While these Mirow visits are about their best, and much else at
Reinsberg is in comfortable progress, Friedrich's first year there just
ending, there come accounts from England of quarrels broken out between
the Britannic Majesty and his Prince of Wales. Discrepancies risen now
to a height; and getting into the very Newspapers;--the Rising Sun too
little under the control of the Setting, in that unquiet Country!
Prince Fred of England did not get to the Rhine Campaign, as we saw:
he got some increase of Revenue, a Household of his own; and finally
a Wife, as he had requested: a Sachsen-Gotha Princess; who, peerless
Wilhelmma being unattainable, was welcome to Prince Fred. She is in the
family-way, this summer 1737, a very young lady still; result thought to
be due--When? Result being potential Heir to the British Nation, there
ought to have been good calculation of the time when! But apparently
nobody had well turned his attention that way. Or if Fred and Spouse
had, as is presumable, Fred had given no notice to the Paternal
Majesty,--"Let Paternal Majesty, always so cross to me, look out
for himself in that matter." Certain it is, Fred and Spouse, in the
beginning of August, 1737, are out at Hampton Court; potential Heir due
before long, and no preparation made for it. August 11th in the evening,
out at solitary Hampton Court; the poor young Mother's pains came on; no
Chancellor there, no Archbishop to see the birth,--in fact, hardly
the least medical help, and of political altogether none. Fred, in
his flurry, or by forethought,--instead of dashing off expresses, at
a gallop as of Epsom, to summon the necessary persons and appliances,
yoked wheeled vehicles and rolled off to the old unprovided Palace of
St. James's, London, with his poor Wife in person! Unwarned, unprovided;
where nevertheless she was safely delivered that same night,--safely,
as if by miracle. The crisis might have taken her on the very highway:
never was such an imprudence. Owing, I will believe, to Fred's sudden
flurry in the unprovided moment,--unprovided, by reason of prior
desuetudes and discouragements to speech, on Papa's side. A shade of
malice there might also be. Papa doubts not, it was malice aforethought
all of it. "Had the potential Heir of the British Nation gone to wreck,
or been born on the highway, from my quarrels with this bad Fred, what
a scrape had I been in!" thinks Papa, and is in a towering permanence
of wrath ever since; the very Newspapers and coffee-houses and populaces
now all getting vocal with it.
Papa, as it turned out, never more saw the face of Fred. Judicious
Mamma, Queen Caroline, could not help a visit, one visit to the poor
young Mother, so soon as proper: coming out from the visit, Prince Fred
obsequiously escorting her to her carriage, found a crowd of people and
populace, in front of St. James's; and there knelt down on the street,
in his fine silk breeches, careless of the mud, to "beg a Mother's
blessing," and show what a son he was, he for his part, in this
sad discrepancy that had risen! Mamma threw a silent glance on him,
containing volumes of mixed tenor; drove off; and saw no more of Fred,
she either. I fear, this kneeling in the mud tells against Prince Fred;
but in truth I do not know, nor even much care. [Lord Hervey, _Memoirs
of George the Second,_ ii. 362-370, 409.] What a noise in England about
nothing at all!--What a noisy Country, your Prussian Majesty! Foolish
"rising sun" not restrainable there by the setting or shining one;
opposition parties bowling him about among the constellations, like a
very mad object!--
But in a month or two, there comes worse news out of England; falling
heavy on the heart of Prussian Majesty: news that Queen Caroline herself
is dead. ["Sunday evening, 1st December (20th Nov.), 1737." Ib. pp.
510-539.] Died as she had lived, with much constancy of mind, with a
graceful modest courage and endurance; sinking quietly under the load of
private miseries long quietly kept hidden, but now become too heavy,
and for which the appointed rest was now here. Little George blubbered
a good deal; fidgeted and flustered a good deal: much put about, poor
foolish little soul. The dying Caroline recommended HIM to Walpole;
advised his Majesty to marry again. _"Non, j'aurai des maitresses_ (No,
I'll have mistresses)!" sobbed his Majesty passionately. _"Ah, mon Dieu,
cela n'empeche pas_" (that does not an experience of the case). There is
something stoically tragic in the history of Caroline with her flighty
vaporing little King: seldom had foolish husband so wise a wife. "Dead!"
thought Friedrich Wilhelm, looking back through the whirlwinds of life,
into sunny young scenes far enough away: "Dead!"--Walpole continued to
manage the little King; but not for long; England itself rising in
objection. Jenkins's Ear, I understand, is lying in cotton; and there
are mad inflammable strata in that Nation, capable of exploding at a
great rate.
