For one thing, Friedrich Wilhelm, weary of all this English pother and
futility, will end the Double-Marriage speculation; Wilhelmina shall be
disposed of, and so an end. Friedrich Wilhelm, once the hunting was over
at Wusterhausen, ran across, southward,--to "Lubnow," Wilhelmina calls
it,--to Lubben in the Nether Lausitz, [25th October, 1729 (Fassmann, p.
404).] a short day's drive; there to meet incognito the jovial Polish
Majesty, on his route towards Dresden; to see a review or so; and have
a little talk with the ever-cheerful Man of Sin. Grumkow and Seckendorf,
of course these accompany; Majesty's shadow is not surer.
Review was held at Lubben, Weissenfels Commander-in-chief taking charge;
dinner also, a dinner or two, with much talk and drink;--and there
it was settled, Wilhelmina has since known, that Weissenfels, Royal
Highness in the Abstract, was to be her Husband, after all. Weissenfels
will do; either Weissenfels or else the Margraf of Schwedt, thinks
Friedrich Wilhelm; somebody shall marry the baggage out of hand, and let
us have done with that. Grumkow, as we know, was very anxious for it;
calculating thereby to out the ground from under the Old Dessauer, and
make this Weissenfels Generalissimo of Prussia; a patriotic thought.
Polish Majesty lent hand, always willing to oblige.
Friedrich Wilhelm, on his return homewards, went round by Dahme for a
night:--not "Dam," O Princess, there is no such town or schloss! Round
by Dahme, a little town and patch of territory, in the Saxon Countries,
which was Weissenfels's Apanage;--"where plenty of Tokay" cheered the
royal heart; and, in such mood, it seemed as if one's Daughter might do
very well in this extremely limited position. And Weissenfels, though
with dark misgivings as to Queen Sophie, was but too happy to consent:
the foolish creature; a little given to liquor too! Friedrich Wilhelm,
with this fine project in his head, drove home to Potsdam;--and there
laid about him, on the poor Crown-Prince, in the way we have seen;
terrifying Queen and Princess, who are at Berlin till Christmas and
the Carnival be over. Friedrich Wilhelm means to see the Polish Majesty
again before long,--probably so soon as this of Weissenfels is fairly
got through the Female Parliament, where it is like there will be
difficulties.
Christmas came to Berlin, and the King with it; who did the gayeties
for a week or two, and spoke nothing about business to his Female
Parliament. Dubourgay saw him, at Parade, on New-Year's morning; whither
all manner of Foreign Dignitaries had come to pay their respects:
"Well," cried the King to Dubourgay, "we shall have a War,
then,"--universa1 deadly tug at those Italian Apanages, for and against
an insulted Kaiser,--"War; and then all that is crooked will be pulled
straight!" So spake Friedrich Wilhelm on the New-Year's morning; War in
Italy, universal spasm of wrestle there, being now the expectation
of foolish mankind: Crooked will be pulled straight, thinks Friedrich
Wilhelm; and perhaps certain high Majesties, deaf to the voice of
Should-not, will understand that of Can-not, Excellenz!--Crooked will
become straight? "Indeed if so, your Majesty, the sooner the better!" I
ventured to answer. [Dubourgay, 8th January, 1730.]
New Year's day is not well in, and the ceremonial wishes over, when
Friedrich Wilhelm, his mind full of serious domestic and foreign matter,
withdraws to Potsdam again; and therefrom begins fulminating in a
terrible manner on his womankind at Berlin, what we called his Female
Parliament,--too much given to opposition courses at present. Intends to
have his measures passed there, in defiance of opposition; straightway;
and an end put to this inexpressible Double-Marriage higgle-haggle.
Speed to him! we will say.--Three high Crises occur, three or even four,
which can now without much detail be made intelligible to the patient
reader: on the back of which we look for some catastrophe and finis to
the Business;--any catastrophe that will prove a finis, how welcome will
it be!
WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS FIRST: ENGLAND SHALL SAY
YES OR SAY NO.
Still early in January, a few days after his Majesty's return to
Potsdam, three high Official gentlemen, Count Fink van Finkenstein, old
Tutor to the Prince, Grumkow and General Borck announce themselves
one morning; "Have a pressing message from the King to her Majesty."
