy what the driving of him might be, on a road he did not like! But
he had a driver too, who, in delicate adroitness, in patience and in
sharpness of whip, was consummate: "You shall know it is your one road,
my ill-given friend!" (I ostentatiously increase my Cavalry by 8,000;
meaning, "A new Seven-Years War, if you force me, and Russia by my side
this time!") So that Kaunitz had to quit his Turk courses (never paid
the Piastres back), and go into what really was the one way out.
But Friedrich's difficulties on this course are not the thing that
can interest readers; and all readers know his faculty for overcoming
difficulties. Readers ask rather: "And had Friedrich no feeling about
Poland itself, then, and this atrocious Partitioning of the poor
Country?" Apparently none whatever;--unless it might be, that
Deliverance from Anarchy, Pestilence, Famine, and Pigs eating your dead
bodies, would be a manifest advantage for Poland, while it was the
one way of saving Europe from War. Nobody seems more contented in
conscience, or radiant with heartfelt satisfaction, and certainty of
thanks from all wise and impartial men, than the King of Prussia, now
and afterwards, in regard to this Polish atrocity! A psychological fact,
which readers can notice. Scrupulous regard to Polish considerations,
magnanimity to Poland, or the least respect or pity for her as a
dying Anarchy, is what nobody will claim for him; consummate talent in
executing the Partition of Poland (inevitable some day, as he may have
thought, but is nowhere at the pains to say),--great talent, great
patience too, and meritorious self-denial and endurance, in executing
that Partition, and in saving IT from catching fire instead of being
the means to quench fire, no well-informed person will deny him. Of his
difficulties in the operation (which truly are unspeakable) I will say
nothing more; readers are prepared to believe that he, beyond others,
should conquer difficulties when the object is vital to him. I will
mark only the successive dates of his progress, and have done with this
wearisome subject:--
June 14th, 1771. Within four months of the arrival of Prince Henri and
that first certainty from Russia, diligent Friedrich, upon whom the
whole burden had been laid of drawing up a Plan, and bringing Austria
to consent, is able to report to Petersburg, That Austria has dubieties,
reluctances, which it is to be foreseen she will gradually get over;
and that here meanwhile (June 14th, 1771) is my Plan of Partition,--the
simplest conceivable: "That each choose (subject to future
adjustments) what will best suit him; I, for my own part, will say,
West-Preussen;--what Province will Czarish Majesty please to say?"
Czarish Majesty, in answer, is exorbitantly liberal to herself; claims,
not a Province, but four or five; will have Friedrich, if the Austrians
attack her in consequence, to assist by declaring War on Austria;
Czarish Majesty, in the reciprocal case, not to assist Friedrich at all,
till her Turk War is done! "Impossible," thinks Friedrich; "surprisingly
so, high Madam! But, to the delicate bridle-hand, you are a manageable
entity."
It was with Kaunitz that Friedrich's real difficulties lay. Privately,
in the course of this Summer, Kaunitz, by way of preparation for
"mediating a Turk-Russian Peace," had concluded his "subsidy Treaty"
with the Turk, ["6th July, 1771" (Preuss, iv. 31; Hermann; &c.
&c.).]--Treaty never ratified, but the Piastres duly paid;--Treaty
rendering Peace impossible, so long as Kaunitz had to do with mediating
it. And indeed Kaunitz's tricks in that function of mediator, and also
after it, were of the kind which Friedrich has some reason to call
"infamous." "Your Majesty, as co-mediator, will join us, should the
Russians make War?" said Kaunitz's Ambassador, one day, to Friedrich.
"For certain, no!" answered Friedrich; and, on the contrary, remounted
his Cavalry, to signify, "I will fight the other way, if needed!" which
did at once bring Kaunitz to give up his mysterious Turk projects, and
come into the Polish. After which, his exorbitant greed of territory
there; his attempts to get Russia into a partitioning of Turkey as
well,--("A slice of Turkey too, your Czarish Majesty and we?" hints he
more than once),--gave Friedrich no end of trouble; and are singular
to look at by the light there now is. Not for about a twelvemonth did
Friedrich get his hard-mouthed Kaunitz brought into step at all; and
to the last, perpetual vigilance and, by whip and bit, the adroitest
charioteering was needed on him.
FEBRUARY 17th, 1772, Russia and Prussia, for their own part,--Friedrich,
in the circumstances, submitting to many things from his Czarina,--get
their particular "Convention" (Bargain in regard to Poland) completed in
all parts, "will take possession 4th June instant:" sign said Convention
(February 17th);--and invite Austria to join, and state her claims.
Which, in three weeks after, MARCH 4th, Austria does;--exorbitant
abundantly; and NOT to be got very much reduced, though we try, for a
series of months. Till at last:--
AUGUST 5th, 1772, Final Agreement between the Three Partitioning Powers:
"These are our respective shares; we take possession on the 1st OF
SEPTEMBER instant:"--and actual possession for Friedrich's share did,
on the 13th of that month, ensue. A right glad Friedrich, as everybody,
friend or enemy, may imagine him! Glad to have done with such a
business,--had there been no other profit in it; which was far from
being the case. One's clear belief, on studying these Books, is of two
things: FIRST, that, as everybody admits, Friedrich had no real hand in
starting the notion of Partitioning Poland;--but that he grasped at it
with eagerness, as the one way of saving Europe from War: SECOND, what
has been much less noticed, that, under any other hand, it would have
led Europe to War;--and that to Friedrich is due the fact, that it got
effected without such accompaniment. Friedrich's share of Territory
is counted to be in all 9,465 English square miles; Austria's, 62,500;
Russia's, 87,500, [Preuss, iv. 45.] between nine and ten times the
amount of Friedrich's,--which latter, however, as an anciently Teutonic
Country, and as filling up the always dangerous gap between his
Ost-Preussen and him, has, under Prussian administration, proved much
the most valuable of the Three; and, next to Silesia, is Friedrich's
most important acquisition. SEPTEMBER 13th, 1772, it was at last entered
upon,--through such waste-weltering confusions, and on terms never yet
unquestionable.
Consent of Polish Diet was not had for a year more; but that is worth
little record. Diet, for that object, got together 19th APRIL, 1773;
recalcitrant enough, had not Russia understood the methods: "a common
fund was raised [ON SE COTISA, says Friedrich] for bribing;" the
Three Powers had each a representative General in Warsaw (Lentulus the
Prussian personage), all three with forces to rear: Diet came down
by degrees, and, in the course of five months (SEPTEMBER 18th, 1773),
acquiesced in everything.
And so the matter is ended; and various men will long have various
opinions upon it. I add only this one small Document from Maria
Theresa's hand, which all hearts, and I suppose even Friedrich's had
he ever read it, will pronounce to be very beautiful; homely, faithful,
wholesome, well-becoming in a high and true Sovereign Woman.
THE EMPRESS-QUEEN TO PRINCE KAUNITZ (Undated: date must be Vienna,
February, 1772).
"When all my lands were invaded, and I knew not where in the world I
should find a place to be brought to bed in, I relied on my good right
and the help of God. But in this thing, where not only public law cries
to Heaven against us, but also all natural justice and sound reason,
I must confess never in my life to have been in such trouble, and am
ashamed to show my face. Let the Prince [Kaunitz] consider what an
example we are giving to all the world, if, for a miserable piece of
Poland, or of Moldavia or Wallachia, we throw our honor and reputation
to the winds. I see well that I am alone, and no more in vigor;
therefore I must, though to my very great sorrow, let things take their
course." [_"Als alle meine lander angefochten wurden und gar nit mehr
wusste wo ruhig niederkommen sollte, steiffete ich mich auf mein gutes
Recht und den Beystand Gottes. Aber in dieser Sach, wo nit allein das
offenbare Recht himmelschreyent wider Uns, sondern auch alle Billigkeit
und die gesunde Vernunft wider Uns ist, muess bekhennen dass zeitlebens
nit so beangstigt mich befunten und mich sehen zu lassen schame. Bedenkh
der Furst, was wir aller Welt fur ein Exempel geben, wenn wir um ein
ellendes stuk von Pohlen oder von der Moldau und Wallachey unser ehr und
REPUTATION in die schanz schlagen. Ich merkh wohl dass ich allein bin
und nit mehr EN VIGEUR, darum lasse ich die sachen, jedoch nit ohne
meinen grossten Gram, ihren Weg gehen."_ (From "Hormayr, _Taschenbuch,_
1831, s. 66:" cited in PREUSS, iv. 38.)]
And, some days afterwards, here is her Majesty's Official Assent:
"PLACET, since so many great and learned men will have it so: but long
after I am dead, it will be known what this violating of all that was
hitherto held sacred and just will give rise to." [From _"Zietgenossen_
[a Biographical Periodical], lxxi. 29:" cited in PREUSS, iv. 39.] (Hear
her Majesty!)
Friedrich has none of these compunctious visitings; but his account
too, when he does happen to speak on the subject, is worth hearing, and
credible every word. Writing to Voltaire, a good while after (POTSDAM,
9th OCTOBER, 1773)) this, in the swift-flowing, miscellaneous Letter,
is one passage:... "To return to your King of Poland. I am aware that
Europe pretty generally believes the late Partition made (QU'ON A FAIT)
of Poland to be a result of the Political trickeries (MANIGANCES) which
are attributed to me; nevertheless, nothing is more untrue. After in
vain proposing different arrangements and expedients, there was no
alternative left but either that same Partition, or else Europe kindled
into a general War. Appearances are deceitful; and the Public judges
only by these. What I tell you is as true as the Forty-seventh of
Euclid." [_OEuvres de Frederic_, xxiii. 257.]
WHAT FRIEDRICH DID WITH HIS NEW ACQUISITION.
Considerable obloquy still rests on Friedrich, in many liberal circles,
for the Partition of Poland. Two things, however, seem by this time
tolerably clear, though not yet known in liberal circles: first, that
the Partition of Poland was an event inevitable in Polish History; an
operation of Almighty Providence and of the Eternal Laws of Nature, as
well as of the poor earthly Sovereigns concerned there; and secondly,
that Friedrich had nothing special to do with it, and, in the way of
originating or causing it, nothing whatever.
It is certain the demands of Eternal Justice must be fulfilled: in
earthly instruments, concerned with fulfilling them, there may be all
degrees of demerit and also of merit,--from that of a world-ruffian
Attila the Scourge of God, conscious of his own ferocities and
cupidities alone, to that of a heroic Cromwell, sacredly aware that he
is, at his soul's peril, doing God's Judgments on the enemies of God,
in Tredah and other severe scenes. If the Laws and Judgments are verily
those of God, there can be no clearer merit than that of pushing them
forward, regardless of the barkings of Gazetteers and wayside dogs,
and getting them, at the earliest term possible, made valid among
recalcitrant mortals! Friedrich, in regard to Poland, I cannot find to
have had anything considerable either of merit or of demerit, in the
moral point of view; but simply to have accepted, and put in his pocket
without criticism, what Providence sent. He himself evidently views
it in that light; and is at no pains to conceal his great sense of the
value of West-Preussen to him. We praised his Narrative as eminently
true, and the only one completely intelligible in every point: in
his Preface to it, written some years later, he is still more candid.
Speaking there in the first person, this once and never before or
after,--he says:--
"These new pretensions [of the Czarina, to assuage the religious
putrid-fever of the Poles by word of command] raised all Poland [into
Confederation of Bar, and WAR OF THE CONFEDERATES, sung by Friedrich];
the Grandees of the Kingdom implored the assistance of the Turks:
straightway War flamed out; in which the Russian Armies had only to
show themselves to beat the Turks in every rencounter." His Majesty
continues: "This War changed the whole Political System of Europe
[general Diplomatic Dance of Europe, suddenly brought to a whirl by such
changes of the music]; a new arena (CARRIERE) came to open itself,--and
one must have been either without address, or else buried in stupid
somnolence (ENGOURDISSEMENT), not to profit by an opportunity so
advantageous. I had read Bojardo's fine Allegory: [Signifies only,
"seize opportunity;" but here is the passage itself:--
"Quante volte le disse: 'O bella dama,
Conosci l'ora de la tua ventura,
Dapoi che un tal Baron piu the che se t'ama,
Che non ha il Ciel piu vaga creatura.
Forse anco avrai di questo tempo brama,
Che'l felice destin sempre non dura;
Prendi diletto, mentre sei su 'l verde,
Che l'avuto piacer mai non si perde.
Questa eta giovenil, ch' e si gioiosa,
Tutta in diletto consumar si deve,
Perche quasi in un punto ci e nas cosa:
Como dissolve 'l sol la bianca neve,
Como in un giorno la vermiglia rosa
Perde il vago color in tempo breve,
Cosi fugge l' eta com' un baleno,
E non si puo tener, che non ha freno.'"
(Bojardo, _Orlando Innamorato,_ lib. i. cant. 2.)] I seized by the
forelock this unexpected opportunity; and, by dint of negotiating and
intriguing [candid King] I succeeded in indemnifying our Monarchy for
its past losses, by incorporating Polish Prussia with my Old Provinces."