From the Eastern regions our Newspapers are very full of events: War
with the Turk going on there; Russia and Austria both doing their best
against the Turk. The Russians had hardly finished their Polish-Election
fighting, when they decided to have a stroke at the Turk,--Turk always
an especial eye-sorrow to them, since that "Treaty of the Pruth," and
Czar Peter's sad rebuff there:--Munnich marched direct out of Poland
through the Ukraine, with his eye on the Crimea and furious business
in that quarter. This is his second Campaign there, this of 1737; and
furious business has not failed. Last year he stormed the Lines of
Perecop, tore open the Crimea; took Azoph, he or Lacy under him;
took many things: this year he had laid his plans for Oczakow;--takes
Oczakow,--fiery event, blazing in all the Newspapers, at Reinsberg
and elsewhere. Concerning which will the reader accept this condensed
testimony by an eye-witness?
"OCZAKOW, 13th JULY, 1737. Day before yesterday, Feldmarschall Munnich
got to Oczakow, as he had planned,"--strong Turkish Town in the nook
between the Black Sea and the estuary of the Dnieper;--"with intention
to besiege it. Siege-train, stores of every sort, which he had set
afloat upon the Dnieper in time enough, were to have been ready for
him at Oczakow. But the flotilla had been detained by shallows, by
waterfalls; not a boat was come, nor could anybody say when they were
coming. Meanwhile nothing is to be had here; the very face of the earth
the Turks have burnt: not a blade of grass for cavalry within eight
miles, nor a stick of wood for engineers; not a hole for covert, and
the ground so hard you cannot raise redoubts on it: Munnich perceives he
must attempt, nevertheless.
"On his right, by the sea-shore, Munnich finds some remains of gardens,
palisades; scrapes together some vestige of shelter there (five
thousand, or even ten thousand pioneers working desperately all that
first night, 11th July, with only half success); and on the morrow
commences firing with what artillery he has. Much outfired by the
Turks inside;--his enterprise as good as desperate, unless the Dnieper
flotilla come soon. July 12th, all day the firing continues, and all
night; Turks extremely furious: about an hour before daybreak, we notice
burning in the interior, 'Some wooden house kindled by us, town got on
fire yonder,'--and, praise to Heaven, they do not seem to succeed in
quenching it again. Munnich turns out, in various divisions; intent
on trying something, had he the least engineer furniture;--hopes
desperately there may be promise for him in that internal burning still
visible.
"In the centre of Munnich's line is one General Keith, a deliberate
stalwart Scotch gentleman, whom we shall know better; Munnich himself is
to the right: Could not one try it by scalade; keep the internal burning
free to spread, at any rate? 'Advance within musket-shot, General
Keith!' orders Munnich's Aide-de-Camp cantering up. 'I have been
this good while within it,' answers Keith, pointing to his dead men.
Aide-de-Camp canters up a second time: 'Advance within half musket-shot,
General Keith, and quit any covert you have!' Keith does so; sends, with
his respects to Feldmarschall Munnich, his remonstrance against such
a waste of human life. Aide-de-Camp canters up a third time:
'Feldmarschall Munnich is for trying a scalade; hopes General Keith will
do his best to co-operate!' 'Forward, then!' answers Keith; advances
close to the glacis; finds a wet ditch twelve feet broad, and has not a
stick of engineer furniture. Keith waits there two hours; his men,
under fire all the while, trying this and that to get across; Munnich's
scalade going off ineffectual in like manner:--till at length Keith's
men, and all men, tire of such a business, and roll back in great
confusion out of shot-range. Munnich gives himself up for lost. And
indeed, says Mannstein, had the Turks sallied out in pursuit at that
moment, they might have chased us back to Russia. But the Turks did not
sally. And the internal conflagration is not quenched, far from it;--and
about nine A.M. their Powder-Magazine, conflagration reaching it, roared
aloft into the air, and killed seven thousand of them," [Mannstein, pp.
151-156.]--
So that Oczakow was taken, sure enough; terms, life only: and every
remaining Turk packs off from it, some "twenty thousand inhabitants
young and old" for one sad item.--A very blazing semi-absurd event, to
be read of in Prussian military circles,--where General Keith will be
better known one day.
