Wusterhausen, where for the present these operations go on, lies about
twenty English miles southeast of Berlin, as you go towards Schlesien
(Silesia);--on the old Silesian road, in a flat moory country made of
peat and sand;--and is not distinguished for its beauty at all among
royal Hunting-lodges. The Gohrde at Hanover, for example, what a
splendor there in comparison! But it serves Friedrich Wilhelm's simple
purposes: there is game abundant in the scraggy woodlands, otter-pools,
fish-pools, and miry thickets, of that old "Schenkenland" (belonged all
once to the "SCHENKEN Family," till old King Friedrich bought it for
his Prince); retinue sufficient find nooks for lodgment in the poor old
Schloss so called; and Noltenius and Panzendorf drive out each once a
week, in some light vehicle, to drill Fritz in his religious exercises.
One Zollner, a Tourist to Silesia, confesses himself rather pleased
to find even Wusterhausen in such a country of sandy bent-grass, lean
cattle, and flat desolate languor.
"Getting to the top of the ridge" (most insignificant "ridge," made by
hand; Wilhelmina satirically says), Tourist Zollner can discern with
pleasure "a considerable Brook,"--visible, not audible, smooth Stream,
or chain of meres and lakelets, flowing languidly northward towards
Kopenik. Inaudible big Brook or Stream; which, we perceive, drains a
slightly hollowed Tract; too shallow to be called valley,--of several
miles in width, of several yards in depth;--Tract with wood here and
there on it, and signs of grass and culture, welcome after what you
have passed. On the foreground close to you is the Hamlet of
Konigs-Wusterhausen, with tolerable Lime-tree Avenue leading to it, and
the air of something sylvan from your Hill-top. Konigs-Wusterhausen
was once WENDISH-Westerhausen, and not far off is DEUTSCH-Wusterhausen,
famed, I suppose, by faction-fights in the Vandalic times: both of
them are now KING'S-Wusterhausen (since the King came thither), to
distinguish them from other Wusterhausens that there are.
Descending, advancing through your Lime-tree Avenue, you come upon the
backs of office-houses, out-houses, stables or the like,--on your left
hand I have guessed,--extending along the Highway. And in the middle
of these you come at last to a kind of Gate or vaulted passage (ART VON
THOR, says Zollner), where, if you have liberty, you face to the left,
and enter. Here, once through into the free light again, you are in a
Court: four-square space, not without prospect; right side and left
side are lodgings for his Majesty's gentlemen; behind you, well in their
view, are stables and kitchens: in the centre of the place is a Fountain
"with hewn steps and iron railings;" where his simple Majesty has been
known to sit and smoke, on summer evenings. The fourth side of your
square, again, is a palisade; beyond which, over bridge and moat
and intervening apparatus, you perceive, on its trim terraces, the
respectable old Schloss itself. A rectangular mass, not of vast
proportions, with tower in the centre of it (tower for screw-stair, the
general roadway of the House); and looking though weather-beaten
yet weather-tight, and as dignified as it can. This is Wusterhausen;
Friedrich Wilhelm's Hunting-seat from of old.
A dreadfully crowded place, says Wilhelmina, where you are stuffed into
garrets, and have not room to turn. The terraces are of some magnitude,
trimmed all round with a row of little clipped trees, one big lime-tree
at each corner;--under one of these big lime-trees, aided by an awning:
it is his Majesty's delight to spread his frugal but substantial dinner,
four-and-twenty covers, at the stroke of 12, and so dine SUB DIO. If
rain come on, says Wilhelmina, you are wet to mid-leg, the ground being
hollow in that place,--and indeed in all weathers your situation every
way, to a vehement young Princess's idea, is rather of the horrible
sort. After dinner, his Majesty sleeps, stretched perhaps on some wooden
settle or garden-chair, for about an hour; regardless of the flaming
heat, under his awning or not; and we poor Princesses have to wait,
praying all the Saints that they would resuscitate him soon. This is
about 2 p.m.; happier Fritz is gone to his lessons, in the interim.
