We little expected to see the "Double-Marriage" start up into vitality
again, at this advanced stage; or, of all men, Seckendorf, after riding
25,000 miles to kill the Double-Marriage, engaged in resuscitating it!
But so it is: by endless intriguing, matchless in History or Romance,
the Austrian Court had, at such expense to the parties and to itself,
achieved the first problem of stifling the harmless Double-Marriage;
and now, the wind having changed, it is actually trying its hand the
opposite way.
Wind is changed: consummate Robinson has managed to do his
thrice-salutary "Treaty of Vienna;" [16th March, 1731, the TAIL of it
(accession of the Dutch, of Spain, &c.) not quite coiled up till 20th
February, 1732: Scholl, i. 218-222.] to clout up all differences
between the Sea-Powers and the Kaiser, and restore the old Law of
Nature,--Kaiser to fight the French, Sea-Powers to feed and pay him
while engaged in that necessary job. And now it would be gratifying
to the Kaiser, if there remained, on this side of the matter, no rent
anywhere, if between his chief Sea ally and his chief Land one,
the Britannic Majesty and the Prussian, there prevailed a complete
understanding, with no grudge left.
The honor of this fine resuscitation project is ascribed to Robinson by
the Vienna people: "Robinson's suggestion," they always say: how far
it was, or whether at all it was or not, nobody at present knows. Guess
rather, if necessary, it had been the Kaiser's own! Robinson, as the
thing proceeds, is instructed from St. James's to "look on and not
interfere;" [Despatches, in State-Paper Office] Prince Eugene, too,
we can observe, is privately against it, though officially urgent, and
doing his best. Who knows,--or need know?
Enough that High Heads are set upon it; that the diplomatic wigs are all
wagging with it, from about the beginning of October, 1732; and rumors
are rife and eager, occasionally spurting out into the Newspapers:
Double-Marriage after all, hint the old Rumors: Double-Marriage somehow
or other; Crown-Prince to have his English Princess, Prince Fred of
England to console the Brunswick one for loss of her Crown-Prince; or
else Prince Karl of Brunswick to--And half a dozen other ways; which
Rumor cannot settle to its satisfaction. The whispers upon it, from
Hanover, from Vienna, at Berlin, and from the Diplomatic world in
general, occasionally whistling through the Newspapers, are manifold and
incessant,--not worthy of the least attention from us here. [Forster,
iii. 111, 120, 108, 113, 122.] What is certain is, Seckendorf, in the
end of October, is corresponding on it with Prince Eugene; has got
instructions to propose the matter in Tobacco-Parliament; and does
not like it at all. Grumkow, who perhaps has seen dangerous clouds
threatening to mount upon him, and never been quite himself again in the
Royal Mind since that questionable NOSTI business, dissuades earnestly,
constantly. "Nothing but mischief will come of such a proposal," says
Grumkow steadily; and for his own share absolutely declines concern in
it.
But Prince Eugene's orders are express; remonstrances, cunctations only
strengthen the determination of the High Heads or Head: Forward with
this beautiful scheme! Seckendorf, puckered into dangerous anxieties,
but summoning all his cunning, has at length, after six weeks'
hesitation, to open it, as if casually, in some favorable hour, to his
Prussian Majesty. December 5th, 1732, as we compute;--a kind of epoch in
his Majesty's life. Prussian Majesty stares wide-eyed; the breath as
if struck out of him; repeats, "Julich and Berg absolutely secured, say
you? But--hm, na!"--and has not yet taken in the unspeakable dimensions
of the occurrence. "What? Imperial Majesty will make me break my word
before all the world? Imperial Majesty has been whirling me about, face
now to the east, face straightway round to the west: Imperial Majesty
does not feel that I am a man and king at all; takes me for a mere
machine, to be seesawed and whirled hither and thither, like a rotatory
Clothes-horse, to dry his Imperial Majesty's linen upon. TAUSEND
HIMMEL--!"