[Wilhelmina, i. 180.] Queen is astonished; expecting anything
sooner.--"This regards me, I have a dreading!" shuddered Wilhelmina to
Mamma. "No matter," said the Queen, shrugging her shoulders; "one must
have firmness; and that is not what I shall want;"--and her Majesty went
into the Audience-chamber, leaving Wilhelmina in such tremors.
Finkenstein, a friendly man, as Borck too is, explains to her Majesty,
"That they three have received each a Letter overnight,--Letter from the
King, enjoining in the FIRST place 'silence under pain of death;' in the
SECOND place, apprising them that he, the King, will no longer endure
her Majesty's disobedience in regard to the marriage of his Daughter,
but will banish Daughter and Mother 'to Oranienburg,' quasi-divorce,
and outer darkness, unless there be compliance with his sovereign will;
THIRDLY, that they are accordingly to go, all three, to her Majesty,
to deliver the enclosed Royal Autograph [which Finkenstein presents],
testifying what said sovereign will is, and on the above terms expect
her Majesty's reply;"--as they have now sorrowfully done, Finkenstein
and Borck with real sorrow; Grumkow with the reverse of real.
Sovereign will is to the effect: "Write to England one other time, Will
you at once marry, or not at once; Yea or No? Answer can be here within
a fortnight; three weeks, even in case of bad winds. If the answer be
not Yea at once; then you, Madam, you at once choose Weissenfels or
Schwedt, one or the other,--under what penalties you know; Oranienburg
and worse!"
Here is a crisis. But her Majesty did not want firmness. "Write to
England? Yes, willingly. But as to Weissenfels and Schwedt, whatever
answer come from England,--Impossible!" steadily answers her Majesty.
There was much discourse, suasive, argumentative; Grumkow "quoting
Scripture on her Majesty, as the Devil can on occasion," says
Wilhelmina. Express Scriptures, _Wives, be obedient to your husbands,_
and the like texts: but her Majesty, on the Scripture side too, gave
him as good as he brought. "Did not Bethuel the son of Milcah, [Genesis
xxiv. 14-58.] when Abraham's servant asked his daughter in marriage for
young Isaac, answer, _We will call the damsel and inquire of her mouth.
And they called Rebecca, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this
man? And she said, I will go."_ Scripture for Scripture, Herr von
Grumkow! "Wives must obey their husbands; surely yes. But the husbands
are to command things just and reasonable. The King's procedure is
not accordant with that law. He is for doing violence to my Daughter's
inclination, and rendering her unhappy for the rest of her days;--will
give her a brutal debauchee," fat Weissenfels, so describable in strong
language; "a younger brother, who is nothing but the King of Poland's
Officer; landless, and without means to live according to his rank. Or
can it be the State that will profit from such a marriage? If they have
a Household, the King will have to support it.--Write to England; Yes;
but whatever the answer of England, Weissenfels never! A thousand times
sooner see my child in her grave than hopelessly miserable!" Here a
qualm overtook her Majesty; for in fact she is in an interesting state,
third month of her time: "I am not well; You should spare me, Gentlemen,
in the state I am in.--I do not accuse the King," concluded she: "I
know," hurling a glance at Grumkow, "to whom I owe all this;"--and
withdrew to her interior privacies; reading there with Wilhelmina "the
King's cruel Letter," and weeping largely, though firm to the death.
[Wilhelmina, i. 179-182. Dubourgay has nothing,--probably had heard
nothing, there being "silence under pain of death" for the moment.]
What to do in such a crisis? Assemble the Female Parliament, for one
thing: good Madam Finkenstein (old Tutor's wife), good Mamsell
Bulow, Mamsell Sonsfeld (Wilhelmina's Governess), and other faithful
women:--well if we can keep away traitresses, female spies that are
prowling about; especially one "Ramen," a Queen's soubrette, who gets
trusted with everything, and betrays everything; upon whom Wilhelmina
is often eloquent. Never was such a traitress; took Dubourgay's
bribe, which the Queen had advised; and, all the same, betrays
everything,--bribe included. And the Queen, so bewitched, can keep
nothing from her. Female Parliament must, take precautions about the
Ramen!--For the rest, Female Parliament advises two things: 1. Pressing
Letter to England; that of course, written with the eloquence of
despair: and then 2. That in case of utter extremity, her Majesty
"pretend to fall ill." That is Crisis First; and that is their expedient
upon it.
