History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume IX Part 3

Preussen is to be the place for these people; Tilsit and Memel region, same where the big Fight of Tannenberg and ruin of the Teutsch Ritters took place: in that fine fertile Country there are homes got ready for this Emigration out of Salzburg.

Long ago, at the beginning of this History, did not the reader hear of a pestilence in Prussian Lithuania? Pestilence in old King Friedrich's time; for which the then Crown-Prince, now Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm, vainly solicited help from the Treasury, and only brought about partial change of Ministry and no help. "Fifty-two Towns" were more or less entirely depopulated; hundreds of thousands of fertile acres fell to waste again, the hands that had ploughed them being swept away. The new Majesty, so soon as ever the Swedish War was got rid of, took this matter diligently in hand; built up the fifty-two ruined Towns; issued Proclamations once and again (Years 1719, 1721) to the Wetterau, to Switzerland, Saxony, Schwaben; [Buchholz, i. 148.] inviting Colonists to come, and, on favorable terms, till and reap there. His terms are favorable, well-considered; and are honestly kept. He has a fixed set of terms for Colonists: their road-expenses thither, so much a day allowed each travelling soul; homesteads, ploughing implements, cattle, land, await them at their journey's end; their rent and services, accurately specified, are light not heavy; and "immunities" from this and that are granted them, for certain years, till they get well nestled. Excellent arrangements: and his Majesty has, in fact, got about 20,000 families in that way. And still there is room for thousands more. So that if the tyrannous Firmian took to tribulating Salzburg in that manner, Heaven had provided remedies and a Prussian Majesty. Heaven is very opulent; has alchemy to change the ugliest substances into beautifulest.

Privately to his Majesty, for months back, this Salzburg Emigration is a most manageable matter. Manage well, it will be a G.o.d-send to his Majesty, and fit, as by pre-established harmony, into the ancient Prussian sorrow; and "two afflictions well put together shall become a consolation," as the proverb promises! Go along then, Right Reverend Firmian, with your Emigration there: only no foul-play in it,--or Halberstadt and Minden get locked:--for the rest of the matter we will undertake.

And so, February 2d, 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm's Proclamation [Copy of it in Mauvillon, February, 1732, ii. 311.] flew abroad over the world; brief and business-like, cheering to all but Firmian;--to this purport: "Come, ye poor Salzburgers, there are homes provided for you. Apply at Regensburg, at Halle: Commissaries are appointed; will take charge of your long march and you. Be kind, all Christian German Princes: do not hinder them and me." And in a few days farther, still early in February (for the matter is all ready before proclaiming), an actual Prussian Commissary hangs out his announcements and officialities at Donauworth, old City known to us, within reach of the Salzburg Boundaries; collects, in a week or two, his first lot of Emigrants, near a thousand strong; and fairly takes the road with them.

A long road and a strange: I think, above five hundred miles before we get to Halle, within Prussian land; and then seven hundred more to our place there, in the utmost East. Men, women, infants and h.o.a.ry grandfathers are here;--most of their property sold,--still on ruinous conditions, think of it, your Majesty. Their poor bits of preciosities and heirlooms they have with them; made up in succinct bundles, stowed on ticketed baggage-wains; "some have their own poor cart and horse, to carry the too old and the too young, those that cannot walk." A pilgrimage like that of the Children of Israel: such a pilgrim caravan as was seldom heard of in our Western Countries. Those poor succinct bundles, the making of them up and stowing of them; the pangs of simple hearts, in those remote native valleys; the tears that were not seen, the cries that were addressed to G.o.d only: and then at last the actual turning out of the poor caravan, in silently practical condition, staff in hand, no audible complaint heard from it; ready to march; practically marching here:--which of us can think of it without emotion, sad, and yet in a sort blessed!

Every Emigrant man has four GROSCHEN a day (fourpence odd) allowed him for road expenses, every woman three groschen, every child two: and regularity itself, in the shape of Prussian Commissaries, presides over it. Such marching of the Salzburgers: host after host of them, by various routes, from February onwards; above seven thousand of them this year, and ten thousand more that gradually followed,--was heard of at all German firesides, and in all European lands. A phenomenon much filling the general ear and imagination; especially at the first emergence of it. We will give from poor old authentic Fa.s.smann, as if caught up by some sudden photograph apparatus, a rude but undeniable glimpse or two into the actuality of this business: the reader will in that way sufficiently conceive it for himself.

