On Saturday the 15th July, 1730, early in the morning as his wont was,
Friedrich Wilhelm, with a small train of official military persons,
rolled off from Potsdam, towards Leipzig, on that same journey of
his, towards Anspach and the Reich. To Anspach, to see our poor young
daughter, lately married there; therefrom we can have a run into the
Reich, according to circumstances. In this wide route there lie many
Courts and scenes, which it might behoove us to look into; Courts
needing to be encouraged to stand for the Kaiser's rights, against those
English, French and intrusive Foreigners of the Seville Treaty. We may
hope at least to ease our own heavy mind, and have the chaff somewhat
blown out of it, by this rushing through the open atmosphere.--Such, so
far as I can gather, were Friedrich Wilhelm's objects in this Journey;
which turned out to be a more celebrated one than he expected. The
authentic records of it are slight, the rumors about it have been many.
[Forster (iii. 1-11) contains Seckendorf's Narrative, as sent to Vienna;
Preuss (iv. 470), a Prussian RELATIO EX ACTIS: these are the only
two ORIGINAL pieces which I have seen; Excerpts of others (correct
doubtless, but not in a very distinct condition) occur in Ranke, i.
294-340.] After painful sifting through mountains of dust and ashes for
a poor cinder of a fact here and there, our duty is, to tell the English
reader one good time, what certainties, or available cinders, have
anywhere turned up. Crown-Prince Friedrich, it has been decided, after
some consultation, shall go with his Majesty. Better he go with us,
to be under our own eyes, lest he run away, or do other mischief. Old
General Buddenbrock, old Colonel Waldau, and Lieutenant-Colonel Rochow
travel in the same carriage with the Prince; are to keep a strict
watch over him, one of them at least to be always by him. Old General
Buddenbrock, a grim but human old military gentleman, who has been in
all manner of wars: he fought at Steenkirk even, and in the Siege of
Namur, under Dutch William; stood, through Malplaquet and much else,
under Marlborough; did the Siege of Stralsund too, and descent on Rugen
there, which was not his first acquaintance with Karl of Sweden; and
is a favorite old friend of Friedrich Wilhelm's. A good old gentleman,
though very strict; now hard on sixty. He is chief of the Three.
Old Waldau, not younger, though still only Colonel of Horse, likewise
celebrates the Malplaquet anniversary; a Pomeranian man, and silent
smoker in the Tabagie, well seen by the master there. To these two
elderly authorities, Lieutenant-Colonel Rochow, still only about forty,
and probably sharper of eye, is adjoined as active partner. I conclude,
the Prince and Buddenbrock ride face forward; Buddenbrock can tell him
about so many things, if he is conversable: about Dutch William; about
Charles XII., whose Polish fights he witnessed, as an envoy from
Berlin, long ago. A Colonel Krocher, I find, is general manager of the
Journey;--and it does not escape notice that Friedrich, probably out of
youthful curiosity, seems always very anxious to know, to the uttermost
settled point, where our future stages are to be. His Royal Highness
laid in a fair stock of District Maps, especially of the Rhine
Countries, at Leipzig, too; [Forster, iii. 2.] and is assiduous in
studying them,--evidently very desirous to know the face of Germany, the
Rhine Countries in particular?
Potsdam, Wittenberg, Leipzig, the wheels rush rapidly on, stage
succeeding stage; and early in the afternoon we are at Leipzig,--never
looking out at Luther's vestiges, or Karl V.'s, or thinking about
Luther, which thou and I, good English reader, would surely have done,
in crossing Wittenberg and the birthplace of Protestantism. At Leipzig
we were thinking to have dined. At the Peter's Gate there,--where at
least fresh horses are, and a topographic Crown-Prince can send hastily
to buy maps,--a General Hopfgarten, Commandant of the Town, is out with
the military honors; he has, as we privately know, an excellent dinner
ready in the Pleissenburg Fortress yonder, [Fassmann, p. 410.]--but he
compliments to a dreadful extent! Harangues and compliments in no end
of florid inflated tautologic ornamental balderdash; repeating and again
repeating, What a never-imagined honor it is; in particular saying three
times over, How the Majesty of Saxony, King August, had he known, would
have wished for wings to fly hither; and bowing to the very ground, "as
if, in the Polish manner, he wished to clasp your feet," said Friedrich
Wilhelm afterwards. I can fancy Friedrich Wilhelm somewhat startled!
