able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no more exemptions in the
way of military service; all young men who had reached the required age
drew lots in the conscription and set out in turn according to the order
fixed by their drafted number.
But Napoleon is an intelligent creditor; he knows that this debt is
"most frightful and most detestable for families," that his debtors are
real, living men, and therefore different in kind, that the head of the
state should keep these differences in mind, that is to say, their
condition, their education, their sensibility and their vocation; that,
not only in their private interest, but again in the interest of the
public, not merely through prudence, but also through equity, all should
not be indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to
the same manual labour, to the same indefinite servitude of soul and
body.
Napoleon also exempts the conscript who has a brother in the active
army, the only son of a widow, the eldest of three orphans, the son of a
father seventy-one years old dependent on his labour, all of whom are
family supports. He joins with these all young men who enlist in one of
his civil militias, in his ecclesiastical militia, or in his university
militia, pupils of the École Normale, seminarians for the priesthood, on
condition that they shall engage to do service in their vocation, and do
it effectively, some for ten years, others for life, subject to a
discipline more rigid, or nearly as rigid, as military discipline.
_IV.--The Prefect Absolute_
Yet another institution which Napoleon gave to the Modern Régime in
France is the Prefect of a Department. Before 1870, when this prefect
appointed the mayors, and when the council general held its session only
fifteen days in the year, this Prefect was almost omnipotent; still, at
the present day, his powers are immense, and his power remains
preponderant. He has the right to suspend the municipal council and the
mayor, and to propose their dismissal to the head of the state. Without
resorting to this extremity, he holds them with a strong hand, and
always uplifted over the commune, for he can veto the acts of the
municipal police and of the road committee, annul the regulations of the
mayor, and, through a skilful use of his prerogative, impose his own. He
holds in hand, removes, appoints or helps appoint, not alone the clerks
in his office, but likewise every kind and degree of clerk who, outside
his office, serves the commune or department, from the archivist down to
and comprising the lowest employees, such as forest-guards of the
department, policemen posted at the corner of a street, and
stone-breakers on the public highway.
Such, in brief, is the system of local and general society in France
from the Napoleonic time down to the date 1889, when these lines are
written. After the philosophic demolitions of the revolution, and the
practical constructions of the consulate, national or general government
is a vast despotic centralised machine, and local government could no
longer be a small patrimony.
The departments and communes have become more or less vast
lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed according to the
same regulations, one as passable as the other, with apartments in them
which, more or less good, are more or less dear, but at rates which,
higher or lower, are fixed at a uniform tariff over the entire
territory, so that the 36,000 communal buildings and the eighty-six
department hotels are about equal, it making but little difference
whether one lodges in the latter rather than in the former. The
permanent taxpayers of both sexes who have made these premises their
home have not obtained recognition for what they are, invincibly and by
nature, a syndicate of neighbours, an involuntary, obligatory
association, in which physical solidarity engenders moral solidarity, a
natural, limited society whose members own the building in common, and
each possesses a property-right more or less great according to the
contribution he makes to the expenses of the establishment.
Up to this time no room has yet been found, either in the law or in
minds, for this very plain truth; its place is taken and occupied in
advance by the two errors which in turn, or both at once, have led the
legislator and opinion astray.
* * * * *
THOMAS CARLYLE
Frederick the Great
Frederick the Great, born on January 24, 1712, at Berlin,
succeeded to the throne of Prussia in 1740, and died on August
17, 1786, at Potsdam, being the third king of Prussia, the
regal title having been acquired by his grandfather, whose
predecessors had borne the title of Elector of Brandenburg.
Building on the foundations laid by his great-grandfather and
his father, he raised his comparatively small and poor kingdom
to the position of a first-class military power, and won for
himself rank with the greatest of all generals, often matching
his troops victoriously against forces of twice and even
thrice their number. In Thomas Carlyle he found an
enthusiastic biographer, somewhat prone, however, to find for
actions of questionable public morality a justification in
"immutable laws" and "veracities," which to other eyes is a
little akin to Wordsworth's apology for Rob Roy. But whether
we accept Carlyle's estimate of him or no, the amazing skill,
tenacity, and success with which he stood at bay virtually
against all Europe, while Great Britain was fighting as his
ally her own duel in France in the Seven Years' War,
constitutes an unparallelled achievement. "Frederick the
Great" was begun about 1848, the concluding volumes appearing
in 1865. (Carlyle, see LIVES AND LETTERS.)
