History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume VI Part 1

History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia.

Vol. VI.

by Thomas Carlyle.

BOOK VI.--DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND CROWN-PRINCE, GOING ADRIFT UNDER THE STORM-WINDS.--1727-1730.

Chapter I. -- FIFTH CRISIS IN THE KAISER'S SPECTRE-HUNT.

The Crown-Prince's young Life being, by perverse chance, involved and as it were absorbed in that foolish question of his English Marriage, we have nothing for it but to continue our sad function; and go on painfully fis.h.i.+ng out, and reducing to an authentic form, what traces of him there are, from that disastrous beggarly element,--till once he get free of it, either dead or alive. The WINDS (partly by Art-Magic) rise to the hurricane pitch, upon this Marriage Project and him; and as for the sea, or general tide of European Politics--But let the reader look with his own eyes.

In the spring of 1727, War, as antic.i.p.ated, breaks out; Spaniards actually begin battering at Gibraltar; Kaiser's Amba.s.sador at London is angrily ordered to begone. Causes of war were many:

1. Duke de Ripperda--tumbled out now, that ill.u.s.trious diplomatic bulldog, at Madrid--sought asylum in the English Amba.s.sador's house; and no respect was had to such asylum: that is one cause.

2. Then, you English, what is the meaning of these war-fleets in the West Indies; in the Mediterranean, on the very coast of Spain? We demand that you at once take them home again:--which cannot be complied with.

3. But above all things, we demand Gibraltar of you:--which can still less be complied with. Termagant Elizabeth has set her heart on Gibraltar: that, in such opportunity as this unexpected condition of the Balances now gives her, is the real cause of the War.

Cession of Gibraltar: there had been vague promises, years ago, on the Kaiser's part; nay George himself, raw to England at that date, is said to have thought the thing might perhaps be done.--"Do it at once, then!"

said the Termagant Queen, and repeated, with ever more emphasis;--and there being not the least compliance, she has opened parallels before the place, and begun war and ardent firing there; [22d February, 1727 (Scholl, ii. 212). Salmon, _Chronological Historian_ (London, 1747; a very incorrect dark Book, useful only in defect of better), ii. 173.

c.o.xe, _Memoirs of Walpole,_ i. 260, 261; ii. 498-515.] preceded by protocols, debates in Parliament; and the usual phenomena. It is the Fifth grand Crisis in the Kaiser's spectre-huntings; fifth change in the color of the world-lobster getting boiled in that singular manner;--Second Sputter of actual War.

Which proved futile altogether; and amounts now, in the human memory; to flat zero,--unless the following infinitesimally small fraction be countable again:--

"Sputtering of War; that is to say, Siege of Gibraltar. A siege utterly unmemorable, and without the least interest, for existing mankind with their ungrateful humor,--if it be not; once more, that the Father of TRISTRAM SHANDY was in it: still a Lieutenant of foot, poor fellow; brisk, small, hot-tempered, loving, 'liable to be cheated ten times a day if nine will not suffice you.' He was in this Siege; s.h.i.+pped to the Rock to make stand there; and would have done so with the boldest,--only he got into duel (hot-tempered, though of lamb-like innocence), and was run through the body; not entirely killed, but within a hair's breadth of it; and unable for service while this sputtering went on. Little Lorry is still living; gone to school in Yorks.h.i.+re, after pranks enough, and misventures,--half-drowning 'in the mill-race at Annamoe in Ireland,' for one. [Laurence Sterne's _Autobiography_ (cited above).]

The poor Lieutenant Father died, soldiering in the West Indies; soon after this; and we shall not mention him again. But History ought to remember that he is 'Uncle Toby,' this poor Lieutenant, and take her measures!--The Siege of Gibraltar, we still see with our eyes, was in itself Nothing."

Truly it might well enough have grown to universal flame of War. But this always needs two parties; and pacific George would not be second party in it. George, guided by pacific Walpole, backed by pacific Fleury, answers the ardent firing by phlegmatic patience and protocolling; not by counter-firing, except quite at his convenience, from privateers, from war-s.h.i.+ps here and there, and in sulky defence from Gibraltar itself. Probably the Termagant, with all the fire she has, will not do much damage upon Gibraltar? Such was George's hope.