These four Terraces, this rectangular Schloss with the four big lindens
at the corners, are surrounded by a Moat; black abominable ditch,
Wilhelmina calls it; of the hue of Tartarean Styx, and of a far worse
smell, in fact enough to choke one, in hot days after dinner, thinks
the vehement Princess. Three Bridges cross this Moat or ditch, from the
middle of three several Terraces or sides of the Schloss; and on the
fourth it is impassable. Bridge first, coming from the palisade and
Office-house Court, has not only human sentries walking at it; but two
white Eagles perch near it, and two black ditto, symbols of the heraldic
Prussian Eagle, screeching about in their littery way; item two black
Bears, ugly as Sin, which are vicious wretches withal, and many times do
passengers a mischief. As perhaps we shall see, on some occasion. This
is Bridge first, leading to the Court and to the outer Highway; a King's
gentleman, going to bed at night, has always to pass these Bears.
Bridge second leads us southward to a common Mill which is near by;
its clacking audible upon the common Stream of the region, and not
unpleasant to his Majesty, among its meadows fringed with alders, in
a country of mere and moor. Bridge third, directly opposite to Bridge
first and its Bears, leads you to the Garden; whither Mamma, playing
tocadille all day with her women, will not, or will not often enough,
let us poor girls go. [Zollner, _Briefe uber Schlesien_ (Berlin, 1792),
i. 2, 3; Wilhelmina, i. 364, 365.]
Such is Wusterhausen, as delineated by a vehement Princess, some years
hence,--who becomes at last intelligible, by study and the aid of our
Silesian Tourist. It is not distinguished among Country Palaces: but the
figure of Friedrich Wilhelm asleep there after dinner, regardless of the
flaming sun (should he sleep too long and the shadow of his Linden quit
him),--this is a sight which no other Palace in the world can match;
this will long render Wusterhausen memorable to me. His Majesty, early
always as the swallows, hunts, I should suppose, in the morning; dines
and sleeps, we may perceive, till towards three, or later. His Official
business he will not neglect, nor shirk the hours due to it; towards
sunset there may be a walk or ride with Fritz, or Feekin and the
womankind: and always, in the evening, his Majesty holds TABAGIE,
TABAKS-COLLEGIUM (Smoking College, kind of Tobacco-Parliament, as we
might name it), an Institution punctually attended to by his Majesty, of
which we shall by and by speak more. At Wusterhausen his Majesty holds
his Smoking Session mostly in the open air, oftenest "on the steps of
the Great Fountain" (how arranged, as to seating and canvas-screening,
I cannot say);--smokes there, with his Grumkows, Derschaus,
Anhalt-Dessaus, and select Friends, in various slow talk; till Night
kindle her mild starlights, shake down her dark curtains over all
Countries, and admonish weary mortals that it is now bedtime.
Not much of the Picturesque in this autumnal life of our little Boy. But
he has employments in abundance; and these make the permitted open air,
under any terms, a delight. He can rove about with Duhan among the gorse
and heath, and their wild summer tenantry winged and wingless. In the
woodlands are wild swine, in the meres are fishes, otters; the drowsy
Hamlets, scattered round, awaken in an interested manner at the sound of
our pony-hoofs and dogs. Mittenwalde, where are shops, is within riding
distance; we could even stretch to Kopenik, and visit in the big
Schloss there, if Duhan were willing, and the cattle fresh. From some
church-steeple or sand-knoll, it is to be hoped, some blue streak of
the Lausitz Hills may be visible: the Sun and the Moon and the
Heavenly Hosts, these full certainly are visible; and on an Earth
which everywhere produces miracles of all kinds, from the daisy or
heather-bell up to the man, one place is nearly equal to another for a
brisk little Boy.
Fine Palaces, if Wusterhausen be a sorry one, are not wanting to
our young Friend: whatsoever it is in the power of architecture and
upholstery to do for him, may be considered withal as done. Wusterhausen
is but a Hunting-lodge for some few Autumn weeks: the Berlin Palace
and the Potsdam, grand buildings both, few Palaces in the world
surpass them; and there, in one or the other of these, is our usual
residence.--Little Fritz, besides his young Finkensteins and others of
the like, has Cousins, children of his Grandfather's Half-brothers, who
are comrades of his. For the Great Elector, as we saw, was twice
wedded, and had a second set of sons and daughters: two of the sons
had children; certain of these are about the Crown-Prince's own age,
"Cousins" of his (strictly speaking, Half-cousins of HIS FATHER'S),
who are much about him in his young days,--and more or less afterwards,
according to the worth they proved to have. Margraves and Margravines
of Schwedt,--there are five or six of such young Cousins. Not to mention
the eldest, Friedrich Wilhelm by name, who is now come to manhood (born
1700);--who wished much in after years to have had Wilhelmina to wife;
but had to put up with a younger Princess of the House, and ought to
have been thankful. This one has a younger Brother, Heinrich, slightly
Fritz's senior, and much his comrade at one time; of whom we shall
transiently hear again. Of these two the Old Dessauer is Uncle: if both
his Majesty and the Crown-Prince should die, one of these would be king.
