The Prussian troops took Winter-quarters in the Meissen-Freyberg region,
the old Saxon ground, familiar to them for the last three years: room
enough this Winter, "from Plauen and Zwickau, round by Langensalza
again;" Truce with everybody, and nothing of disturbance till March 1st
at soonest. The usual recruiting went on, or was preparing to go on,--a
part of which took immediate effect, as we shall see. Recruiting,
refitting, "Be ready for a new Campaign, in any case: the readier we
are, the less our chance of having one!" Friedrich's head-quarter is
Leipzig; but till December 5th he does not get thither. "More business
on me than ever!" complains he. At Leipzig he had his Nephews, his
D'Argens; for a week or two his Brother Henri; finally, his Berlin
Ministers, especially Herzberg, when actual Peace came to be the
matter in hand. Henri, before that, had gone home: "Peace being now
the likelihood;--Home; and recruit one's poor health, at Berlin, among
friends!"
Before getting to Leipzig, the King paid a flying Visit at
Gotha;--probably now the one fraction of these manifold Winter movements
and employments, in which readers could take interest. Of this, as there
happens to be some record left of it, here is what will suffice. From
Meissen, Friedrich writes to his bright Grand-Duchess, always a bright,
high and noble creature in his eyes: "Authorized by your approval [has
politely inquired beforehand], I shall have the infinite satisfaction of
paying my duties on December 3d [four days hence], and of reiterating
to you, Madam, my liveliest and sincerest assurances of esteem and
friendship.... Some of my Commissariat people have been misbehaving?
Strict inquiry shall be had," [To the Grand-Duchess, "Meissen, 29th
November" (_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xviii. 199).]--and we soon find WAS.
But the Visit is our first thing.
The Visit took place accordingly; Seidlitz, a man known in Gotha ever
since his fine scenic-military procedures there in 1757, accompanied
the King. Of the lucent individualities invited to meet him, all are
now lost to me, except one Putter, a really learned Gottingen Professor
(deep in REICHS-HISTORY and the like), whom the Duchess has summoned
over. By the dim lucency of Putter, faint to most of us as a rushlight
in the act of going out, the available part of our imagination must
try to figure, in a kind of Obliterated-Rembrandt way, this glorious
Evening; for there was but one,--December 3d-4th,--Friedrich having
to leave early on the 4th. Here is Putter's record, given in the third
person:--
"During dinner, Putter, honorably present among the spectators of this
high business, was beckoned by the Duchess to step near the King [right
hand or left, Putter does not say]; but the King graciously turned
round, and conversed with Putter." The King said:--
KING. "In German History much is still buried; many important Documents
lie hidden in Monasteries." Putter answered "schicklich--fitly;" that is
all we know of Putter's answer.
KING (thereupon). "Of Books on Reichs-History I know only the PERE
BARRI." [_Barri de Beaumarchais,_ 10 vols. 4to, Paris, 1748: I believe,
an extremely feeble Pillar of Will-o'-Wisps by Night;--as I can
expressly testify Pfeffel to be (Pfeffel, _Abrege Chronologique de
l'Histoire d'Allemagne,_ 2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1776), who has succeeded
Barri as Patent Guide through that vast SYLVA SYLVARUM and its pathless
intricacies, for the inquiring French and English.]
PUTTER.... "Foreigners have for most part known only, in regard to our
History, a Latin work written by Struve at Jena." [Burkhard Gotthelf
Struve, _Syntagma Historiae Germanicus_ (1730, 2 vols. folio).]
KING. "Struv, Struvius; him I don't know."
PUTTER. "It is a pity Barri had not known German."
KING. "Barri was a Lorrainer; Barri must have known German!"--Then
turning to the Duchess, on this hint about the German Language, he told
her, "in a ringing merry tone, How, at Leipzig once, he had talked with
Gottsched [talk known to us] on that subject, and had said to him, That
the French had many advantages; among others, that a word could often be
used in a complex signification, for which you had in German to scrape
together several different expressions. Upon which Gottsched had said,
'We will have that mended (DAS WOLLEN WIR NOCH MACHEN)!' These words the
King repeated twice or thrice, with such a tone that you could well
see how the man's conceit had struck him;"--and in short, as we know
already, what a gigantic entity, consisting of wind mainly, he took this
elevated Gottsched to be.
