The Kaiser's terror and embarrassment at the conclusion of the Hanover
Treaty, as we saw, were extreme. War possible or likely; and nothing but
the termagant caprices of Elizabeth Farnese to depend on: no cash from
the Sea-Powers; only cannonshot, invasion and hostility, from their cash
and them: What is to be done? To "caress the pride of Spain;" to keep
alive the hopes, in that quarter, of marrying their Don Carlos, the
supplementary Infant, to our eldest Archduchess; which indeed has
set the Sea-Powers dreadfully on fire, but which does leave Parma and
Piacenza quiet for the present, and makes the Pragmatic Sanction too an
affair of Spain's own: this is one resource, though a poor one, and a
dangerous. Another is, to make alliance with Russia, by well flattering
the poor little brown Czarina there: but is not that a still poorer? And
what third is there!--
There is a third worth both the others, could it be got done: To detach
Friedrich Wilhelm from those dangerous Hanover Confederates, and bring
him gently over to ourselves. He has an army of 60,000, in perfect
equipment, and money to maintain them so. Against us or for us,--60,000
PLUS or 60,000 MINUS;--that will mean 120,000 fighting men; a most
weighty item in any field there is like to be. If it lie in the power
of human art, let us gain this wild irritated King of Prussia. Dare
any henchman of ours venture to go, with honey-cakes, with pattings and
cajoleries, and slip the imperial muzzle well round the snout of that
rugged ursine animal? An iracund bear, of dangerous proportions, and
justly irritated against us at present? Our experienced FELDZEUGMEISTER,
Ordnance-Master and Diplomatist, Graf von Seckendorf, a conscientious
Protestant, and the cunningest of men, able to lie to all lengths,--dare
he try it? He has fought in all quarters of the world; and lied in all,
where needful; and saved money in all: he will try it, and will succeed
in it too! [Pollnitz, ii. 235; Stenzel, iii. 544; Forster, ii. 59, iii.
235, 239.]
The Second Act, therefore, of this foolish World-Drama of the
Double-Marriage opens,--on the 11th May, 1726, towards sunset, in the
TABAGIE of the Berlin Palace, as we gather from laborious comparison of
windy Pollnitz with other indistinct witnesses of a dreary nature,--in
the following manner:--
Prussian Majesty sits smoking at the window; nothing particular going
on. A square-built shortish steel-gray Gentleman, of military cut, past
fifty, is strolling over the SCHLOSSPLATZ (spacious Square in front of
the Palace), conspicuous amid the sparse populations there; pensively
recreating himself, in the yellow sunlight and long shadows, as after a
day's hard labor or travel. "Who is that?" inquires Friedrich Wilhelm,
suspending his tobacco. Grumkow answers cautiously, after survey: He
thinks it must be Ordnance-Master Seckendorf; who was with him
to-day; passing on rapidly towards Denmark, on business that will not
wait.--"Experienced Feldzeugmeister Graf von Seckendorf, whom we stand
in correspondence with, of late, and were expecting about this time?
Whom we have known at the Siege of Stralsund, nay ever since the
Marlborough times and the Siege of Menin, in war and peace; and have
always reckoned a solid reasonable man and soldier: Why has he not
come to us?"--"Your Majesty," confesses Grumkow, "his business is so
pressing! Business in Denmark will not wait. Seckendorf owned he
had come slightly round, in his eagerness to see our grand Review at
Tempelhof the day after to-morrow: What soldier would omit the sight (so
he was pleased to intimate) of soldiering carried to the non-plus-ultra?
But he hoped to do it quite incognito, among the general public;--and
then to be at the gallop again: not able to have the honor of paying
his court at this time."--"Court? NARREN-POSSEN (Nonsense)!" answers
Friedrich Wilhelm,--and opening the window, beckons Seckendorf up, with
his own royal head and hand. The conversation of a man who had rational
sense, and could tell him anything, were it only news af foreign parts
in a rational manner, was always welcome to Friedrich Wilhelm.