How, at the first mention of this idea of big August, with his lame
foot, taking wing, and coming like a gigantic partridge, with lame foot
and cocked-hat, Friedrich Wilhelm grinned. How, at the second mention,
and Polish threat of your feet, Friedrich Wilhelm, who hates all
lies, and cares not for salutations in the market-place, jerks himself
impatiently and saves his feet. At the third mention, clear it is,
Friedrich Wilhelm utters the word, "ANSPANNEN, Horses!"--and in very
truth takes to the road again; hungry indeed, but still angrier; leaving
Hopfgarten bent into the shape of a parabola, and his grand dinner
cooling futile, in what tragic humor we can imagine. [Ib. p. 411.] Why
has no Prussian Painter done that scene? Let another Chodowiecki, when
another comes, try whether he cannot.
Friedrich Wilhelm regretted the dinner, regretted to hurt the good man's
feelings; but could stand it no longer. He rushes off for Meuselwitz,
where Seckendorf, with at least silence, and some cold collation instead
of dinner, is awaiting him. Twenty miles off is Meuselwitz; up the
flat valley of the Pleisse River towards Altenburg; through a region
memorable, were we not so hungry. Famed fights have had their arena
here; Lutzen, the top of its church-steeple visible on your right, it is
there where the great Gustavus fell two hundred years ago: on that wide
champaign, a kind of Bull-ring of the Nations, how many fights have
been, and will be! Altenburg one does not see to-night: happy were we
but at Meuselwitz, a few miles nearer; and had seen what dinner the old
Feldzeugmeister has.
Dinner enough, we need not doubt. The old Feldzeugmeister has a big line
Schloss at Meuselwitz; his by unexpected inheritance; with uncommonly
fine gardens; with a good old Wife, moreover, blithe though
childless;--and he is capable of "lighting more than one candle" when
a King comes to visit him. Doubtless the man hurls his thrift into
abeyance; and blazes out with conspicuous splendor, on this occasion. A
beautiful Castle indeed, this Meuselwitz of his; the towers of Altenburg
visible in the distance; Altenburg, where Kunz von Kauffungen stole the
two little Princes; centuries ago;--where we do not mean to pause
at this time. On the morrow morning,--unless they chose to stay over
Sunday; which I cannot affirm or deny,--Seckendorf also has made his
packages; and joins himself to Friedrich. Wilhelm's august travelling
party. Doing here a portion of the long space (length of the Terrestrial
Equator in all) which he is fated to accomplish in the way of riding
with that Monarch.
From Meuselwitz, through Altenburg, Gera, Saalfeld, to Coburg, is our
next day's journey. Up one fork of the Leipzig Pleisse, then across the
Leipzig Elster, these streams now dwindling to brooks; leading us up
to the water-shed or central Hill-countries between the Mayn and Saale
Rivers; where the same shower will run partly, on this hand, northward
by the Elster, Pleisse or other labyrinthic course, into the Saale, into
the Elbe; and partly, on the other hand, will flow southward into
the Mayn; and so, after endless windings in the Fir Mountains
(FICHTEL-GEBIRGE), get by Frankfurt into the Rhine at Mainz. Mayn takes
the south end of your shower; Saale takes the north,--or farther east
yonder, shower will roll down into the same grand Elbe River by the
Mulde (over which the Old Dessauer is minded to build a new stone
bridge; Wallenstein and others, as well as Time, have ruined many
bridges there). That is the line of the primeval mountains, and their
ever-flowing rain-courses, in those parts.
At Gera, dim, old Town,--does not your Royal Highness well know the
"Gera Bond (GERAISCHE VERTRAG)"? Duhan: did not forget to inform you of
that? It is the corner-stone of the House of Brandenburg's advancement
in the world. Here, by your august ancestors, the Law of Primogeniture
was settled, and much rubbish was annihilated in the House of
Brandenburg: Eldest Son always to inherit the Electorate unbroken;
after Anspach and Baireuth no more apanages, upon any cause or pretext
whatsoever; and these themselves to lapse irrevocable to the main or
Electoral House, should they ever fall vacant again. Fine fruit of the
decisive sense that was in the Hohenzollerns; of their fine talent for
annihilating rubbish,--which feat, if a man can do it, and keep doing
it, will more than most others accelerate his course in this world. It
was in this dim old Town of Gera, in the Year 1598, by him that had the
twenty-three children, that the "GERA BOND" was brought to parchment.