Whereby the flame of war, ardent only in certain Spanish batteries upon the point of San Roque, does not spread hitherto,--though all mortals, and Friedrich Wilhelm as much as any, can see the imminent likelihood there is. In such circ.u.mstances, what a stroke of policy to have disjoined Friedrich Wilhelm from the Hanover Alliance, and brought him over to our own! Is not Grumkow worth his pension? "Grumkow serves honorably." Let the invaluable Seckendorf persevere.

CROWN-PRINCE SEEN IN DRYASDUST'S GLa.s.s, DARKLY.

To know the special figure of the Crown-Prince's way of life in those years, who his friends, companions were, what his pursuits and experiences, would be agreeable to us; but beyond the outline already given, there is little definite on record. He now resides habitually at Potsdam, be the Court there or not; attending strictly to his military duties in the Giant Regiment; it is only on occasion, chiefly perhaps in "Carnival time," that he gets to Berlin, to partake in the gayeties of society. Who his a.s.sociates there or at Potsdam were? Suhm, the Saxon Resident, a cultivated man of literary turn, famed as his friend in time coming, is already at his diplomatic post in Berlin, post of difficulty just now; but I know not whether they have yet any intimacy. [Preuss, _Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden_, p. 24.] This we do know, the Crown-Prince begins to be noted for his sprightly sense, his love of literature, his ingenuous ways; in the Court or other circles, whatsoever has intelligence attracts him, and is attracted by him. The Roucoulles Soirees,--gone all to dim backram for us, though once so lively in their high periwigs and speculations,--fall on Wednesday. When the Finkenstein or the others fall,--no doubt his Royal Highness knows it. In the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM, there also, driven by duty, he sometimes appears; but, like Seckendorf and some others, he only affects to smoke, and his pipe is mere white clay. Nor is the social element, any more than the narcotic vapor which prevails there, attractive to the young Prince,--though he had better hide his feelings on the subject.

Out at Potsdam, again, life goes very heavy; the winged Psyche much imprisoned in that pipe-clay element, a prey to vacancy and many tediums and longings. Daily return the giant drill-duties; and daily, to the uttermost of rigorous perfection, they must be done:--"This, then, is the sum of one's existence, this?" Patience, young "man of genius,"

as the Newspapers would now call you; it is indispensably beneficial nevertheless! To swallow one's disgusts, and do faithfully the ugly commanded work, taking no council with flesh and blood: know that "genius," everywhere in Nature, means this first of all; that without this, it means nothing, generally even less. And be thankful for your Potsdam grenadiers and their pipe-clay!--

Happily he has his Books about him; his flute: Duhan, too, is here, still more or less didactic in some branches; always instructive and companionable, to him. The Crown-Prince reads a great deal; very many French Books, new and old, he reads; among the new, we need not doubt, the _Henriade_ of M. Arouet Junior (who now calls himself VOLTAIRE), which has risen like a star of the first magnitude in these years.

[London, 1723, in surrept.i.tious incomplete state, _La Ligue_ the t.i.tle; then at length, London, 1726, as _Henriade,_ in splendid 4to,--by subscription (King, Prince and Princess of Wales at the top of it), which yielded 8,000 pounds: see Voltaire, _OEuvres Completes,_ xiii.

408.] An incomparable piece, patronized by Royalty in England; the delight of all kindred Courts. The light dancing march of this new "Epic," and the brisk clash of cymbal music audible in it, had, as we find afterwards, greatly captivated the young man. All is not pipe-clay, then, and torpid formalism; aloft from the murk of commonplace rise glancings of a starry splendor, betokening--oh, how much!

Out of Books, rumors and experiences, young imagination is forming to itself some Picture of the World as it is, as it has been. The curtains of this strange life-theatre are mounting, mounting,--wondrously as in the case of all young souls; but with what specialties, moods or phenomena of light and shadow, to this young soul, is not in any point recorded for us. The "early Letters to Wilhelmina, which exist in great numbers," from these we had hoped elucidation: but these the learned Editor has "wholly withheld as useless," for the present. Let them be carefully preserved, on the chance of somebody's arising to whom they may have uses!--

The worst feature of these years is Friedrich Wilhelm's discontent with them. A Crown-Prince sadly out of favor with Papa. This has long been on the growing hand; and these Double-Marriage troubles, not to mention again the new-fangled French tendencies (BLITZ FRANZOSEN!), much aggravate the matter, and accelerate its rate of growth. Already the paternal countenance does not s.h.i.+ne upon him; flames often; and thunders, to a shocking degree;--and worse days are coming.

Chapter II. -- DEATH OF GEORGE I.