And so Seckendorf, how can he help it, is installed in the Tabagie;
glides into pleasant conversation there. A captivating talker; solid for
religion, for the rights of Germany against intrusive French and others:
such insight, orthodoxy, sense and ingenuity; pleasant to hear; and all
with the due quantity of oil, though he "both snuffles and lisps;" and
has privately, in case of need, a capacity of lying,--for he curiously
distils you any lie, in his religious alembics, till it become tolerable
to his conscience, or even palatable, as elixirs are;--capacity of
double-distilled lying probably the greatest of his day.--Seckendorf
assists at the grand Review, 13th May, 1726; witnesses with unfeigned
admiration the non-plus-ultra of manoeuvring, and, in fact, the general
management, military and other, of this admirable King. [Pollnitz, ii.
235; Fassmann, pp. 367, 368.] Seckendorf, no question of it, will do
his Denmark business swiftly, then, since your Majesty is pleased so to
wish. Seckendorf, sure enough, will return swiftly to such a King, whose
familiar company, vouchsafed him in this noble manner, he likes,--oh,
how he likes it!
In a week or two, Seckendorf is back to Berlin; attends his Majesty
on the annual Military Tour through Preussen; attends him everywhere,
becoming quite a necessary of life to his Majesty; and does not go away
at all. Seckendorf's business, if his Majesty knew it, will not lead
him "away;" but lies here on this spot; and is now going on; the
magic-apparatus, Grumkow the mainspring of it, getting all into gear!
Grumkow was once clear for King George and the Hanover Treaty, having
his reasons then; but now he has other reasons, and is clear against
those foreign connections. "Hm, hah--Yes, my estimable, justly powerful
Herr von Grumkow, here is a little Pension of 1,600 ducats (only 500
pounds as yet), which the Imperial Majesty, thinking of the service
you may do Prussia and Germany and him, graciously commands me to
present;--only 500 pounds by the year as yet; but there shall be no lack
of money if we prosper!" [Forster, iii. 233, 232; see also iv. 172, 121,
157, &c.]
And so there are now two Black-Artists, of the first quality, busy on
the unconscious Friedrich Wilhelm; and Seckendorf, for the next seven
years, will stick to Friedrich Wilhelm like his shadow; and fascinate
his whole existence and him, as few wizards could have done. Friedrich
Wilhelm, like St. Paul in Melita, warming his innocent hands at the
fire of dry branches here kindled for him,--that miracle of a venomous
serpent is this that has fixed itself upon his finger? To Friedrich
Wilhelm's enchanted sense it seems a bird-of-paradise, trustfully
perching there; but it is of the whip-snake kind, or a worse; and will
stick to him tragically, if also comically, for years to come. The
world has seen the comedy of it, and has howled scornful laughter upon
Friedrich Wilhelm for it: but there is a tragic side, not so well
seen into, where tears are due to the poor King; and to certain others
horsewhips, and almost gallows-ropes, are due!--Yes, had Seckendorf and
Grumkow both been well hanged, at this stage of the affair, whereby
the affair might have soon ended on fair terms, it had been welcome to
mankind; welcome surely to the present Editor; for one; such a saving to
him, of time wasted, of disgust endured! And indeed it is a solacement
he has often longed for, in these dreary operations of his. But the
Fates appointed otherwise; we have all to accept our Fate!--
Grumkow is sworn to Imperial orthodoxy, then,--probably the vulpine MIND
(so to term it) went always rather that way, and only his interest
the other;--Grumkow is well bribed, supplied for bribing others where
needful; stands orthodox now, under peril of his very head. All
things have been got distilled into the palatable state, spiritual and
economic, for oneself and one's grand Trojan-Horse of a Grumkow; and the
adventure proceeds apace. Seckendorf sits nightly in the TABAGIE (a
kind of "Smoking Parliament," as we shall see anon); attends on all
promenades and journeys: one of the wisest heads, and so pleasant in
discourse, he is grown indispensable, and a necessary of life to us.