Glimpse FIRST is of an Emigrant Party arriving, in the cold February days of 1732, at Nordlingen, Protestant Free-Town in Bavaria: three hundred of them; first section, I think, of those nine hundred who were packed away unceremoniously by Firmian last winter, and have been wandering about Bavaria, lodging "in Kaufbeuern" and various preliminary Towns, till the Prussian arrangements became definite. Prussian Commissaries are, by this time, got to Donauworth; but these poor Salzburgers are ahead of them, wandering under the voluntary principle as yet. Nordlingen, in Bavaria, is an old Imperial Free-Town; Protestantism not suppressed there, as it has been all round; scene of some memorable fighting in the Thirty-Years War, especially of a bad defeat to the Swedes and Bernhard of Weimar, the worst they had in the course of that bad business. The Salzburgers are in number three hundred and thirty-one; time, "first days of February, 1732, weather very cold and raw." The charitable Protestant Town has been expecting such an advent:--

"Two chief Clergymen, and the Schoolmaster and Scholars, with some hundreds of citizens and many young people" went out to meet them; there, in the open field, stood the Salzburgers, with their wives and their little ones, with their bullock-carts and baggage-wains,"

pilgriming towards unknown parts of the Earth. "'Come in, ye blessed of the Lord! Why stand ye without?' said the Parson solemnly, by way of welcome; and addressed a Discourse to them," devout and yet human, true every word of it, enough to draw tears from any Fa.s.smann that were there;--Fa.s.smann and we not far from weeping without words. "Thereupon they ranked themselves two and two, and marched into the Town," straight to the Church, I conjecture, Town all out to partic.i.p.ate; "and there the two reverend gentlemen successively addressed them again, from appropriate texts: Text of the first reverend gentleman was, _And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life._ [Matthew xix. 29.] Text of the second was, _Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee."_ [Genesis xii. 1.] Excellent texts; well handled, let us hope,--especially with brevity. After which the strangers were distributed, some into public-houses, others taken home by the citizens to lodge.

"Out of the Spital there was distributed to each person, for the first three days, a half-pound of flesh-meat, bread, and a measure of beer.

The remaining days they got in money six CREUTZERS (twopence) each, and bread. On Sunday, at the Church-doors there was a collection; no less than eight hundred GULDEN [80 pounds; population, say, three thousand]

for this object. At Sermon they were put into the central part of the Church," all Nordlingen lovingly encompa.s.sing them; "and were taught in two sermons," texts not given, _What the true Church is built of, and ought to have;_ Nordlingen copiously shedding tears the while (VIELE THRANEN VERGOSSEN), as it well might. "Going to Church, and coming from it, each Landlord walked ahead of his party; party followed two and two.

On other days, there was much catechising of them at different parts of the Town;"--orthodox enough, you see, nothing of superst.i.tion or fanaticism in the poor people;--"they made a good testimony of their Evangelical truth.

"The Baggage-wagons which they had with them, ten in number, upon which some of their old people sat, were brought into the Town. The Baggage was unloaded, and the packages, two hundred and eighty-one of them in all [for Fa.s.smann is Photography itself], were locked in the Zoll-Haus.

Over and above what they got from the Spital, the Church-collection and the Town-chest, Citizens were liberal; daily sent them food, or daily had them by fours and fives to their own houses to meat." And so let them wait for the Prussian Commissary, who is just at hand: "they would not part from one another, these three hundred and thirty-one," says Fa.s.smann, "though their reunion was but of that accidental nature."

[Fa.s.smann, pp. 439, 440.]

Glimpse SECOND: not dated; perhaps some ten days later; and a Prussian Commissary with this party:--

"On their getting to the Ans.p.a.ch Territory, there was so incredible a joy at the arrival of these exiled Brothers in the Faith (GLAUBENS-BRUDER) that in all places, almost in the smallest hamlets, the bells were set a-tolling; and nothing was heard but a peal of welcome from far and near." Prussian Commissary, when about quitting Ans.p.a.ch, asked leave to pa.s.s through Bamberg; Bishop of Bamberg, too orthodox a gentleman, declined; so the Commissary had to go by Nurnberg and Baireuth. Ask not if his welcome was good, in those Protestant places. "At Erlangen, fifteen miles from Nurnberg, where are French Protestants and a Dowager Margravine of Baireuth,"--Widow of Wilhelmina's Father-in-law's predecessor (if the reader can count that); DAUGHTER of Weissenfels who was for marrying Wilhelmina not long since!--"at Erlangen, the Serene Dowager s.n.a.t.c.hed up fifty of them into her own House for Christian refection; and Burghers of means had twelve, fifteen and even eighteen of them, following such example set. Nay certain French Citizens, prosperous and childless, besieged the Prussian Commissary to allow them a few Salzburg children for adoption; especially one Frenchman was extremely urgent and specific: but the Commissary, not having any order, was obliged to refuse." [Fa.s.smann, p. 441.] These must have been interesting days for the two young Margravines; forwarding Papa's poor pilgrims in that manner.