Russian War with the Turk: that means withal, by old Treaties, aid of
thirty thousand men from the Kaiser to Russia. Kaiser, so ruined lately,
how can he send thirty thousand, and keep them recruited, in such
distant expedition? Kaiser, much meditating, is advised it will be
better to go frankly into the Turk on his own score, and try for slices
of profit from him in this game. Kaiser declares war against the Turk;
and what is still more interesting to Friedrich Wilhelm and the
Berlin Circles, Seckendorf is named General of it. Feldzeugmeister now
Feldmarschall Seckendorf, envy may say what it will, he has marched this
season into the Lower-Donau Countries,--going to besiege Widdin, they
say,--at the head of a big Army (on paper, almost a hundred and fifty
thousand, light troops and heavy)--virtually Commander-in-Chief; though
nominally our fine young friend Franz of Lorraine bears the title
of Commander, whom Seckendorf is to dry-nurse in the way sometimes
practised. Going to besiege Widdin, they say. So has the poor Kaiser
been advised. His wise old Eugene is now gone; [Died 30th April,
1736.] I fear his advisers,--a youngish Feldzeugmeister, Prince of
Hildburghausen, the chief favorite among them,--are none of the wisest.
All Protestants, we observe, these favorite Hildburghausens, Schmettaus,
Seckendorfs of his; and Vienna is an orthodox papal Court;--and there
is a Hofkriegsrath (Supreme Council of War), which has ruined many
a General, poking too meddlesomely into his affairs! On the whole,
Seckendorf will have his difficulties. Here is a scene, on the
Lower Donau, different enough from that at Oczakow, not far from
contemporaneous with it. The Austrian Army is at Kolitz, a march or two
beyond Belgrade:--
"KOLITZ, 2d JULY, 1737. This day, the Army not being on march, but
allowed to rest itself, Grand Duke Franz went into the woods to hunt.
Hunting up and down, he lost himself; did not return at evening; and, as
the night closed in and no Generalissimo visible, the Generalissimo AD
LATUS (such the title they had contrived for Seckendorf) was in much
alarm. Generalissimo AD LATUS ordered out his whole force of drummers,
trumpeters: To fling themselves, postwise, deeper and deeper into the
woods all round; to drum there, and blow, in ever-widening circle, in
prescribed notes, and with all energy, till the Grand Duke were found.
Grand Duke being found, Seckendorf remonstrated, rebuked; a thought
too earnestly, some say, his temper being flurried,"--voice snuffling
somewhat in alt, with lisp to help:--"so that the Grand Duke took
offence; flung off in a huff: and always looked askance on the
Feldmarschall from that time;" [See _Lebensgeschichte des Grafen van
Schmettau_ (by his Son: Berlin, 1806), i. 27.]--quitting him altogether
before long; and marching with Khevenhuller, Wallis, Hildburghausen, or
any of the subordinate Generals rather. Probably Widdin will not go
the road of Oczakow, nor the Austrians prosper like the Russians, this
summer.
Pollnitz, in Tobacco-Parliament, and in certain Berlin circles foolishly
agape about this new Feldmarschall, maintains always, Seckendorf will
come to nothing; which his Majesty zealously contradicts,--his
Majesty, and some short-sighted private individuals still favorable to
Seckendorf. [Pollnitz, _Memoiren,_ ii. 497-502.] Exactly one week after
that singular drum-and-trumpet operation on Duke Franz, the Last of the
Medici dies at Florence; [9th July (_Fastes de Louis XV._, p. 304).]
and Serene Franz, if he knew it, is Grand Duke of Tuscany, according to
bargain: a matter important to himself chiefly, and to France, who, for
Stanislaus and Lorraine's sake, has had to pay him some 200,000 pounds a
year during the brief intermediate state.
OF BERG AND JULICH AGAIN; AND OF LUISCIUS WITH THE ONE RAZOR.
