is tall, of an olive complexion, rather stout than thin, in aspect
between proud and grave, and with a lively countenance. His left eye,
as well as his left arm and leg, were injured by the poison given him
during the life of his brother; but there remain now only a fixed and
fascinated look in his eye, and a constant movement of his arm and
leg, to hide which, he accompanies this forced motion with continual
movements of his entire body, which, by many people in the countries
which he has visited, has been attributed to natural causes, but really
it is artificial. His wit is lively and ready; his manners rather
civil than barbarous, the journey he has made having improved him,
and the difference from the beginning of his travels and the present
time being visible, although his native roughness may still be seen in
him; but it is chiefly noticeable in his followers, whom he holds in
check with great severity. He has a knowledge of geography and history,
and, what is most to be noticed, he desires to know these subjects
better; but his strongest inclination is for maritime affairs, at which
he himself works mechanically, as he did in Holland; and this work,
according to many people who have to do with him, is indispensable to
divert the effects of the poison, which still very much troubles him.
In person and in aspect, as well as in his manners, there is nothing
which would distinguish him or declare him to be a prince.”
[Illustration: PETER I., CZAR OF RUSSIA.
(From Original Copperplate Engraving.)]
During his visit to Paris, the Czar often astonished the polite
Parisians. “On one occasion he went with the duke of Orleans to the
opera, where he sat on the front bench of the large box. During the
performance the Czar asked if he could not have some beer. A large
goblet on a saucer was immediately brought. The regent rose, took it,
and presented it to the Czar, who, with a smile and bow of politeness,
took the goblet without any ceremony, drank, and put it back on the
saucer, which the regent kept holding. The duke then took a plate with
a napkin, which he presented to the Czar, who, without rising, made use
of it, at which scene the audience seemed astonished.”
Notwithstanding his rough manners, the history, character, and
achievements of the Czar, together with his exact knowledge in so many
directions, and his interest in everything that was scientific and
technical, made a deep impression upon those who met him. St. Simon
thus describes him: “He was a very tall man, well made, not too stout,
with a roundish face, a high forehead, and fine eyebrows, a short
nose—but not too short—large at the end; his lips were rather thick,
his complexion a ruddy brown; fine black eyes, large, lively, piercing,
and well apart; a majestic and gracious look when he wished, otherwise
severe and stern, with a twitching which did not often return, but
which disturbed his look and his whole expression, and inspired fear.
That lasted but a moment, accompanied by a wild and terrible look,
and passed away as quickly. His whole air showed his intellect, his
reflection, and his greatness, and did not lack a certain grace. He
wore only a linen collar, a round brown peruke without powder, which
did not touch his shoulders; a brown, tight-fitting coat, plain, with
gold buttons; a waistcoat, breeches, stockings, no gloves nor cuffs;
the star of his order on his coat, and the ribbon underneath, his coat
often quite unbuttoned; his hat on a table, and never on his head even
out of doors. With all this simplicity, and whatever bad carriage
or company he might be, one could not fail to perceive the air of
greatness that was natural to him.”
While at Vienna, Peter learned of another revolt of the Streltsi, and
thereupon hastened back to Moscow to put down the insurrection. The
rebellion was soon quelled; but the tortures and executions which
followed were barbarous. Some were beheaded; some were broken on the
wheel, and then left to die in horrible agonies; many were buried
alive, their heads only being left above the ground. It is said
that Peter took such a savage delight in these punishments that he
executed many of the victims with his own hand. At one time, when half
intoxicated, at a banquet, he ordered twenty prisoners to be brought
in, and between his drinks of brandy cut off their heads himself, being
an hour in cutting off the twenty heads.
As Peter thought Sophia was implicated in this revolt, he ordered the
arm of the ringleader of the plot to be cut off, and an address which
he found, written to Sophia, to be placed in the stiffened hand, and
by his order this ghastly relic was fastened to the wall in Sophia’s
apartment. When the trials were over, a decree was issued, abolishing
the Streltsi; and they were all sent into exile. Peter was now involved
in a war with Sweden for the possession of the eastern shore of the
Baltic Sea. At first, the Swedes were victorious; but in about a year
the Czar gained possession of a considerable portion of the Baltic
shore, and he thereupon determined to build a new city there, with the
view of making it the naval and commercial capital of his kingdom. This
plan was successfully carried out, and the building of the great city
of St. Petersburg was one of the most important events in the reign of
Peter the Great.