Seckendorf's Biographer computes, "he must have ridden, in those seven
years, continually attending his Majesty, above 5,000 German miles,"
[Anonymous (Seckendorf's Grand-Nephew) _Versuch einer Lebensbeschreibung
des Feldmarschalls Grafen von Seckendorf_ (Leipzig, 1792, 1794), i.
6.]--that is 25,000 English miles; or a trifle more than the length of
the Terrestrial Equator.
In a month or two, [13th August, 1726 (Preuss, i. 37).]
Seckendorf--since Majesty vouchsafes to honor us by wishing
it--contrives to get nominated Kaiser's Minister at Berlin: unlimited
prospects of Tabagie, and good talk, now opening on Majesty. And
impartial Grumkow, in Tabagie or wherever we are, cannot but admit, now
and then, that the Excellenz Herr Graf Ordnance-Master has a deal of
reason in what he says about Foreign Politics, about intrusive French
and other points. "Hm, Na," muses Friedrich Wilhelm to himself, "if the
Kaiser had not been so lofty on us in that Heidelberg-Protestant affair,
in the Ritter-Dienst business, in those damned 'recruiting' brabbles;
always a very high-sniffing surly Kaiser to us!" For in fact the Kaiser
has, all along, used Friedrich Wilhelm bitterly ill; and contemplates
no better usage of him, except in show. Usage? thinks the Kaiser: A big
Prussian piece of Cannon, whom we wish to enchant over to us! Did LAZY
PEG complain of her "usage"?--So that the Excellenz and Grumkow have a
heavy problem of it; were they not so diligent, and the Cannon itself
well disposed. "Those BLITZ FRANZOSEN (blasted French)!" growls
Friedrich Wilhelm sometimes, in the Tobacco-Parliament: [Forster, ii.
12, &c.] for he hates the French, and would fain love his Kaiser; being
German to the bone, and of right loyal heart, though counted only a
piece of cannon by some. For one thing, his Prussian Majesty declines
signing that Treaty of Hanover a second time: now when the Dutch accede
to it, after almost a year's trouble with them, the Prussian Ambassador,
singular to observe, "has no orders to sign;" leaves the English with
their Hollanders and Blitz Franzosen to sign by themselves, this time.
[9th August, 1726. (Boyer, _The Political State of Great Rrilain,_ a
monthly periodical, vol. xxxii. p. 77, which is the number for July,
1726.)] "We will wait, we will wait!" thinks his Prussian Majesty:--"Who
knows?"
"But then Julich and Berg!" urges he always; "Britannic Majesty and
the Blitz Franzosen were to secure me the reversion there. That was
the essential point!"--For this too Excellenz has a remedy; works out
gradually a remedy from headquarters, the amiable dexterous man: "Kaiser
will do the like, your Majesty; Kaiser himself will secure it you!"--In
brief, some three months after Seckendorf's instalment as Kaiser's
Minister, not yet five months since his appearance in the Schlossplatz
that May evening,--it is now Hunting-season, and we are at Wusterhausen;
Majesty, his two Black-Artists and the proper satellites on both sides
all there,--a new and opposite Treaty, in extreme privacy, on the 12th
of October, 1726, is signed at that sequestered Hunting-Schloss: "Treaty
of Wusterhausen" so called; which was once very famous and mysterious,
and caused many wigs to wag. Wigs to wag, in those days especially, when
knowledge of it was first had; the rather as only half knowledge could
be had of it;--or can, mourns Dryasdust, who has still difficulties
about some "secret articles" in the Document. [Buchholz, i. 94 n.]
Courage, my friend; they are now of no importance to any creature.