Letter goes to England, therefore; setting forth the extremity of
strait, and pinch: "Now or never, O my Sister Caroline!" Many such
have gone, first and last; but this is the strongest of all. Nay the
Crown-Prince too shall write to his Aunt of England: you, Wilhelmina,
draw out, a fit brief Letter for him: send it to Potsdam, he will copy
it there! [Wilhelmina, i. 183.] So orders the Mother: Wilhelmina does
it, with a terrified heart; Crown-Prince copies without scruple: "I have
already given your Majesty my word of honor never to wed any one but the
Princess Amelia your Daughter; I here reiterate that Promise, in case
your Majesty will consent to my Sister's Marriage,"--should that alone
prove possible in the present intricacies. "We are all reduced to such
a state that"--Wilhelmina gives the Letter in full; but as it is
professedly of her own composition, a loose vague piece, the very date
of which you have to grope out for yourself, it cannot even count among
the several Letters written by the Crown-Prince, both before and after
it, to the same effect, which are now probably all of them lost, [TRACE
of one, Copy of ANSWER from Queen Caroline to what seems to have been
one, Answer rather of dissuasive tenor, is in State-Paper Office:
_Prussian Despatches,_ vol. xl,--dateless; probably some months later
in 1780.] without regret to anybody; and we will not reckon it worth
transcribing farther. Such Missive, such two Missives (not now found in
any archive) speed to England by express; may the winds be favorable.
Her Majesty waits anxious at Berlin; ready to take refuge in a bed of
sickness, should bad come to worse.
DUBOURGAY STRIKES A LIGHT FOR THE ENGLISH COURT.
In England, in the mean while, they have received a curious little
piece of secret information. One Reichenbach, Prussian Envoy at
London--Dubourgay has long marvelled at the man and at the news he sends
to Berlin. Here, of date 17th January, 1730, is a Letter on that
subject from Dubourgay, official but private as yet, for "George Tilson,
Esq.:"--Tilson is Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, whose name
often turns up on such occasions in the DUBOURGAY, the ROBINSON and
other extinct Paper-heaps of that time. Dubourgay dates doubly, by old
and new style; in general we print by the new only, unless the contrary
be specified.
"TO GEORGE TILSON, ESQ. (Private.)
"BERLIN, 6th Jan. 1729 (by new style, 17th Jan. 1730).
"SIR,--I believe you may remember that we have for a long time suspected
that most of Reichenbach's Despatches were dictated by some people here.
About two days ago a Paper fell into my hands," realized quietly for a
consideration, "containing an Account of money charged to the 'Brothers
Jourdan and Lautiers,' Merchants here, by their Correspondent in London,
for sending Letters from," properly in, or through, "your City to
Reichenbach.
"Jourdan and Lautiers's London Correspondents are Mr. Thomas Greenhill
in Little Bell Alley and Mr. John Motteux in St. Mary Axe. Mr. Guerin my
Agent knows them very well; having paid them several little bills on my
account:"--Better ask Mr. Guerin. "I know not through the hands of which
of those Merchants the above-mentioned Letters have passed; but you
have ways enough to find it out, if you think it worth while. I make no
manner of doubt but Grumkow and his party make use of this conveyance
to (SIC) their instructions to Reichenbach. In the Account which I
have seen, 'eighteen-pence' is charged for carrying each Letter to
Reichenbach: the charge in general is for 'Thirty-two Letters;' and
refers to a former Account." So that they must have been long at it.
"I am, with the greatest truth,
"DUBOURGAY."
Here is a trail which Tilson will have no difficulty in running down.
I forget whether it was in Bell Alley or St. Mary Axe that the nest was
found; but found it soon was, and the due springes were set; and game
came steadily dropping in,--Letters to and Letters from,--which, when
once his Britannic Majesty had, with reluctance, given warrant to open
and decipher them, threw light on Prussian Affairs, and yielded fine
sport and speculation in the Britannic Majesty's Apartment on an
evening.