At length, Charles XII., king of Sweden, began to be alarmed at the
increasing power of the Czar in that part of the country, and he
invaded Russia with an army. The famous battle of Pultowa, by which the
invasion of the Swedes was repelled, was fought in 1709; and this was
almost the only serious danger from any foreign source which threatened
the dominions of Peter the Great during his reign.
Peter, having been previously privately married to Catherine,
determined, in 1712, to have a public ceremony. Peter’s first wife had
one son, Alexis, who occasioned his father the most serious trouble.
Alexis was indolent and most vicious in his habits of life; and so
outrageous was his conduct that at last his father caused him to be
imprisoned. It was then discovered that Alexis had been planning
a revolt, and Peter referred his case to a grand council of civil
authorities, and also a convocation of the clergy to determine upon
the sentence to be pronounced upon this rebellious son. The council
declared that he was worthy of death, and the Czar confirmed the
judgment of the council, and a day was appointed on which Alexis was
to be arraigned in order that sentence of death might be solemnly
pronounced upon him. But before the appointed day arrived, Alexis was
attacked with convulsions, caused by his terror; and the Czar visited
him in the fortress where he was dying.
The dying prince besought forgiveness of his father with such prayers
and tears that Peter and his ministers were overcome with emotion. The
Czar gave Alexis his forgiveness and his blessing, and took his leave
with tears and lamentations. Soon after, Alexis expired. The funeral
rites were performed by the Czar and his family with much solemnity. At
the service in the church a funeral sermon was pronounced by the priest
from the appropriate text, “O Absalom! my son! my son Absalom!” Thus
ended this dreadful tragedy.
The heir to the throne was now the little son of Catherine, Peter
Petrowitz. The birth of this son, which occurred about three years
before the death of Alexis, was such a delight to Peter the Great that
he celebrated the event with public rejoicings. At the baptism of the
babe, two kings—those of Denmark and of Prussia—acted as godfathers.
The christening was attended with most gorgeous banquets. Among other
curious contrivances were two enormous pies,—one served in the room of
the gentlemen and the other in that of the ladies. From the ladies’
pie, there stepped out, when it was opened, a young dwarf, very small,
and clothed in a fantastic manner. The dwarf brought out with him from
the pie some glasses and a bottle of wine, and he walked around the
table, drinking to the health of the ladies, who were intensely amused
by his droll manners. In the gentlemen’s room the pie was similar, from
which a female dwarf stepped forth and performed the same ceremony.
Peter the Great was much attached to his wife Catherine, whose romantic
life we have not space to describe. Her influence over the Czar was
most beneficial.
About a year after the death of Alexis, the little Peter Petrowitz, the
idolized son of the Czar, also died. Peter the Great was completely
overwhelmed with grief at this new calamity. Even Catherine, who
usually had power to soothe his fits of frenzy, anger, or grief, and
whose touch would often stop the contortions of his face, could not
comfort him now; for the sight of her only reminded him more keenly of
his loss. It was feared at this time that grief would kill the Czar;
for he shut himself up alone, and would not allow any one to come
near him for three days and nights. Peter the Great, however, lived
sixteen years after this event. During these last years he continued
the reforms in his empire and increased the power and influence of his
government among surrounding nations. As both of his sons were dead,
he determined to leave the government in the hands of Catherine, and
she was crowned empress with most imposing ceremonies. In less than
a year after this event, the Czar was attacked with a sudden illness
during the ceremonies of rejoicings connected with the betrothal of
one of his daughters to a foreign duke. His death took place on the
28th of January, 1725. Another of his daughters having died a short
time after her father, their bodies were interred together. The funeral
obsequies were so protracted, and were conducted with so much pomp and
ceremony, that six weeks elapsed before the remains of Peter the Great
were finally committed to the tomb. The fame of Peter the Great differs
from that attained by other famous rulers of the world; for it was not
consequent upon renowned foreign conquests, but the triumph which Peter
achieved was the commencement of a work of internal improvement and
reform which now, after a century and a half has passed, is still going
on.