Upon which, Putter retires into the honorary ranks again; silent, at
least to us, and invisible; as the rest of this Royal Evening at Gotha
is. ["Putter's _Selbstbiographie_ (Autobiography), p. 406:" cited in
Preuss, ii. 277 n.] Here, however, is the Letter following on it two
days after:--
FRIEDRICH TO THE DUCHESS OF SACHSEN-GOTHA.
"LEIPZIG, 6th December, 1762.
"MADAM,--I should never have done, my adorable Duchess, if I rendered
you account of all the impressions which the friendship you lavished
on me has made on my heart. I could wish to answer it by entering into
everything that can be agreeable to you [conduct of my Recruiters or
Commissariat people first of all]. I take the liberty of forwarding
the ANSWERS which have come in to the Two MEMOIRES you sent me. I am
mortified, Madam, if I have not been able to fulfil completely your
desires: but if you knew the situation I am in, I flatter myself you
would have some consideration for it.
"I have found myself here [in Leipzig, as elsewhere] overwhelmed with
business, and even to a degree I had not expected. Meanwhile, if I ever
can manage again to run over and pay you in person the homage of a
heart which is more attached to you than that of your near relations,
assuredly I will not neglect the first opportunity that shall present
itself.
"Messieurs the English [Bute, Bedford and Company, with their
Preliminaries signed, and all my Westphalian Provinces left in a
condition we shall hear of] continue to betray. Poor M. Mitchell has
had a stroke of apoplexy on hearing it. It is a hideous thing (CHOSE
AFFREUSE); but I will speak of it no more. May you, Madam, enjoy all the
prosperities that I wish for you, and not forget a Friend, who will
be till his death, with sentiments of the highest esteem and the most
perfect consideration,--Madam, your Highness's most faithful Cousin and
Servant, FRIEDRICH." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xzvii. 201.]
For a fortnight past, Friedrich has had no doubt that general Peace is
now actually at hand. November 25th, ten days before this visit, a Saxon
Privy-Councillor, Baron von Fritsch, who, by Order from his Court, had
privately been at Vienna on the errand, came privately next, with all
speed, to Friedrich (Meissen, November 25th): [Rodenbeck, ii. 193.]
"Austria willing for Treaty; is your Majesty willing?" "Thrice-willing,
I; my terms well known!" Friedrich would answer,--gladdest of mankind to
see general Pacification coming to this vexed Earth again. The Dance of
the Furies, waltzing itself off, HOME out of this upper sunlight: the
mad Bellona steeds plunging down, down, towards their Abysses again, for
a season!--
This was a result which Friedrich had foreseen as nearly certain ever
since the French and English signed their Preliminaries. And there was
only one thing which gave him anxiety; that of his Rhine Provinces and
Strong Places, especially Wesel, which have been in French hands for six
years past, ever since Spring, 1757. Bute stipulates That those places
and countries shall be evacuated by his Choiseul, as soon as weather and
possibility permit; but Bute, astonishing to say, has not made the least
stipulation as to whom they are to be delivered to,--allies or enemies,
it is all one to Bute. Truly rather a shameful omission, Pitt might
indignantly think,--and call the whole business steadily, as he
persisted to do, "a shameful Peace," had there been no other article
in it but this;--as Friedrich, with at least equal emphasis thought and
felt. And, in fact, it had thrown him into very great embarrassment, on
the first emergence of it.