_I.--Forebears and Childhood_
About the year 1780 there used to be seen sauntering on the terrace of
Sans-Souci a highly interesting, lean, little old man of alert though
slightly stooping figure, whose name among strangers was King Friedrich
II., or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common
people was _Vater Fritz_--Father Fred. A king every inch of him, though
without the trappings of a king; in a Spartan simplicity of vesture. In
1786 his speakings and his workings came to _finis_ in this world of
time. Editors vaguely account this man the creator of the Prussian
monarchy, which has since grown so large in the world.
He was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon, on January 24, 1712; a
small infant, but of great promise and possibility. Friedrich Wilhelm,
Crown Prince of Prussia, father of this little infant, did himself make
some noise in the world as second king of Prussia.
The founder of the line was Conrad of Hohenzollern, who came to seek his
fortune under Barbarossa, greatest of all the kaisers. Friedrich I. of
that line was created Elector of Brandenburg in 1415; the eleventh in
succession was Friedrich Wilhelm, the "Great Elector," who in 1640 found
Brandenburg annihilated, and left it in 1688 sound and flourishing, a
great country, or already on the way towards greatness; a most rapid,
clear-eyed, active man. His son got himself made King of Prussia, and
was Friedrich I., who was still reigning when his grandson, Frederick
the Great, was born. Not two years later Friedrich Wilhelm is king.
Of that strange king and his strange court there is no light to be had
except from the book written by Frederick's little sister, Wilhelmina,
when she grew to size and knowledge of good and evil--a flickery wax
taper held over Frederick's childhood. In the breeding of him there are
two elements noticeable, widely diverse--the French and the German. Of
his infantine history the course was in general smooth. The boy, it was
said, was of extraordinary vivacity; only he takes less to soldiering
than the paternal heart could wish. The French element is in his
governesses--good Edict-of-Nantes ladies.
For the boy's teachers, Friedrich Wilhelm has rules for guidance strict
enough. He is to be taught useful knowledge--history of the last hundred
and fifty years, arithmetic, fortification; but nothing useless of Latin
and the like. Spartan training, too, which shall make a soldier of him.
Whereas young Fritz has vivacities, a taste for music, finery, and
excursions into forbidden realms distasteful and incomprehensible to
Friedrich Wilhelm. We perceive the first small cracks of incurable
division in the royal household, traceable from Fritz's sixth or seventh
year; a divulsion splitting ever wider, new offences super-adding
themselves. This Fritz ought to fashion himself according to his
father's pattern, and he does not. These things make life all bitter for
son and for father, necessitating the proud son to hypocrisies very
foreign to him had there been other resource.
The boy in due time we find (at fifteen) attached to the amazing
regiment of giants, drilling at Potsdam; on very ill terms with his
father, however, who sees in him mainly wilful disobedience and
frivolity. Once, when Prussia and Hanover seem on the verge of war over
an utterly trivial matter, our crown prince acquires momentary favour.
The Potsdam Guards are ordered to the front, and the prince handles them
with great credit. But the favour is transitory, seeing that he is
caught reading French books, and arrayed in a fashion not at all
pleasing to the Spartan parent.
_II.--The Crown Prince Leaves Kingship_
The life is indeed so intolerable that Fritz is with difficulty
dissuaded from running away. The time comes when he will not be
dissuaded, resolves that he will endure no longer. There were only three
definite accomplices in the wild scheme, which had a very tragical
ending. Of the three, Lieutenant Keith, scenting discovery, slipped over
the border and so to England; his brother, Page Keith, feeling discovery
certain, made confession, after vigilance had actually stopped the
prince when he was dressed for the flight. There was terrible wrath of
the father over the would-be "deserter and traitor," and not less over
the other accomplice, Lieutenant Katte, who had dallied too long. The
crown prince himself was imprisoned; court-martial held on the
offenders; a too-lenient sentence was overruled by the king, and Katte
was executed. The king was near frenzied, but beyond doubt thought
honestly that he was doing no more than justice demanded.