But indeed it was intrinsically only a renewal, more solemnly
sanctioned, of Albert Achilles's HAUS ORDNUNG (House-Order), done in
1478, above a century earlier.--
But see, we are under way again. His Prussian Majesty rushes forward
without pause; will stop nowhere, except where business demands;
no Majesty of his day travels at such a speed. Orlamunde an hour
hence,--your Royal Highness has heard of Orlamunde and its famed Counts
of a thousand years back, when Kaiser Redbeard was in the world, and the
Junior Hohenzollern, tired of hawking, came down from the Hills to him?
Orlamunde (OrlaMOUTH) is not far off, on our right; and this itself is
the Orla; this pleasant streamlet we are now quitting, which has borne
us company for some time: this too will get into the Saale, and be at
Magdeburg, quite beyond the Dessauer's Bridge, early to-morrow. Ha, here
at last is Saalfeld, Town and Schloss, and the incipient Saal itself:
his Serene Highness Saalfeld-Coburg's little REZIDENZ;--probably his
Majesty will call on him, in passing? I have no doubt he does; and
transacts the civilities needful.
Christian Ernst, whose Schloss this is, a gentleman of his Majesty's age
(born 1683), married an amiable FRAULEIN not of quality, whom indeed the
Kaiser has ennobled: he lives here,--I think, courting the shade rather;
and rules conjointly with his younger Brother, or Half-Brother, Franz
Josias, who resides at Coburg. Dukes of Saalfeld-Coburg, such is their
style, and in good part their possession; though, it is well known to
this travelling party and the world, there has been a Lawsuit about
Coburg this half-century and more; and though somewhere about 200
"CONCLUSA," [Michaelis, i. 524, 518; Busching, _Erdbeschreibung, _ vi.
2464; OErtel, t. 74; Hubner, t. 166.] or Decrees of Aulic Council, have
been given in favor of the Saalfelders, their rivals of Meiningen never
end. Nor will end yet, for five years more to come; till, in 1735,
"206 CONCLUSA being given," they do end, and leave the Saalfelders in
peaceable possession; who continue so ever since to this day. [Carlyle's
_ Miscellanies,_ vi.? PRINZENRAUB.] How long his Majesty paused in that
Schloss of Saalfeld, or what he there did, or what he spake,--except
perhaps encourage Christian Ernst to stand by a Kaiser's Majesty
against these French insolences, and the native German, Spanish, English
derelictions of duty,--we are left to the vaguest guess of fancy, And
must get on to Coburg for the night.
At Coburg, in its snug valley, under the FESTUNG or Hill Castle,--where
Martin Luther sat solitary during the Diet of Augsburg (Diet known to
us, our old friend Margraf George of Anspach hypothetically "laying his
head on the block? there, and the great Kaiser, Karl V., practically
burning daylight, with pitiable spilling of wax, in the CORPUS-CHRISTI
procession there), [Antea, vol. v. p. 197.]--where Martin Luther sat
solitary, and wrote that celebrated Letter about 16 Crows holding THEIR
Parliament all round," and how "the pillars of the world were never seen
by anybody, and yet the world is held up, in these dumb continents of
space;"--at Coburg, we will not doubt, his Majesty found Franz Josias
at home, and illuminated to receive him. Franz Josias, a hearty man of
thirty-five, he too will stand by the Kaiser in these coming storms?
With a weak contingent truly, perhaps some score or two of fighters: but
many a little makes a mickle!--remark, however; two points, of a merely
genealogical nature. First, that Franz Josias has, or rather is going
to have, a Younger Son, [Friedrich Josias: 1737-1815.] who in some sixty
years hence will become dreadfully celebrated in the streets of Paris,
as "Austrian Coburg." The Austrian Coburg of Robes-Pierre and Company.
