Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown-Prince of Prussia, son of Friedrich I. and
Father of this little infant who will one day be Friedrich II., did
himself make some noise in the world as second King of Prussia; notable
not as Friedrich's father alone; and will much concern us during the
rest of his life. He is, at this date, in his twenty-fourth year: a
thick-set, sturdy, florid, brisk young fellow; with a jovial laugh in
him, yet of solid grave ways, occasionally somewhat volcanic; much given
to soldiering, and out-of-door exercises, having little else to do
at present. He has been manager, or, as it were, Vice-King, on an
occasional absence of his Father; he knows practically what the state
of business is; and greatly disapproves of it, as is thought. But
being bound to silence on that head, he keeps silence, and meddles with
nothing political. He addicts himself chiefly to mustering, drilling and
practical military duties, while here at Berlin; runs out, often enough,
wife and perhaps a comrade or two along with him, to hunt, and take his
ease, at Wusterhausen (some fifteen or twenty miles [English miles,--as
always unless the contrary be stated. The German MEILE is about five
miles English; German STUNDE about three.] southeast of Berlin), where
he has a residence amid the woody moorlands.
But soldiering is his grand concern. Six years ago, summer 1706,
[Forster, i. 116] at a very early age, he went to the wars,--grand
Spanish-Succession War, which was then becoming very fierce in the
Netherlands; Prussian troops always active on the Marlborough-Eugene
side. He had just been betrothed, was not yet wedded; thought good to
turn the interim to advantage in that way. Then again, spring 1709,
after his marriage and after his Father's marriage, "the Court being
full of intrigues," and nothing but silence recommendable there, a
certain renowned friend of his, Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, of
whom we shall yet hear a great deal,--who, still only about thirty, had
already covered himself with laurels in those wars (Blenheim, Bridge
of Casano, Lines of Turin, and other glories), but had now got into
intricacies with the weaker sort, and was out of command,--agreed
with Friedrich Wilhelm that it would be well to go and serve there as
volunteers, since not otherwises. [Varnhagen von Ense, _ Furst Leopold
von Anhalt-Dessau _ (in _ Biographische Denkmale, _ 2d edition, Berlin,
1845), p. 185. _ Thaten und Leben des weltberuhmten Furstens Leopoldi
von Anhalt-Dessau _ (Leipzig, 1742), p. 73. Forster, i. 129.] A
Crown-Prince of Prussia, ought he not to learn soldiering, of all
things; by every opportunity? Which Friedrich Wilhelm did, with
industry; serving zealous apprenticeship under Marlborough and Eugene,
in this manner; plucking knowledge, as the bubble reputation, and all
else in that field has to be plucked, from the cannon's mouth. Friedrich
Wilhelm kept by Marlborough, now as formerly; friend Leopold being
commonly in Eugene's quarter, who well knew the worth of him, ever since
Blenheim and earlier. Friedrich Wilhelm saw hot service, that campaign
of 1709; siege of Tournay, and far more;--stood, among other things, the
fiery Battle of Malplaquet, one of the terriblest and deadliest feats of
war ever done. No want of intrepidity and rugged soldier-virtue in the
Prussian troops or their Crown-Prince; least of all on that terrible
day, 11th September, 1709;--of which he keeps the anniversary ever
since, and will do all his life, the doomsday of Malplaquet always a
memorable day to him. [Forster, i. 138.] He is more and more intimate
with Leopold, and loves good soldiering beyond all things. Here at
Berlin he has already got a regiment of his own, tallish fine men; and
strives to make it in all points a very pattern of a regiment.