For her Imperial Majesty began straightway to draw troops into those
neighborhoods: "WE will take delivery, our Allies playing into our
hand!" And Friedrich, who had no disposable troops, had to devise some
rapid expedient; and did. Set his Free-Corps agents and recruiters in
motion: "Enlist me those Light people of Duke Ferdinand's, who are all
getting discharged; especially that BRITANNIC LEGION so called. All to
be discharged; re-enlist them, you; Ferdinand will keep them till you do
it. Be swift!" And it is done;--a small bit of actual enlistment among
the many prospective that were going on, as we noticed above. Precise
date of it not given; must have been soon after November 3d. There were
from 5 to 6,000 of them; and it was promptly done. Divided into various
regiments; chief command of them given to a Colonel Bauer, under whom
a Colonel Beckwith whose name we have heard: these, to the surprise of
Imperial Majesty, and alarm of a pacific Versailles, suddenly appeared
in the Cleve Countries, handy for Wesel, for Geldern; in such posts, and
in such force and condition as intimated, "It shall be we, under favor,
that take delivery!" Snatch Wesel from them, some night, sword in
hand: that had been Bauer's notion; but nothing of that kind was found
necessary; mere demonstration proved sufficient. To the French Garrisons
the one thing needful was to get away in peace; Bauer with his brows
gloomy is a dangerous neighbor. Perhaps the French Officers themselves
rather favored Friedrich than his enemies. Enough, a private agreement,
or mutual understanding on word of honor, was come to: and, very
publicly, at length, on the 11th and 12th days of March, 1763 (Peace now
settled everywhere), Wesel, in great gala, full of field-music, military
salutations and mutual dining, saw the French all filing out, and Bauer
and people filing in, to the joy of that poor Town. [Preuss, ii. 342.]
Soon after which, painful to relate, such the inexorable pressure
of finance, Bauer and people were all paid off, flung loose again:
ruthlessly paid off by a necessitous King! There were about 6,000
of those poor fellows,--specimens of the bastard heroic, under
difficulties, from every country in the world; Beckwith and I know
not what other English specimens of the lawless heroic; who were all
cashiered, officer and man, on getting to Berlin. As were the earlier
Free-Corps, and indeed the subsequent, all and sundry, "except seven,"
whose names will not be interesting to you. Paid off, with or without
remorse, such the exhaustion of finance; Kleist, Icilius, Count
Hordt and others vainly repugning and remonstrating; the King himself
inexorable as Arithmetic. "Can maintain 138,000 of regular, 12,000
of other sorts; not a man more!" Zealous Icilius applied for some
consideration to his Officers: "partial repayment of the money they
have spent from their own pocket in enlistment of their people now
discharged!" Not a doit. The King's answer is in autograph, still
extant; not in good spelling, but with sense clear as light: "SEINE
OFFICIERS HABEN WIE DIE RABEN GESTOLLEN SIE KRIGEN NICHTS, Your Officers
stole like ravens;--they get Nothing." [Preuss, ii. 320.] Lessing's fine
play of MINNA VON BARNHELM testifies to considerable public sympathy for
these impoverished Ex-Military people. Pathetic truly, in a degree; but
such things will happen. Irregular gentlemen, to whom the world 's their
oyster,--said oyster does suddenly snap to on them, by a chance. And
they have to try it on the other side, and say little!--But we are
forgetting the Peace-Treaty itself, which still demands a few words.
Kleist's raid into the Reich had a fine effect on the Potentates there;
and Plotho's Offer was greedily complied with; the Kaiser, such his
generosity, giving "free permission." We spoke of Privy-Councillor
von Fritsch, and his private little word with Friedrich at Meissen, on
November 25th. The Electoral-Prince of Saxony, it seems, was author of
that fine stroke; the history of it this. Since November 3d, the French
and English have had their preliminaries signed; and all Nations are
longing for the like. "Let us have a German Treaty for general Peace,"
said the Kurprinz of Saxony, that amiable Heir-Apparent whom we have
seen sometimes, who is rather crooked of back, but has a sprightly Wife.
"By all means," answered Polish Majesty: "and as I am in the distance,
do you in every way further it, my Son!" Whereupon despatch of Fritsch
to Vienna, and thence to Meissen; with "Yes" to him from both parties.
Plenipotentiaries are named: "Fritsch shall be ours: they shall have my
Schloss of Hubertsburg for Place of Congress," said the Prince. And on
Thursday, December 30th, 1762, the Three Dignitaries met at Hubertsburg,
and began business.
