Treaty of Double-Marriage is ready for signing, once the needful
Parliamentary preludings are gone through; Treaty is signed, thinks
Wilhelmina,--forgetting the distance between cup and lip!--As to
signing, or even to burning, and giving up the thought of signing, alas,
how far are we yet from that! Imperial spectre-huntings and the politics
of most European Cabinets will connect themselves with that; and send
it wandering wide enough,--lost in such a jungle of intrigues,
pettifoggings, treacheries, diplomacies domestic and foreign, as the
course of true-love never got entangled in before.
The whole of which extensive Cabinet operations, covering square miles
of paper at this moment,--having nevertheless, after ten years of
effort, ended in absolute zero,--were of no worth even to the managers
of them; and are of less than none to any mortal now or henceforth. So
that the method of treating them becomes a problem to History. To pitch
them utterly out of window, and out of memory, never to be mentioned in
human speech again: this is the manifest prompting of Nature;--and this,
were not our poor Crown-Prince and one or two others involved in them,
would be our ready and thrice-joyful course. Surely the so-called
"Politics of Europe" in that day are a thing this Editor would otherwise
with his whole soul, forget to all eternity! "Putrid fermentation,"
ending, after the endurance of much mal-odor, in mere zero to you and
to every one, even to the rotting bodies themselves:--is there any wise
Editor that would connect himself with that? These are the fields of
History which are to be, so soon as humanly possible, SUPPRESSED; which
only Mephistopheles, or the bad Genius of Mankind, can contemplate with
pleasure.
Let us strive to touch lightly the chief summits, here and there, of
that intricate, most empty, mournful Business,--which was really once
a Fact in practical Europe, not the mere nightmare of an Attorney's
Dream;--and indicate, so far as indispensable, how the young Friedrich,
Friedrich's Sister, Father, Mother, were tribulated, almost heart-broken
and done to death, by means of it.
IMPERIAL MAJESTY ON THE TREATY OF UTRECHT.
Kaiser Karl VI., head of the Holy Romish Empire at this time, was a
handsome man to look upon; whose life, full of expense, vicissitude,
futile labor and adventure, did not prove of much use to the world.
Describable as a laborious futility rather. He was second son of that
little Leopold, the solemn little Herr in red stockings, who had such
troubles, frights, and runnings to and fro with the sieging Turks,
liberative Sobieskis, acquisitive Louis Fourteenths; and who at length
ended in a sea of futile labor, which they call the Spanish Succession
War.
This Karl, second son, had been appointed "King of Spain" in that futile
business; and with much sublimity, though internally in an impoverished
condition, he proceeded towards Spain, landing in England to get cash
for the outfit;--arrived in Spain; and roved about there as Titular-King
for some years, with the fighting Peterboroughs, Galways, Stahrembergs;
but did no good there, neither he nor his Peterboroughs. At length, his
Brother Joseph, Father Leopold's successor, having died, [17th April,
1711.] Karl came home from Spain to be Kaiser. At which point, Karl
would have been wise to give up his Titular Kingship in Spain; for he
never got, nor will get, anything but futile labor from hanging to it.
He did hang to it nevertheless; and still, at this date of George's
visit and long afterwards, hangs,--with notable obstinacy. To the woe of
men and nations: punishment doubtless of his sins and theirs!--
Kaiser Karl shrieked mere amazement and indignation, when the English
tired of fighting for him and it. When the English said to their great
Marlborough: "Enough, you sorry Marlborough! You have beaten Louis XIV.
to the suppleness of wash-leather, at our bidding; that is true, and
that may have had its difficulties: but, after all, we prefer to have
the thing precisely as it would have been without any fighting. You,
therefore, what is the good of you? You are a--person whom we fling
out like sweepings, now that our eyesight returns, and accuse of common
stealing. Go and be--!"
Nothing ever had so disgusted and astonished Kaiser Karl as this
treatment,--not of Marlborough, whom he regarded only as he would
have done a pair of military boots or a holster-pistol of superior
excellence, for the uses that were in him,--but of the Kaiser Karl his
own sublime self, the heart and focus of Political Nature; left in this
manner, now when the sordid English and Dutch declined spending blood
and money for him farther. "Ungrateful, sordid, inconceivable souls,"
answered Karl, "was there ever, since the early Christian times, such
a martyr as you have now made of me!" So answered Karl, in diplomatic
groans and shrieks, to all ends of Europe. But the sulky English and
Allies, thoroughly tired of paying and bleeding, did not heed him; made
their Peace of Utrecht [Peace of Utrecht, 11th April, 1713; Peace of
Rastadt (following upon the Preliminaries of Baden), 6th March, 1714.]
with Louis XIV., who was now beaten supple; and Karl, after a year of
indignant protests and futile attempts to fight Louis on his own score,
was obliged to do the like. He has lost the Spanish crown; but still
holds by the shadow of it; will not quit that, if he can help it. He
hunts much, digests well; is a sublime Kaiser, though internally rather
poor, carrying his head high; and seems to himself, on some sides of his
life, a martyred much-enduring man.
