IN TROUBLE.
While the Hanover Imminency was but beginning, and horrid crisis of War
or Duel--was yet in nobody's thoughts, the Anspach Wedding [30th May,
1729] had gone on at Berlin. To Friedrich Wilhelm's satisfaction; not
to his Queen's, the match being but a poor one. The bride was Frederika
Louisa, not the eldest of their Daughters, but the next-eldest: younger
than Wilhelmina, and still hardly fifteen; the first married of the
Family. Very young she: and gets a very young Margraf,--who has been,
and still is a minor; under his Mother's guardianship till now: not
rich, and who has not had a good chance to be wise. The Mother--an
excellent magnanimous Princess, still young and beautiful, but laboring
silently under some mortal disease--has done her best to manage for him
these last four or five years; [Pollnitz, _Memoirs and Letters_ (English
Translation, London, 1745), i. 200-204. There are "MEMOIRS of Pollnitz,"
then "MEMOIRS AND LETTERS," besides the "MEMOIRS of Brandenburg"
(posthumous, which we often cite); all by this poor man. Only the last
has any Historical value, and that not much. The first two are only
worth consulting, cautiously, as loose contemporary babble,--written for
the Dutch Booksellers, one can perceive.] and, as I gather, is impatient
to see him settled, that she may retire and die.
Friday forenoon, 19th May, 1729, the young Margraf arrived in person at
Berlin,--just seventeen gone Saturday last, poor young soul, and very
foolish. Sublime royal carriage met him at the Prussian frontier; and
this day, what is more interesting, our "Crown-Prince rides out to meet
him; mounts into the royal carriage beside him;" and the two young fools
drive, in such a cavalcade of hoofs and wheels,--talking we know
not what,--into Potsdam; met by his Majesty and all the honors.
What illustrious gala there then was in Potsdam and the Court world,
read,--with tedium, unless you are in the tailor line,--described with
minute distinctness by the admiring Fassmann. [pp.396-401.] There are
Generals, high Ladies, sons of Bellona and Latona; there are dinners,
there are hautboys,--"two-and-thirty blackamoors," in flaming uniforms,
capable of cymballing and hautboying "up the grand staircase, and round
your table, and down again," in a frightfully effective manner, while
you dine. Madame Kamecke is to go as Oberhofmeisterinn to Anspach; and
all the lackeys destined thither are in their new liveries, blue turned
up with red velvet. Which is delightful to see. Review of the Giant
grenadiers cannot fail; conspicuous on parade with them our Crown-Prince
as Lieutenant-Colonel: "the beauty of this Corps as well as the
perfection of their EXERCITIA,"--ah yes, we know it, my dim old
friend. The Marriage itself followed, at Berlin, after many exercitia,
snipe-shootings, feastings, hautboyings; on the 30th of the month; with
torch-dance and the other customary trimmings; "Bride's garter cut
in snips" for dreaming upon "by his Royal Majesty himself." The
LUSTBARKEITEN, the stupendous public entertainments having ended, there
is weeping and embracing (MORE HUMANO); and the happy couple, so-called
happy, retire to Anspach with their destinies and effects.
A foolish young fellow, this new Brother-in-law, testifies Wilhelmina in
many places. Finances in disorder; Mother's wise management, ceasing
too soon, has only partially availed. King "has lent some hundreds of
thousands of crowns to Anspach [says Friedrich at a later period], which
there is no chance of ever being repaid. All is in disorder there, in
the finance way; if the Margraf gets his hunting and his heroning, he
laughs at all the rest; and his people pluck him bare at every hand."
[Schulenburg's Letter (in Forster, iii. 72).] Nor do the married couple
agree to perfection;--far from it: "hate one another like cat and dog
(like the fire, COMME LE FEU)," says Friedrich: [Correspondence
(more than once).] "his Majesty may see what comes of ill-assorted
marriages!"--In fact, the union proved none of the most harmonious;
subject to squalls always;--but to squalls only; no open tempest, far
less any shipwreck: the marriage held together till death, the Husband's
death, nearly thirty years after, divided it. There was then left one
Son; the same who at length inherited Baireuth too,--inherited Lady
Craven,--and died in Bubb Doddington's Mansion, as we often teach our
readers.
Last year, the Third Daughter was engaged to the Heir-Apparent of
Brunswick; will be married, when of age. Wilhelmina, flower of them
all, still hangs on the bush, "asked," or supposed to be "asked by four
Kings," but not attained by any of them; and one knows not what will
be her lot. She is now risen out of the sickness she has had,--not
small-pox at all, as malicious English rumor gave it in England;--and
"looks prettier than ever," writes Dubourgay.
Here is a marriage, then; first in the Family;--but not the
Double-Marriage, by a long way! The late Hanover Tornado, sudden
Waterspout as we called it, has quenched that Negotiation; and one knows
not in what form it will resuscitate itself. The royal mind, both
at Berlin and St. James's, is in a very uncertain state after such a
phenomenon.