This is the Schloss in Torgau Country which Quintus Icilius's people,
Saldern having refused the job, willingly undertook spoiling; and, as is
well known, did it, January 22d, 1761; a thing Quintus never heard the
end of. What the amount of profit, or the degree of spoil and mischief,
Quintus's people made of it, I could not learn; but infer from this new
event that the wreck had not been so considerable as the noise was; at
any rate, that the Schloss had soon been restored to its pristine state
of brilliancy. The Plenipotentiaries,--for Saxony, Fritsch; for Austria,
a Von Collenbach, unknown to us; for Prussia, one Hertzberg, a man
experienced beyond his years, who is of great name in Prussian History
subsequently,--sat here till February 15th, 1763, that is for six weeks
and five days. Leaving their Protocols to better judges, who report them
good, we will much prefer a word or two from Friedrich himself, while
waiting the result they come to.
FRIEDRICH TO PRINCE HENRI (home at Berlin).
"LEIPZIG, 14th JANUARY, 1763.... Am not surprised you find Berlin
changed for the worse: such a train of calamities must, in the end,
make itself felt in a poor and naturally barren Country, where continual
industry is needed to second its fecundity and keep up production.
However, I will do what I can to remedy this dearth (LA DISETTE), at
least as far as my small means permit....
"No fear of Geldern and Wesel; all that has been cared for by Bauer and
the new Free-Corps. By the end of February Peace will be signed; at the
beginning of April everybody will find himself at home, as in 1756.
"The Circles are going to separate: indifferent to me, or nearly so;
but it is good to be plucking out tiresome burning sticks, stick after
stick. I hope you amuse yourself at Berlin: at Leipzig nothing but balls
and redouts; my Nephews diverting themselves amazingly. Madam Friedrich,
lately Garden-maid at Seidlitz [Village in the Neumark, with this Beauty
plucking weeds in it,--little prescient of such a fortune], now Wife
to an Officer of the Free Hussars, is the principal heroine of these
Festivities." [Schoning, iii. 528.]
LEIPZIG, 25th JANUARY, 1763. "Thanks for your care about my existence. I
am becoming very old, dear Brother; in a little while I shall be useless
to the world and a burden to myself: it is the lot of all creatures
to wear down with age,--but one is not, for all that, to abuse one's
privilege of falling into dotage.
"You still speak without full confidence of our Negotiation business
[going on at Hubertsburg yonder]. Most certainly the chapter of
accidents is inexhaustible; and it is still certain there may happen
quantities of things which the limited mind of man cannot foresee: but,
judging by the ordinary course, and such degrees of probability as human
creatures found their hopes on, I believe, before the month of February
entirely end, our Peace will be completed. In a permanent Arrangement,
many things need settling, which are easier to settle now than they ever
will be again. Patience; haste without speed is a thriftless method."
[Ib. iii. 529.]
February 5th, the trio at Hubertsburg got their Preliminaries signed. On
the tenth day thereafter, the Treaty itself was signed and sealed.
All other Treaties on the same subject had been guided towards a
contemporary finis: England and France, ready since the 3d of November
last, signed and ended February 10th. February 11th, the Reich signed
and ended; February 15th, Prussia, Austria, Saxony; and the THIRD
SILESIAN or SEVEN-YEARS WAR was completely finished. [Copy of the treaty
in _Helden-Geschichte,_ vii. 624 et seq.; in Seyfarth, _Beylagen,_ iii.
479-495; in ROUSSET, in WENCK, in &c. &c.]
It had cost, in loss of human lives first of all, nobody can say what:
according to Friedrich's computation, there had perished of actual
fighters, on the various fields, of all the nations, 853,000; of which
above the fifth part, or 180,000, is his own share: and, by misery and
ravage, the general Population of Prussia finds itself 500,000 fewer;
nearly the ninth man missing. This is the expenditure of Life. Other
items are not worth enumerating, in comparison; if statistically given,
you can find the most approved guesses at them by the same Head, who
ought to be an authority. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ v. 230-234; Preuss,
iii. 349-351.] It was a War distinguished by--Archenholtz will tell you,
with melodious emphasis, what a distinguished, great and thrice-greatest
War it was. There have since been other far bigger Wars,--if size were
a measure of greatness; which it by no means is! I believe there was
excellent Heroism shown in this War, by persons I could name; by one
person, Heroism really to be called superior, or, in its kind, almost
of the rank of supreme;--and that in regard to the Military Arts and
Virtues, it has as yet, for faculty and for performance, had no rival;
nor is likely soon to have. The Prussians, as we once mentioned, still
use it as their school-model in those respects. And we--O readers, do
not at least you and I thank God to have now done with it!--
Of the Peace-Treaties at Hubertsburg, Paris and other places, it is
not necessary that we say almost anything. They are to be found in
innumerable Books, dreary to the mind; and of the 158 Articles to be
counted there, not one could be interesting at present. The substance of
the whole lies now in Three Points, not mentioned or contemplated at
all in those Documents, though repeatedly alluded to and intimated by us
here.