[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ (Preface to MEMOIRS DEPUIS 1763 JUSQU'A 1774),
vi. 6, 7: "MEMOIRES [Chapter FIRST, including all the Polish part] were
finished in 1775; Preface is of 1779."]
Here is a Historian King who uses no rouge-pot in his Narratives,--whose
word, which is all we shall say of it at present, you find to be
perfectly trustworthy, and a representation of the fact as it stood
before himself! What follows needs no vouching for: "This acquisition
was one of the most important we could make, because it joined Pommern
to East Prussia [ours for ages past], and because, rendering us masters
of the Weichsel River, we gained the double advantage of being able to
defend that Kingdom [Ost-Preussen], and to draw considerable tolls from
the Weichsel, as all the trade of Poland goes by that River."
Yes truly! Our interests are very visible: and the interests and wishes
and claims of Poland,--are they nowhere worthy of one word from you, O
King? Nowhere that I have noticed: not any mention of them, or allusion
to them; though the world is still so convinced that perhaps they were
something, and not nothing! Which is very curious. In the whole course
of my reading I have met with no Autobiographer more careless to
defend himself upon points in dispute among his Audience, and marked as
criminal against him by many of them. Shadow of Apology on such points
you search for in vain. In rapid bare summary he sets down the sequel of
facts, as if assured beforehand of your favorable judgment, or with the
profoundest indifference to how you shall judge them; drops his actions,
as an Ostrich does its young, to shift for themselves in the wilderness,
and hurries on his way. This style of his, noticeable of old in regard
to Silesia too, has considerably hurt him with the common kind of
readers; who, in their preconceived suspicions of the man, are all the
more disgusted at tracing in him, not the least anxiety to stand well
with any reader, more than to stand ill, AS ill as any reader likes!
Third parties, it would seem, have small temptation to become his
advocates; he himself being so totally unprovided with thanks for you!
But, on another score, and for the sake of a better kind of readers,
there is one third party bound to remark: 1. That hardly any Sovereign
known to us did, in his general practice, if you will examine it, more
perfectly respect the boundaries of his neighbors; and go on the road
that was his own, anxious to tread on no man's toes if he could avoid
it: a Sovereign who, at all times, strictly and beneficently confined
himself to what belonged to his real business and him. 2. That
apparently, therefore, he must have considered Poland to be an
exceptional case, unique in his experience: case of a moribund Anarchy,
fallen down as carrion on the common highways of the world; belonging to
nobody in particular; liable to be cut into (nay, for sanitary
reasons requiring it, if one were a Rhadamanthus Errant, which one
is not!)--liable to be cut into, on a great and critically stringent
occasion; no question to be asked of IT; your only question the consent
of by-standers, and the moderate certainty that nobody got a glaringly
disproportionate share! That must have been, on the part of an equitable
Friedrich, or even of a Friedrich accurate in Book-keeping by Double
Entry, the notion silently formed about Poland.
Whether his notion was scientifically right, and conformable to actual
fact, is a question I have no thought of entering on; still less,
whether Friedrich was morally right, or whether there was not a higher
rectitude, granting even the fact, in putting it in practice. These are
questions on which an Editor may have his opinion, partly complete for a
long time past, partly not complete, or, in human language, completable
or pronounceable at all; and may carefully forbear to obtrude it on his
readers; and only advise them to look with their own best eyesight, to
be deaf to the multiplex noises which are evidently blind, and to think
what they find thinkablest on such a subject. For, were it never so
just, proper and needful, this is by nature a case of LYNCH LAW; upon
which, in the way of approval or apology, no spoken word is permissible.
Lynch being so dangerous a Lawgiver, even when an indispensable one!--
For, granting that the Nation of Poland was for centuries past an
Anarchy doomed by the Eternal Laws of Heaven to die, and then of
course to get gradually buried, or eaten by neighbors, were it only for
sanitary reasons,--it will by no means suit, to declare openly on behalf
of terrestrial neighbors who have taken up such an idea (granting it
were even a just one, and a true reading of the silent but inexorably
certain purposes of Heaven), That they, those volunteer terrestrial
neighbors, are justified in breaking in upon the poor dying or dead
carcass, and flaying and burying it, with amicable sharing of skin and
shoes! If it even were certain that the wretched Polish Nation, for the
last forty years hastening with especial speed towards death, did in
present circumstances, with such a howling canaille of Turk Janissaries
and vultures of creation busy round it, actually require prompt surgery,
in the usual method, by neighbors,--the neighbors shall and must do that
function at their own risk. If Heaven did appoint them to it, Heaven,
for certain, will at last justify them; and in the mean while, for a
generation or two, the same Heaven (I can believe) has appointed
that Earth shall pretty unanimously condemn them. The shrieks, the
foam-lipped curses of mistaken mankind, in such case, are mankind's one
security against over-promptitude (which is so dreadfully possible) on
the part of surgical neighbors.
Alas, yes, my articulate-speaking friends; here, as so often elsewhere,
the solution of the riddle is not Logic, but Silence. When a dark human
Individual has filled the measure of his wicked blockheadisms, sins and
brutal nuisancings, there are Gibbets provided, there are Laws provided;
and you can, in an articulate regular manner, hang him and finish him,
to general satisfaction. Nations too, you may depend on it as certain,
do require the same process, and do infallibly get it withal; Heaven's
Justice, with written Laws or without, being the most indispensable and
the inevitablest thing I know of in this Universe. No doing without it;
and it is sure to come:--and the Judges and Executioners, we observe,
are NOT, in that latter case, escorted in and out by the Sheriffs of
Counties and general ringing of bells; not so, in that latter case, but
far otherwise!--
And now, leaving that vexed question, we will throw one glance--only one
is permitted--into the far more profitable question, which probably
will one day be the sole one on this matter, What became of poor
West-Preussen under Friedrich? Had it to sit, weeping unconsolably, or
not? Herr Dr. Freytag, a man of good repute in Literature, has, in one
of his late Books of Popular History, [G. Freytag, _Neue Bilder aus dem
Leben des deutschen Volkes_ (Leipzig, 1862).] gone into this subject,
in a serious way, and certainly with opportunities far beyond mine for
informing himself upon it:--from him these Passages have been excerpted,
labelled and translated by a good hand:--
ACQUISITION OF POLISH PRUSSIA. "During several Centuries, the
much-divided Germans had habitually been pressed upon, and straitened
and injured, by greedy conquering neighbors; Friedrich was the first
Conqueror who once more pushed forward the German Frontier towards the
East; reminding the Germans again, that it was their task to carry Law,
Culture, Liberty and Industry into the East of Europe. All Friedrich's
Lands, with the exception only of some Old-Saxon territory, had, by
force and colonization, been painfully gained from the Sclave. At no
time since the migrations of the Middle Ages, had this struggle for
possession of the wide Plains to the east of Oder ceased. When arms were
at rest, politicians carried on the struggle."
PERSECUTION OF GERMAN PROTESTANTS IN POLAND. "In the very 'Century of
Enlightenment' the persecution of the Germans became fanatical in those
Countries: one Protestant Church after the other got confiscated; pulled
down; if built of wood, set on fire: its Church once burnt, the Village
had lost the privilege of having one. Ministers and schoolmasters were
driven away, cruelly maltreated. 'VEXA LUTHERANURN, DABIT THALERUM
(Wring the Lutheran, you will find money in him),' became the current
Proverb of the Poles in regard to Germans. A Protestant Starost of
Gnesen, a Herr von UNRUH of the House of Birnbaum, one of the largest
proprietors of the country, was condemned to die, and first to have his
tongue pulled out and his hands cut off,--for the crime of having copied
into his Note-book some strong passages against the Jesuits, extracted
from German Books. Patriotic 'Confederates of Bar,' joined by all the
plunderous vagabonds around, went roaming and ravaging through the
country, falling upon small towns and German villages. The Polish
Nobleman, Roskowski [a celebrated "symbolical" Nobleman, this], put
on one red boot and one black, symbolizing FIRE and DEATH; and in this
guise rode about, murdering and burning, from places to place; finally,
at Jastrow, he cut off the hands, feet, and lastly the head of the
Protestant Pastor, Willich by name, and threw the limbs into a swamp.
This happened in 1768."
IN WHAT STATE FRIEDRICH FOUND THE POLISH PROVINCES. "Some few only of
the larger German Towns, which were secured by walls, and some protected
Districts inhabited exclusively by Germans,--as the NIEDERUNG near
Dantzig, the Villages under the mild rule of the Cistercians of
Oliva, and the opulent German towns of the Catholic Ermeland,--were in
tolerable circumstances. The other Towns lay in ruins; so also most of
the Hamlets (HOFE) of the open Country. Bromberg, the city of German
Colonists, the Prussians found in heaps and ruins: to this hour it
has not been possible to ascertain clearly how the Town came into this
condition. [_"Neue Preussische Provinzialblotter,_ Year 1854, No. 4, p.
259."] No historian, no document, tells of the destruction and slaughter
that had been going on, in the whole District of the NETZE there, during
the last ten years before the arrival of the Prussians, The Town of
Culm had preserved its strong old walls and stately churches; but in the
streets, the necks of the cellars stood out above the rotten timber and
brick heaps of the tumbled houses: whole streets consisted merely of
such cellars, in which wretched people were still trying to live. Of
the forty houses in the large Market-place of Culm, twenty-eight had no
doors, no roofs, no windows, and no owners. Other Towns were in similar
condition."
"The Country people hardly knew such a thing as bread; many had never
in their life tasted such a delicacy; few Villages possessed an oven. A
weaving-loom was rare, the spinning-wheel unknown. The main article of
furniture, in this bare scene of squalor, was the Crucifix and vessel
of Holy-Water under it [and "POLACK! CATHOLIK!" if a drop of gin
be added].--The Peasant-Noble [unvoting, inferior kind] was hardly
different from the common Peasant: he himself guided his Hook Plough
(HACKEN-PFLUG), and clattered with his wooden slippers upon the
plankless floor of his hut.... It was a desolate land, without
discipline, without law, without a master. On 9,000 English square miles
lived 500,000 souls: not 55 to the square mile."
SETS TO WORK. "The very rottenness of the Country became an attraction
for Friedrich; and henceforth West-Preussen was, what hitherto Silesia
had been, his favorite child; which, with infinite care, like that of an
anxious loving mother, he washed, brushed, new-dressed, and forced to
go to school and into orderly habits, and kept ever in his eye. The
diplomatic squabbles about this 'acquisition' were still going on,
when he had already sent [so early as June 4th, 1772, and still more on
September 13th of that Year [See his new DIALOGUE with Roden, our Wesel
acquaintance, who was a principal Captain in this business (in PREUSS,
iv. 57, 58: date of the Dialogue is "11th May, 1772;"--Roden was on the
ground 4th June next; but, owing to Austrian delays, did not begin
till September 13th).]] a body of his best Official People into this
waste-howling scene, to set about organizing it. The Landschaften
(COUNTIES) were divided into small Circles; in a minimum of time, the
land was valued, and an equal tax put upon it; every Circle received its
LANDRATH, Law-Court, Post-office and Sanitary Police. New Parishes, each
with its Church and Parson, were called into existence as by miracle;
a company of 187 Schoolmasters--partly selected and trained by
the excellent Semler [famous over Germany, in Halle University and
SEMINARIUM, not yet in England]--were sent into the Country: multitudes
of German Mechanics too, from brick-makers up to machine-builders.
Everywhere there began a digging, a hammering, a building; Cities were
peopled anew; street after street rose out of the heaps of ruins; new
Villages of Colonists were laid out, new modes of agriculture ordered.
In the first Year after taking possession, the great Canal [of Bromberg]
was dug; which, in a length of fifteen miles, connects, by the Netze
River, the Weichsel with the Oder and the Elbe: within one year after
giving the order, the King saw loaded vessels from the Oder, 120 feet in
length of keel," and of forty tons burden, "enter the Weichsel. The vast
breadths of land, gained from the state of swamp by drainage into this
Canal, were immediately peopled by German Colonists.
"As his Seven-Years Struggle of War may be called super-human, so was
there also in his present Labor of Peace something enormous; which
appeared to his contemporaries [unless my fancy mislead me] almost
preternatural, at times inhuman. It was grand, but also terrible, that
the success of the whole was to him, at all moments, the one thing to be
striven after; the comfort of the individual of no concern at all. When,
in the Marshland of the Wetze, he counted more the strokes of the 10,000
spades, than the sufferings of the workers, sick with the marsh-fever in
the hospitals which he had built for them; [Compare PREUSS, iv. 60-71.]
when, restless, his demands outran the quickest performance,--there
united itself to the deepest reverence and devotedness, in his People,
a feeling of awe, as for one whose limbs are not moved by earthly life
[fanciful, considerably!]. And when Goethe, himself become an old man,
finished his last Drama [Second Part of FAUST], the figure of the old
King again rose on him, and stept into his Poem; and his Faust got
transformed into an unresting, creating, pitilessly exacting Master,
forcing on his salutiferous drains and fruitful canals through the
morasses of the Weichsel." [G. Freytag, _Neue Bilder aus dem Leben des
deutschen Volkes_ (Leipzig, 1862), pp. 397-408.]