The full dimensions of all this did not rise clear upon the intellect of
Prussian Majesty,--a slow intellect, but a true and deep, with terrible
earthquakes and poetic fires lying under it,--not at once, or for
months, perhaps years to come. But they had begun to dawn upon him
painfully here; they rose gradually into perfect clearness: all things
seen at last as what they were;--with huge submarine earthquake for
consequence, and total change of mind towards Imperial Majesty and the
drying of his Pragmatic linen, in Friedrich Wilhelm. Amiable Orson, true
to the heart; amiable, though terrible when too much put upon!
This dawning process went on for above two years to come, painfully,
reluctantly, with explosions, even with tears. But here, directly on the
back of Seckendorf's proposal, and recorded from a sure hand, is what
we may call the peep-of-day in that matter: First Session of
Tobacco-Parliament, close after that event. Event is on the 5th
December, 1732; Tobacco Session is of the 6th;--glimpse of it is given
by Speaker Grumkow himself; authentic to the bone.
SESSION OF TOBACCO-PARLIAMENT, 6th DECEMBER, 1732.
Grumkow, shattered into "headache" by this Session, writes Report of
it to Seckendorf before going to bed. Look, reader, into one of the
strangest Political Establishments; and how a strange Majesty comports
himself there, directly after such proposal from Vienna to marry with
England still!--"Schwerin" is incidentally in from Frankfurt-on-Oder,
where his Regiment and business usually lie: the other Honorable Members
we sufficiently know. Majesty has been a little out of health lately;
perceptibly worse the last two days. "Syberg" is a Gold-cook (Alchemical
gentleman, of very high professions), came to Berlin some time ago;
whom his Majesty, after due investigation, took the liberty to hang.
[Forster, iii. 126.] Readers can now understand what speaker Grumkow
writes, and despatches by his lackey, in such haste:--
"I never saw such a scene as this evening. Derschau, Schwerin,
Buddenbrock, Rochow, Flanz were present. We had been about an hour in
the Red Room [languidly doing our tobacco off and on], when he [the
King] had us shifted into the Little Room: drove out the servants; and
cried, looking fixedly at me: 'No, I cannot endure it any longer! ES
STOSSET MIR DAS HERZ AB,' cried he, breaking into German: 'It crushes
the heart out of me; to make me do a bit of scoundrelism, me, me! I say;
no, never! Those damned intrigues; may the Devil take them!'--
"EGO (Grumkow). 'Of course, I know of nothing. But I do not comprehend
your Majesty's inquietude, coming thus on the sudden, after our common
indifferent mood.'
"KING. 'What, make me a villain! I will tell it right out. Certain
damned scoundrels have been about betraying me. People that should
have known me better have been trying to lead me into a dishonorable
scrape'--("Here I called in the hounds, JE ROMPIS LES CHIENS," reports
Grumkow, "for he was going to blab everything; I interrupted, saying):--
"EGO. 'But, your Majesty, what is it ruffles you so? I know not what you
talk of. Your Majesty has honorable people about you; and the man
who lets himself be employed in things against your Majesty must be a
traitor.'
"KING. 'Yes, JA, JA. I will do things that will surprise them. I--'
"And, in short, a torrent of exclamations: which I strove to soften
by all manner of incidents and contrivances; succeeding at last,"--by
dexterity and time (but, at this point, the light is now blown out, and
we SEE no more):--"so that he grew quite calm again, and the rest of the
evening passed gently enough.
"Well, you see what the effect of your fine Proposal is, which you said
he would like! I can tell you, it is the most detestable incident that
could have turned up. I know, you had your orders: but you may believe
and depend on it, he has got his heart driven rabid by the business, and
says, 'Who knows now whether that villain Syberg' Gold-cook, that was
hanged the other day, 'was not set on by some people to poison me?' In a
word, he was like a madman.
"What struck me most was when he repeated, 'Only think! Think! Who would
have expected it of people that should have known me; and whom I
know, and have known, better than they fancy!'"--Pleasant passage for
Seckendorf to chew the cud upon, through the night-watches!
"In fine, as I was somewhat confused; and anxious, above all, to keep
him from exploding with the secret, I cannot remember everything, But
Derschau, who was more at his ease, will be able to give you a full
account. He [the King] said more than once: 'THIS was his sickness; the
thing that ailed him, this: it gnawed his heart, and would be the
death of him!' He certainly did not affect; he was in a very
convulsive condition. [JARNI-BLEU, here is a piece of work, Herr
Seckendorf!]--Adieu, I have a headache." Whereupon to bed.