As for the crown prince himself, deserting colonel of a regiment, the
court-martial, with two dissentients, condemned him to death; sentence
which the Junius Brutus of a king would have duly carried out. But
remonstrance is universal, and an autograph letter from the kaiser
seemingly decisive. Frederick was, as it were, retired to a house of his
own and a court of his own--court very strictly regulated--at Cüstrin;
not yet a soldier of the Prussian army, but hoping only to become so
again; while he studied the domain sciences, more particularly the
rigidly economical principles of state finance as practised by his
father. The tragedy has taught him a lesson, and he has more to learn.
That period is finally ended when he is restored to the army in 1732.
Reconciliation, complete submission, and obedience, a prince with due
appreciation of facts has now made up his mind to; very soon shaped into
acceptance of paternal demand that he shall wed Elizabeth of
Brunswick-Bevern, insipid niece of the kaiser. In private correspondence
he expresses himself none too submissively, but offers no open
opposition to the king's wishes.
The charmer of Brunswick turned out not so bad as might have been
expected; not ill-looking; of an honest, guileless heart, if little
articulate intellect; considerable inarticulate sense; after marriage,
which took place in June 1733, shaped herself successfully to the
prince's taste, and grew yearly gracefuller and better-looking. But the
affair, before it came off, gave rise to a certain visit of Friedrich
Wilhelm to the kaiser, of which in the long run the outcome was that
complete distrust of the kaiser displaced the king's heretofore
determined loyalty to him.
Meanwhile an event has fallen out at Warsaw. Augustus, the physically
strong, is no more; transcendent king of edacious flunkies, father of
354 children, but not without fine qualities; and Poland has to find a
new king. His death kindled foolish Europe generally into fighting, and
gave our crown prince his first actual sight and experience of the facts
of war. Stanislaus is overwhelmingly the favourite candidate, supported,
too, by France. The other candidate, August of Saxony, secures the
kaiser's favour by promise of support to his Pragmatic Sanction; and the
appearance of Russian troops secures "freedom of election" and choice of
August by the electors who are not absent. August is crowned, and Poland
in a flame. Friedrich Wilhelm cares not for Polish elections, but, as by
treaty bound, provides 10,000 men to support the kaiser on the Rhine,
while he gives asylum to the fugitive Stanislaus. Crown prince, now
twenty-two, is with the force; sees something of warfare, but nothing
big.
War being finished, Frederick occupied a mansion at Reinsberg with his
princess, and things went well, if economically, with much
correspondence with the other original mind of those days, Voltaire. But
big events are coming now. Mr. Jenkins's ear re-emerges from cotton-wool
after seven years, and Walpole has to declare war with Spain in 1739.
Moreover, Friedrich Wilhelm is exceedingly ill. In May 1740 comes a
message--Frederick must come to Potsdam quickly if he is to see his
father again. The son comes. "Am not I happy to have such a son to leave
behind me?" says the dying king. On May 31 he dies. No baresark of them,
nor Odin's self, was a bit of truer stuff.
_III.--The Silesian Wars_
Shall we, then, have the philosopher-king, as Europe dimly seems to half
expect? He begins, indeed, with opening corn magazines, abolishing legal
torture; will have freedom of conscience and the Press; encourage
philosophers and men of letters. In those days he had his first meeting
with Voltaire, recorded for us by the Frenchman twenty years later; for
his own reasons, vitriolically and with inaccuracies, the record
amounting to not much. Frederick was suffering from a quartan fever. Of
which ague he was cured by the news that Kaiser Carl died on October 20,
and Maria Theresa was proclaimed sovereign of the Hapsburg inheritance,
according to the Pragmatic Sanction.
Whereupon, without delay, Frederick forms a resolution, which had sprung
and got to sudden fixity in the head of the young king himself, and met
with little save opposition from all others--to make good his rights in
Silesia. A most momentous resolution; not the peaceable magnanimities,
but the warlike, are the thing appointed for Frederick henceforth.