This is no other than the celebrated "Cipher Correspondence between
Grumkow and Reichenbach;" Grumkow covertly instructing his slave
Reichenbach what the London news shall be: Reichenbach answering him,
To hear is to obey! Correspondence much noised of in the modern
Prussian Books; and which was, no doubt, very wonderful to Tilson and
Company;--capable of being turned to uses, they thought. The reader
shall see specimens by and by; and he will find it unimportant enough,
and unspeakably stupid to him. It does show Grumkow as the extreme of
subtle fowlers, and how the dirty-fingered Seckendorf and he cooked
their birdlime: but to us that is not new, though at St. James's it was.
Perhaps uses may lie in it there? At all events, it is a pretty topic
in Queen Caroline's apartment on an evening; and the little Majesty and
she, with various laughters and reflections, can discern, a little, How
a poor King of Prussia is befooled by his servants, and in what way a
fierce Bear is led about by the nose, and dances to Grumkow's piping.
Poor soul, much of his late raging and growling, perhaps it was only
Grumkow's and not his! Does not hate us, he, perhaps; but only Grumkow
through him? This doleful enchantment, and that the Royal Wild Bear
dances only to tunes, ought to be held in mind, when we want anything
with him.--Those, amid the teheeings, are reflections that cannot
escape Queen Caroline and her little George, while the Prussian Express,
unknown to them, is on the road.
WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS SECOND: ENGLAND SHALL HAVE
SAID NO.
The Prussian Express, Queen Sophie's Courier to England, made his best
speed: but he depends on the winds for even arriving there; and then he
depends on the chances for an answer there; an uncertain Courier as to
time: and it was not in the power of speed to keep pace with Friedrich
Wilhelm's impatience. "No answer yet?" growls Friedrich Wilhelm before
a fortnight is gone. "No answer?"--and January has not ended till a new
Deputation of the same Three Gentlemen, Finkenstein, Borck, Grumkow,
again waits on the Queen, for whom there is now this other message.
"Wednesday, 25th January, 1730," so Dubourgay dates it; so likewise
Wilhelmina, right for once: "a day I shall never forget," adds she.
Finkenstein and Borck, merciful persons, and always of the English
party, were again profoundly sorry. Borck has a blaze of temper in him
withal; we hear he apprised Grumkow, at one point of the dialogue, that
he, Grumkow, was a "scoundrel," so Dubourgay calls it,--which was one
undeniable truth offered there that day. But what can anything profit?
The Message is: "Whatever the answer now be from England, I will have
nothing to do with it. Negative, procrastinative, affirmative, to me
it shall be zero. You, Madam, have to choose, for Wilhelmina, between
Weissenfels and Schwedt; otherwise I myself will choose: and upon you
and her will alight Oranienburg, outer darkness, and just penalties of
mutiny against the Authority set over you by God and men. Weissenfels or
Schwedt: choose straightway." This is the King's message by these Three.
"You can inform the King," replied her Majesty, [Wilhelmina, i. 188.]
"that he will never make me consent to render my Daughter miserable; and
that, so long as a breath of life (UN SOUFFLE DE VIE) remains in me,
I will not permit her to take either the one or the other of those
persons." "Is that enough? For you, Sir," added her Majesty, turning to
Grumkow, "for you, Sir, who are the author of my misfortunes, may my
curse fall upon you and your house! You have this day killed me. But
I doubt not, Heaven will hear my prayer, and avenge these wrongs."
[Dubourgay, 28th January, 1730; Wilhelmina, i. 188 (who suppresses
the maledictory part).]--And herewith to a bed of sickness, as the one
refuge left!
Her Majesty does now, in fact, take to bed at Berlin; "fallen very ill,"
it would appear; which gives some pause to Friedrich Wilhelm till he
ascertain. "Poorly, for certain," report the Doctors, even Friedrich
Wilhelm's Doctor. The humane Doctors have silently given one another the
hint; for Berlin is one tempest of whispers about her Majesty's domestic
sorrows, "Poorly, for interesting reasons:--perhaps be worse before
she is better, your Majesty!"--"Hmph!" thinks Friedrich Wilhelm out at
Potsdam. And then the treacherous Ramen reports that it is all shamming;
and his Majesty, a Bear, though a loving one, is driven into wrath
again; and so wavers from side to side.