An immeasurable terror and portent,--not much harm in him, either, when
he actually comes, with nothing but the Duke of York and Dunkirk for
accompaniment,--to those revolutionary French of 1792-1794. This is
point FIRST. Point SECOND is perhaps still more interesting; this
namely: That Franz Josias has an Eldest Son (boy of six when Friedrich
Wilhelm makes his visit),--a GRANDSON'S GRANDSON of whom is, at this
day, Prince of Wales among the English People, and to me a subject of
intense reflection now and then!--
From Coburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, after pause again unknown, rushed on to
Bamberg; new scenes and ever new opening on the eyes of our young Hero
and his Papa. The course is down the valley of the Itz, one of the many
little valleys in the big slope of the Rodach; for the waters are now
turned, and all streams and brooks are gurgling incessantly towards
the Mayn. Towards Frankfurt, Mainz and the Rhine,--far enough from the
Saale, Mulde, or the Old Dessauer's Bridge to-day; towards Rotterdam and
the uttermost Dutch swamps today. Near upon Bamberg we cross the
Mayn itself; Red Mayn and White conjoined, coming from Culmbach and
Baireuth,--mark that, your Highness. A country of pleasant hills and
vines: and in an hour hence, through thick fir woods,--each side of your
road horribly decked with gibbeted thieves swinging aloft, [Pollnitz,
_Memoirs and Letters_ (English Translation, London, 1745), i. 209. Let
me say again, this is a different Book from the "MEMOIRS of Pollnitz;"
and a still different from the MEMOIREN, or "Memoirs of Brandenburg BY
Pollnitz:" such the excellence of nomenclature in that old fool!]--you
arrive at Bamberg, chief of Bishoprics, the venerable town; whose
Bishop, famous in old times, is like an Archbishop, and "gets his
pallium direct from the Pope,"--much good may it do him! "Is
bound, however, to give up his Territory, if the Kaiser elected is
landless,"--far enough from likely now. And so you are at last fairly in
the Mayn Valley; River Mayn itself a little step to north;--long course
and many wide windings between you and Mainz or Frankfurt, not to speak
of Rotterdam, and the ultimate Dutch swamps.
At Bamberg why should a Prussian Majesty linger, except for picturesque
or for mere baiting purposes? At Bamberg are certain fat Catholic
Canons, in indolent, opulent circumstances; and a couple of sublime
Palaces, without any Bishop in them at present. Nor indeed does one much
want Papist Bishops, wherever they get their pallium; of them as well
keep to windward! thinks his Majesty. And indeed there is no Bishop
here. The present Bishop of Bamberg--one of those Von Schonborns,
Counts, sometimes Cardinals, common in that fat Office,--is a Kaiser's
Minister of State; lives at Vienna, enveloped in red tape, as well as
red hat and stockings; and needs no exhortation in the Kaiser's favor.
Let us yoke again, and go.--Fir woods all round, and dead malefactors
blackening in the wind: this latter point I know of the then Bamberg;
and have explanation of it. Namely, that the Prince-Bishop, though a
humane Catholic, is obliged to act so. His small Domain borders on some
six or seven bigger sovereignties; and, being Ecclesiastical, is made
a cesspool to the neighboring scoundrelism; which state of things this
Prince Bishop has said shall cease. Young Friedrich may look, therefore,
and old Friedrich Wilhelm and Suite; and make of it what they can.
"Bamberg, through Erlangen, to Nurnberg;" so runs the way. At Erlangen
there loiters now, recruiting, a certain Rittmeister von Katte, cousin
to our Potsdam Lieutenant and confidant; to him this transit of the
Majesty and Crown-Prince must be an event like few, in that stagnant
place. French Refugees are in Erlangen, busy building new straight
streets; no University as yet;--nay a high Dowager of Baireuth is in it,
somewhat exuberant Lady (friend Weissenfels's Sister) on whom Friedrich
Wilhelm must call in passing. This high Widow of Baireuth is not Mother
of the present Heir-Apparent there, who will wed our Wilhelmina one
day;--ah no, his Mother was "DIVORCED for weighty reasons;"[Hubner, t.
181.] and his Father yet lives, in the single state; a comparatively
prosperous gentleman these four years last past; Successor, since
four years past, of this Lady's Husband, who was his Cousin-german.