These remote occurrences are of small interest to his Prussian Majesty,
in comparison with the Pfalz affair, the Cleve-Julich succession, which
lies so near home. His Majesty is uncommonly anxious to have this
matter settled, in peace, if possible. Kaiser and Reich, with the other
Mediating Powers, go on mediating; but when will they decide? This year
the old Bishop of Augsburg, one Brother of the older Kur-Pfalz Karl
Philip, dies; nothing now between us and the event itself, but Karl
Philip alone, who is verging towards eighty: the decision, to be
peaceable, ought to be speedy! Friedrich Wilhelm, in January last, sent
the expert Degenfeld, once of London, to old Karl Philip; and has
him still there, with the most conciliatory offers: "Will leave your
Sulzbachs a part, then; will be content with part, instead of the whole,
which is mine if there be force in sealed parchment; will do anything
for peace!" To which the old Kur-Pfalz, foolish old creature, is
steadily deaf; answers vaguely, negatively always, in a polite manner;
pushing his Majesty upon extremities painful to think of. "We hate war;
but cannot quite do without justice, your Serenity," thinks Friedrich
Wilhelm: "must it be the eighty thousand iron ramrods, then?" Obstinate
Serenity continues deaf; and Friedrich Wilhelm's negotiations, there
at Mannheim, over in Holland, and through Holland with England, not to
speak of Kaiser and Reich close at hand, become very intense; vehemently
earnest, about this matter, for the next two years. The details of
which, inexpressibly uninteresting, shall be spared the reader.
Summary is, these Mediating Powers will be of no help to his Majesty;
not even the Dutch will, with whom he is specially in friendship: nay,
in the third year it becomes fatally manifest, the chief Mediating
Powers, Kaiser and France, listening rather to political convenience,
than to the claims of justice, go direct in Kur-Pfalz's favor;--by
formal treaty of their own, ["Versailles, 13th January, 1739" (Olrich,
_Geschichte der Schlesischen Kriege,_ i. 13); Mauvillon, ii 405-446;
&c.] France and the Kaiser settle, "That the Sulzbachers shall, as a
preliminary, get provisional possession, on the now Serenity's decease;
and shall continue undisturbed for two years, till Law decide between
his Prussian Majesty and them." Two years; Law decide;--and we know what
are the NINE-POINTS in a Law-case! This, at last, proved too much
for his Majesty. Majesty's abstruse dubitations, meditations on such
treatment by a Kaiser and others, did then, it appears, gloomily settle
into fixed private purpose of trying it by the iron ramrods, when old
Kur-Pfalz should die,--of marching with eighty thousand men into the
Cleve Countries, and SO welcoming any Sulzbach or other guests that
might arrive. Happily old Kur-Pfalz did not die in his Majesty's time;
survived his Majesty several years: so that the matter fell into other
hands,--and was settled very well, near a century after.
Of certain wranglings with the little Town of Herstal,--Prussian Town
(part of the Orange Heritage, once KING PEPIN'S Town, if that were
any matter now) in the Bishop of Liege's neighborhood, Town highly
insignificant otherwise,--we shall say nothing here, as they will fall
to be treated, and be settled, at an after stage. Friedrich Wilhelm was
much grieved by the contumacies of that paltry little Herstal; and
by the Bishop of Liege's high-flown procedures in countenancing
them;--especially in a recruiting ease that had fallen out there,
and brought matters to a head. ["December, 1738," is crisis of the
recruiting case (_Helden-Geschichte,_ ii. 63); "17th February, 1739,"
Bishop's high-flown appearance in it (ib. 67); Kaiser's in consequence,
"10th April, 1739."] The Kaiser too was afflictively high in
countenancing the Bishop;---for which both Kaiser and Bishop got due
payment in time. But his Prussian Majesty would not kindle the world for
such a paltriness; and so left it hanging in a vexatious condition. Such
things, it is remarked, weigh heavier on his now infirm Majesty than
they were wont. He is more subject to fits of hypochondria, to talk of
abdicating. "All gone wrong!" he would say, if any little flaw rose,
about recruiting or the like. "One might go and live at Venice, were one
rid of it!" [Forster (place LOST).] And his deep-stung clangorous growl
against the Kaiser's treatment of him bursts out, from time to time;
though he oftenest pities the Kaiser, too; seeing him at such a pass
with his Turk War and otherwise.