It is certain the Queen held, faster or looser, by her bed of sickness,
as a main refuge in these emergencies: the last shift of oppressed
womankind;--sanctioned by Female Parliament, in this instance. "Has had
a miscarriage!" writes Dubourgay, from Berlin gossip, at the beginning
of the business. Nay at one time she became really ill, to a dangerous
length; and his Majesty did not at first believe it; and then was like
to break his heart, poor Bear; aud pardoned Wilhelmina and even Fritz,
at the Mother's request,--till symptoms mended again. [Wilhelmina, i.
207.] JARNI-BLEU, Herr Seckendorf, "Grumkow serves us honorably (DIENET
EHRLICH)"--does not he!--Ambiguous bed of sickness, a refuge in time of
trouble, did not quite terminate till May next, when her Majesty's time
came; a fine young Prince the result; [23d May, 1730, August Ferdinand;
her last child.] and this mode of refuge in trouble ceased to be
necessary.
WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS THIRD: MAJESTY HIMSELF WILL
CHOOSE, THEN.
Directly on the back of that peremptory act of disobedience by the
womankind on Wednesday last, Friedrich Wilhelm came to Berlin himself.
He stormfully reproached his Queen, regardless of the sick-bed;
intimated the infallible certainty, That Wilhelmina nevertheless would
wed without delay, and that either Weissenfels or Schwedt would be
the man. And this said, he straightway walked out to put the same in
execution.
Walked, namely, to the Mother Margravine of Schwedt, the lady in high
colors, Old Dessauer's Sister; and proposed to her that Wilhelmina
should marry her Son.--"The supreme wish of my life, your Majesty,"
replied she of the high colors: "But, against the Princess's own will,
how can I accept such happiness? Alas, your Majesty, I never can!"--and
flatly refused his Majesty on those terms: a thing Wilhelmina will ever
gratefully remember of her. [Wilhelmina, i. 197.]
So that the King is now reduced to Weissenfels; and returns still more
indignant to her Majesty's apartment. Weissenfels, however, it shall
be; and frightful rumors go that he is written to, that he is privately
coming, and that there will be no remedy. [Wilhelmina, i. 197.]
Wilhelmina, formerly almost too florid, is gone to a shadow; "her waist
hardly half an ell;" worn down by these agitations. The Prince and she,
if the King see either of them,--it is safer to run, or squat behind
screens.
HOW FRIEDRICH PRINCE OF BAIREUTH CAME TO BE THE MAN, AFTER ALL.
In this high wind of extremity, the King now on the spot and in
such temper, Borck privately advises, "That her Majesty bend a
little,--pretend to give up the English connection, and propose a third
party, to get rid of Weissenfels."--"What third party, then?"--"Well,
there is young Brandenburg-Culmbach, for example, Heir-Apparent of
Baireuth; Friedrich, a handsome enough young Prince, just coming home
from the Grand Tour, we hear; will have a fine Territory when his Father
dies: age is suitable; old kinship with the House, all money-quarrels
settled eight or ten years ago: why not him?"--"Excellent!" said
her Majesty; and does suggest him to the King, in the next
Schwedt-Weissenfels onslaught. Friedrich Wilhelm grumbles an assent,
"Well, then:--but I will be passive, observe; not a GROSCHEN of Dowry,
for one thing!"--
And this is the first appearance of the young Margraf Friedrich,
Heir-Apparent of Baireuth; who comes in as a hypothetic figure, at this
late stage;--and will carry off the fair prize, as is well known. Still
only doing the Grand Tour; little dreaming of the high fortune about to
drop into his mouth. So many wooers, "four Kings" among them, suing in
vain; him, without suing, the Fates appoint to be the man.
Not a bad young fellow at all, though no King. Wilhelmina, we shall
find, takes charmingly to him, like a good female soul; regretless of
the Four Kings;--finds her own safe little island there the prettiest
in the world, after such perils of drowning in stormy seas.--Of his
Brandenburg genealogy, degree of cousinship to Queen Caroline of
England, and to the lately wedded young gentleman of Anspach Queen
Caroline's Nephew, we shall say nothing farther, having already spoken
of it, and even drawn an abstruse Diagram of it, [Antea, vol. v. p.
309c.] sufficient for the most genealogical reader. But in regard to
that of the peremptory "Not a GROSCHEN of Dowry" from Friedrich Wilhelm
(which was but a bark, after all, and proved the reverse of a bite, from
his Majesty), there may a word of explanation be permissible.