These statements and pencillings of Freytag, apart from here and there
a flourish of poetic sentiment, I believe my readers can accept as
essentially true, and a correct portrait of the fact. And therewith, CON
LA BOCCA DOLCE, we will rise from this Supper of Horrors. That Friedrich
fortified the Country, that he built an impregnable Graudentz, and two
other Fortresses, rendering the Country, and himself on that Eastern
side, impregnable henceforth, all readers can believe. Friedrich has
been building various Fortresses in this interim, though we have taken
no notice of them; building and repairing many things;--trimming up his
Military quite to the old pitch, as the most particular thing of all. He
has his new Silesian Fortress of Silberberg,--big Fortress, looking
into certain dangerous Bohemian Doors (in Tobias Stusche's Country,
if readers recollect an old adventure now mythical);--his new Silesian
Silberberg, his newer Polish Graudentz, and many others, and flatters
himself he is not now pregnable on any side.
A Friedrich working, all along, in Poland especially, amid what
circumambient deluges of maledictory outcries, and mendacious
shriekeries from an ill-informed Public, is not now worth mentioning.
Mere distracted rumors of the Pamphleteer and Newspaper kind: which,
after hunting them a long time, through dense and rare, end mostly in
zero, and angry darkness of some poor human brain,--or even testify in
favor of this Head-Worker, and of the sense he shows, especially of the
patience. For example: that of the "Polish Towns and Villages, ordered"
by this Tyrant "to deliver, each of them, so many marriageable girls;
each girl to bring with her as dowry, furnished by her parents,
1 feather-bed, 4 pillows, 1 cow, 3 swine and 3 ducats,"--in which
desirable condition this tyrannous King "sent her into the Brandenburg
States to be wedded and promote population." [Lindsey, LETTERS ON POLAND
(Letter 2d). p. 61: Peyssonnel (in some. French Book of his, "solemnly
presented to Louis XVI. and the Constituent Assembly;" cited in PREUSS,
iv. 85); &c. &c.] Feather-beds, swine and ducats had their value in
Brandenburg; but were marriageable girls such a scarcity there? Most
extraordinary new RAPE OF THE SABINES; for which Herr Preuss can find no
basis or source,--nor can I; except in the brain of Reverend Lindsey and
his loud LETTERS ON POLAND above mentioned.
Dantzig too, and the Harbor-dues, what a case! Dantzig Harbor, that
is to say, Netze River, belongs mainly to Friedrich, Dantzig City
not,--such the Czarina's lofty whim, in the late Partition Treatyings;
not good to contradict, in the then circumstances; still less
afterwards, though it brought chicanings more than enough. "And she
was not ill-pleased to keep this thorn in the King's foot for her own
conveniences," thinks the King; though, mainly, he perceives that it is
the English acting on her grandiose mind: English, who were apprehensive
for their Baltic trade under this new Proprietor, and who egged on an
ambitious Czarina to protect Human Liberty, and an inflated Dantzig
Burgermeister to stand up for ditto; and made a dismal shriekery in
the Newspapers, and got into dreadful ill-humor with said Proprietor
of Dantzig Harbor, and have never quite recovered from it to this day.
Lindsey's POLISH LETTERS are very loud again on this occasion, aided
by his SEVEN DIALOGUES ON POLAND; concerning which, partly for extinct
Lindsey's sake, let us cite one small passage, and so wind up.
MARCH 2d, 1775, in answer to Voltaire, Friedrich writes:... "The POLISH
DIALOGUES you speak of are not known to me. I think of such Satires,
with Epictetus: 'If they tell any truth of thee, correct thyself; if
they are lies, laugh at them.' I have learned, with years, to become a
steady coach-horse; I do my stage, like a diligent roadster, and pay
no heed to the little dogs that will bark by the way." And then, three
weeks after:--
"I have at length got the SEVEN DIALOGUES ON POLAND; and the whole
history of them as well. The Author is an Englishman named Lindsey,
Parson by profession, and Tutor to the young Prince Poniatowski,
the King of Poland's Nephew,"--Nephew Joseph, Andreas's Son, NOT the
undistinguished Nephew: so we will believe for poor loud Lindsey's
sake! "It was at the instigation of the Czartoryskis, Uncles of the King,
that Lindsey composed this Satire,--in English first of all. Satire
ready, they perceived that nobody in Poland would understand it, unless
it were translated into French; which accordingly was done. But as their
translator was unskilful, they sent the DIALOGUES to a certain Gerard at
Dantzig, who at that time was French Consul there, and who is at present
a Clerk in your Foreign Office under M. de Vergennes. This Gerard, who
does not want for wit, but who does me the honor to hate me cordially,
retouched these DIALOGUES, and put them into the condition they were
published in. I have laughed a good deal at them: here and there occur
coarse things (GROSSIERETES), and platitudes of the insipid kind:
but there are traits of good pleasantry. I shall not go fencing with
goose-quills against this sycophant. As Mazarin said, 'Let the French
keep singing, provided they let us keep doing.'" [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
xxiii. 319-321: "Potsdam, 2d March, 1775," and "25th March" following.
See PREUSS, iii. 275, iv. 85.]
Chapter V.--A CHAPTER OF MISCELLANIES.
After Neustadt, Kaiser Joseph and the King had no more Interviews.
Kaunitz's procedures in the subsequent Pacification and Partition
business had completely estranged the two Sovereigns: to friendly
visiting, a very different state of mutual feeling had succeeded;
which went on, such "the immeasurable ambition" visible in some of
us, deepening and worsening itself, instead of improving or abating.
Friedrich had Joseph's Portrait hung in conspicuous position in the
rooms where he lived; somebody noticing the fact, Friedrich answered:
"Ah, yes, I am obliged to keep that young Gentleman in my eye." And,
in effect, the rest of Friedrich's Political Activity, from this time
onwards, may be defined as an ever-vigilant defence of himself, and of
the German Reich, against Austrian Encroachment: which, to him, in the
years then running, was the grand impending peril; and which to us in
the new times has become so inexpressibly uninteresting, and will bear
no narrative, Austrian Encroachment did not prove to be the death-peril
that had overhung the world in Friedrich's last years!--
These, accordingly, are years in which the Historical interest goes
on diminishing; and only the Biographical, were anything of Biography
attainable, is left. Friedrich's industrial, economic and other Royal
activities are as beautiful as ever; but cannot to our readers, in our
limits, be described with advantage. Events of world-interest, after the
Partition of Poland, do not fall out, or Friedrich is not concerned in
them. It is a dim element; its significance chiefly German or Prussian,
not European. What of humanly interesting is discoverable in it,--at
least, while the Austrian Grudge continues in a chronic state, and has
no acute fit,--I will here present in the shape of detached Fragments,
suitably arranged and rendered legible, in hopes these may still have
some lucency for readers, and render more conceivable the surrounding
masses that have to be left dark. Our first Piece is of Winter, or late
Autumn, 1771,--while the solution of the Polish Business is still in its
inchoative stages; perfectly complete in the Artist's own mind; Russia
too adhering; but Kaunitz so refractory and contradictory.
HERR DOCTOR ZIMMERMANN, THE FAMOUS AUTHOR OF THE BOOK "ON SOLITUDE,"
WALKS REVERENTIALLY BEFORE FRIEDRICH'S DOOR IN THE DUSK OF AN OCTOBER
EVENING: AND HAS A ROYAL INTERVIEW NEXT DAY.
Friday Evening, 25th October, 1771, is the date of Zimmermann's walk
of contemplation,--among the pale Statues and deciduous Gardenings of
Sans-Souci Cottage (better than any Rialto, at its best),--the eternal
stars coming out overhead, and the transitory candle-light of a King
Friedrich close by.
"At Sans-Souci," says he, in his famed Book, "where that old God of War
(KRIEGSGOTT) forges his thunder-bolts, and writes Works of Intellect
for Posterity; where he governs his People as the best father would
his house; where, during one half of the day, he accepts and reads the
petitions and complaints of the meanest citizen or peasant; comes to
help of his Countries on all sides with astonishing sums of money,
expecting no payment, nor seeking anything but the Common Weal;
and where, during the other half, he is a Poet and Philosopher:--at
Sans-Souci, I say, there reigns all round a silence, in which you can
hear the faintest breath of every soft wind. I mounted this Hill for the
first time in Winter [late Autumn, 25th October, 1771, edge of Winter],
in the dusk. When I beheld the small Dwelling-House of this Convulser
of the World close by me, and was near his very chamber, I saw indeed a
light inside, but no sentry or watchman at the Hero's door; no soul to
ask me, Who I was, or What I wanted. I saw nothing; and walked about as
I pleased before this small and silent House." [Preuss, i. 387 ("from
EINSAMKEIT," Zimmermann's SOLITUDE, "i. 110; Edition of Leipzig,
1784").]
Yes, Doctor, this is your Kriegsgott; throned in a free-and-easy
fashion. In regard to that of Sentries, I believe there do come up from
Potsdam nightly a corporal and six rank-and-file; but perhaps it is at
a later hour; perhaps they sit within doors, silent, not to make noises.
Another gentleman, of sauntering nocturnal habits, testifies to having,
one night, seen the King actually asleep in bed, the doors being left
ajar. [Ib. i. 388.]--As Zimmermann had a DIALOGUE next day with his
Majesty, which we propose to give; still more, as he made such noise in
the world by other Dialogues with Friedrich, and by a strange Book about
them, which are still ahead,--readers may desire to know a little who or
what the Zimmermann is, and be willing for a rough brief Note upon him,
which certainly is not readier than it is rough:--
Johann Georg Zimmermann: born 1728, at Brugg in the Canton of Bern,
where his Father seems to have had some little property and no
employment, "a RATHSHERR (Town-Councillor), who was much respected." Of
brothers or sisters, no mention. The Mother being from the French part
of the Canton, he learned to speak both languages. Went to Bern for his
Latin and high-schooling; then to Gottingen, where he studied Medicine,
under the once great Haller and other now dimmed celebrities. Haller,
himself from Bern, had taken Zimmermann to board, and became much
attached to him: Haller, in 1752, came on a summer visit to native Bern:
Zimmermann, who had in the mean time been "for a few months" in France,
in Italy and England, now returned and joined him there; but the great
man, feeling very poorly and very old, decided that he would like to
stay in Bern, and not move any more;--Zimmermann, accordingly, was sent
to Gottingen to bring Mrs. Haller, with her Daughters, bandboxes and
effects, home to Bern. Which he did;--and not only them, but a soft,
ingenious, ingenuous and rather pretty young Gottingen Lady along with
them, as his own Wife withal. With her he settled as STADTPHYSICUS
(Town-Doctor) in native Brugg; where his beloved Hallers were within
reach; and practice in abundance, and honors, all that the place
yielded, were in readiness for him.
Here he continued some sixteen years; very busy, very successful in
medicine and literature; but "tormented with hypochondria;"--having
indeed an immense conceit of himself, and generally too thin a skin for
this world. Here he first wrote his Book on SOLITUDE, a Book famed over
all the world in my young days (and perhaps still famed); he wrote it
a second time, MUCH ENLARGED, about thirty years after: [_Betrachtungen
uber die Einsamkeit, von Doctor J. G. Zimmermann, Stadtphysicus
in Brugg_ (Zurich, 1756),--as yet only "1 vol. 8vo, price 6d." (5
groschen); but it grew with years; and (Leipzig, 1784) came out
remodelled into 4 vols.;--was translated into French, "with many
omissions," by Mercier (Paris, 1790); into English from Mercier
(London, 1791). "Zurich, 1763-1764:" by and by, one "Dobson did it into
English."] I read it (in the curtailed English-Mercier form, no Scene
in it like the above), in early boyhood,--and thank it for nothing, or
nearly so. Zimmermann lived much alone, at Brugg and elsewhere; all his
days "Hypochondria" was the main company he had:--and it was natural,
but UNprofitable, that he should say, to himself and others, the best
he could for that bad arrangement: poor soul! He wrote also on MEDICAL
EXPERIENCE, a famed Book in its day;" also on NATIONAL PRIDE; and
became famed through the Universe, and was Member of infinite Learned
Societies.
All which rendered dull dead Brugg still duller and more dead; unfit
utterly for a man of such sublime accomplishments. Plenty of Counts
Stadion, Kings of Poland even, offered him engagements; eager to
possess such a man, and deliver him from dull dead Brugg; but he
had hypochondria, and always feared their deliverance might be into
something duller. At length,--in his fortieth year, 1768,--the place of
Court-Physician (HOFMEDICUS) at Hanover was offered him by George the
Third of pious memory, and this he resolved to accept; and did lift
anchor, and accept and occupy accordingly.