IMPERIAL MAJESTY HAS GOT HAPPILY WEDDED.
Kaiser Karl, soon after the time of going to Spain had decided that a
Wife would be necessary. He applied to Caroline of Anspach, now English
Princess of Wales, but at that time an orphaned Brandenburg-Anspach
Princess, very Beautiful, graceful, gifted, and altogether unprovided
for; living at Berlin under the guardianship of Friedrich the first
King. Her young Mother had married again,--high enough match (to
Kur-Sachsen, elder Brother of August the Strong, August at that time
without prospects of the Electorate);--but it lasted short while:
Caroline's Mother and Saxon Stepfather were both now, long since, dead.
So she lived at Berlin brilliant though unportioned;--with the rough cub
Friedrich Wilhelm much following her about, and passionately loyal to
her, as the Beast was to Beauty; whom she did not mind except as a
cub loyal to her; being five years older than he. [Forster, i. 107.]
Indigent bright Caroline, a young lady of fine aquiline features and
spirit, was applied for to be Queen of Spain; wooer a handsome man,
who might even be Kaiser by and by. Indigent bright Caroline at once
answered, No. She was never very orthodox in Protestant theology; but
could not think of taking up Papistry for lucre's and ambition's sake:
be that always remembered on Caroline's behalf.
The Spanish Majesty next applied at Brunswick Wolfenbuttel; no lack of
Princesses there: Princesa Elizabeth, for instance; Protestant she too,
but perhaps not so squeamish? Old Anton Ulrich, whom some readers know
for the idle Books, long-winded Novels chiefly, which he wrote, was the
Grandfather of this favored Princess; a good-natured old gentleman, of
the idle ornamental species, in whose head most things, it is likely,
were reduced to vocables, scribble and sentimentality; and only a steady
internal gravitation towards praise and pudding was traceable as
very real in him. Anton Ulrich, affronted more or less by the immense
advancement of Gentleman Ernst and the Hanoverian or YOUNGER Brunswick
Line, was extremely glad of the Imperial offer; and persuaded his timid
Grand-daughter, ambitious too, but rather conscience-stricken, That the
change from Protestant to Catholic, the essentials being so perfectly
identical in both, was a mere trifle; that he himself, old as he was,
would readily change along with her, so easy was it. Whereupon the
young Lady made the big leap; abjured her religion; [1st May, 1707, at
Bamberg.]--went to Spain as Queen (with sad injury to her complexion,
but otherwise successfully more or less);--and sits now as Empress
beside her Karl VI. in a grand enough, probably rather dull, but not
singularly unhappy manner.
She, a Brunswick Princess, with Nephews and Nieces who may concern us,
is Kaiserinn to Kaiser Karl: for aught I know of her, a kindly simple
Wife, and unexceptionable Sovereign Majesty, of the sort wanted; whom
let us remember, if we meet her again one day. I add only of this poor
Lady, distinguished to me by a Daughter she had, that her mind still had
some misgivings about the big leap she had made in the Protestant-Papist
way. Finding Anton Ulrich still continue Protestant, she wrote to him
out of Spain:--"Why, O honored Grandpapa, have you not done as you
promised? Ah, there must be a taint of mortal sin in it, after all!"
Upon which the absurdly situated old Gentleman did change his
religion; and is marked as a Convert in all manner of Genealogies and
Histories;--truly an old literary gentleman ducal and serene, restored
to the bosom of the Church in a somewhat peculiarly ridiculous manner.
[Michaelis, i. 131.]--But to return.
IMPERIAL MAJESTY AND THE TERMAGANT OF SPAIN.
Ever after the Peace of Utrecht, when England and Holland declined to
bleed for him farther, especially ever since his own Peace of Rastadt
made with Louis the year after Kaiser Karl had utterly lost hold of
the Crown of Spain; and had not the least chance to clutch that bright
substance again. But he held by the shadow of it, with a deadly Hapsburg
tenacity; refused for twenty years, under all pressures, to part with
the shadow: "The Spanish Hapsburg Branch is dead; whereupon do not I,
of the Austrian Branch, sole representative of Kaiser Karl the Fifth,
claim, by the law of Heaven, whatever he possessed in Spain, by law of
ditto? Battles of Blenheim of Malplaquet, Court-intrigues of Mrs. Masham
and the Duchess: these may bring Treaties of Utrecht, and what you are
pleased to call laws of Earth;--but a Hapsburg Kaiser knows higher laws,
if you would do a thousand Utrechts; and by these, Spain is his!"