The issue, as between Austria and Prussia, strives to be, in all points,
simply AS-YOU-WERE; and, in all outward or tangible points, strictly
is so. After such a tornado of strife as the civilized world had not
witnessed since the Thirty-Years War. Tornado springing doubtless from
the regions called Infernal; and darkening the upper world from south to
north, and from east to west for Seven Years long;--issuing in general
AS-YOU-WERE! Yes truly, the tornado was Infernal; but Heaven too had
silently its purposes in it. Nor is the mere expenditure of men's
diabolic rages, in mutual clash as of opposite electricities, with
reduction to equipoise, and restoration of zero and repose again after
seven years, the one or the principal result arrived at. Inarticulately,
little dreamt of at the time by any by-stander, the results, on survey
from this distance, are visible as Threefold. Let us name them one other
time:--
1. There is no taking of Silesia from this man; no clipping of him down
to the orthodox old limits; he and his Country have palpably outgrown
these. Austria gives up the Problem: "We have lost Silesia!" Yes; and,
what you hardly yet know,--and what, I perceive, Friedrich himself still
less knows,--Teutschland has found Prussia. Prussia, it seems, cannot be
conquered by the whole world trying to do it; Prussia has gone through
its Fire-Baptism, to the satisfaction of gods and men; and is a Nation
henceforth. In and of poor dislocated Teutschland, there is one of the
Great Powers of the World henceforth; an actual Nation. And a Nation
not grounding itself on extinct Traditions, Wiggeries, Papistries,
Immaculate Conceptions; no, but on living Facts,--Facts of Arithmetic,
Geometry, Gravitation, Martin Luther's Reformation, and what it really
can believe in:--to the infinite advantage of said Nation and of poor
Teutschland henceforth. To be a Nation; and to believe as you are
convinced, instead of pretending to believe as you are bribed or bullied
by the devils about you; what an advantage to parties concerned!
If Prussia follow its star--As it really tries to do, in spite of
stumbling! For the sake of Germany, one hopes always Prussia will;
and that it may get through its various Child-Diseases, without death:
though it has had sad plunges and crises,--and is perhaps just now in
one of its worst Influenzas, the Parliamentary-Eloquence or Ballot-Box
Influenza! One of the most dangerous Diseases of National Adolescence;
extremely prevalent over the world at this time,--indeed unavoidable,
for reasons obvious enough. "SIC ITUR AD ASTRA;" all Nations certain
that the way to Heaven is By voting, by eloquently wagging the tongue
"within those walls"! Diseases, real or imaginary, await Nations like
individuals; and are not to be resisted, but must be submitted to, and
got through the best you can. Measles and mumps; you cannot prevent them
in Nations either. Nay fashions even; fashion of Crinoline, for instance
(how infinitely more, that of Ballot-Box and Fourth-Estate!),--are you
able to prevent even that? You have to be patient under it, and keep
hoping!