The essential purport of this Treaty, [Given IN EXTENSO (without the
secret articles) in Forster, iv. 159-166.] legible to all eyes, is,
"That Friedrich Wilhelm silently drops the Hanover Treaty and Blitz
Franzosen; and explicitly steps over to the Kaiser's side; stipulates to
assist the Kaiser with so many thousand, if attacked in Germany by any
Blitz Franzose or intrusive Foreigner whatever. In return for which, the
Kaiser, besides assisting Prussia in the like case with a like quantity
of thousands, engages, in circuitous chancery language, To be helpful,
and humanly speaking effectual, in that grand matter of Julich and
Berg;--somewhat in the following strain: 'To our Imperial mind it does
appear the King of Prussia has manifest right to the succession in
Julich and Berg; right grounded on express ERBVERGLEICH of 1624, not to
speak of Deeds subsequent: the Imperial mind, as supreme judge of
such matters in the Reich, will not fail to decide this Cause soon and
justly, should it come to that. But we hope it may take a still better
course: for the Imperial mind will straightway set about persuading
Kur-Pfalz to comply peaceably; and even undertakes to have something
done, that way, before six months pass.'" [Art. v. in Forster, ubi
supra.]
Humanly speaking, surely the Imperial mind will be effectual in the
Julich and Berg matter. But it was very necessary to use circuitous
chancery language,--inasmuch as the Imperial mind, desirous also to
secure Kur-Pfalz's help in this sore crisis, had, about three months
ago, [Treaty with Kur-Pfalz, 16th August, 1726 (Forster, ii. 71).]
expressly engaged to Kur-Pfalz, That Julich and Berg should NOT go to
Friedrich Wilhelm in terms of the old Deed, but to Kur-Pfalz's Cousins
of Sulzbach, whom the old gentleman (in spite of Deeds) was obstinate
to prefer! There is no doubt about that fact, about that self-devouring
pair of facts. To such straits is a Kaiser driven when he gets deep into
spectre-hunting.
This is the once famous, now forgotten, "Treaty of Wusterhausen, 12th
October, 1726;" which proved so consolatory to the Kaiser in that dread
crisis of his Spectre-Hunt; and the effects of which are very visible
in this History, if nowhere else. It caught up the Prussian-English
Double-Marriage; launched it into the huge tide of Imperial Spectre
Politics, into the awful swaggings and swayings of the Terrestrial LIBRA
in general; and nearly broke the heart of several Royal persons; of a
memorable Crown-Prince, among others. Which last is now, pretty much,
its sole claim to be ever mentioned again by mankind. As there was
no performance, nor an intention of any, in that Julich-Berg matter,
Excellenz Seckendorf had the task henceforth of keeping, by art-magic
or the PRETERnatural method,--that is, by mere help of Grumkow and the
Devil,--his Prussian Majesty steady to the Kaiser nevertheless.
Always well divided from the English especially. Which the Excellency
Seckendorf managed to do. For six or seven years coming; or, in fact,
till these Spectre-chasings ended, or ran else-whither for consummation.
Steady always, jealous of the English; sometimes nearly mad, but always
ready as a primed cannon: so Friedrich Wilhelm was accordingly managed
to be kept;--his own Household gone almost into delirium; he himself
looking out, with loyally fierce survey, for any Anti-Kaiser War: "When
do we go off, then?"--though none ever came. And indeed nothing came;
and except those torments to young Friedrich and others, it was all
Nothing. One of the strangest pieces of Black-Art ever done.
Excellenz Seckendorf, whom Friedrich Wilhelm so loves, is by no means a
beautiful man; far the reverse. Bodily,--and the spirit corresponds,--a
stiff-backed, petrified, stony, inscrutable-looking, and most
unbeautiful old Intriguer. Portraits of him, which are frequent, tell
all one story. The brow puckered together, in a wide web of wrinkles
from each temple, as if it meant to hide the bad pair of eyes, which
look suspicion; inquiry, apprehension, habit of double-distilled
mendacity; the indeterminate projecting chin, with its thick, chapped
under-lip, is shaken out, or shoved out, in mill-hopper fashion,--as if
to swallow anything there may be, spoken thing or other, and grind it
to profitable meal for itself. Spiritually he was an old Soldier let for
hire; an old Intriguer, Liar, Fighter, what you like. What we may call
a human Soul standing like a hackney-coach, this half-century past, with
head, tongue, heart, conscience, at the hest of a discerning public and
its shilling.