The Ancestor of this Baireuth Prince Friedrich,--as readers knew once,
but doubtless have forgotten again,--was a Younger Son; and for six
generations so it stood: not till the Father of this Friedrich was of
good age, and only within these few years, did the Elder branch die
out, and the Younger, in the person of said Father, succeed to Baireuth.
Friedrich's Grandfather, as all these progenitors had done, lived
poorly, like Cadets, on apanages and makeshifts.
So that the Young Prince's Father, George Friedrich, present incumbent,
as we may call him, of Baireuth, found himself--with a couple of
Brothers he has, whom also we may transiently see by and by--in very
straitened circumstances in their young years. THEIR Father, son of
younger sons as we saw, was himself poor, and he had Fourteen of them as
family. Now, in old King Friedrich I.'s time, it became apparent, as the
then reigning Margraf of Baireuth's children all died soon after
birth, that one of these necessitous Fourteen was likely to succeed in
Baireuth, if they could hold out. Old King Friedrich thereupon said,
"You have chances of succession; true enough,--but nobody knows what
will become of that. Sell your chance to me, who am ultimate Heir of
all: I will give you a round sum,--the little 'Domain of Weverlingen' in
the Halberstadt Country, and say 'Half a Million Thalers;' there you can
live comfortably, and support your Fourteen Children,"--"Done," said the
necessitous Cousin; went to Weverlingen accordingly; and there lived the
rest of his days, till 1708; leaving his necessitous Fourteen, or
about Ten of them that were alive and growing up, still all minors, and
necessitous enough.
The young men, George Friedrich at the top of them, kept silence
in Weverlingen, and conformed to Papa; having nothing to live upon
elsewhere. But they had their own thoughts; especially as their Cousin
of Baireuth was more and more likely to die childless. And at length,
being in the Kaiser's service as soldiers some of them, and having made
what interest was feasible, they, early in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign,
burst out. That is to say, appealed to the REICHSHOFRATH (Imperial Aulic
Council at Vienna; chief Court of the Empire in such cases); openly
protesting there, That their Papa had no power to make such a bargain,
selling their birthright for immediate pottage; and that, in brief, they
would not stand by it at all;--and summoned Friedrich Wilhelm to show
cause why they should.
Long lawsuit, in consequence; lengthy law-pleadings, and much parchment
and wiggery, in that German Triple-Elixir of Chancery;--little to
the joy of Friedrich Wilhelm. Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first, was
fairness itself: "Pay me back the money; and let it be, in all points,
as you say!" answered Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first. Alas, the
money was eaten; how could the money be paid back? The Reichshofrath
dubitatively shook its wig, for years: "Bargain bad in Law; but Money
clearly repayable: the Money was and is good;--what shall be done about
the Money!" At length, in 1722, Friedrich Wilhelm, of himself, settled
with this present Margraf, then Heir-Presumptive, How, by steady slow
instalments, it could be possible, from the revenues of Baireuth,
thriftily administered, to pay back that Half-Million and odd Thalers;
and the now Margraf, ever since his accession in 1726, has been annually
doing it. So that there is, at this time, nothing but composed kinship
and friendship between the two Courts, the little and the big: only
Friedrich Wilhelm, especially with his will crossed in this matter of
the Baireuth Marriage, thinks to himself, "Throw more money into such
a gulf? The 600,000 Thalers had better be got out first!" and says, he
will give no Dowry at all, nor take any charge, not so much as give away
the Bride, but be passive in the matter.
Queen Sophie, delighted to conquer Grumkow at any rate, is charmed
with this notion of Baireuth; and for a moment forgets all other
considerations: Should England prove slack and fail, what a resource
will Baireuth be, compared with Weissenfels! And Wilhelmina entering,
her Majesty breaks forth into admiration over the victory, or
half-victory, just gained: What a husband for you this, my dear, in
comparison! And as Wilhelmina cannot quite join in the rapture on
a sudden; and cannot even consent, unless Papa too give his real
countenance to the match, Mamma flies out upon the poor young Lady:
[Wilhelmina, i. 201.] "Take the Grand Turk or the Great Mogul, then,"
said the Queen, "and follow your own caprice! I should not have brought
so many sorrows on myself, had I known you better. Follow the King's
bidding, then; it is your own affair. I will no longer trouble myself
about your concerns;--and spare me, please, the sorrow of your odious
presence, for I cannot stand it!" Wilhelmina wished to reply, but the
answer was, "Silence! Go, I tell you!" "And I retired all in tears."