Alas, at the Gate of Hanover, "his carriage overset;" broke his poor old
Mother-in-law's leg (who had been rejoicing doubtless to get home
into her own Country), and was the end of her--poor old soul;--and the
beginning of misfortunes continual and too tedious to mention. Spleen,
envy, malice and calumny, from the Hanover Medical world; treatment, "by
the old buckram Hofdames who had drunk coffee with George II.," "which
was fitter for a laquais-de-place" than for a medical gentleman
of eminence: unworthy treatment, in fact, in many or most
quarters;--followed by hypochondria, by dreadful bodily disorder (kind
not given or discoverable), "so that I suffered the pains of Hell," sat
weeping, sat gnashing my teeth, and could n't write a Note after dinner;
followed finally by the sickness, and then by the death, of my poor
Wife, "after five months of torment." Upon which, in 1771, Zimmermann's
friends--for he had many friends, being, in fact, a person of fine
graceful intellect, high proud feelings and tender sensibilities, gone
all to this sad state--rallied themselves; set his Hanover house in
order for him (governess for his children, what not); and sent him
off to Berlin, there to be dealt with by one Meckel, an incomparable
Surgeon, and be healed of his dreadful disorder ("LEIBESSCHADE, of which
the first traces had appeared in Brugg"),--though to most people it
seemed rather he would die; "and one Medical Eminency in Hanover said to
myself [Zimmermann] one day: 'Dr. So-and-so is to have your Pension,
I am told; now, by all right, it should belong to me, don't you think
so?'" What, "I" thought of the matter, seeing the greedy gentleman thus
"parting my skin," may be conjectured!--
The famed Meckel received his famed patient with a nobleness worthy
of the heroic ages. Dodged him in his own house, in softest beds
and appliances; spoke comfort to him, hope to him,--the gallant
Meckel;--rallied, in fact, the due medical staff one morning; came up to
Zimmermann, who "stripped," with the heart of a lamb and lion conjoined,
and trusting in God, "flung himself on his bed" (on his face, or on
his back, we never know), and there, by the hands of Meckel and staff,
"received above 2,000 (TWO THOUSAND) cuts in the space of an hour
and half, without uttering one word or sound." A frightful operation,
gallantly endured, and skilfully done; whereby the "bodily disorder"
(LEIBESSCHADE), whatever it might be, was effectually and forever sent
about its business by the noble Meckel.
Hospitalities and soft, hushed kindnesses and soothing ministrations, by
Meckel and by everybody, were now doubled and trebled: wise kind Madam
Meckel, young kind Mamsell Meckel and the Son (who "now, in
1788, lectures in Gottingen"); not these only, nor Schmucker Head
Army-Surgeon, and the ever-memorable HERR GENERALCHIRURGUS Madan, who
had both been in the operation; not these only, but by degrees all that
was distinguished in the Berlin world, Ramler, Busching, Sulzer, Prime
Minister Herzberg, Queen's and King's Equerries, and honorable men and
women,--bore him "on angel-wings" towards complete recovery. Talked
to him, sang and danced to him (at least, the "Muses" and the female
Meckels danced and sang), and all lapped him against eating cares, till,
after twelve weeks, he was fairly on his feet again, and able to make
jaunts in the neighborhood with his "life's savior," and enjoy the
pleasant Autumn weather to his farther profit.--All this, though
described in ridiculous superlative by Zimmermann, is really touching,
beautiful and human: perhaps never in his life was he so happy, or
a thousandth part so helped by man, as while under the roof of this
thrice-useful Meckel,--more power to Meckel!
Head Army-Surgeon Schmucker had gone through all the Seven-Years War;
Zimmermann, an ardent Hero-worshipper, was never weary questioning
him, listening to him in full career of narrative, on this great
subject,--only eight years old at that time. Among their country drives,
Meckel took him to Potsdam, twenty English miles off; in the end of
October, there to stay a night. This was the ever-memorable Friday, when
we first ascended the Hill of Sans-Souci, and had our evening walk of
contemplation:--to be followed by a morrow which was ten times more
memorable: as readers shall now see. [Jordens, _Lexikon_ (Zimmermann),
v. 632-658 (exact and even eloquent account, as these of Jordens,
unexpectedly, often are); Zimmermann himself, UNTERREDUNGEN MIT
FRIEDRICH DEM GROSSEN (ubi infra); Tissot, _Vie de M. Zimmermann_
(Lausanne, 1797): &c. &c.]
NEXT DAY, ZIMMERMANN HAS A DIALOGUE. Schmucker had his apartments
in "LITTLE SANS-SOUCI," where the King now lived (Big Sans-Souci, or
"Sans-Souci" by itself, means in those days, not in ours at all, "New
Palace, NEUE PALAIS," now in all its splendor of fresh finish). De
Catt, Friedrich's Reader, whom we know well, was a Genevese, and knew
Zimmermann from of old. Schmucker and De Catt were privately twitching
up Friedrich's curiosity,--to whom also Zimmermann's name, and
perhaps his late surgical operation, might be known: "Can he speak
French?"--"Native to him, your Majesty." Friedrich had some notion to
see Zimmermann; and judicious De Catt, on this fortunate Saturday, "26th
October, 1771," morrow after Zimmermann's arrival at Potsdam, "came to
our inn about, 1 P.M. [King's dinner just done]; and asked me to come
and look at the beauties of Sans-Souci [Big Sans-Souci] for a little."
Zimmermann willingly went: Catt, left him in good hands to see the
beauties; slipt off, for his own part, to "LITTLE Sans-Souci;" came
back, took Zimmermann thither; left, him with Schmucker, all trembling,
thinking perhaps the King might call him. "I trembled sometimes, then
again I felt exceeding happiness:" I was in Schmucker's room, sitting
by the fire, mostly alone for a good while, "the room that had once
been Marquis d'Argens's" (who is now dead, and buried far away, good
old soul);--when, at last, about half-past 4, Catt came jumping in,
breathless with joy; snatched me up: "His Majesty wants to speak with
you this very moment!" Zimmermann's self shall say the rest.
"I hurried, hand-in-hand with Catt, along a row of Chambers. 'Here,'
said Catt, 'we are now at the King's room!'--My heart thumped, like
to spring out of my body. Catt went in; but next moment the door again
opened, and Catt bade me enter.
"In the middle of the room stood an iron camp-bed without curtains.
There, on a worn mattress, lay King Friedrich, the terror of Europe,
without coverlet, in an old blue roquelaure. He had a big cocked-hat,
with a white feather [hat aged, worn soft as duffel, equal to most caps;
"feather" is not perpendicular, but horizontal, round the inside of the
brim], on his head.
"The King took off his hat very graciously, when I was perhaps ten steps
from him; and said in French (our whole Dialogue proceeded in French):
'Come nearer, M. Zimmermann.'
"I advanced to within two steps of the King; he said in the mean while
to Catt: 'Call Schmucker in, too.' Herr Schmucker came; placed himself
behind the King, his back to the wall; and Catt stood behind me. Now the
Colloquy began.
KING. "'I hear you have found your health again in Berlin; I wish you
joy of that.'
EGO. "'I have found my life again in Berlin; but at this moment, Sire, I
find here a still greater happiness!' [ACH!]
KING. "'You have stood a cruel operation: you must have suffered
horribly?'
EGO. "'Sire, it was well worth while.'
KING. "'Did, you let them bind you before the operation?'
EGO. "'No: I resolved to keep my freedom.'
KING (laughing in a very kind manner). "'Oh, you behaved like a brave
Switzer! But are you quite recovered, though?'
EGO. "'Sire, I have seen all the wonders of your creation in Sans-Souci,
and feel well in looking at them.'
KING. "'I am glad of that. But you must have a care, and especially not
get on horseback.'
EGO. "'It will be pleasant and easy for me to follow the counsels of
your Majesty.'
KING. "'From what Town in the Canton of Bern are you originally?'
EGO. "'From Brugg.'
KING. "'I don't know that Town.' [No wonder, thought I!]
KING. "'Where did you study?'
EGO. "'At Gottingen: Haller was my teacher.'
KING. "'What is M. Haller doing now?'
EGO. "'He is concluding his literary career with a romance.' [USONG had
just come out;--no mortal now reads a word of it; and the great Haller
is dreadfully forgotten already!]
KING. "'Ah, that is pretty!--On what system do you treat your patients?'
EGO. "'Not on any system.'
KING. "'But there are some Physicians whose methods you prefer to those
of others?'
EGO. "'I especially like Tissot's methods, who is a familiar friend of
mine.'
KING. "'I know M. Tissot. I have read his writings, and value them very
much. On the whole, I love the Art of Medicine. My Father wished me to
get some knowledge in it. He often sent me into the Hospitals; and even
into those for venereal patients, with a view of warning by example.'
EGO. "'And by terrible example!--Sire, Medicine is a very difficult Art.
But your Majesty is used to bring all Arts under subjection to the force
of your genius, and to conquer all that is difficult.'
KING. "'Alas, no: I cannot conquer all that is difficult!' [Hard-mouthed
Kaunitz, for example; stock-still, with his right ear turned on Turkey:
how get Kaunitz into step!]--Here the King became reflective; was silent
for a little moment, and then asked me, with a most bright smile: 'How
many churchyards have you filled?' [A common question of his to Members
of the Faculty.]
EGO. "'Perhaps, in my youth, I have done a little that way! But now it
goes better; for I am timid rather than bold.'
KING. "'Very good, very good.'
"Our Dialogue now became extremely brisk. The King quickened into
extraordinary vivacity; and examined me now in the character of Doctor,
with such a stringency as, in the year 1751, at Gottingen, when I
stood for my Degree, the learned Professors Haller, Richter, Segner
and Brendel (for which Heaven recompense them!) never dreamed of! All
inflammatory fevers, and the most important of the slow diseases, the
King mustered with me, in their order. He asked me, How and whereby I
recognized each of these diseases; how and whereby distinguished them
from the approximate maladies; what my procedure was in simple and
in complicated cases; and how I cured all those disorders? On
the varieties, the accidents, the mode of treatment, of small-pox
especially, the King inquired with peculiar strictness;--and spoke, with
much emotion, of that young Prince of his House who was carried off,
some years ago, by that disorder--[suddenly arrested by it, while on
march with his regiment, "near Ruppin, 26th May, 1767." This is the
Prince Henri, junior Brother of the subsequent King, Friedrich Wilhelm
II., who, among other fooleries, invaded France, in 1792, with such
success. Both Henri and he, as boys, used to be familiar to us in
the final winters of the late War. Poor Henri had died at the age of
nineteen,--as yet all brightness, amiability and nothing else: Friedrich
sent an ELOGE of him to his ACADEMIE, [In _OEuvres de Frederic,_ vii. 37
et seq.] which is touchingly and strangely filled with authentic sorrow
for this young Nephew of his, but otherwise empty,--a mere bottle of
sighs and tears]. Then he came upon Inoculation; went along over an
incredible multitude of other medical subjects. Into all he threw
masterly glances; spoke of all with the soundest [all in superlative]
knowledge of the matter, and with no less penetration than liveliness
and sense.
"With heartfelt satisfaction, and with the freest soul, I made my
answers to his Majesty. It is true, he potently supported and
encouraged me. Ever and anon his Majesty was saying to me: 'That is
very good;--that is excellently thought and expressed;--your mode of
proceeding, altogether, pleases me very well;--I rejoice to see how much
our ways of thinking correspond.' Often, too, he had the graciousness to
add: 'But, I weary you with my many questions!' His scientific questions
I answered with simplicity, clearness and brevity; and could not forbear
sometimes expressing my astonishment at the deep and conclusive (TIEFEN
UND FRAPPANTEN) medical insights and judgments of the King.
"His Majesty came now upon the history of his own maladies. He told me
them over, in their series; and asked my opinion and advice about each.
On the HAEMORRHOIDS, which he greatly complained of, I said something
that struck him. Instantly he started up in his bed; turned his head
round towards the wall, and said: 'Schmucker, write me that down!'
I started in fright at this word; and not without reason! Then our
Colloquy proceeded:--
KING. "'The Gout likes to take up his quarters with me; he knows I am
a Prince, and thinks I shall feed him well. But I feed him ill; I live
very meagrely.'
EGO. "'May Gout, thereby get disgusted, and forbear ever calling on your
Majesty!'
KING. "'I am grown old. Diseases will no longer have pity on me.'
EGO. "'Europe feels that your Majesty is not old; and your Majesty's
look (PHYSIOGNOMIE) shows that you have still the same force as in your
thirtieth year.'
KING (laughing and shaking his head). "'Well, well, well!'
"In this way, for an hour and quarter, with uninterrupted vivacity, the
Dialogue went on. At last the King gave me the sign to go; lifting his
hat very kindly, and saying: 'Adieu, my dear M. Zimmermann; I am very
glad to have seen you.'"