FREDERICK THE GREAT.
A.D. 1712-1786.
“Kings are like stars,—they rise and set, they have
The worship of the world, but no repose.”—SHELLEY.
“A man’s a man;
But when you see a king, you see the work
Of many thousand men.”—GEORGE ELIOT.
CARLYLE accused Schiller of “oversetting fact, disregarding reality,
and tumbling time and space topsy-turvy.” That there is great danger
of doing the latter, in condensing such a life as that of Frederick
the Great into the small space allotted to these sketches, cannot be
denied; but fiction itself could scarcely overstate the facts connected
with this weird but most fascinating glimpse of historical events.
Carlyle says: “With such wagon-loads of books and printed records as
exist on the subject of Frederick, it has always seemed possible, even
for a stranger, to acquire some real understanding of him; though
practically, here and now, I have to own it proves difficult beyond
conception. Alas! the books are not cosmic; they are chaotic.”
[Illustration: FREDERICK II., KING OF PRUSSIA, ÆT. 58.]
True it is, it is not want of material, but the overwhelming
multiplicity of documents, which renders it difficult to trace out a
clear-cut sketch of Frederick the Great; and that we may do it more
concisely, and yet entertainingly, a series of panoramic pictures will
perhaps be the best method of achieving the desired end.
“About one hundred years ago there used to be seen sauntering on the
terraces of Sans Souci for a short time in the afternoon—or you might
have met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a
rapid business manner on the open roads, or through the scraggy woods
and avenues of that intricate, amphibious Potsdam region—a highly
interesting, lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping
figure, whose name among strangers was _King Friedrich the Second_, or
Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people,
who much loved and esteemed him, was _Vater Fritz_, Father Fred.
“He is a king, every inch of him, though without the trappings of a
king. He presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture: no crown
but an old military cocked hat, generally old, or trampled and kneaded
into absolute softness if new; no sceptre but one like Agamemnon’s—a
walking-stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick;
and for royal robes a mere soldier’s blue coat with red facings, coat
likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the
breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or cut,
ending in high over-knee military boots, which may be brushed, but are
not permitted to be blackened or varnished.
“The man is not of god-like physiognomy, any more than of imposing
stature or costume: close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and
nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is
of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it; not what is called a
beautiful man, nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. The
face bears evidence of many sorrows, of much hard labor done in this
world. Quiet stoicism, great unconscious, and some conscious, pride,
well tempered with a cheery mockery of humor, are written on that
old face, which carries its chin well forward in spite of the slight
stoop about the neck; snuffy nose rather flung into the air, under its
old cocked hat, like an old snuffy lion on the watch, and such a pair
of eyes as no man, or lion, or lynx, of that century bore elsewhere.
Those eyes, which, at the bidding of his great soul, fascinated you
with seduction or with terror; most excellent, potent, brilliant eyes,
swift-darting as the stars, steadfast as the sun; gray, we said, of
the azure-gray color; large enough, not of glaring size; the habitual
expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense, and gives us the
notion of a lambent outer radiance springing from some great inner
sea of light and fire in the man. The voice, if he speak to you, is
clear, melodious, and sonorous; all tones are in it: ingenuous inquiry,
graceful sociality, light-flowing banter up to definite word of
command, up to desolating word of rebuke and reprobation.”