Dreadfully poor before that, the present Margraf of Baireuth, as we once
explained; but now things are looking up with him again, some jingle
of money heard in the coffers of the man; and his eldest Prince, a fine
young fellow, only apt to stammer a little when agitated, is at present
doing the return part of the Grand Tour,--coming home by Geneva they
say.
Rittmeister von Katte, I doubt not, witnesses this transit of the
incognito Majesty, this call upon the exuberant Dowager; but can have
little to say to it, he. I hope he is getting tall recruits here in
the Reich; that will be the useful point for him. He is our Lieutenant
Katte's Cousin, an elder and wiser man than the Lieutenant. A
Reichsgraf's and Field-marshal's nephew, he ought to get advanced in his
profession;--and can hope to do so when he has deserved it, not sooner
at all, in that thrice-fortunate Country. Let the Rittmeister here keep
himself well apart from what is NOT his business, and look out for tall
men.
Bamberg is halfway-house between Coburg and Nurnberg; whole distance of
Coburg and Nurnberg,--say a hundred and odd miles,--is only a fair day's
driving for a rapid King. And at Nurnberg, surely, we must lodge for a
night and portion of a day, if not for more. On the morrow, it is but
a thirty-five miles drive to Anspach; pleasant in the summer evening,
after all the sights in this old Nurnberg, "city of the Noricans
(NORICORUM BURGUN)." Trading Staple of the German world in old days;
Toy-shop of the German world in these new. Albert Durer's and Hans
Sach's City,--mortals infinitely indifferent to Friedrich Wilhelm. But
is it not the seed-ground of the Hohenzollerns, this Nurnberg, memorable
above cities to a Prussian Majesty? Yes, there in that old white Castle,
now very peaceable, they dwelt; considerably liable to bickerings and
mutinous heats; and needed all their skill and strength to keep
matters straight. It is now upon seven hundred years since the Cadet of
Hohenzollern gave his hawk the slip, patted his dog for the last time,
and came down from the Rough-Alp countries hitherward. And found favor,
not unmerited I fancy, with the great Kaiser Redbeard, and the fair
Heiress of the Vohburgs; and in fact, with the Earth and with the
Heavens in some degree. A loyal, clever, and gallant kind of young
fellow, if your Majesty will think? Much has grown and waned since that
time: but the Hohenzollerns, ever since, are on the waxing hand;--unless
this accursed Treaty of Seville and these English Matches put a stop to
them?
Alas, it is not likely Friedrich Wilhelm, in the hurry and grating whirl
of things, had many poetic thoughts in him, or pious aurora memories
from the Past Ages, instead of grumbly dusty provocations from the
present,--his feeling, haste mainly, and need of getting through! The
very Crown-Prince, I should guess, was as good as indifferent to this
antique Cadet of the Hohenzollerns; and looked on Nurnberg and the old
white Castle with little but ENNUI: the Princess of England, and black
cares on her beautiful account and his own, possess him too exclusively.
But in truth we do not even know what day they arrived or departed;
much less what they did or felt in that old City. We know only that the
pleasant little town of Anspach, with its huge unfinished SCHLOSS,
lay five-and-thirty miles away; and that thither was the next and
quasi-final bit of driving. Southwestward thirty-five miles; through
fine summer hills and dales; climbing always, gently, on the southward
hand; still drained by the Mayn River, by the Regnitz and other
tributaries of the Mayn:--half-way is Heilsbronn, [Not Heilbronn,
the well-known, much larger Town, in Wurtemberg, 80 or 100 miles to
westward. Both names (which are applied to still other places) signify
HEALTH-WELL, or even HOLY-WELL,--these two words, HEALTHY and HOLY (what
is very remarkable), being the same in old Teutonic speech.] with its
old Monastery; where the bones of our Hohenzollern Forefathers rest,
and Albert Achilles's "skull, with no sutures visible." On the gloomy
Church-walls their memorials are still legible: as for the Monastery
itself, Margraf George, tour memorable Reformation friend, abolished
that,--purged the monks away, and put Schoolmasters in their stead;
who were long of good renown in those parts, but have since gone to
Erlangen, so to speak. The July sunset streaming over those old spires
of Heilsbronn might awaken thoughts in a Prussian Majesty, were he not
in such haste.
