Thursday, 25th October, 1736, the Crown-Prince, with Lieutenant
Buddenbrock and an attendant or two, drove over into Mecklenburg, to
a Village and serene Schloss called Mirow, intending a small act of
neighborly civility there; on which perhaps an English reader of our
time will consent to accompany him. It is but some ten or twelve miles
off, in a northerly direction; Reinsberg being close on the frontier
there. A pleasant enough morning's-drive, with the October sun shining
on the silent heaths, on the many-colored woods and you.
Mirow is an Apanage for one of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz junior
branches: Mecklenburg-Strelitz being itself a junior compared to the
Mecklenburg-Schwerin of which, and its infatuated Duke, we have heard so
much in times past. Mirow and even Strelitz are not in--a very shining
state,--but indeed, we shall see them, as it were, with eyes. And the
English reader is to note especially those Mirow people, as perhaps of
some small interest to him, if he knew it. The Crown-Prince reports to
papa, in a satirical vein, not ungenially, and with much more freedom
than is usual in those Reinsberg letters of his:--
"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
"REINSBERG, 26th October, 1736.
... "Yesterday I went across to Mirow. To give my Most All-gracious
Father an idea of the place, I cannot liken it to anything higher than
Gross-Kreutz [term of comparison lost upon us; say GARRAT, at a venture,
or the CLACHAN OF ABERFOYLE]: the one house in it, that can be called
a house, is not so good as the Parson's there. I made straight for the
Schloss; which is pretty much like the Garden-house in Bornim: only
there is a rampart round it; and an old Tower, considerably in ruins,
serves as a Gateway to the House.
"Coming on the Drawbridge, I perceived an old stocking-knitter disguised
as Grenadier, with his cap, cartridge-box and musket laid to a side,
that they might not hinder him in his knitting-work. As I advanced, he
asked, 'Whence I came, and whitherward I was going?' I answered, that 'I
came from the Post-house, and was going over this Bridge:' whereupon the
Grenadier, quite in a passion, ran to the Tower; where he opened a door,
and called out the Corporal. The Corporal seemed to have hardly been out
of bed; and in his great haste, had not taken time to put on his shoes,
nor quite button his breeches; with much flurry he asked us, 'Where we
were for, and how we came to treat the Sentry in that manner?' Without
answering him at all, we went our way towards the Schloss.
"Never in my life should I have taken this for a Schloss, had it not
been that there were two glass lamps fixed at the door-posts, and the
figures of two Cranes standing in front of them, by way of Guards.
We made up to the House; and after knocking almost half an hour to no
purpose, there peered out at last an exceedingly old woman, who looked
as if she might have nursed the Prince of Mirow's father. The poor
woman, at sight of strangers, was so terrified, she slammed the door to
in our faces. We knocked again; and seeing there could nothing be made
of it, we went round to the stables; where a fellow told us, 'The young
Prince with his Consort was gone to Neu-Strelitz, a couple of miles off
[ten miles English]; and the Duchess his Mother, who lives here, had
given him, to make the better figure, all her people along with him;
keeping nobody but the old woman to herself.'
"It was still early; so I thought I could not do better than profit by
the opportunity, and have a look at Neu-Strelitz. We took post-horses;
and got thither about noon. Neu-Strelitz is properly a Village; with
only one street in it, where Chamberlains, Office-Clerks, Domestics all
lodge, and where there is an Inn. I cannot better describe it to my Most
All-gracious Father than by that street in Gumbinnen where you go up to
the Town-hall,--except that no house here is whitewashed. The Schloss is
fine, and lies on a lake, with a big garden; pretty much like Reinsberg
in situation.
"The first question I asked here was for the Prince of Mirow: but they
told me he had just driven off again to a place called Kanow; which
is only a couple of miles English from Mirow, where we had been.