Poor Kaiser Karl: he had a high thought in him really though a most
misguided one. Titular King of Men; but much bewildered into mere
indolent fatuity, inane solemnity, high sniffing pride grounded on
nothing at all; a Kaiser much sunk in the sediments of his muddy
Epoch. Sure enough, he was a proud lofty solemn Kaiser, infinitely
the gentleman in air and humor; Spanish gravities, ceremonials,
reticences;--and could, in a better scene, have distinguished himself by
better than mere statuesque immovability of posture, dignified endurance
of ennui, and Hapsburg tenacity in holding the grip. It was not till
1735, after tusslings and wrenchings beyond calculation, that he would
consent to quit the Shadow of the Crown of Spain; and let Europe BE at
peace on that score.
The essence of what is called the European History of this Period, such
History as a Period sunk dead in spirit, and alive only in stomach, can
have, turns all on Kaiser Karl, and these his clutchings at shadows.
Which makes a very sad, surprising History indeed; more worthy to be
called Phenomena of Putrid Fermentation, than Struggles of Human Heroism
to vindicate itself in this Planet, which latter alone are worthy of
recording as "History" by mankind.
On the throne of Spain, beside Philip V. the melancholic new Bourbon,
Louis XIV.'s Grandson, sat Elizabeth Farnese, a termagant tenacious
woman, whose ambitious cupidities were not inferior in obstinacy to
Kaiser Karl's, and proved not quite so shadowy as his. Elizabeth also
wanted several things: renunciation of your (Kaiser Karl's) shadowy
claims; nay of sundry real usurpations you and your Treaties have made
on the actual possessions of Spain,--Kingdom of Sicily, for instance;
Netherlands, for instance; Gibraltar, for instance. But there is one
thing which, we observe, is indispensable throughout to Elizabeth
Farnese: the future settlement of her dear Boy Carlos. Carlos, whom as
Spanish Philip's second Wife she had given to Spain and the world, as
Second or supplementary INFANT there,--a troublesome gift to Spain and
others.
"This dear Boy, surely he must have his Italian Apanages, which, you
have provided for him: Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which will fall
heirless soon. Security for these Italian Apanages, such as will satisfy
a Mother: Let us introduce Spanish garrisons into Parma and Piacenza
at once! How else can we be certain of getting those indispensable
Apanages, when they fall vacant?" On this point Elizabeth Farnese was
positive, maternally vehement; would take no subterfuge, denial or
delay: "Let me perceive that I shall have these Duchies: that, first of
all; or else not that only, but numerous other things will be demanded
of you!"
Upon which point the Kaiser too, who loved his Duchies, and hoped yet
to keep them by some turn of the game, never could decide to comply.
Whereupon Elizabeth grew more and more termagant; listened to wild
counsels; took up an Alberoni, a Ripperda, any wandering diplomatic
bull-dog that offered; and let them loose upon the Kaiser and her
other gainsayers. To the terror of mankind, lest universal war should
supervene. She held the Kaiser well at bay, mankind well in panic; and
continually there came on all Europe, for about twenty years, a terror
that war was just about to break out, and the whole world to take fire.
The History so called of Europe went canting from side to side; heeling
at a huge rate, according to the passes and lunges these two giant
figures, Imperial Majesty and the Termagant of Spain, made at one
another,--for a twenty years or more, till once the duel was decided
between them.
There came next to no war, after all; sputterings of war twice
over,--1718, Byng at Messina, as we saw; and then, in 1727, a second
sputter, as we are to see:--but the neighbors always ran with buckets,
and got it quenched. No war to speak of; but such negotiating,
diplomatizing, universal hope, universal fear, and infinite ado about
nothing, as were seldom heard of before. For except Friedrich Wilhelm
drilling his 50,000 soldiers (80,000 gradually, and gradually even
twice that number), I see no Crowned Head in Europe that is not, with
immeasurable apparatus, simply doing ZERO. Alas, in an age of universal
infidelity to Heaven, where the Heavenly Sun has SUNK, there occur
strange Spectre-huntings. Which is a fact worth laying to heart.--Duel
of Twenty Years with Elizabeth Farnese, about the eventualities of Parma
and Piacensa, and the Shadow of the lost Crown of Spain; this was the
first grand Spectrality of Kaiser Karl's existence; but this was not the
whole of them.
IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S PRAGMATIC SANCTION.
Kaiser Karl meanwhile was rather short of heirs; which formed another
of his real troubles, and involved him in much shadow-hunting. His Wife,
the Serene Brunswick Empress whom we spoke of above, did at length bring
him children, brought him a boy even; but the boy died within the year;
and, on the whole, there remained nothing but two Daughters; Maria
Theresa the elder of them, born 1717,--the prettiest little maiden in
the world;--no son to inherit Kaiser Karl. Under which circumstances
Kaiser Karl produced now, in the Year 1724, a Document which he had
executed privately as long ago as 1713, only his Privy Councillors and
other Official witnesses knowing of it then; [19th April, 1713 (Stenzel,
iii. 5222).] and solemnly publishes it to the world, as a thing all men
are to take notice of. All men had notice enough of this Imperial bit
of Sheepskin, before they got done with it, five-and-twenty years hence.
[Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748.] A very famous Pragmatic Sanction; now
published for the world's comfort!
By which Document, Kaiser Karl had formally settled, and fixed according
to the power he has, in the shape of what they call a Pragmatic
Sanction, or unalterable Ordinance in his Imperial House, "That, failing
Heirs-male, his Daughters, his Eldest Daughter, should succeed him;
failing Daughters, his Nieces; and in short, that Heirs-female ranking
from their kinship to Kaiser Karl, and not to any prior Kaiser, should
be as good as Heirs-male of Karl's body would have been." A Pragmatic
Sanction is the high name he gives this document, or the Act it
represents; "Pragmatic Sanction" being, in the Imperial Chancery and
some others, the received title for Ordinances of a very irrevocable
nature, which a sovereign makes, in affairs that belong wholly to
himself, or what he reckons his own rights. [A rare kind of Deed, it
would seem; and all the more solemn. In 1438, Charles VI. of France,
conceding the Gallican Church its Liberties, does, it by "SANCTION
PRAGMATIQUE;" Carlos III. of Spain (in 1759, "settling the Kingdom of
the Two Sicilies on his third son") does the like,--which is the last
instance of "PRAGMATIC SANCTION" in this world.]
This Pragmatic Sanction of Kaiser Karl's, executed 19th April, 1713,
was promulgated, "gradually," now here now there, from 1720 to 1724,
[Stenzel, pp. 522, 523.]--in which later year it became universally
public; and was transmitted to all Courts and Sovereignties, as an
unalterable law of Things Imperial. Thereby the good man hopes his
beautiful little Theresa, now seven years old, may succeed him, all as
a son would have done, in the Austrian States and Dignities; and
incalculable damages, wars, and chances of war, be prevented, for his
House and for all the world.
The world, incredulous of to-morrow, in its lazy way, was not
sufficiently attentive to this new law of things. Some who were
personally interested, as the Saxon Sovereignty, and the Bavarian,
denied that it was just: reminded Kaiser-Karl that he was not the Noah
or Adam of Kaisers; and that the case of Heirs-female was not quite
a new idea on sheepskin. No; there are older Pragmatic Sanctions
and settlements, by prior Kaisers of blessed memory; under which, if
Daughters are to come in, we, descended from Imperial Daughters of
older standing, shall have a word to say!--To this Kaiser Karl answers
steadily, with endless argument, That every Kaiser is a Patriarch,
and First Man, in such matters; and that so it has been pragmatically
sanctioned by him, and that so it shall and must irrevocably be. To the
other Powers, and indolent impartial Sovereigns of the world, he was
lavish in embassies; in ardent representations; and spared no pains in
convincing them that to-morrow would surely come, and that then it would
be a blessedness to have accepted this Pragmatic Sanction, and see
it lying for you as a Law of Nature to go by, and avoid incalculable
controversies.
This was another vast Shadow, or confused high-piled continent of
shadows, to which our poor Kaiser held with his customary tenacity. To
procure adherences and assurances to this dear Pragmatic Sanction, was,
even more than the shadow of the Spanish Crown, and above all after he
had quitted that, the one grand business of his Life henceforth. With
which he kept all Europe in perpetual travail and diplomacy; raying
out ambassadors, and less ostensible agents, with bribes, and with
entreaties and proposals, into every high Sovereign Court and every low;
negotiating unweariedly by all methods, with all men. For it was his
evening-song and his morning-prayer; the grand meaning of Life to him,
till Life ended. You would have said, the first question he asks of
every creature is, "Will you covenant for my Pragmatic Sanction with me?
Oh, agree to it; accept that new Law of Nature: when the morrow comes,
it will be salutary for you!"