In mid-December the troops entered Silesia; except in the hills, where
Catholics predominate, with marked approbation of the population, we
find. Of warlike preparation to meet the Prussians is practically none,
and in seven weeks Silesia is held, save three fortresses easy to manage
in spring. Will the hold be maintained?
Meanwhile, France will have something to say, moved by a figure not much
remembered, yet notable, Marshal Belleisle; perhaps, after Frederick and
Voltaire, the most notable of that time. A man of large schemes,
altogether accordant with French interests, but not, unfortunately, with
facts and law of gravitation. For whom the first thing needful is that
Grand Duke Franz, husband of Maria Theresa, shall not be elected kaiser;
who shall be is another matter--why not Karl Albert of Bavaria as well
as another?
After brief absence, Frederick is soon back in Silesia, to pay attention
to blockaded Glogau and Brieg and Neisse; harassed, however, by Austrian
Pandours out of Glatz, a troublesome kind of cavalry. The siege of
Neisse is to open on April 4, when we find Austrian Neipperg with his
army approaching; by good fortune a dilatory Neipperg; of which comes
the battle of Mollwitz.
In which fight victory finally rested with Prussians and Schwerin, who
held the field, Austrians retiring, but not much pursued; demonstration
that a new military power is on the scene (April 10). A victory, though,
of old Friedrich Wilhelm, and his training and discipline, having in it
as yet nothing of young Frederick's own.
A battle, however, which in effect set going the conflagration
unintelligible to Englishmen, known as War of the Austrian Accession. In
which we observe a clear ground for Anglo-Spanish War, and
Austro-Prussian War; but what were the rest doing? France is the author
of it, as an Anti-Pragmatic war; George II. and Hanover are dragged into
it as a Pragmatic war; but the intervention of France at all was
barefacedly unjust and gratuitous. To begin with, however, Belleisle's
scheming brings about election to kaisership of Karl Albert of Bavaria,
principal Anti-Pragmatic claimant to the Austrian heritage.
Brieg was taken not long after Mollwitz, and now many diplomatists come
to Frederick's camp at Strehlen. In effect, will he choose English or
French alliance? Will England get him what will satisfy him from
Austria? If not, French alliance and war with Austria--which problem
issues in treaty with France--mostly contingent. Diplomatising
continues, no one intending to be inconveniently loyal to engagements;
so that four months after French treaty comes another engagement or
arrangement of Klein Schnelendorf--Frederick to keep most of Silesia,
but a plausible show of hostilities--nothing more--to be maintained for
the present. In consequence of which Frederick solemnly captures Neisse.
The arrangement, however, comes to grief, enough of it being divulged
from Vienna to explode it. Out of which comes the Moravian expedition;
by inertness of allies turned into a mere Moravian foray, "the French
acting like fools, and the Saxons like traitors," growls Frederick.
Raid being over, Prince Karl, brother of Grand Duke Franz, comes down
with his army, and follows the battle of Chotusitz, also called of
Czaslau. A hard-fought battle, ending in defeat of the Austrians; not in
itself decisive, but the eyes of Europe very confirmatory of the view
that the Austrians cannot beat the Prussians. From a wounded general,
too, Frederick learns that the French have been making overtures for
peace on their own account, Prussia to be left to Austria if she likes,
of which is documentary proof.
No need, then, for Frederick to be scrupulous about making his own
terms. His Britannic Majesty is urgent that Maria Theresa should agree
with Frederick. Out of which comes Treaty of Breslau, ceding Silesia to
Prussia; and exceeding disgust of Belleisle, ending the first Silesian
War.
With which Frederick would have liked to see the European war ended
altogether; but it went on, Austria, too, prospering. He tries vainly to
effect combinations to enforce peace. George of England, having at last
fairly got himself into the war, and through the battle of Dettingen,
valorously enough; operations emerging in a Treaty of Worms (September
1743), mainly between England and Austria, which does _not_ guarantee
the Breslau Treaty. An expressive silence! "What was good to give is
good to take." Is Frederick, then, not secure of Silesia? If he must
guard his own, he can no longer stand aside. So the Worms Treaty begets
an opposition treaty, chief parties Prussia, France, and Kaiser Karl
Albert of Bavaria, signed at Frankfurt-on-Maine, May 1744.