At Anspach, what a thrice-hospitable youthfully joyful welcome from
the young married couple there! Margravine Frederika is still not quite
sixteen; "beautiful as Day," and rather foolish: fancy her joy at sight
of Papa's Majesty and Brother Fritz; and how she dances about, and
perhaps bakes "pastries of the finest Anspach flour." Ah, DID you send
me Berlin sausages, then, you untrue Papa? Well, I will bake for you,
won't I;--Sarah herself not more loyally {whom we read of in GENESIS),
that time the Angels entered HER tent in a hungry condition!--
Anspach, as we hint, has an unfinished Palace, of a size that might
better beseem Paris or London; Palace begun by former Margraves, left
off once and again for want of cash; stands there as a sad monument
of several things;--the young family living meanwhile in some solid
comfortable wing, or adjacent edifice, of natural dimensions. They are
so young, as we say, and not too wise. By and by they had a son, and
then a second son; which latter came to manhood, to old age; and made
some noise in the foolish parts of the Newspapers,--winding up
finally at Hammersmith, as we often explain;--and was the last of the
Anspach-Baireuth Margraves. I have heard farther that Frederika did
not want for temper, as the Hohenzollerns seldom do; that her Husband
likewise had his own stock of it, rather scant of wisdom withal; and
that their life was not quite symphonious always,--especially cash being
short. The Dowager Margravine, Margraf's Mother, had governed with great
prudence during her Son's long minority. I think she is now, since the
marriage, gone to reside at her WITTWENSITZ (Dowager-Seat) of Feuchtwang
(twenty miles southwest of us); but may have come up to welcome the
Majesties into these parts. Very beautiful, I hear; still almost young
and charming, though there is a mortal malady upon her, which she knows
of. [Pollnitz, _Memoirs and Letters,_ i. 209 (date, 29th September,
1729;--needs WATCHING before believing).] Here are certain Seckendorfs
too, this is the Feldzeugmeister's native country;--and there are
resources for a Royal Travelling-Party. How long the Royal Party
stayed at Anspach I do not know; nor what they did there,--except that
Crown-Prince Friedrich is said to have privately asked the young
Margraf to lend him a pair of riding-horses, and say nothing of it;
who, suspecting something wrong, was obliged to make protestations and
refuse.
As to the Crown-Prince, there is no doubt but here at last things are
actually coming to a crisis with him. To say truth, it has been the
young man's fixed purpose ever since he entered on this Journey, nay
was ever since that ignominy in the Camp of Radewitz, to run away;--and
indeed all this while he has measures going on with Katte at Berlin of
the now-or-never sort. Rash young creatures, elder of them hardly above
five-and-twenty yet: not good at contriving measures. But what then?
Human nature cannot stand this always; and it is time there were an end
of deliberating. Can we ever have such a chance again?--What I find of
certain concerning Friedrich while at Anspach is, That there comes by
way of Erlangen, guided forward from that place by the Rittmeister von
Katte, a certain messenger and message, which proved of deep importance
to his Royal Highness. The messenger was Lieutenant Katte's servant: who
has come express from Berlin hither. He inquired, on the road, as he was
bidden, at Erlangen, of Master's Cousin, the experienced Rittmeister,
Where his Royal Highness at present was, that he might deliver a Letter
to him? The Master's Cousin, who answered naturally, "At Anspach," knew
nothing, and naturally could get to know nothing, of what the message
in this Letter was. But he judged, from cross-questionings, added to dim
whispering rumors he had heard, that it was questionable, probably in
an extreme degree. Wherefore, along with his Cousin the Lieutenant's
messenger to Anspach, the Rittmeister forwarded a Note of his own to
Lieutenant-Colonel Rochow, of this purport, "As a friend, I warn you,
have a watchful eye on your high charge!"--and, for his own share,
determined to let nothing escape him in his corner of the matter. This
note to Rochow, and the Berlin Letter for the Crown-Prince reach Anspach
by the same hand; Lieutenant Katte's express, conscious of nothing,
delivering them both. Rochow and the Rittmeister, though the poor Prince
does not know it, are broad awake to all movements he and the rash
Lieutenant may make.
Lieutenant Katte, in this Letter now arrived, complains: "That he never
yet can get recruiting furlough; whether it be by accident, or that
Rochow has given my Colonel a hint, no furlough yet to be had: will,
at worst, come without furlough and in spite of all men and things,
whenever wanted. Only--Wesel still, if I might advise!" This is the
substance of Katte's message by express. Date must be the end of July,
1730; but neither Date nor Letter is now anywhere producible, except
from Hearsay.