2. In regard to England. Her JENKINS'S-EAR CONTROVERSY is at last
settled. Not only liberty of the Seas, but, if she were not wiser,
dominion of them; guardianship of liberty for all others whatsoever:
Dominion of the Seas for that wise object. America is to be English,
not French; what a result is that, were there no other! Really a
considerable Fact in the History of the World. Fact principally due to
Pitt, as I believe, according to my best conjecture, and comparison of
probabilities and circumstances. For which, after all, is not
everybody thankful, less or more? O my English brothers, O my Yankee
half-brothers, how oblivious are we of those that have done us
benefit!--
These are the results for England. And in the rear of these, had these
and the other elements once ripened for her, the poor Country is to
get into such merchandisings, colonizings, foreign-settlings,
gold-nuggetings, as lay beyond the drunkenest dreams of Jenkins
(supposing Jenkins addicted to liquor);--and, in fact, to enter on a
universal uproar of Machineries, Eldorados, "Unexampled Prosperities,"
which make a great noise for themselves in the very days now come.
Prosperities evidently not of a sublime type: which, in the mean while,
seem to be covering the at one time creditably clean and comely face
of England with mud-blotches, soot-blotches, miscellaneous squalors and
horrors; to be preaching into her amazed heart, which once knew better,
the omnipotence of
SHODDY; filling her ears and soul with shriekery and metallic clangor,
mad noises, mad hurries mostly no-whither;--and are awakening, I
suppose, in such of her sons as still go into reflection at all,
a deeper and more ominous set of Questions than have ever risen in
England's History before. As in the foregoing case, we have to be
patient and keep hoping.
3. In regard to France. It appears, noble old Teutschland, with such
pieties and unconquerable silent valors, such opulences human and
divine, amid its wreck of new and old confusions, is not to be cut in
Four, and made to dance to the piping of Versailles or another. Far the
contrary! To Versailles itself there has gone forth, Versailles may read
it or not, the writing on the wall: "Thou art weighed in the balance,
and found wanting" (at last even "FOUND wanting")! France, beaten,
stript, humiliated; sinful, unrepentant, governed by mere sinners
and, at best, clever fools (FOUS PLEINS D'ESPRIT),--collapses, like
a creature whose limbs fail it; sinks into bankrupt quiescence, into
nameless fermentation, generally into DRY-ROT. Rotting, none
guesses whitherward;--rotting towards that thrice-extraordinary
Spontaneous-Combustion, which blazed out in 1789. And has kindled, over
the whole world, gradually or by explosion, this unexpected Outburst
of all the chained Devilries (among other chained things), this roaring
Conflagration of the Anarchies; under which it is the lot of these poor
generations to live,--for I know not what length of Centuries yet. "Go
into Combustion, my pretty child!" the Destinies had said to this
BELLE FRANCE, who is always so fond of shining and outshining:
"Self-Combustion;--in that way, won't you shine, as none of them yet
could?" Shine; yes, truly,--till you are got to CAPUT MORTUUM, my pretty
child (unless you gain new wisdom!)--But not to wander farther:--
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16th, Friedrich, all Saxon things being now
settled,--among the rest, "eight Saxon Schoolmasters" to be a model in
Prussia,--quitted Leipzig, with the Seven-Years War safe in his pocket,
as it were. Drove to Moritzburg, to dinner with the amiable Kurprinz
and still more amiable Wife: "It was to your Highness that we owe this
Treaty!" A dinner which readers may hear of again. At Moritzburg; where,
with the Lacys, there was once such rattling and battling. After which,
rapidly on to Silesia, and an eight days of adjusting and inspecting
there.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30th, Friedrich arrives in Frankfurt-on-Oder, on the
way homeward from Silesia: "takes view of the Field of Kunersdorf"
(reflections to be fancied); early in the afternoon speeds forward
again; at one of the stages (place called Tassdorf) has a Dialogue,
which we shall hear of; and between 8 and 9 in the evening, not through
the solemn receptions and crowded streets, drives to the Schloss of
Berlin. "Goes straight to the Queen's Apartment," Queen, Princesses and
Court all home triumphantly some time ago; sups there with the Queen's
Majesty and these bright creatures,--beautiful supper, had it consisted
only of cresses and salt; and, behind it, sound sleep to us under our
own roof-tree once more. [Rodenbeck, ii. 211, 212; Preuss, ii. 345, 346;
&c. &c.] Next day, "the King made gifts to," as it were, to everybody;
"to the Queen about 5,000 pounds, to the Princess Amelia 1,000 pounds,"
and so on; and saw true hearts all merry round him,--merrier, perhaps,
than his own was.