Before which France has actually declared war on England, with whose
troops her own have been fighting for a not inconsiderable time without
declaration of war; and all the time fortifications in Silesia have been
becoming realities. Frederick will strike when his moment comes.
The imperative moment does come when Prince Karl, or, more properly,
Traun, under cloak of Prince Karl, seems on the point of altogether
crushing the French. Frederick intervenes, in defence of the kaiser;
swoops on Bohemia, captures Prag; in short, brings Prince Karl and Traun
back at high speed, unhindered by French. Thenceforward, not a
successfully managed campaign on Frederick's part, admirably conducted
on the other side by Traun. This campaign the king's school in the art
of war, and M. de Traun his teacher--so Frederick himself admits.
Austria is now sure to invade Silesia; will Frederick not block the
passes against Prince Karl, now having no Traun under his cloak?
Frederick will not--one leaves the mouse-trap door open, pleasantly
baited, moreover, into which mouse Karl will walk. And so, three weeks
after that remarkable battle of Fontenoy, in another quarter, very
hard-won victory of Maréchal Saxe over Britannic Majesty's Martial Boy,
comes battle of Hohenfriedberg. A most decisive battle, "most decisive
since Blenheim," wrote Frederick, whose one desire now is peace.
Britannic Majesty makes peace for himself with Frederick, being like to
have his hands full with a rising in the Scotch Highlands; Austria will
not, being still resolute to recover Silesia--rejects bait of Prussian
support in imperial election for Wainz, Kaiser Karl being now dead. What
is kaisership without Silesia? Prussia has no insulted kaiser to defend,
desires no more than peace on the old Breslau terms properly ratified;
but finances are low. Grand Duke Franz is duly elected; but the empress
queen will have Silesia. Battle of Sohr does not convince her. There
must be another surprising last attempt by Saxony and Austria; settled
by battles of Hennensdorf and Kesselsdorf.
So at last Frederick got the Peace of Dresden--security, it is to be
hoped, in Silesia, the thing for which he had really gone to war;
leaving the rest of the European imbroglio to get itself settled in its
own fashion after another two years of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Frederick now has ten years of peace before him, during which his
actions and salutary conquests over difficulties were many, profitable
to Prussia and himself. Frederick has now, by his second Silesian war,
achieved greatness; "Frederick the Great," expressly so denominated by
his people and others. However, there are still new difficulties, new
perils and adventures ahead.
For the present, then, Frederick declines the career of conquering hero;
goes into law reform; gets ready a country cottage for himself, since
become celebrated under the name of Sans-Souci. General war being at
last ended, he receives a visit from Maréchal Saxe, brilliant French
field-marshal, most dissipated man of his time, one of the 354 children
of Augustus the Physically Strong.
But the ten years are passing--there is like to be another war. Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, made in a hurry, had left some questions open in
America, answered in one way by the French, quite otherwise by English
colonists. Canada and Louisiana mean all America west of the
Alleghanies? Why then? Whomsoever America does belong to, it surely is
not France. Braddock disasters, Frenchmen who understand war--these
things are ominous; but there happens to be in England a Mr. Pitt. Here
in Europe, too, King Frederick had come in a profoundly private manner
upon certain extensive anti-Prussian symptoms--Austrian, Russian,
Saxon--of a most dangerous sort; in effect, an underground treaty for
partitioning Prussia; knowledge thereof extracted from Dresden archives.
_IV.--The Seven Years' War Opens_
Very curious diplomatisings, treaties, and counter-treaties are going
on. What counts is Frederick's refusal to help France against England,
and agreement with George of England--and of Hanover--to keep foreign
troops off German soil? Also Kaunitz has twirled Austrian policy on its
axis; we are to be friends with France. In this coming war, England and
Austria, hitherto allies, to be foes; France and Austria, hitherto foes,
to be allies.