A circumstance which Wilhelmina and the Queen have laid well to heart,
and build many wild suspicions upon, in these years! As that the Old
Dessauer, with his gunpowder face, has a plot one day to assassinate
his Majesty,--plot evident as sunlight to Wilhelmina and Mamma, which
providentially came to nothing;--and other spectral notions of theirs.
[Wilhelmina, i. 35, 41.] The Father of these two Margraves (elder of
the two Half-brothers that have children) died in the time of Old King
Friedrich, eight or nine years ago. Their Mother, the scheming old
Margravine, whom I always fancy to dress in high colors, is still
living,--as Wilhelmina well knows!
Then, by another, the younger of those old Half-brothers, there is
a Karl, a second Friedrich Wilhelm, Cousin Margraves: plenty of
Cousins;--and two young Margravines among them, [Michaelis, i. 425.] the
youngest about Fritz's own age. [NOTE OF THE COUSIN MARGRAVES.--Great
Elector, by his Second Wife, had five Sons, two of whom left
Children;]--as follows (so far as they concern us,--he others omitted):--
1. Son PHILIP'S Children (Mother the Old Dessauer's Sister) are:
Friedrich Wilhelm (1700), who wished much, but in vain, to marry
Wilhelmina. Heinrich Friedrich (1709), a comrade of Fritz's in youth;
sometimes getting into scrapes;--misbehaved, some way, at the Battle of
Molwits (first of Friedrich's Battles), 1741, and was inexorably CUT
by the new King, and continued under a cloud thenceforth .--This PHILIP
("Philip Wilhelm") died 1711, his forty-third year; Widow long survived
him.
2. Son ALBERT'S Children (Mother a Courland Princess) are:
Karl (1705); lived near Custrin; became a famed captain, in the Silesian
Wars, under his Cousin. Friedrich (1701); fell at Molwitz, 1741.
Friedrich Wilhelm (a Margraf Friedrich Wilhelm "No. 2,"--NAMESAKE of his
now Majesty, it is like); born 1714; killed at Prag, by a cannon-shot
(at King Friedrich's hand, reconnoitring the place), 1744.--[This ALBERT
("Albert Friedrich" ) died suddenly 1731, age fifty-nine.] No want
of Cousins; the Crown-Prince seeing much of them all; and learning
pleasantly their various qualities, which were good in most, in some not
so good, and did not turn out supreme in any case. But, for the rest,
Sister Wilhelmina is his grand confederate and companion; true in
sport and in earnest, in joy and in sorrow. Their truthful love to one
another, now and till death, is probably the brightest element their
life yielded to either of them.
What might be the date of Fritz's first appearance in the Roucoulles
"Soiree held on Wednesdays," in the Finkenstein or any other Soiree, as
an independent figure, I do not know. But at the proper time, he
does appear there, and with distinction not extrinsic alone;--talks
delightfully in such places; can discuss, even with French Divines, in
a charmingly ingenious manner. Another of his elderly consorts I must
mention: Colonel Camas, a highly cultivated Frenchman (French altogether
by parentage and breeding, though born on Prussian land), who was Tutor,
at one time, to some of those young Margraves. He has lost an arm,--left
it in those Italian Campaigns, under Anhalt-Dessau and Eugene;--but
by the aid of a cork substitute, dexterously managed, almost hides the
want. A gallant soldier, fit for the diplomacies too; a man of fine
high ways. [_Militair-Lexicon,_ i. 308.] And then his Wife--In fact,
the Camas House, we perceive, had from an early time been one of the
Crown-Prince's haunts. Madam Camas is a German Lady; but for genial
elegance, for wit and wisdom and goodness, could not readily be
paralleled in France or elsewhere. Of both these Camases there will be
honorable and important mention by and by; especially of the Lady, whom
he continues to call "Mamma" for fifty years to come, and corresponds
with in a very beautiful and human fashion.
Under these auspices, in such environment, dimly visible to us, at
Wusterhausen and elsewhere, is the remarkable little Crown-Prince of his
century growing up,--prosperously as yet.