For the rest, much here is out of joint, and far from satisfactory to
him. Seven years ago [1st February, 1705.] he lost his own brave Mother
and her love; of which we must speak farther by and by. In her stead
he has got a fantastic, melancholic, ill-natured Stepmother, with whom
there was never any good to be done; who in fact is now fairly mad,
and kept to her own apartments. He has to see here, and say little,
a chagrined heart-worn Father flickering painfully amid a scene much
filled with expensive futile persons, and their extremely pitiful cabals
and mutual rages; scene chiefly of pompous inanity, and the art of
solemnly and with great labor doing nothing. Such waste of labor and of
means: what can one do but be silent? The other year, Preussen (PRUSSIA
Proper, province lying far eastward, out of sight) was sinking under
pestilence and black ruin and despair: the Crown-Prince, contrary to
wont, broke silence, and begged some dole or subvention for these poor
people; but there was nothing to be had. Nothing in the treasury, your
Royal Highness:--Preussen will shift for itself; sublime dramaturgy,
which we call his Majesty's Government, costs so much! And Preussen,
mown away by death, lies much of it vacant ever since; which has
completed the Crown-Prince's disgust; and, I believe, did produce some
change of ministry, or other ineffectual expedient, on the old Father's
part. Upon which the Crown-Prince locks up his thoughts again. He has
confused whirlpools, of Court intrigues, ceremonials, and troublesome
fantasticalities, to steer amongst; which he much dislikes, no man more;
having an eye and heart set on the practical only, and being in mind as
in body something of the genus ROBUSTUM, of the genus FEROX withal. He
has been wedded six years; lost two children, as we saw; and now again
he has two living.
His wife, Sophie Dorothee of Hanover, is his cousin as well. She is
brother's-daughter of his Mother, Sophie Charlotte: let the reader
learn to discriminate these two names. Sophie Charlotte, late Queen of
Prussia, was also of Hanover: she probably had sometimes, in her quiet
motherly thought, anticipated this connection for him, while she yet
lived. It is certain Friedrich Wilhelm was carried to Hanover in early
childhood: his Mother,--that Sophie Charlotte, a famed Queen and lady
in her day, Daughter of Electress Sophie, and Sister of the George who
became George I. of England by and by,--took him thither; some time
about the beginning of 1693, his age then five; and left him there on
trial; alleging, and expecting, he might have a better breeding there.
And this, in a Court where Electress Sophie was chief lady, and Elector
Ernst, fit to be called Gentleman Ernst, ["Her Highness (the Electress
Sophie) has the character of the merry debonnaire Princess of Germany;
a lady of extraordinary virtues and accomplishments; mistress of the
Italian, French, High and Low Dutch, and English languages, which she
speaks to perfection. Her husband (Elector Ernst) has the title of the
Gentleman of Germany; a graceful and," &c. &c. W. Carr, _ Remarks of
the Governments of the severall Parts of Germanie, Denmark, Sweedland
_ (Amsterdam, 1688), p. 147. See also _ Ker of Kersland _ (still more
emphatic on this point, _ soepius _)] the politest of men, was chief
lord,--and where Leibnitz, to say nothing of lighter notabilities, was
flourishing,--seemed a reasonable expectation. Nevertheless, it came to
nothing, this articulate purpose of the visit; though perhaps the deeper
silent purposes of it might not be quite unfulfilled.
Gentleman Ernst had lately been made "Elector" (_ Kurfurst, _ instead
of _ Herzog _),--his Hanover no longer a mere Sovereign Duchy, but an
Electorate henceforth, new "NINTH Electorate," by Ernst's life-long
exertion and good luck;--which has spread a fine radiance, for the time,
over court and people in those parts; and made Ernst a happier man than
ever, in his old age. Gentleman Ernst and Electress Sophie, we need not
doubt, were glad to see their burly Prussian grandson,--a robust,
rather mischievous boy of five years old;--and anything that brought her
Daughter oftener about her (an only Daughter too, and one so gifted) was
sure to be welcome to the cheery old Electress, and her Leibnitz and her
circle. For Sophie Charlotte was a bright presence, and a favorite with
sage and gay.
Uncle George again, "_ Kurprinz _ Georg Ludwig" (Electoral Prince and
Heir-Apparent), who became George I. of England; he, always a taciturn,
saturnine, somewhat grim-visaged man, not without thoughts of his own
but mostly inarticulate thoughts, was, just at this time, in a deep
domestic intricacy. Uncle George the Kurprinz was painfully detecting,
in these very months, that his august Spouse and cousin, a brilliant not
uninjured lady, had become an indignant injuring one; that she had gone,
and was going, far astray in her walk of life! Thus all is not radiance
at Hanover either, Ninth Elector though we are; but, in the soft
sunlight, there quivers a streak of the blackness of very Erebus withal.