Friedrich Wilhelm's favor for the Crown-Prince, marching home so
gallantly with his Potsdam Giants, did not last long. A few weeks later
in the Autumn we have again ominous notices from Dubourgay. And here,
otherwise obtained, is a glimpse into the interior of the Berlin
Schloss; momentary perfect clearness, as by a flash of lightning, on the
state of matters there; which will be illuminative to the reader.
CROWN-PRINCE'S DOMESTICITIES SEEN IN A FLASH OF LIGHTNING.
This is another of those tragi-comic scenes, tragic enough in effect,
between Father and Son; Son now about eighteen,--fit to be getting
through Oxford, had he been an English gentleman of private station.
It comes from the irrefragable Nicolai; who dates it about this time,
uncertain as to month or day.
Fritz's love of music, especially of fluting, is already known to us.
Now a certain Quantz was one of his principal instructors in that art,
and indeed gave him the last finish of perfection in it. Quantz, famed
Saxon music-master and composer, Leader of the Court-Band in Saxony,
king of flute-players in his day,--(a village-farrier's son from
the Gottingen region, and himself destined to shoe horses, had not
imperative Nature prevailed over hindrances);--Quantz, ever from Fritz's
sixteenth year, was wont to come occasionally, express from Dresden, for
a week or two, and give the young man lessons on the flute. The young
man's Mother, good Queen Feekin, had begged this favor for him from the
Saxon Sovereignties; and pleaded hard for it at home, or at worst kept
it secret there. It was one of the many good maternities, clandestine
and public, which she was always ready to achieve for him where
possible;--as he also knew full well in his young grateful heart, and
never forgot, however old he grew! Illustrious Quantz, we say, gives
Fritz lessons on the flute; and here is a scene they underwent;--they
and a certain brisk young soldier fellow, Lieutenant von Katte, who was
there too; of whom the reader will tragically hear more in time.
On such occasions Fritz was wont to pull off the tight Prussian coat or
COATIE, and clap himself into flowing brocade of the due roominess and
splendor,--bright scarlet dressing-gown, done in gold, with tags and
sashes complete;--and so, in a temporary manner, feel that there was
such a thing as a gentleman's suitable apparel. He would take his
music-lessons, follow his clandestine studies, in that favorable
dress:--thus Buffon, we hear, was wont to shave, and put on clean linen,
before he sat down to write, finding it more comfortable so. Though,
again, there have been others who could write in considerable disorder;
not to say litter, and palpable imperfection of equipment: Samuel
Johnson, for instance, did some really grand writing in a room where
there was but one chair, and that one incapable of standing unless you
sat on it, having only three feet. A man is to fit himself to what is
round him: but surely a Crown-Prince may be indulged in a little brocade
in his leisure moments!--
Fritz and Quantz sat doing music, an unlawful thing, in this pleasant,
but also unlawful costume; when Lieutenant Katte, who was on watch in
the outer room, rushes in, distraction in his aspect: Majesty just here!
Quick, double quick! Katte snatches the music-books and flutes, snatches
Quantz; hurries with him and them into some wall-press, or closet for
firewood, and stands quaking there. Our poor Prince has flung aside
his brocade, got on his military coatie; and would fain seem busy with
important or indifferent routine matters. But, alas, he cannot undo
the French hairdressing; cannot change the graceful French bag into the
strict Prussian queue in a moment. The French bag betrays him; kindles
the paternal vigilance,--alas, the paternal wrath, into a tornado pitch.
For his vigilant suspecting Majesty searches about; finds the brocade
article behind a screen; crams it, with loud indignation, into the
fire; finds all the illicit French Books; confiscates them on the
spot, confiscates all manner of contraband goods:--and there was mere
sulphurous whirlwind in those serene spaces for about an hour! If
his Majesty had looked into the wood-closet? His Majesty, by Heaven's
express mercy, omitted that. Haude the Bookseller was sent for; ordered
to carry off that poisonous French cabinet-library in mass; sell every
Book of it, to an undiscerning public, at what price it will fetch.
Which latter part of his order, Haude, in deep secrecy, ventured to
disobey, being influenced thereto. Haude, in deep secrecy, kept the
cabinet-library secure; and "lent" the Prince book after book from it,
as his Royal Highness required them.
Friedrich, it is whispered in Tobacco-Parliament, has been known, in
his irreverent impatience, to call the Grenadier uniform his "shroud
(STERBEKITTEL, or death-clothes);" so imprisoning to the young mind
and body! Paternal Majesty has heard this blasphemous rumor; hence
doubtless, in part, his fury against the wider brocade garment.
It was Quantz himself that reported this explosion to authentic Nicolai,
many years afterwards; confessing that he trembled, every joint of him,
in the wood-closet, during that hour of hurricane; and the rather as he
had on "a red dress-coat," whioh color, foremost of the flaring colors,
he knew to be his Majesty's aversion, on a man's back. [Nicolai,
_Anekdoten_ (Berlin, 1790), ii. 148.] Of incomparable Quantz, and
his heart-thrilling adagios, we hope to hear again, under
joyfuler circumstances. Of Lieutenant von Katte,--a short stout young
fellow, with black eyebrows, pock-marked face, and rather dissolute
manners,--we shall not fail to hear.