"At Baireuth," other side of Nurnberg, "it was towards Good Friday when the Pilgrims under their Commissarius arrived. They were lodged in the villages about, but came copiously into the Town; came all in a body to Church on Good Friday; and at coming out, were one and all carried off to dinner, a very scramble arising among the Townsfolk to get hold of Pilgrims and dine them. Vast numbers were carried to the Schloss:" one figures Wilhelmina among them, figures the Hereditary Prince and old Margraf: their treatment there was "beyond belief," says Fa.s.smann; "not only dinner of the amplest quality and quant.i.ty, but much money added and other gifts." From Baireuth the route is towards Gera and Thuringen, circling the Bamberg Territory: readers remember Gera, where the Gera Bond was made?--"At Gera, a commercial gentleman dined the whole party in his own premises, and his wife gave four groschen to each individual of them; other two persons, brothers in the place, doing the like. One of the poor pilgrim women had been brought to bed on the journey, a day or two before: the Commissarius lodged her in his own inn, for greater safety; Commissarius returning to his inn, finds she is off, n.o.body at first can tell him whither: a lady of quality (VORMEHME DAME) has quietly sent her carriage for the poor pilgrim sister, and has her in the right softest keeping. No end to people's kindness: many wept aloud, sobbing out, 'Is this all the help we can give?' Commissarius said, 'There will others come shortly; them also you can help.'"

In this manner march these Pilgrims. "From Donauworth, by Ans.p.a.ch, Nurnberg, Baireuth, through Gera, Zeitz, Weissenfels, to Halle," where they are on Prussian ground, and within few days of Berlin. Other Towns, not upon the first straight route to Berlin, demand to have a share in these grand things; share is willingly conceded: thus the Pilgrims, what has its obvious advantages, march by a good variety of routes. Through Augsburg, Ulm (instead of Donauworth), thence to Frankfurt; from Frankfurt some direct to Leipzig: some through Ca.s.sel, Hanover, Brunswick, by Halberstadt and Magdeburg instead of Halle. Starting all at Salzburg, landing all at Berlin; their routes spread over the Map of Germany in the intermediate s.p.a.ce.

"Weissenfels Town and Duke distinguished themselves by liberality: especially the Duke did;"--poor old drinking Duke; very Protestant all these Saxon Princes, except the Apostate or Pseudo-Apostate the Physically Strong, for sad political reasons. "In Weissenfels Town, while the Pilgrim procession walked, a certain rude foreign fellow, flax-pedler by trade, ["HECHELTRAGER," Hawker of flax-combs or HECKLES;--is oftenest a Slavonic Austrian (I am told).] by creed Papist or worse, said floutingly, 'The Archbishop ought to have flung you all into the river, you--!' Upon which a menial servant of the Duke's suddenly broke in upon him in the way of actuality, the whole crowd blazing into flame; and the pedler would certainly have got irreparable damage, had not the Town-guard instantly hooked him away."

April 21st, 1732, the first actual body, a good nine hundred strong, [Buchholz, i. 156.] got to Halle; where they were received with devout jubilee, psalm-singing, spiritual and corporeal refection, as at Nordlingen and the other stages; "Archidiaconus Franke" being prominent in it,--I have no doubt, a connection of that "CHIEN DE FRANKE,"

whom Wilhelmina used to know. They were lodged in the Waisenhaus (old Franke's ORPHAN-HOUSE); Official List of them was drawn up here, with the fit specificality; and, after three days, they took the road again for Berlin. Useful Buchholz, then a very little boy, remembers the arrival of a Body of these Salzburgers, not this but a later one in August, which pa.s.sed through his native Village, Pritzwalk in the Priegnitz: How village and village authorities were all awake, with opened stores and hearts; how his Father, the Village Parson, preached at five in the afternoon. The same Buchholz, coming afterwards to College at Halle, had the pleasure of discovering two of the Commissaries, two of the three, who had mainly superintended in this Salzburg Pilgrimage. Let the reader also take a glance at them, as specimens worth notice:--

COMMISSARIUS FIRST: "Herr von Reck was a n.o.bleman from the Hanover Country; of very great piety; who, after his Commission was done, settled at Halle; and lived there, without servant, in privacy, from the small means he had;--seeking his sole satisfaction in attendance on the Theological and Ascetic College-Lectures, where I used to see him constantly in my student time."