"GRUMKOW."
[Forster, iii. 135, 136.]
This Hansard Report went off direct to Prince Eugene; and ought to have
been a warning to the high Vienna heads and him. But they persisted
not the less to please Robinson or themselves; considering his Prussian
Majesty to be, in fact, a mere rotatory Clothes-horse for drying the
Imperial linen on; and to have no intellect at all, because he was
without guile, and had no vulpinism at all. In which they were very much
mistaken indeed. History is proud to report that the guileless Prussian
Majesty, steadily attending to his own affairs in a wise manner, though
hoodwinked and led about by Black-Artists as he had been, turned out
when Fact and Nature subsequently pronounced upon it, to have had more
intellect than the whole of them together,--to have been, in a manner,
the only one of them that had any real "intellect," or insight into Fact
and Nature, at all. Consummate Black-art Diplomacies overnetting the
Universe, went entirely to water, running down the gutters to the last
drop; and a prosperous Drilled Prussia, compact, organic in every part,
from diligent plough-sock to shining bayonet and iron ramrod, remained
standing. "A full Treasury and 200,000 well-drilled men would be the one
guarantee to your Pragmatic Sanction," Prince Eugene had said. But that
bit of insight was not accepted at Vienna; Black-art, and Diplomatic
spider-webs from pole to pole, being thought the preferable method.
Enough, Seckendorf was ordered to manipulate and soothe down the
Prussian Majesty, as surely would be easy; to continue his galvanic
operations on the Double-Match, or produce a rotation in the purposes of
the royal breast. Which he diligently strove to do, when once admitted
to speech again;--Grumkow steadily declining to meddle, and only Queen
Sophie, as we can fancy, auguring joyfully of it. Seckendorf, admitted
to speech the third day after that explosive Session, snuffles his
softest, his cunningest;--continues to ride diligently, the concluding
portion (such it proved) of his 25,000 miles with the Prussian Majesty
up and down through winter and spring; but makes not the least progress,
the reverse rather.
Their dialogues and arguings on the matter, here and elsewhere, are lost
in air; or gone wholly to a single point unexpectedly preserved for us.
One day, riding through some village, Priort some say his Majesty calls
it, some give another name,--advocate Seckendorf, in the fervor of
pleading and arguing, said some word, which went like a sudden flash of
lightning through the dark places of his Majesty's mind, and never would
go out of it again while he lived after. In passionate moments, his
Majesty spoke of it sometimes, a clangorous pathos in his tones, as of
a thing hideous, horrible, never to be forgotten, which had killed
him,--death from a friend's hand. "It was the 17th of April, 1733, [All
the Books (Forster, ii. 142, for one) mention this utterance of his
Majesty, on what occasion we shall see farther on; and give the date
"1732," not 1733: but except as amended above, it refuses to have any
sense visible at this distance. The Village of Priort is in the Potsdam
region.] riding through Priort, a man said something to me: it was as if
you had turned a dagger about in my heart. That man was he that killed
me; there and then I got my death!"
A strange passion in that utterance: the deep dumb soul of his Majesty,
of dumb-poetic nature, suddenly brought to a fatal clearness about
certain things. "O Kaiser, Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire; and this is
your return for my loyal faith in you? I had nearly killed my Fritz, my
Wilhelmina, broken my Feekin's heart and my own, and reduced the world
to ruins for your sake. And because I was of faith more than human, you
took me for a dog? O Kaiser, Kaiser!"--Poor Friedrich Wilhelm, he spoke
of this often, in excited moments, in his later years; the tears running
down his cheeks, and the whole man melted into tragic emotion: but if
Fritz were there, the precious Fritz whom he had almost killed for their
sake, he would say, flashing out into proud rage, "There is one that
will avenge me, though; that one! DA STEHT EINER, DER MICH RACHEN
WIRD!" [Forster, ii. 153.] Yes, your Majesty; perhaps that one. And it
will be seen whether YOU were a rotatory Clothes-horse to dry their
Pragmatic linen upon, or something different a good deal.