Kurprinz George, I think, though he too is said to have been good to the
boy, could not take much interest in this burly Nephew of his just now!
Sure enough, it was in this year 1693, that the famed Konigsmark tragedy
came ripening fast towards a crisis in Hanover; and next year the
catastrophe arrived. A most tragic business; of which the little Boy,
now here, will know more one day. Perhaps it was on this very visit, on
one visit it credibly was, that Sophie Charlotte witnessed a sad scene
in the Schloss of Hanover high words rising, where low cooings had
been more appropriate; harsh words, mutually recriminative, rising ever
higher; ending, it is thought, in THINGS, or menaces and motions towards
things (actual box on the ear, some call it),--never to be forgotten
or forgiven! And on Sunday 1st of July, 1694, Colonel Count Philip
Konigsmark, Colonel in the Hanover Dragoons, was seen for the last time
in this world. From that date, he has vanished suddenly underground,
in an inscrutable manner: never more shall the light of the sun, or any
human eye behold that handsome blackguard man. Not for a hundred and
fifty years shall human creatures know, or guess with the smallest
certainty, what has become of him.
And shortly after Konigsmark's disappearance, there is this sad
phenomenon visible: A once very radiant Princess (witty, haughty-minded,
beautiful, not wise or fortunate) now gone all ablaze into angry tragic
conflagration; getting locked into the old Castle of Ahlden, in the
moory solitudes of Luneburg Heath: to stay there till she die,--thirty
years as it proved,--and go into ashes and angry darkness as she may.
Old peasants, late in the next century, will remember that they used
to see her sometimes driving on the Heath,--beautiful lady, long black
hair, and the glitter of diamonds in it; sometimes the reins in her own
hand, but always with a party of cavalry round her, and their swords
drawn. [_ Die Herzogin von Ahlden _ (Leipzig, 1852), p. 22. Divorce was,
28th December, 1694; death, 13th November, 1726,--age then 60.] "Duchess
of Ahlden," that was her title in the eclipsed state. Born Princess of
Zelle; by marriage, Princess of Hanover (_ Kurprinzessin _); would
have been Queen of England, too, had matters gone otherwise than they
did.--Her name, like that of a little Daughter she had, is Sophie
Dorothee: she is Cousin and Divorced Wife of Kurprinz George; divorced,
and as it were abolished alive, in this manner. She is little Friedrich
Wilhelm's Aunt-in-law; and her little Daughter comes to be his Wife in
process of time. Of him, or of those belonging to him, she took small
notice, I suppose, in her then mood, the crisis coming on so fast. In
her happier innocent days she had two children, a King that is to be,
and a Queen; George II. of England, Sophie Dorothee of Prussia; but must
not now call them hers, or ever see them again.
This was the Konigsmark tragedy at Hanover; fast ripening towards its
catastrophe while little Friedrich Wilhelm was there. It has been, ever
since, a rumor and dubious frightful mystery to mankind: but within
these few years, by curious accidents (thefts, discoveries of written
documents, in various countries, and diligent study of them), it has at
length become a certainty and clear fact, to those who are curious about
it. Fact surely of a rather horrible sort;--yet better, I must say,
than was suspected: not quite so bad in the state of fact as in that
of rumor. Crime enough is in it, sin and folly on both sides; there is
killing too, but NOT assassination (as it turns out); on the whole
there is nothing of atrocity, or nothing that was not accidental,
unavoidable;--and there is a certain greatness of DECORUM on the part
of those Hanover Princes and official gentlemen, a depth of silence,
of polite stoicism, which deserves more praise than it will get in our
times. Enough now of the Konigsmark tragedy; [A considerable dreary mass
of books, pamphlets, lucubrations, false all and of no worth or of less,
have accumulated on this dark subject, during the last hundred and fifty
years; nor has the process yet stopped,--as it now well might. For there
have now two things occurred in regard to it FIRST: In the year 1847,
a Swedish Professor, named Palmblad, groping about for other objects in
the College Library of Lund (which is in the country of the Konigsmark
connections), came upon a Box of Old Letters,--Letters undated, signed
only with initials, and very enigmatic till well searched into,--which
have turned out to be the very Autographs of the Princess and her
Konigsmark; throwing of course a henceforth indisputable light on their
relation. SECOND THING: A cautious exact old gentleman, of diplomatic
habits (understood to be "Count Von Schulenburg-Klosterrode of
Dresden"), has, since that event, unweariedly gone into the whole
matter; and has brayed it everywhere, and pounded it small; sifting,
with sublime patience, not only those Swedish Autographs, but the whole
mass of lying books, pamphlets, hints and notices, old and recent; and
bringing out (truly in an intricate and thrice-wearisome, but for the
first time in an authentic way) what real evidence there is. In which
evidence the facts, or essential fact, lie at last indisputable enough.