Buddenbrock, who is acquainted with Neu-Strelitz, got me, from a
chamberlain, something to eat; and in the mean while, that Bohme came
in, who was Adjutant in my Most All-gracious Father's Regiment [not of
Goltz, but King's presumably]: Bohme did not know me till I hinted
to him who I was. He told me, 'The Duke of Strelitz was an excellent
seamster;'" fit to be Tailor to your Majesty in a manner, had not Fate
been cruel, "'and that he made beautiful dressing-gowns (CASSAQUINS)
with his needle.' This made me curious to see him: so we had ourselves
presented as Foreigners; and it went off so well that nobody recognized
me. I cannot better describe the Duke than by saying he is like old
Stahl [famed old medical man at Berlin, dead last year, physiognomy not
known to actual readers], in a blond Abbe's-periwig. He is extremely
silly (BLODE); his Hofrath Altrock tells him, as it were, everything he
has to say." About fifty, this poor Duke; shrunk into needlework, for a
quiet life, amid such tumults from Schwerin and elsewhere.
"Having taken leave, we drove right off to Kanow; and got thither about
six. It is a mere Village; and the Prince's Pleasure-House (LUSTHAUS)
here is nothing better than an ordinary Hunting-Lodge, such as any
Forest-keeper has. I alighted at the Miller's; and had myself
announced" at the LUSTHAUS, "by his maid: upon which the Major-Domo
(HAUS-HOFMEISTER) came over to the Mill, and complimented me; with whom
I proceeded to the Residenz," that is, back again to Mirow, "where
the whole Mirow Family were assembled. The Mother is a Princess of
Schwartzburg, and still the cleverest of them all," still under sixty;
good old Mother, intent that her poor Son should appear to advantage,
when visiting the more opulent Serenities. "His Aunt also," mother's
sister, "was there. The Lady Spouse is small; a Niece to the Prince
of Hildburghausen, who is in the Kaiser's service: she was in the
family-way; but (ABER) seemed otherwise to be a very good Princess.
"The first thing they entertained me with was, the sad misfortune
come upon their best Cook; who, with the cart that was bringing the
provisions, had overset, and broken his arm; so that the provisions had
all gone to nothing. Privately I have had inquiries made; there was
not a word of truth in the story. At last we went to table; and, sure
enough, it looked as if the Cook and his provisions had come to some
mishap; for certainly in the Three Crowns at Potsdam [worst inn, one may
guess, in the satirical vein], there is better eating than here.
"At table, there was talk of nothing but of all the German Princes who
are not right in their wits (NICHT RECHT KLUG)," as Mirow himself,
your Majesty knows, is reputed to be!" There was Weimar, [Wilhelmina's
acquaintance; wedded, not without difficulty, to a superfluous Baireuth
Sister-in-law by Wilhelmina (_ Memoires de Wilhelmina,_ ii. 185-194):
Grandfather of Goethe's Friend;--is nothing like fairly out of his wits;
only has a flea (as we may say) dancing occasionally in the ear of him.
Perhaps it is so with the rest of these Serenities, here fallen upon
evil tongues?] Gotha, Waldeck, Hoym, and the whole lot of them, brought
upon the carpet:--and after our good Host had got considerably drunk, we
rose,--and he lovingly promised me that 'he and his whole Family would
come and visit Reinsberg.' Come he certainly will; but how I shall get
rid of him, God knows.
"I most submissively beg pardon of my Most All-gracious Father for
this long Letter; and"--we will terminate here. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
xxvii. part 3d, pp. 104-106.]
Dilapidated Mirow and its inmates, portrayed in this satirical way,
except as a view of Serene Highnesses fallen into Sleepy Hollow, excites
little notice in the indolent mind; and that little, rather pleasantly
contemptuous than really profitable. But one fact ought to kindle
momentary interest in English readers: the young foolish Herr, in this
dilapidated place, is no other than our "Old Queen Charlotte's" Father
that is to be,--a kind of Ancestor of ours, though we little guessed
it! English readers will scan him with new curiosity, when he pays that
return visit at Reinsberg. Which he does within the fortnight:--
"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
"REINSBERG, 6th November, 1736.
... "that my Most All-gracious Father has had the graciousness to send
us some Swans. My Wife also has been exceedingly delighted at the fine
Present sent her.... General Praetorius," Danish Envoy, with whose Court
there is some tiff of quarrel, "came hither yesterday to take leave of
us; he seems very unwilling to quit Prussia.
"This morning about three o'clock, my people woke me, with word that
there was a Stafette come with Letters,"--from your Majesty or Heaven
knows whom! "I spring up in all haste; and opening the Letter,--find it
is from the Prince of Mirow; who informs me that 'he will be here to-day
at noon.' I have got all things in readiness to receive him, as if he
were the Kaiser in person; and I hope there will be material for some
amusement to my Most All-gracious Father, by next post."--Next post is
half a week hence:--
"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
"REINSBERG, 11th Novemher.