Towards 6 P.M. now, and Friedrich must sign his Despatches; have his
Concert, have his reading; then to supper (as spectator only),--with
Quintus Icilius and old Lord Marischal, to-night, or whom? [Of Icilius,
and a quarrel and estrangement there had lately been, now happily
reconciled, see Nicolai, _Anekdoten,_ vi. 140-142.]
"Herr von Catt accompanied me into the anteroom, and Schmucker followed.
I could not stir from the spot; could not speak, was so charmed and so
touched, that I broke into a stream of tears [being very weak of nerves
at the time!]. Herr von Catt said: 'I am now going back to the King; go
you into the room where I took you up; about eight I will conduct you
home.' I pressed my excellent countryman's hand, I"--"Schmucker said, I
had stood too near his Majesty; I had spoken too frankly, with too much
vivacity; nay, what was unheard of in the world, I had 'gesticulated'
before his Majesty! 'In presence of a King,' said Herr Schmucker, 'one
must stand stiff and not stir.' De Catt came back to us at eight; and,
in Schmucker's presence [let him chew the cud of that!], reported the
following little Dialogue with the King:--
KING. "'What says Zimmermann?'
DE CATT. "'Zimmermann, at the door of your Majesty's room, burst into a
stream of tears.'
KING. "'I love those tender affectionate hearts; I love right well those
brave Swiss people!'
"Next morning the King was heard to say: 'I have found Zimmermann
quite what you described him.'--Catt assured me furthermore, 'Since the
Seven-Years War there had thousands of strangers, persons of rank, come
to Potsdam, wishing to speak with the King, and had not attained that
favor; and of those who had, there could not one individual boast that
his Majesty had talked with him an hour and quarter at once.' [Fourteen
years hence, he dismissed Mirabeau in half an hour; which was itself a
good allowance.]
"Sunday 27th, I left Potsdam, with my kind Meckels, in an enthusiasm
of admiration, astonishment, love and gratitude; wrote to the King from
Berlin, sent him a Tissot's Book (marked on the margins for Majesty's
use), which he acknowledged by some word to Catt: whereupon
I"--In short, I got home to Hanover, in a more or less seraphic
condition,--"with indescribable, unspeakable," what not,--early in
November; and, as a healed man, never more troubled with that disorder,
though still troubled with many and many, endeavored to get a little
work out of myself again. [Zimmermann, _Meine Unterredungen_ (Dialogues)
_with Friedrich the Great_ (8vo, Leipzig, 1788), pp. 305-326.]
"Zimmermann was tall, handsome of shape; his exterior was distinguished
and imposing," says Jordens. [Ubi supra, p. 643.] "He had a firm and
light step; stood gracefully; presented himself well. He had a fine
head; his voice was agreeable; and intellect sparkled in his eyes:"--had
it not been for those dreadful hypochondrias, and confused disasters, a
very pretty man. At the time of this first visit to Friedrich he is 43
years of age, and Friedrich is on the borders of 60. Zimmermann, with
still more famous DIALOGUES, will reappear on us from Hanover, on a sad
occasion! Meanwhile, few weeks after him, here is a Visit of far more
joyful kind.
SISTER ULRIQUE, QUEEN-DOWAGER OF SWEDEN, REVISITS HER NATIVE PLACE
(December, 1771-August, 1772).
Prince Henri was hardly home from Petersburg and the Swedish Visit, when
poor Adolf Friedrich, King of Sweden, died. [12th February, 1771.] A
very great and sad event to his Queen, who had loved her old man; and
is now left solitary, eclipsed, in circumstances greatly altered on the
sudden. In regard to settlements, Accession of the new Prince,
dowager revenues and the like, all went right enough; which was some
alleviation, though an inconsiderable, to the sorrowing Widow. Her two
Princes were absent, touring over Europe, when their Father died, and
the elder of them, Karl Gustav, suddenly saw himself King. They were
in no breathless haste to return; visited their Uncle, their Prussian
kindred, on the way, and had an interesting week at Potsdam and Berlin;
[April 22d-29th: Rodenbeck, iii. 45.] Karl Gustav flying diligently
about, still incognito, as "Graf von Gothland,"--a spirited young
fellow, perhaps too spirited;--and did not reach home till May-day was
come, and the outburst of the Swedish Summer at hand.
Some think the young King had already something dangerous and serious in
view, and wished his Mother out of the way for a time. Certain it is she
decided on a visit to her native Country in December following: arrived
accordingly, December 2d, 1771; and till the middle of August next was a
shining phenomenon in the Royal House and upper ranks of Berlin Society,
and a touching and interesting one to the busy Friedrich himself, as may
be supposed. She had her own Apartments and Household at Berlin, in the
Palace there, I think; but went much visiting about, and receiving many
visits,--fond especially of literary people.
Friedrich's notices of her are frequent in his Letters of the time,
all affectionate, natural and reasonable. Here are the first two I meet
with: TO THE ELECTRESS OF SAXONY (three weeks after Ulrique's arrival);
"A thousand excuses, Madam, for not answering sooner! What will plead
for me with a Princess who so well knows the duties of friendship, is,
that I have been occupied with the reception of a Sister, who has come
to seek consolation in the bosom of her kindred for the loss of a loved
Husband, the remembrance of whom saddens and afflicts her." And again,
two months later: "... Your Royal Highness deigns to take so obliging
an interest in the visit I have had [and still have] from the Queen of
Sweden. I beheld her as if raised from the dead to me; for an absence
of eight-and-twenty years, in the short space of our duration, is almost
equivalent to death. She arrived among us, still in great affliction
for the loss she had had of the King; and I tried to distract her sad
thoughts by all the dissipations possible. It is only by dint of such
that one compels the mind to shift away from the fatal idea where grief
has fixed it: this is not the work of a day, but of time, which in the
end succeeds in everything. I congratulate your Royal Highness on your
Journey to Bavaria [on a somewhat similar errand, we may politely say];
where you will find yourself in the bosom of a Family that adores you:"
after which, and the sight of old scenes, how pleasant to go on to
Italy, as you propose! [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiv. 230, 235. "24th
December 1771," "February, 1772." See also, _"Eptire a la Reine
Douairiere de Suede"_ (Poem on the Troubles she has had: _OEuvres de
Frederic,_ xiii. 74, "written in December, 1770"), and _"Vers a la Reine
de Suede,"_ "January, 1771" (ib. 79).]
Queen Ulrique--a solid and ingenuous character (in childhood a
favorite of her Father's, so rational, truthful and of silent staid
ways)--appears to have been popular in the Berlin circles; pleasant and
pleased, during these eight months. Formey, especially Thiebault, are
copious on this Visit of hers; and give a number of insipid Anecdotes;
How there was solemn Session of the Academy made for her, a Paper of
the King's to be read there, ["DISCOURS DE L'UTILITE DES SCIENCES ET
DES ARTS DAM UN ETAT" (in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ ix. 169 et seq.): read
"27th January, 1772." Formey, ii. 16, &c. &c.]--reading beautifully done
by me, Thiebault (one of my main functions, this of reading the King's
Academy Papers, and my dates of THEM always correct); how Thiebault was
invited to dinner in consequence, and again invited; how Formey dined
with her Majesty "twenty-five times;" and "preached to her in the
Palace, August 19th" (should be August 9th): insipid wholly, vapid and
stupid; descriptive of nothing, except of the vapidities and vanities
of certain persons. Leaving these, we will take an Excerpt, probably our
last, from authentic Busching, which is at least to be depended on for
perfect accuracy, and has a feature or two of portraiture.
Busching, for the last five or six years, is home from Russia;
comfortably established here as Consistorialrath, much concerned with
School-Superintendence; still more with GEOGRAPHY, with copious rugged
Literature of the undigested kind: a man well seen in society; has "six
families of rank which invite him to dinner;" all the dining he is equal
to, with so much undigested writing on his hands. Busching, in his
final Section, headed BERLIN LIFE, Section more incondite even than its
foregoers, has this passage:--
"On the Queen-Dowager of Sweden, Louise Ulrique's, coming to Berlin, I
felt not a little embarrassed. The case was this: Most part of the SIXTH
VOLUME of my MAGAZINE [meritorious curious Book, sometimes quoted by us
here, not yet known in English Libraries] was printed; and in it, in the
printed part, were various things that concerned the deceased Sovereign,
King Adolf Friedrich, and his Spouse [now come to visit us],--and
among these were Articles which the then ruling party in Sweden could
certainly not like. And now I was afraid these people would come upon
the false notion, that it was from the Queen-Dowager I had got the
Articles in question;--notion altogether false, as they had been
furnished me by Baron Korf [well known to Hordt and others of us, at
Petersburg, in the Czar-Peter time], now Russian Minister at Copenhagen.
However, when Duke Friedrich of Brunswick [one of the juniors,
soldiering here with his Uncle, as they almost all are] wrote to me, one
day, That his Lady Aunt the Queen of Sweden invited me to dine with her
to-morrow, and that he, the Duke, would introduce me,--I at once decided
to lay my embarrassment before the Queen herself.
"Next day, when I was presented to her Majesty, she took me by the hand,
and led me to a window [as was her custom with guests whom she judged to
be worth questioning and talking to], and so placed herself in a corner
there that I came to stand close before her; when she did me the
honor to ask a great many questions about Russia, the Imperial Court
especially, and most of all the Grand-Duke [Czar Paul that is to be,--a
kind of kinsman he, his poor Father was my late Husband's Cousin-german,
as perhaps you know]. A great deal of time was spent in this way; so
that the Princes and Princesses, punctual to invitation, had to wait
above half an hour long; and the Queen was more than once informed that
dinner was on the table and getting cold. I could get nothing of my own
mentioned here; all I could do was to draw back, in a polite way, so
soon as the Queen would permit: and afterwards, at table, to explain
with brevity my concern about what was printed in the MAGAZINE; and
request the Queen to permit me to send it her to read for herself. She
had it, accordingly, that same afternoon.
"A few days after, she invited me again; again spoke with me a long
while in the window embrasure, in a low tone of voice: confirmed to
me all that she had read,--and in particular, minutely explained that
LETTER OF THE KING [one of my Pieces] in which he relates what passed
between him and Count Tessin [Son's Tutor] in the Queen's Apartment. At
table, she very soon took occasion to say: 'I cannot imagine to myself
how the Herr Consistorialrath [Busching, to wit] has come upon that
Letter of my deceased Lord the King of Sweden's; which his Majesty did
write, and which is now printed in your MAGAZINE. For certain, the King
showed it to nobody.' Whereupon BUSCHING: 'Certainly; nor is that to
be imagined, your Majesty. But the person it was addressed to must
have shown it; and so a copy of it has come to my hands.' Queen still
expresses her wonder; whereupon again, Busching, with a courageous
candor: 'Your Majesty, most graciously permit me to say, that hitherto
all Swedish secrets of Court or State have been procurable for money and
good words!' The Queen, to whom I sat directly opposite, cast down her
eyes at these words and smiled;--and the Reichsrath Graf von Schwerin [a
Swedish Gentleman of hers], who sat at my left, seized me by the
hand, and said: 'Alas, that is true!'"--Here is a difficulty got
over; Magazine Number can come out when it will. As it did, "next
Easter-Fair," with proper indications and tacit proofs that the Swedish
part of it lay printed several months before the Queen's arrival in our
neighborhood.
Busching dined with her Majesty several times,--"eating nothing," he is
careful to mention and was careful to show her Majesty, "except, very
gradually, a small bit of bread soaked in a glass of wine!"--meaning
thereby, "Note, ye great ones, it is not for your dainties; in fact, it
is out of loyal politeness mainly!" the gloomily humble man.
"One time, the Queen asked me, in presence of various Princes and
Princesses of the Royal House: 'Do you think it advisable to enlighten
the Lower Classes by education?' To which I answered: 'Considering only
under what heavy loads a man of the Lower Classes, especially of the
Peasant sort, has to struggle through his life, one would think it was
better neither to increase his knowledge nor refine his sensibility. But
when one reflects that he, as well as those of the Higher Classes, is to
last through Eternity; and withal that good instruction may [or might,
IF it be not BAD] increase his practical intelligence, and help him
to methods of alleviating himself in this world, it must be thought
advisable to give him useful enlightenment.' The Queen accorded with
this view of the matter.
"Twice I dined with her Majesty at her Sister, Princess Amelia, the
Abbess of Quedlinburg's:--and the second time [must have been Summer,
1772], Professor Sulzer, who was also a guest, caught his death there.
When I entered the reception-room, Sulzer was standing in the middle of
a thorough-draught, which they had managed to have there, on account of
the great heat; and he had just arrived, all in a perspiration, from
the Thiergarten: I called him out of the draught, but it was too late."
[Busching: _Beitrage,_ vi. 578-582.] ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER,--Alas,
dear Sulzer: seriously this time!