There is considerable faculty, a certain stiff-necked strength in the
old fellow; in fact, nature had been rather kind to him; and certainly
his Uncle and Guardian--the distinguished Seckendorf who did the
HISTORIA LUTHERANISMI, a RITTER, and man of good mark, in Ernst THE
PIOUS of Saxe-Gotha's time--took pains about his education. But Nature's
gifts have not prospered with him: how could they, in that hackney-coach
way of life? Considerable gifts, we say; shrunk into a strange
bankruptcy in the development of them. A stiff-backed, close-fisted old
gentleman, with mill-hopper chin,--with puckery much-inquiring eyes,
which have never discovered any noble path for him in this world. He is
a strictly orthodox Protestant; zealous about external points of moral
conduct; yet scruples not, for the Kaiser's shilling, to lie with energy
to all lengths; and fight, according to the Reichs-Hofrath code, for any
god or man. He is gone mostly to avarice, in these mature years; all
his various strengths turned into strength of grasping. He is now
fifty-four; a man public in the world, especially since he became the
Kaiser's man: but he has served various masters, in various capacities,
and been in many wars;--and for the next thirty years we shall still
occasionally meet him, seldom to our advantage.
He comes from Anspach originally; and has kindred Seckendorfs in office
there, old Ritters in that Country. He inherited a handsome castle and
estate, Meuselwitz, near Altenburg in the Thuringen region, from that
Uncle, Ernst of Saxe-Gotha's man, whom we spoke of; and has otherwise
gained wealth; all which he holds like a vice. Once, at Meuselwitz, they
say, he and some young secretary, of a smartish turn, sat working or
conversing, in a large room with only one candle to illuminate it: the
secretary, snuffing the candle, snuffed it out: "Pshaw," said Seckendorf
impatiently, "where did you learn to handle snuffers?" "Excellenz, in
a place where there were two lights kept!" replied the other. [_
Sechendorje Leben_ (already cited), i. 4.]--For the rest, he has a good
old Wife at Meuselwitz, who is now old, and had never any children;
who loves him much, and is much loved by him, it would appear: this is
really the best fact I ever knew of him,--poor bankrupt creature;
gone all to spiritual rheumatism, to strict orthodoxy, with unlimited
mendacity; and avarice as the general outcome! Stiff-backed,
close-fisted strength, all grown wooden or stony; yet some little well
of human Sympathy does lie far in the interior: one wishes, after all
(since he could not be got hanged in time for us), good days to his poor
old Wife and him! He both lisps and snuffles, as was mentioned; writes
cunningly acres of despatches to Prince Eugene; never swears, though a
military man, except on great occasions one oath, JARNI-BLEU,--which is
perhaps some flash-note version of CHAIR-DE-DIEU, like PARBLEU, 'Zounds
and the rest of them, which the Devil cannot prosecute you for; whereby
an economic man has the pleasure of swearing on cheap terms.
Herr Pollnitz's account of Seckendorf is unusually emphatic; babbling
Pollnitz rises into a strain of pulpit eloquence, inspired by
indignation, on this topic: "He affected German downrightness, to which
he was a stranger; and followed, under a deceitful show of piety, all
the principles of Machiavel. With the most sordid love of money he
combined boorish manners. Lies [of the distilled kind chiefly] had so
become a habit with him, that he had altogether lost notion of employing
truth in speech. It was the soul of a usurer, inhabiting now the body of
a war-captain, now transmigrating into that of a huckster. False oaths,
and the abominablest basenesses, cost him nothing, so his object might
be reached. He was miserly with his own, but lavish with his Master's
money; daily he gave most striking proofs of both these habitudes. And
this was the man whom we saw, for a space of time, at the head of the
Kaiser's Armies, and at the helm of the State and of the German Empire,"
[Pollnitz, ii. 238.]--having done the Prussian affair so well.