His Book, thick Pamphlet rather, is that same _ Herzogin von Ahlden _
(Leipzig, 1852) cited above. The dreary wheelbarrowful of others I had
rather not mention again; but leave Count von Schulenburg to mention and
describe them,--which he does abundantly, so many as had accumulated up
to that date of 1852, to the affliction more or less of sane mankind.]
contemporaneous with Friedrich Wilhelm's stay at Hanover, but not
otherwise much related to him or his doings there.
He got no improvement in breeding, as we intimated; none at all; fought,
on the contrary, with his young Cousin (afterwards our George II.), a
boy twice his age, though of weaker bone; and gave him a bloody nose. To
the scandal and consternation of the French Protestant gentlewomen and
court-dames in their stiff silks: "Ahee, your Electoral Highness!" This
had been a rough unruly boy from the first discovery of him. At a very
early stage, he, one morning while the nurses were dressing him, took to
investigating one of his shoe buckles; would, in spite of remonstrances,
slobber it about in his mouth; and at length swallowed it down,--beyond
mistake; and the whole world cannot get it up! Whereupon, wild wail of
nurses; and his "Mother came screaming," poor mother:--It is the same
small shoe-buckle which is still shown, with a ticket and date to it,
"31 December, 1692," in the Berlin _ Kunstkammer _; for it turned out
harmless, after all the screaming; and a few grains of rhubarb
restored it safely to the light of day; henceforth a thrice-memorable
shoe-buckle. [Forster, i. 74. Erman, _ Memoires de Sophie Charlotte _
(Berlin, 1801), p. 130.]
Another time, it is recorded, though with less precision of detail, his
Governess the Dame Montbail having ordered him to do something which was
intolerable to the princely mind, the princely mind resisted in a very
strange way: the princely body, namely, flung itself suddenly out of a
third-story window, nothing but the hands left within; and hanging on
there by the sill, and fixedly resolute to obey gravitation rather than
Montbail, soon brought the poor lady to terms. Upon which, indeed, he
had been taken from her, and from the women altogether, as evidently now
needing rougher government. Always an unruly fellow, and dangerous
to trust among crockery. At Hanover he could do no good in the way of
breeding: sage Leibnitz himself, with his big black periwig and large
patient nose, could have put no metaphysics into such a boy. Sublime _
Theodicee _ (Leibnitzian "justification of the ways of God") was not an
article this individual had the least need of, nor at any time the least
value for. "Justify? What doomed dog questions it, then? Are you
for Bedlam, then?"--and in maturer years his rattan might have been
dangerous! For this was a singular individual of his day; human soul
still in robust health, and not given to spin its bowels into cobwebs.
He is known only to have quarrelled much with Cousin George, during the
year or so he spent in those parts.
But there was another Cousin at Hanover, just one other, little Sophie
Dorothee (called after her mother), a few months older than himself; by
all accounts, a really pretty little child, whom he liked a great deal
better. She, I imagine, was his main resource, while on this Hanover
visit; with her were laid the foundations of an intimacy which ripened
well afterwards. Some say it was already settled by the parents that
there was to be a marriage in due time. Settled it could hardly be; for
Wilhelmina tells us, [_ Memoires de la Margrave de Bareith, _ i. l.] her
Father had a "choice of three" allowed him, on coming to wed; and it is
otherwise discernible there had been eclipses and uncertainties, in the
interim, on his part. Settled, no; but hoped and vaguely pre-figured,
we may well suppose. And at all events, it has actually come to pass;
"Father being ardently in love with the Hanover Princess," says our
Margravine, "and much preferring her to the other two," or to any and
all others. Wedded, with great pomp, 28th November, 1706; [Forster, i.