Gibraltar still keeps sputtering; ardent ineffectual bombardment from the one side, sulky, heavy blast of response now and then from the other: but the fire does not spread; nor will, we may hope. It is true, Sweden and Denmark have joined the Treaty of Hanover, this spring; and have troops on foot, and money paid them; But George is pacific; Gibraltar is impregnable; let the Spaniards spend their powder there.

As for the Kaiser, he is dreadfully poor; inapt for battle himself. And in the end of this same May, 1727, we hear, his princ.i.p.al ally, Czarina Catherine, has died;--poor brown little woman, Lithuanian housemaid, Russian Autocrat, it is now all one;--dead she, and can do nothing.

Probably the Kaiser will sit still? The Kaiser sits still; with eyes bent on Gibraltar, or rolling in grand Imperial inquiry and anxiety round the world; war-outlooks much dimmed for him since the end of May.

Alas, in the end of June, what far other Job's-post is this that reaches Berlin and Queen Sophie? That George I., her royal Father, has suddenly sunk dead! With the Solstice, or Summer pause of the Sun, 21st or 22d June, almost uncertain which, the Majesty of George I. did likewise pause,--in his carriage, on the road to Osnabruck,--never to move more. Whereupon, among the simple People, arose rumors of omens, preternaturalisms, for and against: How his desperate Megaera of a Wife, in the act of dying, had summoned him (as was presumable), to appear along with her at the Great Judgment-Bar within year and day; and how he has here done it. On the other hand, some would have it noted, How "the nightingales in Herrenhausen Gardens had all ceased singing for the year, that night he died,"--out of loyalty on the part of these little birds, it seemed presumable. [See Kohler, _Munzbel.u.s.tigungen,_ x. 88.]

What we know is, he was journeying towards Hanover again, hopeful of a little hunting at the Gorhde; and intended seeing Osnabruck and his Brother the Bishop there, as he pa.s.sed. That day, 21st June, 1727, from some feelings of his own, he was in great haste for Osnabruck; hurrying along by extra-post, without real cause save hurry of mind. He had left his poor old Maypole of a Mistress on the Dutch Frontier, that morning, to follow at more leisure. He was struck by apoplexy on the road,--arm fallen powerless, early in the day, head dim and heavy; obviously an alarming case. But he refused to stop anywhere; refused any surgery but such as could be done at once. "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" he reiterated, growing visibly worse. Two subaltern Hanover Officials, "Privy-Councillor von Hardenberg, KAMMERHERR (Chamberlain) von Fabrice, were in the carriage with him;" [Gottfried, _Historische Chronik_ (Frankfurt, 1759), iii. 872. Boyer, _The Political State of Great Britain,_ vol. x.x.xiii. pp. 545, 546.] King chiefly dozing, and at last supported in the arms of Fabrice, was heard murmuring, "C'EST FAIT DE MOI ('T is all over with me)!" And "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" slumberously reiterated he: To Osnabruck, where my poor old Brother, Bishop as they call him, once a little Boy that trotted at my knee with blithe face, will have some human pity on me! So they rushed along all day, as at the gallop, his few attendants and he; and when the shades of night fell, and speech had now left the poor man, he still pa.s.sionately gasped some gurgle of a sound like "Osnabruck;"--hanging in the arms of Fabrice, and now evidently in the article of death. What a gallop, sweeping through the slumber of the world: To Osnabruck, Osnabruck!

In the hollow of the night (some say, one in the morning), they reach Osnabruck. And the poor old Brother,--Ernst August, once youngest of six brothers, of seven children, now the one survivor, has human pity in the heart of him full surely. But George is dead; careless of it now.

[c.o.xe (i. 266) is "indebted to his friend Nathaniel Wraxall" for these details,--the since famous Sir Nathaniel, in whose _Memoirs_ (vague, but NOT mendacious, not unintelligent) they are now published more at large.

See his _Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden,_ &c. (London. 1799), i. 35-40; also _Historical Memoirs_ (London, 1836), iv. 516-518.] After sixty-seven years of it, he has flung his big burdens,--English crowns, Hanoverian crownlets, sulkinesses, indignations, lean women and fat, and earthly contradictions and confusions,--fairly off him; and lies there.

The man had his big burdens, big honors so called, absurd enough some of them, in this world; but he bore them with a certain gravity and discretion: a man of more probity, insight and general human faculty than he now gets credit for. His word was sacred to him. He had the courage of a Welf, or Lion-Man; quietly royal in that respect at least.