This cunning old Gentleman, to date from the autumn of 1726, may be said
to have taken possession of Friedrich Wilhelm; to have gone into him,
Grumkow and he, as two devils would have done in the old miraculous
times: and, in many senses, it was they, not the nominal proprietor,
that lived Friedrich Wilhelm's life. For the next seven years, a figure
went about, not doubting it was Friedrich Wilhelm; but it was in reality
Seckendorf-and-Grumkow much more. These two, conjurer and his man,
both invisible, have caught their royal wild Bear; got a rope round his
muzzle;--and so dance him about; now terrifying, now exhilarating all
the market by the pranks he plays! Grumkow, a very Machiavel after his
sort, knew the nature of the royal animal as no other did. Grumkow,
purchased by his Pension of 500 pounds, is dog-cheap at the Money, as
Seckendorf often urges at Vienna, Is he not? And they add a touch of
extraordinary gift now and then, 40,000 florins (4,000 pounds) on one
occasion: [In 1732: Forster, iii. 232.] for "Grumkow DIENET EHRLICH
(serves honorably)," urges Seckendorf; and again, "If anybody deserves
favor [GNADE, meaning extra pay], it is this gentleman;"--WAHRLICH!
Purchased Grumkow has ample money at command, to purchase other people
needed; and does purchase; so that all things and persons can be
falsified and enchanted, as need is. By and by it has got so far,
that Friedrich Wilhelm's Ambassador at London maintains a
cipher-correspondence with Grumkow; and writes to Friedrich Wilhelm,
not what is passing in city or court there, but what Grumkow wishes
Friedrich Wilhelm to think is passing.
Of insinuations, by assent or contradiction, potent if you know the
nature of the beast; of these we need not speak. Tabaks-Collegium has
become a workshop:--human nature can fancy it! Nay human nature can
still read it in the British State-Paper Office, to boundless stupendous
extent;--but ought mostly to suppress it when read.
This is a very strange part of Friedrich Wilhelm's history; and has
caused much wonder in the world: Wilhelmina's Book rather aggravating
than assuaging that feeling, on the part of intelligent readers. A Book
written long afterwards, from her recollections, from her own oblique
point of view; in a beautifully shrill humor; running, not unnaturally,
into confused exaggerations and distortions of all kinds. Not
mendaciously written anywhere, yet erroneously everywhere. Wilhelmina
had no knowledge of the magical machinery that was at work: she
vaguely suspects Grumkow and Seckendorf; but does not guess, in the mad
explosions of Papa, that two devils have got into Papa, and are
doing the mischief. Trusting to memory alone, she misdates, mistakes,
misplaces; jumbles all things topsy-turvy;--giving, on the whole, an
image of affairs which is altogether oblique, dislocated, exaggerative;
and which, in fine, proves unintelligible, if you try to construe it
into a fact or thing DONE. Yet her Human Narrative, in that wide waste
of merely Pedant Maunderings, is of great worth to us. A green tree,
a leafy grove, better or worse, in the wilderness of dead bones and
sand,--how welcome! Many other Books have been written on the matter;
but these to my experience, only darken it more and more. Pull
Wilhelmina STRAIGHT, the best you can; deduct a twenty-five or sometimes
even a seventy-five per cent, from the exaggerative portions of her
statement; you will find her always true, lucid, charmingly human;
and by far the best authority on this part of her Brother's History.
State-Papers to some extent have also been printed on the matter; and
of written State-Papers, here in England and elsewhere, this Editor has,
had several hundred-weights distilled for him: but except as lights hung
out over Wilhelmina, nothing yet known, of published or manuscript, can
be regarded as good for much.
O Heavens, had one but seven-league boots, to get across that
inane country,--a bottomless whirlpool of dust and cobwebs in many
places;--where, at any rate, we had so little to do! Elucidating,
rectifying, painfully contrasting, comparing, let us try to work
out some conceivable picture of this strange Imperial MUCH ADO ABOUT
NOTHING; and get our unfortunate Crown-Prince, and our unfortunate
selves, alive through it.