"All in tears." The Double-Marriage drifting furiously this long while,
in such a sea as never was; and breakers now Close a-lee,--have the
desperate crew fallen to staving-in the liquor-casks, and quarrelling
with one another?--Evident one thing is, her Majesty cannot be
considered a perfectly wise Mother! We shall see what her behavior is,
when Wilhelmina actually weds this respectable young Prince. Ungrateful
creature, to wish Papa's consent as well as mine! that is the maternal
feeling at this moment; and Wilhelmina weeps bitterly, as one of the
unluckiest of young Ladies.
Nay, her Brother himself, who is sick of this permanent hurricane,
and would fain see the end of it at any price, takes Mamma's part;
and Wilhelmina and he come to high words on the matter. This was the
unkindest cut of all:--but, of course, this healed in a day. Poor
Prince, he has his own allowance of insults, disgraces, blows; has just
been found out in some plan, or suspicion of a plan; found out to be
in debt at least, and been half miraculously pardoned;--and, except, in
flight, he still sees no deliverance ahead. Five days ago, 22d January,
1730, there came out a Cabinet-Order (summary Act of Parliament, so to
speak) against "lending money to Princes of the Blood, were it even
to the Prince-Royal." A crime and misdemeanor, that shall now be; and
Forfeiture of the Money is only part of the penalty, according to this
Cabinet-Order. Rumor is, the Crown-Prince had purchased a vehicle and
appurtenances at Leipzig, and was for running off. Certainty is, he was
discovered to have borrowed 1,000 Thalers from a certain moneyed man at
Berlin (money made from French scrip, in Mississippi Law's time);--which
debt Friedrich Wilhelm instantly paid. "Your whole debt, then, is that?
Tell me the whole!"--"My whole debt," answered the Prince; who durst
not own to about 9,000 other Thalers (1,500 pounds) he has borrowed
from other quarters, first and last. Friedrich Wilhelm saw perhaps some
premonition of flight, or of desperate measures, in this business; and
was unexpectedly mild: paid the 1,000 Thalers instantly; adding the
Cabinet-Order against future contingencies. [Ranke, i. 296; Forster,
&c.] The Prince was in this humor when he took Mamma's side, and
redoubled Wilhelmina's grief.
DOUBLE-MARRIAGE, ON THE EDGE OF SHIPWRECK, FLIES OFF A KIND OF
CARRIER-PIGEON, OR NOAH'S-DOVE, TO ENGLAND, WITH CRY FOR HELP.
Faithful Mamsell Bulow consoles the Princess: "Wait, I have news that
will put her Majesty in fine humor!"--And she really proved as good as
her word. Her news is, Dubourgay and Knyphausen, in this extremity
of pinch, have decided to send off not letters merely; but a speaking
Messenger to the English Court. One Dr. Villa; some kind of "English
Chaplain" here, [Wilhelmina, i. 203; Dubourgay's Despatch, 28th January,
1730.] whose chief trade is that he teaches Wilhelmina English; Rev.
Dr. Villa, who honors Wilhelmina as he ought, shall be the man. Is to
go instantly; will explain what the fatal pass we are reduced to is, and
whether Princess Wilhelmina is the fright some represent her there or
not.
Her Majesty is overjoyed to hear it: who would not be? Her Majesty
"writes Letters" of the due vehemency, thinks Wilhelmina,--dare not
write at all, says Dubourgay;--but loads Villa with presents, with
advices; with her whole heart speeds him under way. "Dismissed, turned
off for some fault or other--or perhaps because the Princess knows
enough of English?" so the rumor goes, in Villa's Berlin circle.
"The Chaplain set out with his despatches," says Wilhelmina, who does
not name him, but is rather eloquent upon his errand; "loaded with
presents from the Queen. On taking leave of me he wept warm tears. He
said, saluting in the English fashion,"--I hope with bended knee, and
the maiden's fingers at his lips--"'He would deny his Country, if it did
not do its duty on this occasion.'" And so hastened forth on his errand.
Like a Carrier-Pigeon sent in extremity;--like Noah's-Dove in the
Deluge: may he revisit our perishing Ark with Olive in his bill!
END OF BOOK VI.