Such is the picture of Frederick the Great in his later days; but
now we will turn back our panoramic views, and behold the setting of
his early years: and, to a clearer understanding of those events,
an aid may be found in glancing at his native country, Prussia. For
many centuries the country on the southern coasts of the Baltic Sea
was inhabited by wild tribes of barbarians, almost as savage as the
beasts which roamed in their forests. After a time the tribes, tamed
and partly civilized, produced a race of tall and manly proportions,
fair in complexion, with flaxen hair, stern aspect, great physical
strength, and most formidable foes in battle. Centuries passed,
of which history notes only wars and woes, when from this chaotic
barbarism order emerged. Small states were organized, and a political
life began. In 1700 one of the petty provinces was called the
Marquisate of Brandenburg, whose marquis was Frederick, of the family
of Hohenzollern. To the east of this province was a duchy, called
Prussia, which was at length added to the domains of Frederick, the
marquis of Brandenburg, and he obtained from the emperor of Germany the
recognition of his dominions as a kingdom, and assumed the title of
Frederick I. of Prussia. On the 16th of November, 1700, his ambassador
returned triumphantly from Vienna. “The Kaiser has consented; we are
to wear a royal crown on the top of our periwig.” Thus Prussia became
a kingdom. When Frederick was crowned king of Prussia, most gorgeous
was the pomp, most royal was the grandeur, of the imposing ceremonies.
Carlyle says:—
“The magnificence of Frederick’s processionings into Konigsburg, and
of his coronation ceremonials there, what pen can describe it! what
pen need! Folio volumes with copper-plates have been written on it,
and are not yet all pasted in band-boxes or slit into spills. ‘The
diamond buttons of his majesty’s coat’ (snuff-colored or purple, I
cannot recollect) cost £1,500 apiece. By this one feature judge what
an expensive Herr. Streets were hung with cloth, carpeted with cloth,
no end of draperies and cloth; your oppressed imagination feels as if
there was cloth enough of scarlet and other bright colors to thatch
the Arctic Zone; with illuminations, cannon-salvos, fountains running
wine. Frederick himself put the crown on his head, ‘King here in my own
right, after all,’ and looked his royalest, we may fancy,—the kind eyes
of him, almost fierce for moments, and the ‘cheerfulness of pride’ well
blending with something of awful.”
And now we must hang up the picture of Frederick the grandfather, for
there has another Frederick come to claim our attention. “Courage,
poor old grandfather! Poor old man! he got his own back half broken by
a careless nurse letting him fall, and has slightly stooped ever since,
much against his will, for he would fain have been beautiful. But here
is a new edition of a Frederick, the first having gone off with so
little effect. This one’s back is still unbroken. Who knows but Heaven
may be kinder to this one? Heaven was much kinder to this one. Him
Heaven had kneaded of a more potent stuff; a mighty fellow, this one,
and a strange; of a swift, far-darting nature this one, like an Apollo
clad in sunbeams and in lightnings, and with a back which all the world
could not succeed in breaking.”
Between the old grandfather and this famous Frederick there
hangs the picture of still another Frederick, only a little less
famous,—Frederick Wilhelm, crown prince of Prussia when his famous
son was born, afterwards second king of Prussia, and withal most
ferocious in his nature, part bear and part maniac; his picture is thus
graphically sketched.
“The new monarch, who assumed the crown with the title of Frederick
William, not with that of Frederick II., to the utter consternation
of the court dismissed nearly every honorary official of the palace,
from the highest dignitary to the humblest page. His flashing eye
and determined manner were so appalling that no one ventured to
remonstrate. A clean sweep was made, so that the household was
reduced to the lowest footing of economy consistent with the supply
of indispensable wants. Eight servants were retained at six shillings
a week. His father had thirty pages; all were dismissed but three.
There were one thousand saddle-horses in the royal stables; Frederick
William kept thirty. Three-fourths of the names were struck from the
pension list. For twenty-seven years this strange man reigned. He
was like no other monarch. Great wisdom and shrewdness were blended
with unutterable folly and almost maniacal madness. Though a man of
strong powers of mind, he was very illiterate. ‘For spelling, grammar,
penmanship, and composition, his semi-articulate papers resemble
nothing else extant,—are as if done by the paw of a bear; indeed,
the utterance generally sounds more like the growling of a bear than
anything that could be handily spelled or parsed. But there is a
decisive human sense in the heart of it, and such a dire hatred of
empty bladders, unrealities, and hypocritical forms and pretenses,
which he calls wind and humbug, as is very strange indeed.’