117.]--and Sophie Dorothee, the same that was his pretty little Cousin
at Hanover twenty years ago, she is mother of the little Boy now born
and christened, whom men are to call Frederick the Great in coming
generations.
Sophie Dorothee is described to us by courtier contemporaries as "one
of the most beautiful princesses of her day:" Wilhelmina, on the other
hand, testifies that she was never strictly to be called beautiful, but
had a pleasant attractive physiognomy; which may be considered better
than strict beauty. Uncommon grace of figure and look, testifies
Wilhelmina; much dignity and soft dexterity, on social occasions;
perfect in all the arts of deportment; and left an impression on you at
once kindly and royal. Portraits of her, as Queen at a later age, are
frequent in the Prussian Galleries; she is painted sitting, where I best
remember her. A serious, comely, rather plump, maternal-looking Lady;
something thoughtful in those gray still eyes of hers, in the turn of
her face and carriage of her head, as she sits there, considerately
gazing out upon a world which would never conform to her will. Decidedly
a handsome, wholesome and affectionate aspect of face. Hanoverian in
type, that is to say, blond, florid, slightly PROFUSE;--yet the better
kind of Hanoverian, little or nothing of the worse or at least the worst
kind. The eyes, as I say, are gray, and quiet, almost sad; expressive of
reticence and reflection, of slow constancy rather than of SPEED in
any kind. One expects, could the picture speak, the querulous sound
of maternal and other solicitude; of a temper tending towards the
obstinate, the quietly unchangeable;--loyal patience not wanting, yet
in still larger measure royal impatience well concealed, and long
and carefully cherished. This is what I read in Sophie Dorothee's
Portraits,--probably remembering what I had otherwise read, and come to
know of her. She too will not a little concern us in the first part
of this History. I find, for one thing, she had given much of her
physiognomy to the Friedrich now born. In his Portraits as Prince-Royal,
he strongly resembles her; it is his mother's face informed with youth
and new fire, and translated into the masculine gender: in his later
Portraits, one less and less recognizes the mother.
Friedrich Wilhelm, now in the sixth year of wedlock, is still very fond
of his Sophie Dorothee,--_ "Fiechen" (Feekin_ diminutive of _ Sophie _),
as he calls her; she also having, and continuing to have, the due wife's
regard for her solid, honest, if somewhat explosive bear. He troubles
her a little now and then, it is said, with whiffs of jealousy; but they
are whiffs only, the product of accidental moodinesses in him, or of
transient aspects, misinterpreted, in the court-life of a young and
pretty woman. As the general rule, he is beautifully good-humored, kind
even, for a bear; and, on the whole, they have begun their partnership
under good omens. And indeed we may say, in spite of sad tempests that
arose, they continued it under such. She brought him gradually no fewer
than fourteen children, of whom ten survived him and came to maturity:
and it is to be admitted their conjugal relation, though a royal, was
always a human one; the main elements of it strictly observed on both
sides; all quarrels in it capable of being healed again, and the feeling
on both sides true, however troublous. A rare fact among royal wedlocks,
and perhaps a unique one in that epoch.
The young couple, as is natural in their present position, have many
eyes upon them, and not quite a paved path in this confused court of
Friedrich I. But they are true to one another; they seem indeed to have
held well aloof from all public business or private cabal; and go along
silently expecting, and perhaps silently resolving this and that in
the future tense; but with moderate immunity from paternal or other
criticisms, for the present. The Crown-Prince drills or hunts, with his
Grumkows, Anhalt-Dessaus: these are harmless employments;--and a man may
have within his own head what thoughts he pleases, without offence so
long as he keeps them there. Friedrich the old Grandfather lived only
thirteen months after the birth of his grandson: Friedrich Wilhelm was
then King; thoughts then, to any length, could become actions on the
part of Friedrich Wilhelm.