Busching has a great deal to say about Schools, about the "School
Commission 1765," the subjects taught, the methods of teaching devised
by Busching and others, and the King's continual exertions, under
deficient funds, in this province of his affairs. Busching had
unheard-of difficulty to rebuild the old Gymnasium at Berlin into a new.
Tried everybody; tried the King thrice over, but nobody would. "One of
the persons I applied to was Lieutenant-General von Ramin, Governor of
Berlin [surliest of mankind, of whose truculent incivility there go
many anecdotes]; to Ramin I wrote, entreating that he would take a
good opportunity and suggest a new Town Schoolhouse to his Majesty:
'Excellenz, it will render you immortal in the annals of Berlin!' To
which Ramin made answer: 'That is an immortality I must renounce the
hope of, and leave to the Town-Syndics and yourself. I, for my own part,
will by no means risk such a proposal to his Majesty; which he would,
in all likelihood, answer in the negative, and receive ill at anybody's
hands.'" [Ib. vi. 568.] By subscriptions, by bequests, donations and the
private piety of individuals, Busching aiding and stirring, the thing
was at last got done. Here is another glance into School-life: not from
Busching:--
JUNE 9th, 1771. "This Year the Stande of the Kurmark find they have
an overplus of 100,000 thalers (15,000 pounds); which sum they do
themselves the pleasure of presenting to the King for his Majesty's
uses." King cannot accept it for his own uses. "This money," answers he
(9th June), "comes from the Province, wherefore I feel bound to lay it
out again for advantage of the Province. Could not it become a means of
getting English husbandry [TURNIPS in particular, whether short-horns
or not, I do not know] introduced among us? In the Towns that follow
Farming chiefly, or in Villages belonging to unmoneyed Nobles, we will
lend out this 15,000 pounds, at 4 per cent, in convenient sums for
that object: hereby will turnip-culture and rotation be vouchsafed us;
interest at 4 per cent brings us in 600 pounds annually; and this we
will lay out in establishing new Schoolmasters in the Kurmark, and
having the youth better educated." What a pretty idea; neat and
beautiful, killing two important birds with one most small stone! I have
known enormous cannon-balls and granite blocks, torrent after torrent,
shot out under other kinds of Finance-gunnery, that were not only less
respectable, but that were abominable to me in comparison.
Unluckily, no Nobles were found inclined; English Husbandry ["TURNIPSE"
and the rest of it] had to wait their time. The King again writes: "No
Nobles to be found, say you? Well; put the 15,000 pounds to interest in
the common way,--that the Schoolmasters at least may have solacement:
I will add 120 thalers (18 pounds) apiece, that we may have a chance
of getting better Schoolmasters;--send me List of the Places where the
worst are." List was sent; is still extant; and on the margin of it, in
Royal Autograph, this remark:--
"The Places are well selected. The bad Schoolmasters are mostly Tailors;
and you must see whether they cannot be got removed to little Towns, and
set to tailoring again, or otherwise disposed of, that our Schools might
the sooner rise into good condition, which is an interesting thing."
"Eager always our Master is to have the Schooling of his People improved
and everywhere diffused," writes, some years afterwards, the excellent
Zedlitz, officially "Minister of Public Justice," but much and
meritoriously concerned with School matters as well. The King's ideas
were of the best, and Zedlitz sometimes had fine hopes; but the want of
funds was always great.
"In 1779," says Preuss, "there came a sad blow to Zedlitz's hopes:
Minister von Brenkenhof [deep in West-Preussen canal-diggings and
expenditures] having suggested, That instead of getting Pensions, the
Old Soldiers should be put to keeping School." Do but fancy it; poor
old fellows, little versed in scholastics hitherto! "Friedrich, in his
pinch, grasped at the small help; wrote to the War-Department: 'Send
me a List of Invalids who are fit [or at least fittest] to be
Schoolmasters.' And got thereupon a list of 74, and afterwards 5
more [79 Invalids in all]; War-Department adding, That besides these
scholastic sort, there were 741 serving as BUDNER [Turnpike-keepers,
in a sort], as Forest-watchers and the like; and 3,443 UNVERSORGT"
(shifting for themselves, no provision made for them at all),--such
the check, by cold arithmetic and inexorable finance, upon the genial
current of the soul!--
The TURNIPS, I believe, got gradually in; and Brandenburg, in our
day, is a more and more beautifully farmed Country. Nor were the
Schoolmasters unsuccessful at all points; though I cannot report a
complete educational triumph on those extremely limited terms. [Preuss,
iii. 115, 113, &c.]
Queen Ulrique left, I think, on the 9th of August, 1772; there is sad
farewell in Friedrich's Letter next day to Princess Sophie Albertine,
the Queen's Daughter, subsequently Abbess of Quedlinburg: he is just
setting out on his Silesian Reviews; "shall, too likely, never see your
good Mamma again." ["Potsdam, 10th August, 1772:" _OEuvres de Frederic,_
xxvii. ii. 93.] Poor King; Berlin City is sound asleep, while he rushes
through it on this errand,--"past the Princess Amelia's window," in the
dead of night; and takes to humming tender strophes to her too; which
gain a new meaning by their date. ["A MA SOEUR AMELIE, EN PASSANT, LA
NUIT, SOUS SA FENETRE, POUR ALLER EN SILESIE (AOUT 1772):" _OEuvres de
Frederic,_ xiii. 77.]
Ten days afterwards (19th August, 1772),--Queen Ulrique not yet
home,--her Son, the spirited King Gustav III., at Stockholm had made
what in our day is called a "stroke of state,"--put a thorn in the
snout of his monster of a Senate, namely: "Less of palaver, venality and
insolence, from you, Sirs; we 'restore the Constitution of 1680,' and
are something of a King again!" Done with considerable dexterity and
spirit; not one person killed or hurt. And surely it was the muzzling-up
of a great deal of folly on their side,--provided only there came wisdom
enough from Gustav himself instead. But, alas, there did not, there
hardly could. His Uncle was alarmed, and not a little angry for the
moment: "You had two Parties to reconcile; a work of time, of patient
endeavor, continual and quiet; no good possible till then. And instead
of that--!" Gustav, a shining kind of man, showed no want of spirit, now
or afterwards: but he leant too much on France and broken reeds;--and,
in the end, got shot in the back by one of those beautiful "Nobles"
of his, and came to a bad conclusion, they and he. ["16th-29th March,
1792," death of Gustav III. by that assassination: "13th March, 1809,"
his Son Gustav IV, has to go on his travels; "Karl XIII.," a childless
Uncle, succeeds for a few years: after whom &c.] Scandinavian Politics,
thank Heaven, are none of our business.
Queen Ulrique was spared all these catastrophes. She had alarmed her
Brother by a dangerous illness, sudden and dangerous, in 1775; who
writes with great anxiety about it, to Another still more anxious: [See
"Correspondence with Gustav III." (in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvii. ii.
84, &c.).] of this she got well again; but it did not last very long.
July 16th, 1782, she died;--and the sad Friedrich had to say, Adieu.
Alas, "must the eldest of us mourn, then, by the grave of those
younger!"
WILHELMINA'S DAUGHTER, ELIZABETH FREDERIKE SOPHIE, DUCHESS OF
WURTEMBERG, APPEARS AT FERNEY (September, 1773).
Of our dear Wilhelmina's high and unfortunate Daughter there should be
some Biography; and there will surely, if a man of sympathy and faculty
pass that way; but there is not hitherto. Nothing hitherto but a few
bare dates; bare and sternly significant, as on a Tombstone; indicating
that she had a History, and that it was a tragic one. Welcome to all of
us, in this state of matters, is the following one clear emergence of
her into the light of day, and in company so interesting too! Seven
years before her death she had gone to Lausanne (July, 1773) to consult
Tissot, a renowned Physician of those days. From Lausanne, after
two months, she visited Voltaire at Ferney. Read this Letter of
Voltaire's:--
TO ELIZABETH FREDERIKE SOPHIE, DUCHESS OF WURTEMBERG (at Lausanne).
"FEENEY, 10th July, 1773.
"MADAM,--I am informed that your most Serene Highness has deigned to
remember that I was in the world. It is very sad to be there, without
paying you my court. I never felt so cruelly the sad state to which old
age and maladies have reduced me.
"I never saw you except as a child [1743, her age then 10]: but you
were certainly the beautifulest child in Europe. May you be the happiest
Princess [alas!], as you deserve to be! I was attached to Madam the
Margravine [your dear Mother] with equal devotedness and respect; and I
had the honor to be pretty deep in her confidence, for some time
before this world, which was not worthy of her, had lost that adorable
Princess. You resemble her;--but don't resemble her in--feebleness of
health! You are in the flower of your age [coming forty, I should fear]:
let such bright flower lose nothing of its splendor; may your happiness
be able to equal [PUISSO EGALER] your beauty; may all your days be
serene, and the sweets of friendship add a new charm to them! These are
my wishes; they are as lively as my regrets at not being at your feet.
What a consolation it would be for me to speak of your loving Mother,
and of all your august relatives! Why must Destiny send you to Lausanne
[consulting Dr. Tissot there], and hinder me from flying thither!--Let
your most Serene Highness deign to accept the profound respect of the
old moribund Philosopher of Ferney.--V." [_OEuvres de Voltaire,_ xcii.
331.]
The Answer of the Princess, or farther Correspondence on the matter, is
not given; evident only that by and by, as Voltaire himself will inform
us, she did appear at Ferney;--and a certain Swedish tourist, one
Bjornstahl, who met her there, enables us even to give the date. He
reports this anecdote:--
"At supper, on the evening of 7th September, 1773, the Princess sat
next to Voltaire, who always addressed her 'VOTRE ALTESSE.' At last the
Duchess said to him, 'TU ES ANON PAPA, JE SUIS TA FILLE, ET JE VOUZ ETRE
APPELEE TA FILLE.' Voltaire took a pencil from his pocket, asked for a
card, and wrote upon it:--
'Ah, le beau titre que voila!
Vous me donnez la premiere des places;
Quelle famille j'aurais la!
Je serais le pere des Graces'
[_OEuvres de Voltaire,_ xviii. 342.]
He gave the card to the Princess, who embraced and kissed him for it."
[Vehse, _Geschichte der Deutschen Hofe_ (Hamburg, 1853), xxv. 252, 253.]
VOLTAIRE TO FRIEDRICH (a fortnight after).
"FERNEY, 22d September, 1773.
"I must tell you that I have felt, in these late days, in spite of all
my past caprices, how much I am attached to your Majesty and to your
House. Madam the Duchess of Wurtemberg having had, like so many others,
the weakness to believe that health is to be found at Lausanne, and that
Dr. Tissot gives it if one pay him, has, as you know, made the journey
to Lausanne; and I, who am more veritably ill than she, and than all
the Princesses who have taken Tissot for an AEsculapius, had not the
strength to leave my home. Madam of Wurtemberg, apprised of all the
feelings that still live in me for the memory of Madam the Margravine
of Baireuth her Mother, has deigned to visit my hermitage, and pass two
days with us. I should have recognized her, even without warning; she
has the turn of her Mother's face with your eyes.
"You Hero-people who govern the world don't allow yourselves to be
subdued by feelings; you have them all the same as we, but you maintain
your decorum. We other petty mortals yield to all our impressions: I set
myself to cry, in speaking to her of you and of Madam the Princess her
Mother; and she too, though she is Niece of the first Captain in Europe,
could not restrain her tears. It appears to me, that she has the talent
(ESPRIT) and the graces of your House; and that especially she is more
attached to you than to her Husband [I should think so!]. She returns, I
believe, to Baireuth,--[No Mother, no Father there now: foolish Uncle
of Anspath died long ago, "3d August, 1757:" Aunt Dowager of Anspach
gone to Erlangen, I hope, to Feuchtwang, Schwabach or Schwaningen,
or some Widow's-Mansion "WITTWENSITZ" of her own; [Lived, finally at
Schwaningen, in sight of such vicissitudes and follies round her, till
"4th February, 1784" (Rodenbeck, iii. 304).] reigning Son, with his
French-Actress equipments, being of questionable figure],--
--"returns, I believe, to Baireuth; where she will find another Princess
of a different sort; I mean Mademoiselle Clairon, who cultivates
Natural History, and is Lady Philosopher to Monseigneur the
Margraf,"--high-rouged Tragedy-Queen, rather tyrannous upon him, they
say: a young man destined to adorn Hammersmith by and by, and not go a
good road.
... "I renounce my beautiful hopes of seeing the Mahometans driven out
of Europe, and Athens become again the Seat of the Muses. Neither you
nor the Kaiser are"--are inclined in the Crusading way at all.... "The
old sick man of Ferney is always at the feet of your Majesty; he feels
very sorry that he cannot talk of you farther with Madam the Duchess of
Wurtemberg, who adores you.--LE VIEUX MALADE." [_OEuvres de Voltaire,_
xcii. 390.]