... "The Prince of Mirow's visit was so curious, I must give my Most
All-gracious Father a particular report of it. In my last, I mentioned
how General Praetorius had come to us: he was in the room, when I
entered with the Prince of Mirow; at sight of him Praetorius exclaimed,
loud enough to be heard by everybody, 'VOILA LE PRINCE CAJUCA!'
[Nickname out of some Romance, fallen extinct long since.] Not one of us
could help laughing; and I had my own trouble to turn it so that he did
not get angry.
"Scarcely was the Prince got in, when they came to tell me, for his
worse luck, that Prince Heinrich," the Ill Margraf, "was come;--who
accordingly trotted him out, in such a way that we thought we should all
have died with laughing. Incessant praises were given him, especially
for his fine clothes, his fine air, and his uncommon agility in dancing.
And indeed I thought the dancing would never end.
"In the afternoon, to spoil his fine coat,"--a contrivance of the Ill
Margraf's, I should think,--"we stept out to shoot at target in the
rain: he would not speak of it, but one could observe he was in much
anxiety about the coat. In the evening, he got a glass or two in his
head, and grew extremely merry; said at last, 'He was sorry that, for
divers state-reasons and businesses of moment, he must of necessity
return home;'--which, however, he put off till about two in the morning.
I think, next day he would not remember very much of it.
"Prince Heinrich is gone to his Regiment again;" Praetorius too is
off;--and we end with the proper KOW-TOW. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvii.
part 3d, p. 109.]
These Strelitzers, we said, are juniors to infatuated Schwerin; and poor
Mirow is again junior to Strelitz: plainly one of the least opulent
of Residences. At present, it is Dowager Apanage (WITTWEN-SITZ) to the
Widow of the late Strelitz of blessed memory: here, with her one Child,
a boy now grown to what manhood we see, has the Serene Dowager lived,
these twenty-eight years past; a Schwartzburg by birth, "the cleverest
head among them all." Twenty-eight years in dilapidated Mirow: so long
has that Tailoring Duke, her eldest STEP-SON (child of a prior wife)
been Supreme Head of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; employed with his needle, or
we know not how,--collapsed plainly into tailoring at this date. There
was but one other Son; this clever Lady's, twenty years junior,--"Prince
of Mirow" whom we now see. Karl Ludwig Friedrich is the name of this
one; age now twenty-eight gone. He, ever since the third month of him,
when the poor Serene Father died ("May, 1703"), has been at Mirow with
Mamma; getting what education there was,--not too successfully, as would
appear. Eight years ago, "in 1726," Mamma sent him off upon his
travels; to Geneva, Italy, France: he looked in upon Vienna, too; got a
Lieutenant-Colonelcy in the Kaiser's Service, but did not like it;
soon gave it up; and returned home to vegetate, perhaps to seek a
wife,--having prospects of succession in Strelitz. For the Serene
Half-Brother proves to have no children: were his tailoring once
finished in the world, our Prince of Mirow is Duke in Chief. On this
basis the wedded last year; the little Wife has already brought him one
child, a Daughter; and has (as Friedrich notices) another under way,
if it prosper. No lack of Daughters, nor of Sons by and by: eight years
hence came the little Charlotte,--subsequently Mother of England: much
to her and our astonishment. [Born (at Mirow) 19th May, 1744; married
(London), 8th September, 1761; died, 18th November, 1818 (Michaelis, ii.
445, 446; Hubner, t. 195; OErtel, pp. 43, 22).]
The poor man did not live to be Duke of Strelitz; he died, 1752, in
little Charlotte's eighth year; Tailor Duke SURVIVING him a few months.
Little Charlotte's Brother did then succeed, and lasted till 1794; after
whom a second Brother, father of the now Serene Strelitzes;--who also
is genealogically notable. For from him there came another still more
famous Queen: Louisa of Prussia; beautiful to look upon, as "Aunt
Charlotte" was not, in a high degree; and who showed herself a Heroine
in Napoleon's time, as Aunt Charlotte never was called to do. Both Aunt
and Niece were women of sense, of probity, propriety; fairly beyond the
average of Queens. And as to their early poverty, ridiculous to this
gold-nugget generation, I rather guess it may have done them benefits
which the gold-nugget generation, in its Queens and otherwise, stands
far more in want of than it thinks.