His sense of equity, of what was true and honorable in men and things, remained uneffaced to a respectable degree; and surely it had resisted much. Wilder puddle of muddy infatuations from without and from within, if we consider it well,--of irreconcilable incoherences, bottomless universal hypocrisies, solecisms bred with him and imposed on him,--few sons of Adam had hitherto lived in.

He was, in one word, the first of our Hanover Series of English Kings; that hitherto unique sort, who are really strange to look at in the History of the World. Of whom, in the English annals, there is. .h.i.therto no Picture to be had; nothing but an empty blur of discordant nonsenses, and idle, generally angry, flouris.h.i.+ngs of the pen, by way of Picture.

The English Nation, having flung its old Puritan, Sword-and-Bible Faith into the cesspool,--or rather having set its old Bible-Faith, MINUS any Sword, well up in the organ-loft, with plenty of revenue, there to preach and organ at discretion, on condition always of meddling with n.o.body's practice farther,--thought the same (such their mistake) a mighty pretty arrangement; but found it hitch before long. They had to throw out their beautiful Nell-Gwynn Defenders of the Faith; fling them also into the cesspool; and were rather at a loss what next to do.

"Where is our real King, then? Who IS to lead us Heavenward, then; to rally the n.o.ble of us to him, in some small measure, and save the rest and their affairs from running Devilward?"--The English Nation being in some difficulty as to Kings, the English Nation clutched up the readiest that came to hand; "Here is our King!" said they,--again under mistake, still under their old mistake. And, what was singular, they then avenged themselves by mocking, calumniating, by angrily speaking, writing and laughing at the poor mistaken King so clutched!--It is high time the English were candidly asking themselves, with very great seriousness indeed, WHAT it was they had done, in the sight of G.o.d and man, on that and the prior occasion? And above all, What it is they will now propose to do in the sequel of it! Dig gold-nuggets, and rally the IGn.o.ble of us?--

George's poor lean Mistress, coming on at the usual rate of the road, was met, next morning, by the sad tidings. She sprang from her carriage into the dusty highway; tore her hair (or headdress), half-frantic; declared herself a ruined woman; and drove direct to Berlin, there to compose her old mind. She was not ill seen at Court there; had her connections in the world. Fieldmarshal Schulenburg, who once had the honor of fighting (not to his advantage) with Charles XII., and had since grown famous by his Anti-Turk performances in the Venetian service, is a Brother of this poor Maypole's; and there is a Nephew of hers, one of Friedrich Wilhelm's Field-Officers here, whom we shall meet by and by. She has been obliging to Queen Sophie on occasions; they can, and do, now weep heartily together. I believe she returned to England, being d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, with heavy pensions there; and "a.s.siduously attended divine ordinances, according to the German Protestant form, ever afterwards." Poor foolish old soul, what is this world, with all its dukeries!--

The other or fat Mistress, "Cataract of fluid Tallow," Countess of Darlington, whom I take to have been a Half-Sister rather, sat sorrowful at Isleworth; and kept for many years a Black Raven, which had come flying in upon her; which she somehow understood to be the soul, or connected with the soul, of his Majesty of happy memory. [Horace Walpole, _Reminiscences._] Good Heavens, what fat fluid-tallowy stupor, and entirely sordid darkness, dwells among mankind; and occasionally finds itself lifted to the very top, by way of sample!--

Friedrich Wilhelm wept tenderly to Brigadier Dubourgay, the British Minister at Berlin (an old military gentleman, of diplomatic merit, who spells rather ill), when they spoke of this sad matter. My poor old Uncle; he was so good to me in boyhood, in those old days, when I blooded Cousin George's nose! Not unkind, ah, only proud and sad; and was called sulky, being of few words and heavy-laden. Ah me, your Excellenz; if the little nightingales have all fallen silent, what may not I, his Son and nephew, do?--And the rugged Majesty blubbered with great tenderness; having fountains of tears withal, hidden in the rocky heart of him, not suspected by every one. [Dubourgay's Despatches, in the State-Paper Office.]

