Potsdam.
I am afraid you will think the anecdotes and conversation which I
sometimes send you are rather tedious. Your curiosity about certain
characters has led me into this practice; for I choose to give you
opportunities of forming an opinion of your own, rather than to trouble
you with mine. My opinion might very probably be erroneous; the accounts
I give of what I have seen or heard are always true. And, notwithstanding
that the actions and conversations I relate, may be apparently of small
importance, still as the persons in some measure describe themselves, an
understanding like yours will be able from thence to draw juster ideas of
character than I could have given.
In a former letter I mentioned the great difficulty of deserting from a
Prussian garrison, and of what importance it is thought to prevent it. An
incident which happened a few days since, will give you a stronger idea
of this than any general account.
Two soldiers of the Prince of Prussia’s regiment got over the walls in
the night-time, with an intention to desert; but unluckily for them, this
town stands on a peninsula formed by the river, and the neck of land is
guarded in such a manner that it is almost impossible to pass that way
without permission. These men could not swim, and they durst not present
themselves at any of the ferries, because the boatmen are forbid, under
the severest penalties, to connive at the escape of any deserters,
and strictly ordered to assist in apprehending them. A reward is also
offered, as a greater inducement to this piece of service.
All these circumstances being known in the garrison, it was imagined
that, as none of the peasants would in all probability venture to
harbour them, they were still skulking in the fields among the standing
corn. On this supposition, parties of men were employed for three days
successively in traversing the fields, and beating the bushes, as if
they had been in chace of a hare. Great numbers of the officers of this
regiment, some of the highest rank, rode about for three or four hours
every day, all employed in the same manner. But not finding the men, they
were at last convinced that they had by some means or other got out of
the peninsula, and all further search was given up as unnecessary.
On the morning of the fourth day, these two unfortunate men came and
surrendered to the guard at one of the gates. Finding it impracticable
to effect their escape, and not daring to enter a house, they were at
length compelled by hunger and fatigue to deliver themselves up.
Before I close this letter, I will give you an account of an adventure
of an affecting nature, which happened in the King’s family, at the time
when all these researches were made for the two deserters.
The King’s principal valet-de chambre was a man considerably respected.
Having constant opportunities of being about the King’s person, and
having enjoyed his approbation for several years, people of the
first rank paid him some degree of attention. He was liked by his
acquaintances, as I have been told, on account of his personal qualities,
and had accumulated a little fortune by the perquisites of his office. He
had built a house near that of my Lord Marechal, and kept a coach for the
use of his mistress.
It was this man’s misfortune to disoblige the King, probably by some
neglect of duty; or it might possibly be something worse:—I never could
hear exactly how this had happened:—But while the Princesses were at the
New Palace, the King had blamed him in very sharp terms; and not being
satisfied with the excuses the man made, he told him, that, as soon as
the company was gone, he should be taken care of.
When the Princesses went to Berlin, his Majesty returned to his old
palace at Sans-Souci; and the day after, he sent for an officer of his
guards, and ordered him to conduct this man to Potsdam, and place him in
the quality of a drummer in the first regiment of foot-guards.
The poor man endeavoured to pacify his master by prayers and entreaties,
but without success.—He then said to the officer, that there were some
things in his room which he wished to put in order before he went, and
desired that he might be allowed a little time for that purpose. The
officer readily assented, and as soon as this desperate man had entered
his own apartment, he seized a pistol, which he had prepared from the
time the King had threatened him, and immediately shot himself through
the head. The report of the pistol alarmed the King and the officer.—They
both went into the room, and found the poor creature expiring.
Though the King certainly had no idea that his valet would shoot himself;
and though, it is most probable, he would not have allowed him to remain
long in the situation to which, in a fit of resentment, he had condemned
him;—yet there is something exceedingly harsh in dashing a man at once
from a situation of ease and respect, into a sphere of life so very
different.—Such an order was more becoming the fury of an intemperate
despot, than the dignity of so great and so wise a monarch as the King of
Prussia.
I conversed with a person who had been at Sans-Souci immediately
after this melancholy event.—He said the King seemed to be very much
affected.—If he felt it as he ought, he was an object of compassion; if
he did not, he was still more so, for nothing can be a greater misfortune
to a man than to want humanity.