But enough of this Prince of Mirow, whom Friedrich has accidentally
unearthed for us. Indeed there is no farther history of him, for or
against. He evidently was not thought to have invented gunpowder, by
the public. And yet who knows but, in his very simplicity, there lay
something far beyond the Ill Margraf to whom he was so quizzable? Poor
down-pressed brother mortal; somnambulating so pacifically in Sleepy
Hollow yonder, and making no complaint!
He continued, though soon with less enthusiasm, and in the end very
rarely, a visitor of Friedrich's during this Reinsberg time. Patriotic
English readers may as well take the few remaining vestiges, too, before
quite dismissing him to Sleepy Hollow. Here they are, swept accurately
together, from that Correspondence of Friedrich with Papa:--
"REINSBERG, 18th NOVEMBER, 1736.... report most submissively that
the Prince of Mirow has again been here, with his Mother, Wife, Aunt,
Hofdames, Cavaliers and entire Household; so that I thought it was the
Flight out of Egypt [Exodus of the Jews]. I begin to have a fear of
those good people, as they assured me they would have such pleasure in
coming often!"
"REINSBERG, 1st FEBRUARY, 1737." Let us give it in the Original too, as
a specimen of German spelling:--
_"Der Prints von Mihrau ist vohr einigen thagen hier gewessen und haben
wier einige Wasser schwermer in der See ihm zu Ehren gesmissen, seine
frau ist mit eber thoten Printzesin nieder geKomen.--Der General
schulenburg ist heute hier gekommen und wirdt morgen"_--That is to say:--
"The Prince of Mirow was here a few days ago; and we let off, in honor
of him, a few water-rockets over the Lake: his Wife has been brought to
bed of a dead Princess. General Schulenburg [with a small s] came hither
to-day; and to-morrow will"...
"REINSBERG, 28th MARCH, 1737.... Prince von Mirow was here yesterday;
and tried shooting at the popinjay with us; he cannot see rightly, and
shoots always with help of an opera-glass."
"RUPPIN, 20th OCTOBER, 1737. The Prince of Mirow was with us last
Friday; and babbled much in his high way; among other things, white-lied
to us, that the Kaiserinn gave him a certain porcelain snuff-box he was
handling; but on being questioned more tightly, he confessed to me he
had bought it in Vienna." [_Briefe an Vater,_ p. 71 (CARET in _OEuvres_
); pp. 85-114.--See Ib. 6th November, 1737, for faint trace of a visit;
and 25th September, 1739, for another still fainter, the last there is.]
And so let him somnambulate yonder, till the two Queens, like winged
Psyches, one after the other, manage to emerge from him.
Friedrich's Letters to his Father are described by some Prussian Editors
as "very attractive, SEHR ANZIEHENDE BRIEFE;" which, to a Foreign
reader, seems a strange account of them. Letters very hard to understand
completely; and rather insignificant when understood. They turn on Gifts
sent to and sent from, "swans," "hams," with the unspeakable thanks for
them; on recruits of so many inches; on the visitors that have been;
they assure us that "there is no sickness in the regiment," or tell
expressly how much:--wholly small facts; nothing of speculation, and of
ceremonial pipe-clay a great deal. We know already under what
nightmare conditions Friedrich wrote to his Father! The attitude of the
Crown-Prince, sincerely reverent and filial, though obliged to appear
ineffably so, and on the whole struggling under such mountains of
encumbrance, yet loyally maintaining his equilibrium, does at last
acquire, in these Letters, silently a kind of beauty to the best class
of readers. But that is nearly their sole merit. By far the most human
of them, that on the first visit to Mirow, the reader has now seen;
and may thank us much that we show him no more of them. [_Friedrich
des Grossen Briefe an seinen Vater_ (Berlin, 1838)]. Reduced in size,
by suitable omissions; and properly spelt; but with little other
elucidation for a stranger: in _OEuvres,_ xxvii. part 3d, pp, 1-123
(Berlin, 1856).