To which Friedrich makes answer: "If it is forevermore forbidden me to
see you again, I am not the less glad that the Duchess of Wurtemberg has
seen you. I should certainly have mixed my tears with yours, had I been
present at that touching scene! Be it weakness, be it excess of regard,
I have built for her lost Mother, what Cicero projected for his Tullia,
a TEMPLE OF FRIENDSHIP: her Statue occupies the background, and on each
pillar stands a mask (MASCARON) containing the Bust of some Hero in
Friendship: I send you the drawing of it." ["Potsdam, 24th October,
1773:" _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiii. 259:--"Temple" was built in 1768
(Ib. p. 259 n.).] Which again sets Voltaire weeping, and will the
Duchess when she sees it. [Voltaire's next Letter: _OEuvres de
Voltaire,_ xcii. 434.]
We said there hitherto was nearly nothing anywhere discoverable as
History of this high Lady but the dates only; these we now give. She was
"born 30th August, 1732,"--her Mother's and Father's one Child;--four
years older than her Anspach Cousin, who inherited Baireuth too, and
finished off that genealogy. She was "wedded 26th September, 1748;" her
age then about 16; her gloomy Duke of Wurtemberg, age 20, all sunshine
and goodness to her then: she was "divorced in 1757:" "died 6th April,
1780,"--Tradition says, "in great poverty [great for her rank,
I suppose, proud as she might be, and above complaining],--at
Neustadt-on-the-Aisch" (in the Nurnberg region), whither she had
retired, I know not how long after her Papa's death and Cousin's
accession. She is bound for her Cousin's Court, we observe, just now;
and, considering her Cousin's ways and her own turn of mind, it is easy
to fancy she had not a pleasant time there.
Tradition tells us, credibly enough, "She was very like her Mother:
beautiful, much the lady (VON FEINEM TON), and of energetic character;"
and adds, probably on slight foundation, "but very cold and proud
towards the people." [Vehse, xxv. 251.] Many Books will inform you how,
"On first entering Stuttgard, when the reigning Duke and she were met
by a party of congratulatory peasant women dressed in their national
costume, she said to her Duke," being then only sixteen, poor young
soul, and on her marriage-journey, "'WAS WILL DAS GESCHMEISS (Why does
that rabble bore us)!'" This is probably the main foundation. That "her
Ladies, on approaching her, had always to kiss the hem of her gown," lay
in the nature of the case, being then the rule to people of her rank.
Beautiful Unfortunate, adieu:--and be Voltaire thanked, too!--
It is long since we have seen Voltaire before:--a prosperous Lord at
Ferney these dozen years ("the only man in France that lives like a
GRAND SEIGNEUR," says Cardinal Bernis to him once [Their CORRESPONDENCE,
really pretty of its kind, used to circulate as a separate Volume in the
years then subsequent.]); doing great things for the Pays de Gex and
for France, and for Europe; delivering the Calases, the Sirvens and the
Oppressed of various kinds; especially ardent upon the INFAME, as the
real business Heaven has assigned him in his Day, the sunset of
which, and Night wherein no man can work, he feels to be hastening on.
"Couldn't we, the few Faithful, go to Cleve in a body?" thinks he at one
time: "To Cleve; and there, as from a safe place, under the Philosopher
King, shoot out our fiery artilleries with effect?" The Philosopher King
is perfectly willing, "provided you don't involve me in Wars with
my neighbors." Willing enough he; but they the Faithful--alas, the
Patriarch finds that they have none of his own heroic ardor, and that
the thing cannot be done. Upon which, "struck with sorrow," say his
Biographers, "he writes nothing to Friedrich for two years." ["Nov.
1769," recommences (_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiii. 140. 139).]
The truth is, he is growing very old; and though a piercing radiance, as
of stars, bursts occasionally from the central part of him, the outworks
are getting decayed and dim; obstruction more and more accumulating, and
the immeasurable Night drawing nigh. Well does Voltaire himself, at all
moments, know this; and his bearing under it, one must say, is rather
beautiful. There is a tenderness, a sadness, in these his later Letters
to Friedrich; instead of emphasis or strength, a beautiful shrill
melody, as of a woman, as of a child; he grieves unappeasably to have
lost Friedrich; never will forgive Maupertuis:--poor old man! Friedrich
answers in a much livelier, more robust tone: friendly, encouraging,
communicative on small matters;--full of praises,--in fact, sincerely
glad to have such a transcendent genius still alive with him in
this world. Praises to the most liberal pitch everything of
Voltaire's,--except only the Article on WAR, which occasionally (as
below) he quizzes a little, to the Patriarch or his Disciple.
As we have room for nothing of all this, and perhaps shall not see
Voltaire again,--there are Two actual Interviews with him, which, being
withal by Englishmen, though otherwise not good for much, we intend for
readers here. In these last twenty years D'Alembert is Friedrich's chief
Correspondent. Of D'Alembert to the King, it may be or may not, some
opportunity will rise for a specimen; meanwhile here is a short Letter
of the King's to D'Alembert, through which there pass so many threads of
contemporaneous flying events (swift shuttles on the loud-sounding Loom
of Time), that we are tempted to give this, before the two Interviews in
question.
Date of the Letter is two months after that apparition of the Duchess of
Wurtemberg at Ferney. Of "Crillon," an ingenious enough young Soldier,
rushing ardently about the world in his holiday time, we have nothing to
say, except that he is Son of that Rossbach Crillon, who always fancies
to himself that once he perhaps spared Friedrich's life (by a glass of
wine judiciously given) long since, while the Bridge of Weissenfels was
on fire, and Rossbach close ahead. [Supra, x. 6.] Colonel "Guibert"
is another Soldier, still young, but of much superior type; greatly an
admirer of Friedrich, and subsequently a Writer upon him. [Of Guibert's
visit to Friedrich (June, 1773), see Preuss, iv. 214; Rodenbeck, iii.
80.]
In regard to the "Landgravine of Darmstadt," notice these points.
First, that her eldest Daughter is Wife, second Wife, to the
dissolute Crown-Prince of Prussia; and then, that she has Three other
Daughters,--one of whom has just been disposed of in an important way;
wedded to the Czarowitsh Paul of Russia, namely. By Friedrich's means
and management, as Friedrich informs us. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
(MEMOIRES DE 1763 JUSQU'A 1775), vi. 57.] The Czarina, he says, had sent
out a confidential Gentleman, one Asseburg, who was Prussian by birth,
to seek a fit Wife for her Son: Friedrich, hearing of this, suggested
to Asseburg, "The Landgravine of Darmstadt, the most distinguished and
accomplished of German Princesses, has three marriageable Daughters; her
eldest, married to our Crown-Prince, will be Queen of Prussia in time
coming;--suppose now, one of the others were to be Czarina of Russia
withal? Think, might it not be useful both to your native Country and to
your adopted?" Asseburg took the hint; reported at Petersburg, That of
all marriageable Princesses in Germany, the Three of Darmstadt, one
or the other of them, would, in his humble opinion, be the eligiblest.
"Could not we persuade you to come to Petersburg, Madam Landgravine?"
wrote the Czarina thereupon: "Do us the honor of a visit, your three
Princesses and you!" The Landgravine and Daughters, with decent
celerity, got under way; [Passed through Berlin 16th-19th May, 1773:
Rodenbeck, iii. 78.] Czarowitsh Paul took interesting survey, on
their arrival; and about two months ago wedded the middle one of the
three:--and here is the victorious Landgravine bringing home the other
two. Czarowitsh's fair one did not live long, nor behave well: died of
her first child; and Czarowitsh, in 1776, had to apply to us again for
a Wife, whom this time we fitted better. Happily, the poor victorious
Landgravine was gone before anything of this; she died suddenly five
months hence; [30th March, 1774.] nothing doubting of her Russian
Adventure. She was an admired Princess of her time, DIE GROSSE
LANDGRAFIN, as Goethe somewhere calls her; much in Friedrich's
esteem,--FEMINA SEXU, INGENIO VIR, as the Monument he raised to her
at Darmstadt still bears. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xx. 183 n. His
CORRESPONDENCE with her is Ib. xxvii ii. 135-153; and goes from 1757 to
1774.]
FRIEDRICH TO D'ALEMBERT.
"POTSDAM, 16th December, 1773.
"M. de Crillon delivered me your CRILLONADE [lengthy Letter of
introduction]; which has completed me in the History of all the Crillons
of the County of Avignon. He does n't stop here; he is soon to be off
for Russia; so that I will take him on your word, and believe him the
wisest of all the Crillons: assuring myself that you have measured and
computed all his curves, and angles of incidence. He will find Diderot
and Grimm in Russia [famous visit of Diderot], all occupied with the
Czarina's beautiful reception of them, and with the many things worthy
of admiration which they have seen there. Some say Grimm will possibly
fix himself in that Country [chose better],--which will be the asylum at
once of your fanatic CHAUMEIXES and of the ENCYCLOPEDISTES, whom he used
to denounce. [This poor Chaumeix did, after such feats, "die peaceably
at Moscow, as a Schoolmaster."]
"M. de Guibert has gone by Ferney; where it is said Voltaire has
converted him, that is, has made him renounce the errors of ambition,
abjure the frightful trade of hired manslayer, with intent to become
either Capuchin or Philosophe; so that I suppose by this time he will
have published a 'Declaration' like Gresset, informing the public That,
having had the misfortune to write a Work on Tactics, he repented it
from the bottom of his soul, and hereby assured mankind that never more
in his life would he give rules for butcheries, assassinations, feints,
stratagems or the like abominations. As to me, my conversion not being
yet in an advanced stage, I pray you to give me details about Guibert's,
to soften my heart and penetrate my bowels.
"We have the Landgravine of Darmstadt here: [Rodenbeck, iii. 89, 90.]
no end to the Landgravine's praises of a magnificent Czarina, and of all
the beautiful and grand things she has founded in that Country. As to
us, who live like mice in their holes, news come to us only from mouth
to mouth, and the sense of hearing is nothing like that of sight.
I cherish my wishes, in the mean while, for the sage Anaxagoras [my
D'Alembert himself]; and I say to Urania, 'It is for thee to sustain thy
foremost Apostle, to maintain one light, without which a great Kingdom
[France] would sink into darkness;' and I say to the Supreme Demiurgus:
'Have always the good D'Alembert in thy holy and worthy keeping.'--F."
[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiv. 614.]
THE BOSTON TEA (same day). Curious to remark, while Friedrich is writing
this Letter, "THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16th, 1773," what a commotion is
going on, far over seas, at Boston, New England,--in the "Old South
Meeting-house" there; in regard to three English Tea Ships that are
lying embargoed in Griffin's Wharf for above a fortnight past. The case
is well known, and still memorable to mankind. British Parliament,
after nine years of the saddest haggling and baffling to and fro, under
Constitutional stress of weather, and such east-winds and west-winds
of Parliamentary eloquence as seldom were, has made up its mind, That
America shall pay duty on these Teas before infusing them: and America,
Boston more especially, is tacitly determined that it will not; and
that, to avoid mistakes, these Teas shall never be landed at all. Such
is Boston's private intention, more or less fixed;--to say nothing of
the Philadelphias, Charlestons, New Yorks, who are watching Boston, and
will follow suit of it.
"Sunday, November 26th,--that is, nineteen days ago,--the first of
these Tea Ships, the DARTMOUTH, Captain Hall, moored itself in Griffin's
Wharf: Owner and Consignee is a broad-brimmed Boston gentleman called
Rotch, more attentive to profits of trade than to the groans of
Boston:--but already on that Sunday, much more on the Monday following,
there had a meeting of Citizens run together,--(on Monday, Faneuil Hall
won't hold them, and they adjourn to the Old South Meeting-house),--who
make it apparent to Rotch that it will much behoove him, for the sake
both of tea and skin, not to 'enter' (or officially announce) this
Ship DARTMOUTH at the Custom-house in any wise; but to pledge his
broad-brimmed word, equivalent to his oath, that she shall lie dormant
there in Griffin's Wharf, till we see. Which, accordingly, she has
been doing ever since; she and two others that arrived some days later;
dormant all three of them, side by side, three crews totally idle; a
'Committee of Ten' supervising Rotch's procedures; and the Boston world
much expectant. Thursday, December 16th: this is the 20th day since
Rotch's DARTMOUTH arrived here; if not 'entered' at Custom-house in the
course of this day, Custom-house cannot give her a 'clearance' either
(a leave to depart),--she becomes a smuggler, an outlaw, and her fate is
mysterious to Rotch and us.
"This Thursday accordingly, by 10 in the morning, in the Old South
Meeting-house, Boston is assembled, and country-people to the number of
2,000;--and Rotch never was in such a company of human Friends before.
They are not uncivil to him (cautious people, heedful of the verge of
the Law); but they are peremptory, to the extent of--Rotch may shudder
to think what. "I went to the Custom-house yesterday,' said Rotch, 'your
Committee of Ten can bear me witness; and demanded clearance and leave
to depart; but they would not; were forbidden, they said!' 'Go, then,
sir; get you to the Governor himself; a clearance, and out of harbor
this day: had n't you better?' Rotch is well aware that he had; hastens
off to the Governor (who has vanished to his Country-house, on purpose);
Old South Meeting-house adjourning till 3 P.M., for Rotch's return with
clearance.