“His energy inspired the whole kingdom, and paved the way for the
achievements of his son. The father created the machine with which the
son attained such wonderful results. He commuted the old feudal service
into a fixed money payment. He goaded the whole realm into industry,
compelling even the apple-women to knit at the stalls.
“The crown lands were farmed out. He drained bogs, planted colonies,
established manufactures, and in every way encouraged the use of
Prussian products. He carried with him invariably a stout rattan cane.
Upon the slightest provocation, like a madman, he would thrash those
who displeased him. He was an arbitrary king, ruling at his sovereign
will, and disposing of the liberty, the property, and the lives of
his subjects at his pleasure. Every year he accumulated large masses
of coin, which he deposited in barrels in the cellar of his palace.
He had no powers of graceful speech, but spent his energetic, joyless
life in grumbling and growling. He would allow no drapery, no stuffed
furniture, no carpets in his apartments. He sat upon a plain wooden
chair. He ate roughly of roast beef, despising all delicacies. His
dress was a close military blue coat, with red cuffs and collar, buff
waistcoat and breeches, and white linen gaiters to the knee. His
sword was belted around his waist. A well-worn, battered triangular
hat covered his head. He walked rapidly through the streets which
surrounded his palaces at Potsdam and Berlin. If he met any one, he
would abruptly inquire, ‘Who are you?’ When his majesty took a walk,
every human being fled before him, as if a tiger had broken loose
from a menagerie. If he met a lady in the street, he gave her a kick,
and told her to go home and mind her children. If he saw a clergyman
staring at the soldiers, he admonished the reverend gentleman to betake
himself to study and prayer, and enforced his pious advice by a sound
caning administered on the spot. But it was in his own house that he
was most unreasonable and ferocious. His palace was hell, and he the
most execrable of fiends.”
And now we will turn this unlovely picture of the bearish Frederick
William to the wall, while we examine a portrait of the young Fritz,
afterwards Frederick the Great.
In the palace of Berlin, on the 24th of January, 1712, a small infant
opened its eyes upon this world. Though small, he was of great promise
and possibility, “and thrice and four times welcome to all sovereign
and other persons in the Prussian court and Prussian realms in those
cold winter days. His father, they say, was like to have stifled him
with his caresses, so overjoyed was the man, or at least to have
scorched him in the blaze of the fire, when happily some much suitabler
female nurse snatched this little creature from the rough paternal
paws, and saved it for the benefit of Prussia and mankind.”
Then they christened this wee fellow, aged one week, with immense
magnificence and pomp of ceremony, Karl Frederick; but the Karl dropped
altogether out of practice, and Frederick (_Rich in Peace_) became
his only title; until his father became king of Prussia, and Fritz
stepped into the rank of crown prince, and subsequently became the most
renowned sovereign of his nation, and took his place in the foremost
rank of the famous rulers of the world.
Frederick William had married, when eighteen years of age, his pretty
cousin, Sophie Dorothee, daughter of George I. of England. Little Fritz
had an elder sister, named Wilhelmina. There were several younger
children afterwards, but our story mostly concerns Fritz and his sister
Wilhelmina, for whom he showed greater affection than for any other
person.
Frederick William was very desirous that Fritz should be a soldier, but
the beautiful laughing Fritz, with his long golden curls and sensitive
nature, was fonder of books and music than of war and soldiering,
which much offended his stern father; and so great was his abhorrence
of such a feminine employment as he esteemed music, that little Fritz
and Wilhelmina must needs practice in secret; and had it not been for
the aid of their mother, the Queen Sophie Dorothee, they would have
been denied this great pleasure. But the music-masters were sent to
the forests or caves by the queen, and there the prince Fritz and
Wilhelmina took their much-prized music-lessons. But one day the
stern king found Fritz and Wilhelmina marching around together, while
the laughing prince was proudly beating a drum, much to his own and
sister’s delight. The king was so overjoyed at this manifestation
of supposed military taste in his son, that he immediately called
the queen to witness the performance, and then employed an artist to
transfer the scene to canvas. This picture still hangs upon the walls
of the Charlottenburg Palace.