Most of the Foreign Potentates idly accepted the thing,--as things of
a distant contingent kind are accepted;--made Treaty on it, since the
Kaiser seemed so extremely anxious. Only Bavaria, having heritable
claims, never would. Saxony too (August the Strong), being in the
like case, or a better, flatly refused for a long time; would not,
at all,--except for a consideration. Bright little Prince Eugene, who
dictated square miles of Letters and DIplomacies on the subject (Letters
of a steady depth of dulness, which at last grows almost sublime), was
wont to tell his Majesty: "Treatying, your Majesty? A well-trained
Army and a full Treasury; that is the only Treaty that will make this
Pragmatic Sanction valid!" But his Majesty never would believe. So the
bright old Eugene dictated,--or, we hope and guess, he only gave his
clerks some key-word, and signed his name (in three languages, "Eugenio
von Savoye") to these square miles of dull epistolary matter,--probably
taking Spanish snuff when he had done. For he wears it in both
waistcoat-pockets;--has (as his Portraits still tell us) given up
breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, with a flash in him as of
Heaven's own lightning; but now growing very old and snuffy.
Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the Spanish Crown,--it was such
shadow-huntings of the Kaiser in Vienna, it was this of the Pragmatic
Sanction most of all, that thwarted our Prussian Double-Marriage, which
lay so far away from it. This it was that pretty nearly broke the hearts
of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and their Mother and Father. For there never
was such negotiating; not for admittance to the Kingdom of Heaven, in
the pious times. And the open goings-forth of it, still more the secret
minings and mole-courses of it, were into all places. Above ground and
below, no Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him agree
or not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and with all his heart, agreed
to the Pragmatic Sanction; this above ground, in sight of the sun; and
rashly fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his horror, he found
the Imperial moles, by way of keeping assurance doubly sure, had been
under the foundations of his very house for long years past, and had all
but brought it down about him in the most hideous manner!--
THIRD SHADOW: IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OSTEND COMPANY.
Another object which Kaiser Karl pursued with some diligence in these
times, and which likewise proved a shadow, much disturbance as it
gave mankind, was his "Ostend East-India Company." The Kaiser had
seen impoverished Spain, rich England, rich Holland; he had taken up a
creditable notion about commerce and its advantages. He said to himself,
Why should not my Netherlands trade to the East, as well as these
English and Dutch, and grow opulent like them? He instituted (OCTROYA)
an "Ostend East-India Company," under due Patents and Imperial
Sheepskins, of date 17th December, 1722, [Buchholz, i. 88; Pfeffel,
_Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne_ (Park, 1776), ii.
522.] gave it what freedom he could to trade to the East. "Impossible!"
answered the Dutch, with distraction in their aspect; "Impossible, we
say; contrary to Treaty of Westphalia, to Utrecht, to Barrier Treaty;
and destructive to the best interests of mankind, especially to us and
our trade-profits! We shall have to capture your ships, if you ever send
any."
To which the Kaiser counterpleaded, earnestly, diligently, for the space
of seven years,--to no effect. "We will capture your ships if you ever
send any," answered the Dutch and English. What ships ever could have
been sent from Ostend to the East, or what ill they could have done
there, remains a mystery, owing to the monopolizing Maritime Powers.
The Kaiser's laudable zeal for commerce had to expend itself in his
Adriatic Territories,--giving privileges to the Ports of Trieste and
Fiume; [Hormayr, _OEsterreichischer Plutarch,_ x. 101.] making roads
through the Dalmatian Hill-Countries, which are useful to this day;--but
could not operate on the Netherlands in the way proposed. The Kaiser's
Imperial Ostend East-India Company, which convulsed the Diplomatic mind
for seven years to come, and made Europe lurch from side to side in a
terrific manner, proved a mere paper Company; never sent any ships,
only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honor to be." This was the third
grand Shadow which the Kaiser chased, shaking all the world, poor crank
world, as he strode after it; and this also ended in zero, and
several tons of diplomatic correspondence, carried once by breathless
estaffettes, and now silent, gravitating towards Acheron all of them,
and interesting to the spiders only.
Poor good Kaiser: they say he was a humane stately gentleman, stately
though shortish; fond of pardoning criminals where he could; very polite
to Muratori and the Antiquaries, even to English Rymer, in opening his
Archives to them,--and made roads in the Dalmatian Hill-Country, which
remain to this day. I do not wonder he grew more and more saturnine, and
addicted to solid taciturn field-sports. His Political "Perforce-Hunt
(PARFORCE JAGD)," with so many two-footed terriers, and legationary
beagles, distressing all the world by their baying and their burrowing,
had proved to be of Shadows; and melted into thin air, to a very
singular degree!