"At 3 no Rotch, nor at 4, nor at 5; miscellaneous plangent intermittent
speech instead, mostly plangent, in tone sorrowful rather than
indignant:--at a quarter to 6, here at length is Rotch; sun is long
since set,--has Rotch a clearance or not? Rotch reports at large,
willing to be questioned and cross-questioned: 'Governor absolutely
would not! My Christian friends, what could I or can I do?' There are
by this time about 7,000 people in Old South Meeting-house, very few
tallow-lights in comparison,--almost no lights for the mind either,--and
it is difficult to answer. Rotch's report done, the Chairman [one Adams,
"American Cato," subsequently so called] dissolves the sorrowful 7,000,
with these words: 'This Meeting declares that it can do nothing more to
save the Country.' Will merely go home, then, and weep. Hark, however:
almost on the instant, in front of Old South Meeting-house, (a terrific
War-whoop; and about fifty Mohawk Indians,)--with whom Adams seems to be
acquainted; and speaks without Interpreter: Aha?--
"And, sure enough, before the stroke of 7, these fifty painted Mohawks
are forward, without noise, to Griffin's Wharf; have put sentries all
round there; and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, are busy,
in three gangs, upon the dormant Tea Ships; opening their chests, and
punctually shaking them out into the sea. 'Listening from the distance,
you could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests, and no other
sound.' About 10 P.M. all was finished: 342 chests of tea flung out to
infuse in the Atlantic; the fifty Mohawks gone like a dream; and Boston
sleeping more silently even than usual." ["Summary of the Advices from
America" (in _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1774, pp. 26, 27); Bancroft,
iii. 536 et seq.]
"Seven in the evening:" this, I calculate, allowing for the Earth's
rotation, will be about the time when Friedrich, well tired with the
day's business, is getting to bed; by 10 on the Boston clocks, when the
process finishes there, Friedrich will have had the best of his sleep
over. Here is Montcalm's Prophecy coming to fulfilment;--and a curious
intersection of a flying Event through one's poor LETTER TO D'ALEMBERT.
We will now give the two English Interviews with Voltaire; one of which
is of three years past, another of three years ahead.
No. 1. DR BURNEY HAS SIGHT OF VOLTAIRE (July, 1770).
In the years 1770-1771, Burney, then a famous DOCTOR OF MUSIC, made
his TOUR through France and Italy, on Musical errands and researches:
[Charles Burney's _Present State of Music in France and Italy, being
the Journal of a Tour through those Countries to collect Materials for
a General History of Music_ (London, 1773). The _History of Music_
followed duly, in Four 4tos (London, 1776-1789).] with these we have no
concern, but only with one most small exceptional offshoot or
episode which grew out of these. Enough for us to know that Burney, a
comfortable, well-disposed, rather dull though vivacious Doctor, age
near 45, had left London for Paris "in June, 1770;" that he was on to
Geneva, intending for Turin, "early in July;" and that his "M. Fritz,"
mentioned below, is a veteran Brother in Music, settled at Geneva for
the last thirty years, who has been helpful and agreeable to Burney
while here. Our Excerpt therefore dates itself, "one of the early days
of July, 1770,"--Burney hovering between two plans (as we shall dimly
perceive), and not exactly executing either:--
.... "My going to M. Fritz broke [was about breaking, but did not quite]
into a plan which I had formed of visiting M. de Voltaire, at the same
hour, along with some other strangers, who were then going to Ferney.
But, to say the truth, besides the visit to M. Fritz being more MY
BUSINESS, I did not much like going with these people, who had only a
Geneva Bookseller to introduce them; and I had heard that some English
had lately met with a rebuff from M. de Voltaire, by going without any
letter of recommendation, or anything to recommend themselves. He asked
them What they wanted? Upon their replying That they wished only to see
so extraordinary a man, he said: 'Well, gentlemen, you now see me: did
you take me for a wild beast or monster, that was fit only to be stared
at as a show?' This story very much frightened me; for, not having, when
I left London, or even Paris, any intention of going to Geneva, I was
quite unprovided with a recommendation. However, I was determined to see
the place of his residence, which I took to be [still LES DELICES],
CETTE MAISON D'ARISTIPPE, CES JARDINS D'PICURE,
to which he retired in 1755; but was mistaken [not The DELICES now at
all, but Ferney, for nine or ten years back].
"I drove to Ferney alone, after I had left M. Fritz. This House is
three or four miles from Geneva, but near the Lake. I approached it with
reverence, and a curiosity of the most minute kind. I inquired WHEN I
first trod on his domain; I had an intelligent and talkative postilion,
who answered all my questions very satisfactorily. M. de Voltaire's
estate is very large here, and he is building pretty farm-houses
upon it. He has erected on the Geneva side a quadrangular JUSTICE, or
Gallows, to show that he is the SEIGNEUR. One of his farms, or rather
manufacturing houses,--for he is establishing a manufacture upon his
estate,--was so handsome that I thought it was his chateau.
"We drove to Ferney, through a charming country, covered with corn and
vines, in view of the Lake, and Mountains of Gex, Switzerland and Savoy.
On the left hand, approaching the House, is a neat Chapel with this
inscription:--
'DEO EREXIT VOLTAIRE MDCCLXI.'
I sent to inquire, Whether a stranger might be allowed to see the House
and Gardens; and was answered in the affirmative. A servant soon came,
and conducted me into the cabinet or closet where his Master had just
been writing: this is never shown when he is at home; but having walked
out, I was allowed that privilege. From thence I passed to the
Library, which is not a very large one, but well filled. Here I found
a whole-length Figure in marble of himself, recumbent, in one of the
windows; and many curiosities in another room; a Bust of himself, made
not two years since; his Mother's picture; that of his Niece, Madam
Denis; his Brother, M. Dupuis; the Calas Family; and others. It is a
very neat and elegant House; not large, nor affectedly decorated.
"I should first have remarked, that close to the Chapel, between that
and the house, is the Theatre, which he built some years ago; where he
treated his friends with some of his own Tragedies: it is now only used
as a receptacle for wood and lumber, there having been no play acted in
it these four years. The servant told me his Master was 78 [76 gone],
but very well. 'IL TRAVAILLE,' said he, 'PENDANT DIX HEURES CHAQUE JOUR,
He studies ten hours every day; writes constantly without spectacles,
and walks out with only a domestic, often a mile or two--ET LE VOILA, LA
BAS, And see, yonder he is!'
"He was going to his workmen. My heart leaped at the sight of so
extraordinary a man. He had just then quitted his Garden, and was
crossing the court before his House. Seeing my chaise, and me on the
point of mounting it, he made a sign to his servant who had been my
CICERONE, to go to him; in order, I suppose, to inquire who I was.
After they had exchanged a few words together, he," M. de Voltaire,
"approached the place where I was standing motionless, in order to
contemplate his person as much as I could while his eyes were turned
from me; but on seeiug him move towards me, I found myself drawn by
some irresistible power towards him; and, without knowing what I did, I
insensibly met him half-way.
"It is not easy to conceive it possible for life to subsist in a form
so nearly composed of mere skin and bone as that of M. de Voltaire."
Extremely lean old Gentleman! "He complained of decrepitude, and said,
He supposed I was anxious to form an idea of the figure of one walking
after death. However, his eyes and whole countenance are still full
of fire; and though so emaciated, a more lively expression cannot be
imagined.
"He inquired after English news; and observed that Poetical squabbles
had given way to Political ones; but seemed to think the spirit of
opposition as necessary in poetry as in politics. _'Les querelles
d'auteurs sont pour le bien de la litterature, comme dans un
gouvernement libre les querelles des grands, et les clameurs des petits,
sont necessaires a la liberte._' And added, 'When critics are silent, it
does not so much prove the Age to be correct, as dull.' He inquired
what Poets we had now; I told him we had Mason and Gray. 'They write
but little,' said he: 'and you seem to have no one who lords it over the
rest, like Dryden, Pope and Swift.' I told him that it was one of the
inconveniences of Periodical Journals, however well executed, that they
often silenced modest men of genius, while impudent blockheads were
impenetrable, and unable to feel the critic's scourge: that Mr. Gray and
Mr. Mason had both been illiberally treated by mechanical critics, even
in newspapers; and added, that modesty and love of quiet seemed in these
gentlemen to have got the better even of their love of fame.
"During this conversation, we approached the buildings that he was
constructing near the road to his Chateau. 'These,' said he, pointing
to them, 'are the most innocent, and perhaps the most useful, of all
my works.' I observed that he had other works, which were of far more
extensive use, and would be much more durable, than those. He was so
obliging as to show me several farm-houses that he had built, and the
plans of others: after which I took my leave." [Burney's _Present State
of Music_ (London, 1773), pp. 55-62.
NO. 2. A REVEREND MR. SHERLOCK SEES VOLTAIRE, AND EVEN DINES WITH HIM
(April, 1776).
Sherlock's Book of TRAVELS, though he wrote it in two languages, and it
once had its vogue, is now little other than a Dance of Will-o'-wisps
to us. A Book tawdry, incoherent, indistinct, at once flashy and opaque,
full of idle excrescences and exuberances;--as is the poor man himself.
He was "Chaplain to the Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry;" gyrating
about as ecclesiastical Moon to that famed Solar Luminary, what could
you expect! [Title of his Book is, _Letters from an English Traveller;
translated from the French Original_ (London, 1780). Ditto, _Letters
from an English Trader; written originally in French;_ by the Rev.
Martin Sherlock, A.M., Chaplain to the Earl of Bristol, &c. (a new
Edition, 2 vols., London, 1802).] Poor Sherlock is nowhere intentionally
fabulous; nor intrinsically altogether so foolish as he seems: let that
suffice us. In his Dance of Will-o'-wisps, which in this point happily
is dated,--26th-27th April, 1776,--he had come to Ferney, with proper
introduction to Voltaire; and here (after severe excision of the flabby
parts, but without other change) is credible account of what he saw and
heard. In Three Scenes; with this Prologue,--as to Costume, which is
worth reading twice:--
VOLTAIRE'S DRESS. "On the two days I saw him, he wore white cloth shoes,
white woollen stockings, red breeches, with a nightgown and waistcoat
of blue linen, flowered, and lined with yellow. He had on a grizzle wig
with three ties, and over it a silk nightcap embroidered with gold and
silver."
SCENE I. THE ENTRANCE-HALL OF FERNEY (Friday, 26th April, 1776):
EXUBERANT SHERLOCK ENTERING, LETTER OF INTRODUCTION HAVING PRECEDED.
"He met in the hall; his Nephew M. d'Hornoi" (Grand-nephew; Abbe Mignot,
famous for BURYING Voltaire, and Madame Denis, whom we know, were
D'Hornoi's Uncle and Aunt)--Grand-nephew, "Counsellor in the Parlement
of Paris, held him by the arm. He said to me, with a very weak voice:
'You see a very old man, who makes a great effort to have the honor of
seeing you. Will you take a walk in my Garden? It will please you, for
it is in the English taste:--it was I who introduced that taste into
France, and it is become universal. But the French parody your Gardens:
they put your thirty acres into three.'
"From his Gardens you see the Alps, the Lake, the City of Geneva and its
environs, which are very pleasant. He said:--
VOLTAIRE. "'It is a beautiful prospect.' He pronounced these words
tolerably well.
SHERLOCK. "'How long is it since you were in England?'
VOLTAIRE. "'Fifty years, at least.' [Not quite; in 1728 left; in 1726
had come.] [Supra, vii. 47.]
D'HORNOI. "'It was at the time when you printed the First Edition of
your HENRIADE.'
"We then talked of Literature; and from that moment he forgot his age
and infirmities, and spoke with the warmth of a man of thirty. He
said some shocking things against Moses and against Shakspeare. [Like
enough!]... We then talked of Spain.
VOLTAIRE. "'It is a Country of which we know no more than of the most
savage parts of Africa; and it is not worth the trouble of being known.
If a man would travel there, he must carry his bed, &c. On arriving in
a Town, he must go into one street to buy a bottle of wine; a piece of
a mule [by way of beef] in another; he finds a table in a third,--and he
sups. A French Nobleman was passing through Pampeluna: he sent out for
a spit; there was only one in the Town, and that was lent away for a
wedding.'
D'HORNOI. "'There, Monsieur, is a Village which M. de Voltaire has
built!'
VOLTAIRE. "'Yes, we have our freedoms here. Cut off a little corner, and
we are out of France. I asked some privileges for my Children here, and
the King has granted me all that I asked, and has declared this Pays de
Gex exempt from all Taxes of the Farmers-General; so that salt, which
formerly sold for ten sous a pound, now sells for four. I have nothing
more to ask, except to live.'--We went into the Library" (had made the
round of the Gardens, I suppose).