It was in this Pfalz business that Herr Luiscius, the Prussian
Minister in Holland, got into trouble; of whom there is a light dash
of outline-portraiture by Voltaire, which has made him memorable to
readers. This "fat King of Prussia," says Voltaire, was a dreadfully
avaricious fellow, unbeautiful to a high degree in his proceedings with
mankind:--
"He had a Minister at the Hague called Luiscius; who certainly of all
Ministers of Crowned Heads was the worst paid. This poor man, to warm
himself, had made some trees be felled in the Garden of Honslardik,
which belonged at that time to the House of Prussia; he thereupon
received despatches from the King, intimating that a year of his salary
was forfeited. Luiscius, in despair, cut his throat with probably the
one razor he had (SEUL RASOIR QU'IL EUT); an old valet came to his
assistance, and unhappily saved his life. In after years, I found his
Excellency at the Hague; and have occasionally given him an alms at the
door of the VIEILLE COUR (Old Court), a Palace belonging to the King of
Prussia, where this poor Ambassador had lived a dozen years. It must be
owned, Turkey is a republic in comparison to the despotism exercised by
Friedrich Wilhelm." [_OEuvres de Voltaire (Vie Pricee,_ or what they
now call _Memoires_ ), ii. 15.]
Here truly is a witty sketch; consummately dashed off, as nobody but
Voltaire could; "round as Giotto's O," done at one stroke. Of which
the prose facts are only as follows. Luiscius, Prussian Resident,
not distinguished by salary or otherwise, had, at one stage of these
negotiations, been told, from head-quarters, He might, in casual
extra-official ways, if it seemed furthersome, give their High
Mightinesses the hope, or notion, that his Majesty did not intend actual
war about that Cleve-Julich Succession,--being a pacific Majesty, and
unwilling to involve his neighbors and mankind. Luiscius, instead of
casual hint delicately dropped in some good way, had proceeded by direct
declaration; frank assurance to the High Mightinesses, That there would
be no war. Which had never been quite his Majesty's meaning, and perhaps
was now becoming rather the reverse of it. Disavowal of Luiscius had
to ensue thereupon; who produced defensively his instruction from
head-quarters; but got only rebukes for such heavy-footed clumsy
procedure, so unlike Diplomacy with its shoes of felt;--and, in
brief, was turned out of the Diplomatic function, as unfit for it; and
appointed to manage certain Orange Properties, fragments of the
Orange Heritage which his Majesty still has in those Countries. This
misadventure sank heavily on the spirits of Luiscius, otherwise none of
the strongest-minded of men. Nor did he prosper in managing the Orange
Properties: on the contrary, he again fell into mistakes; got soundly
rebuked for injudicious conduct there,--"cutting trees," planting trees,
or whatever it was;--and this produced such an effect on Luiscius, that
he made an attempt on his own throat, distracted mortal; and was only
stopped by somebody rushing in. "It was not the first time he had tried
that feat," says Pollnitz, "and been prevented; nor was it long till he
made a new attempt, which was again frustrated: and always afterwards
his relations kept him close in view:" Majesty writing comfortable
forgiveness to the perturbed creature, and also "settling a pension
on him;" adequate, we can hope, and not excessive; "which Luiscius
continued to receive, at the Hague, so long as he lived." These are the
prose facts; not definitely dated to us, but perfectly clear otherwise.
[Pollnitz, ii. 495, 496;--the "NEW attempt" seems to have been "June,
1739" (_ Gentleman's Magazine,_ in mense, p. 331).]
Voltaire, in his Dutch excursions, did sometimes, in after years, lodge
in that old vacant Palace, called VIEILLE COUR, at the Hague; where he
gracefully celebrates the decayed forsaken state of matters; dusky vast
rooms with dim gilding; forgotten libraries "veiled under the biggest
spider-webs in Europe;" for the rest, an uncommonly quiet place,
convenient for a writing man, besides costing nothing. A son of this
Luiscius, a good young lad, it also appears, was occasionally Voltaire's
amanuensis there; him he did recommend zealously to the new King
of Prussia, who was not deaf on the occasion. This, in the fire of
satirical wit, is what we can transiently call "giving alms to a
Prussian Excellency;"--not now excellent, but pensioned and cracked; and
the reader perceives, Luiscius had probably more than one razor, had not
one been enough, when he did the rash act. Friedrich employed Luiscius
Junior, with no result that we hear of farther; and seems to have
thought Luiscius Senior an absurd fellow, not worth mentioning again:
"ran away from the Cleve Country [probably some mad-house there] above a
year ago, I hear; and what is the matter where such a crack-brain end?"
[Voltaire, _OEuvres_ (Letter to Friedrich, 7th October, 1740), lxxii.
261; and Fredrich's answer (wrong dated), ib. 265; Preuss, xxii. 33.]