Deeply pondering these things, what shall the poor Prince do? From
Canstatt, close by Stuttgard, a Town on our homeward route,--from
Canstatt, where Katte was to "appear in disguise," had the furlough been
got, one might have slipt away across the Hills. It is but eighty miles
to Strasburg, through the Kniebiss Pass, where the Murg, the Kinzig, and
the intricate winding mountain streams and valleys start Rhine-ward:
a labyrinthic rock-and-forest country, where pursuit or tracking were
impossible. Near by Strasburg is Count Rothenburg's Chateau; good
Rothenburg, long Minister in Berlin,--who saw those PROFOSSEN, or
Scavenger-Executioners in French Costume long since, and was always good
to me:--might not that be a method? Lieutenant Keith indeed is in Wesel,
waiting only a signal. Suppose he went to the Hague, and took soundings
there what welcome we should have? No, not till we have actually run;
beware of making noise!--The poor Prince is in unutterable perplexity;
can only answer Katte by that Messenger of his, to the effect (date and
Letter burnt like the former): "Doubt is on every hand; doubt,--and yet
CERTAINTY. Will write again before undertaking anything."
And there is no question he did write again; more than once: letters by
the post, which his faithful Lieutenant Katte in Berlin received; one
of which, however, stuck on the road; and this one,--by some industry of
postmasters spirited into vigilance, as is likeliest, though others say
by mere misaddressing, by "want of BERLIN on the address,"--fell into
the hands of vigilant RITTMEISTER Katte at Erlangen. Who grew pale in
reading it, and had to resolve on a painful thing! This was, I suppose,
among the last Letters of the series; and must have been dated, as I
guess, about the 29th of July, 1730; but they are now all burnt, huddled
rapidly into annihilation, and one cannot say!--
Certain it is that the Royal Travelling-Party left Anspach in a
few days, to go, southward still, "by the OEttingen Country towards
Augsburg." [Fassmann, p. 410.] Feuchtwang (WET Wang, not Durrwang or DRY
Wang) is the first stage; here lives the Dowager Margravine of Anspach:
here the Prince does some inconceivably small fault "lets a knife, which
he is handing to or from the Serene Lady, fall," [Ranke, i. 304 ("from
a Letter the Prince had written to Katte").] who, as she is weak, may
suffer by the jingle; for which Friedrich Wilhelm bursts out on him like
the Irish Rebellion,--to the silent despair of the poor Prince. The poor
Prince meditates desperate resolutions, but has to keep them strictly to
himself.
Doubtless the Buddenbrock Trio, good old military gentlemen, would
endeavor to speak comfort to him, when they were on the road again.
Here is Nordlingen, your Highness, where Bernhard of Weimar, for his
over-haste, got so beaten in the Thirty-Years War; would not wait till
the Swedes were rightly gathered: what general, if he have reinforcement
at hand, would not wait for it? The waters now, you observe, run all
into the Wornitz, into the Donau: it is a famed war-country this; known
to me well in my young Eugene-Marlborough days!--"Hm, Ha, yes!" For
the Prince is preoccupied with black cares; and thinks Blenheim and the
Schellenberg businesses befell long since, and were perhaps simple to
what he has now on hand. That Feuchtwang scene, it would appear, has
brought him to a resolution. There is a young page Keith of the party,
Lieutenant Keith of Wesel's Brother; of this page Keith, who is often
busy about horses, he cautiously makes question, What help may be in
him? A willing mind traceable in this poor lad, but his terrors great.
To Donauworth from Anspach, through Feuchtwang and Nordlingen, is some
seventy or eighty miles. At Donauworth one surely ought to lodge, and
see the Schellenberg on the morrow; nay drive to the Field of Hochstadt
(Blenheim, BLINDHEIM), which is but a few miles farther up the River?