I add only that the Fabrice, who had poor George in his arms that night, is a man worth mentioning. The same Fabrice (Fabricius, or perhaps GOLDSCHMIDT in German) who went as Envoy from the Holstein-Gottorp people to Charles XII. in his Turkish time; and stayed with his Swedish Majesty there, for a year or two, indeed till the catastrophe came. His Official LETTERS from that scene are in print, this long while, though considerably forgotten; [_Anecdotes du Sejour du Roi de Suide a Bender, ou Lettres de M. le Baron de Fabrice pour servir d'elairciss.e.m.e.nt a l'Histoire de Charles XII._ (Hambourg, 1760, 8vo).] a little Volume, worth many big ones that have been published on that subject. The same Fabrice, following Hanover afterwards, came across to London in due course; and there he did another memorable thing: made acquaintance with the Monsieur Arouet, then a young French Exile there, Arouet Junior ("LE JEUNE or L. J."), who,--by an ingenious anagram, contrived in his indignation at such banishment,--writes himself VOLTAIRE ever since; who has been publis.h.i.+ng a HENRIADE, and doing other things. Now it was by questioning this Fabrice, and industriously picking the memory of him clean, that M. de Voltaire wrote another book, much more of an "Epic"

than Henri IV.,--a HISTORY, namely, OF CHARLES XII.; [See Voltaire, _OEuvres Completes_, ii. 149, x.x.x. 7, 127. Came out in 1731 (ib. x.x.x.

Avant-Propos, p. ii).] which seems to me the best-written of all his Books, and wants nothing but TRUTH (indeed a dreadful want) to make it a possession forever. VOLTAIRE, if you want fine writing; ADLERFELD and FABRICE, if you would see the features of the Fact: these three are still the Books upon Charles XII.

HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY FALLS INTO ONE OF HIS HYPOCHONDRIACAL FITS.

Before this event, his Majesty was in gloomy humor; and special vexations had superadded themselves. Early in the Spring, a difficult huff of quarrel, the consummation of a good many grudges long subsisting, had fallen out with his neighbor of Saxony, the Majesty of Poland, August, whom we have formerly heard of, a conspicuous Majesty in those days; called even "August the Great" by some persons in his own time; but now chiefly remembered by his splendor of upholstery, his enormous expenditure in drinking and otherwise, also by his three hundred and fifty-four b.a.s.t.a.r.ds (probably the maximum of any King's performance in that line), and called August DER STARKE, "August the Physically Strong." This exemplary Sovereign could not well be a man according to Friedrich Wilhelm's heart: accordingly they had their huffs and little collisions now and then: that of the Protestant Directorate and Heidelberg Protestants, for instance; indeed it was generally about Protestantism; and more lately there had been high words and correspondings about the "Protestants of Thorn" (a bad tragedy, of Jesuit intrusion and Polish ferocity, enacted there in 1724); [Account of it in Buchholz, i. 98-102.]--in which sad business Friedrich Wilhelm loyally interfered, though Britannic George of blessed memory and others were but lukewarm; and nothing could be done in it. Nothing except angry correspondence with King August; very provoking to the poor soul, who had no hand but a nominal one in the Thorn catastrophe, being driven into it by his unruly Diet alone.

In fact, August, with his glittering eyes and excellent physical const.i.tution, was a very good-humored fellow; supremely pleasant in society; and by no means wishful to cheat you, or do you a mischief in business,--unless his necessities compelled him; which often were great.

But Friedrich Wilhelm always kept a good eye on such points; and had himself suffered nothing from the gay eupeptic Son of Belial, either in their old Stralsund copartnery or otherwise. So that, except for these Protestant affairs,--and alas, one other little cause,--Friedrich Wilhelm had contentedly left the Physically Strong to his own course, doing the civilities of the road to him when they met; and nothing ill had fallen out between them. This other little cause--alas, it is the old story of recruiting; one's poor Hobby again giving offence! Special recruiting brabbles there had been; severe laws pa.s.sed in Saxony about these kidnapping operations: and always in the Diets, when question rose of this matter, August had been particularly loud in his denouncings.

Which was unkind, though not unexpected. But now, in the Spring of 1727, here has a worse case than any arisen.

Captain Natzmer, of I know not what Prussian Regiment, "Sachsen-Weimar Cuira.s.siers" [_Militair-Lexikon,_ iii. 104.] or another, had dropt over into Saxony, to see what could be done in picking up a tall man or two.

Tall men, one or two, Captain Natzmer did pick up, nay a tall deserter or two (Saxon soldier, inveigled to desert); but finding his operations get air, he hastily withdrew into Brandenburg territory again. Saxon Officials followed him into Brandenburg territory; snapt him back into Saxon; tried him by Saxon law there;--Saxon law, express in such case, condemns him to be hanged; and that is his doom accordingly.