Buddenbrock was there, and Anhalt-Dessau: for their very sake, were
there nothing farther, one surely ought to go? Such was the probability,
a visit to Blenheim field in passing. And surely, somewhere in those
heart-rending masses of Historical Rubbish, I did at last find express
evanescent mention of the fact,--but cannot now say where;--the exact
record, or conceivable image of which, would have been a perceptible
pleasure to us. Alas, in those dim dreary Books, all whirling dismal
round one's soul, like vortices of dim Brandenburg sand, how should
anything human be searched out and mentioned to us; and a thousand,
things not-human be searched out, and eternally suppressed from us, for
the sake of that? I please myself figuring young Friedrich looking at
the vestiges of Marlborough, even in a preoccupied uncertain manner.
Your Majesty too, this is the very "Schellenberg (or JINGLE-HILL)," this
Hill we are now skirting, on highways, on swift wheels; which overhangs
Donauworth, our resting-place this hot July evening. Yes, your Majesty,
here was a feat of storming done,--pang, pang!--such a noise as never
jingled on that Hill before: like Doomsday come; and a hero-head to rule
the Doomsday, and turn it to heroic marching music. A very pretty
feat of war, your Majesty! His Majesty well knows it; feat of his
Marlborough's doing, famed everywhere for the twenty-six years last
past; and will go to see the Schellenberg and its Lines. The great Duke
is dead four years; sank sadly, eclipsed under tears of dotage of his
own, and under human stupidity of other men's! But Buddenbrock is still
living, Anhalt-Dessau and others of us are still alive a little while!
Hochstadt itself--Blenheim, as the English call it, meaning BLINDHEIM,
the other village on the Field--is but a short way up the River; well
worth such a detour. By what way they drove to the field of honor and
back from it, I do not know. But there, northward, towards the heights,
is the little wood where Anhalt-Dessau stood at bay like a Molossian
dog, of consummate military knowledge; and saved the fight in Eugene's
quarter of it. That is visible enough; and worth looking at. Visible
enough the rolling Donau, Marlborough's place; the narrow ground, the
bordering Hills all green at this season;--and down old Buddenbrock's
cheek, end Anhalt's, there would roll an iron tear or two. Augsburg is
but some thirty miles off, once we are across the Donau,--by the Bridge
of Donauworth, or the Ferry of Hochstadt,--swift travellers in a long
day, the last of July, are soon enough at Augsburg.
As for Friedrich, haunted and whipt onwards by that scene at Feuchtwang,
he is inwardly very busy during this latter part of the route. Probably
there is some progress towards gaining Page Keith, Lieutenant Keith of
Wesel's Brother; some hope that Page Keith, at the right moment, can
be gained: the Lieutenant at Wesel is kept duly advised. To Lieutenant
Katte at Berlin Friedrich now writes, I should judge from Donauworth or
Augsburg, "That he has had a scene at Feuchtwang; that he can stand it
no longer. That Canstatt being given up, as Katte cannot be there to go
across the Kniebiss with us, we will endure till we are near enough
the Rhine. Once in the Rhineland, in some quiet Town there, handy for
Speyer, for French Landau,"--say Sinzheim; last stage hitherward of
Heidelberg, but this we do not write,--"there might it not be? Be,
somewhere, it shall and must! You, Katte, the instant you hear that
we are off, speed you towards the Hague; ask for 'M. le Comte
d'Alberville;' you will know that gentleman WHEN you see him: Keith,
our Wesel friend, will have taken the preliminary soundings;--and I
tell you, Count d'Alberville, or news of him, will be there. Bring the
great-coat with you, and the other things, especially the 1,000 gold
ducats. Count d'Alberville at the Hague, if all have gone right:--nay if
anything go wrong, cannot he, once across the Rhine, take refuge in the
convents in those Catholic regions? Nobody, under the scapulary, will
suspect such a heretic as him. Speed, silence, vigilance! And so adieu!"
A letter of such purport Friedrich did write; which Letter, moreover,
the Lieutenant Katte received: it was not this, it was another, that
stuck upon the road, and fell into the Rittmeister's hand. This is the
young Prince's ultimate fixed project, brought to birth by that slight
accident of dropping the knife at Feuchtwang; [Ranke, i. 304.] and
hanging heavy on his mind during this Augsburg drive. At Augsburg,
furthermore, "he bought, in all privacy, red cloth, of quantity to make
a top-coat;" red, the gray being unattainable in Katte's hands: in all
privacy; though the watchful Rochow had full knowledge of it, all the
same.