COMMISSARIUS SECOND: "Herr Gobel was a medical man by profession; and had the regular degree of Doctor; but was in no necessity to apply his talents to the gaining of bread. His zeal for religion had moved him to undertake this Commission. Both these gentlemen I have often seen in my youth," but do not tell you what they were like farther; "and both their Christian names have escaped me."

A third Commissarius was of Preussen, and had religious-literary tendencies. I suppose these three served gratis;--volunteers; but no doubt under oath, and tied by strict enough Prussian law. Physician, Chaplain, Road-guide, here they are, probably of supreme quality, ready to our hand. [Buchholz, _Neueste Preussisch-Brandenburgische Geschichte_ (berlin, 1775, 2 vols. 4to), i. 155 n.]

Buchholz, after "his student time," became a poor Country-schoolmaster, and then a poor Country-Parson, in his native Altmark. His poor Book is of innocent, clear, faithful nature, with some vein of "unconscious geniality" in it here and there;--a Book by no means so dest.i.tute of human worth as some that have superseded it. This was posthumous, this "NEWEST HISTORY," and has a LIFE of the Author prefixed. He has four previous Volumes on the _"Ancient History of Brandenburg,"_ which are not known to me.--About the Year 1745, there were four poor Schoolmasters in that region (two at Havelberg, one at Seehausen, one at Werben), of extremely studious turn; who, in spite of the Elbe which ran between, used to meet on stated nights, for colloquy, for interchange of Books and the like. One of them, the Werben one, was this Buchholz; another, Seehausen, was the Winckelmann so celebrated in after years.

A third, one of the Havelberg pair, "went into Mecklenburg in a year or two, as Tutor to Karl Ludwig the Prince of Strelitz's children,"--whom also mark. For the youngest of these Strelitz children was no other than the actual "Old Queen Charlotte" (ours and George III.'s), just ready for him with her Hornbooks about that time: Let the poor man have what honor he can from that circ.u.mstance! "Prince Karl Ludwig," rather a foolish-looking creature, we may fall in with personally by and by.

It was the 30th April, 1732, seven weeks and a day since Crown-Prince Friedrich's Betrothal, that this first body of Salzburg Emigrants, nine hundred strong, arrived at Berlin; "four in the afternoon, at the Brandenburg Gate;" Official persons, nay Majesty himself, or perhaps both Majesties, waiting there to receive them. Yes, ye poor footsore mortals, there is the dread King himself; stoutish short figure in blue uniform and white wig, straw-colored waistcoat, and white gaiters; stands uncommonly firm on his feet; reddish, blue-reddish face, with eyes that pierce through a man: look upon him, and yet live if you are true men. His Majesty's reception of these poor people could not but be good; nothing now wanting in the formal kind. But better far, in all the essentialities of it, there had not been hitherto, nor was henceforth, the least flaw. This Salzburg Pilgrimage has found for itself, and will find, regulation, guidance, ever a stepping-stone at the needful place; a paved road, so far as human regularity and punctuality could pave one.

That is his Majesty's s.h.i.+ning merit. "Next Sunday, after sermon, they [this first lot of Salzburgers] were publicly catechised in church; and all the world could hear their pertinent answers, given often in the very Scripture texts, or express words of Luther."

His Majesty more than once took survey of these Pilgrimage Divisions, when they got to Berlin. A pleasant sight, if there were leisure otherwise. On various occasions, too, her Majesty had large parties of them over to Monbijou, to supper there in the fine gardens; and "gave them Bibles," among other gifts, if in want of Bibles through Firmian's industry. Her Majesty was Charity itself, Charity and Grace combined, among these Pilgrims. On one occasion she picked out a handsome young la.s.s among them, and had Painter Pesne over to take her portrait.

Handsome la.s.s, by Pesne, in her Tyrolese Hat, shone thenceforth on the walls of Monbijou; and fas.h.i.+on thereupon took up the Tyrolese Hat, "which has been much worn since by the beautiful part of the Creation,"

says Buchholz; "but how many changes they have introduced in it no pen can trace."

At Berlin the Commissarius ceased; and there was usually given the Pilgrims a Candidatus Theologiae, who was to conduct them the rest of the way, and be their Clergyman when once settled. Five hundred long miles still. Some were s.h.i.+pped at Stettin; mostly they marched, stage after stage,--four groschen a day. At the farther end they found all ready; tight cottages, tillable fields, all implements furnished, and stock,--even to "FEDERVIEH," or Chanticleer with a modic.u.m of Hens. Old neighbors, and such as liked each other, were put together: fields grew green again, desolate scrubs and scrags yielding to gra.s.s and corn.

Wooden clocks even came to view,--for Berchtesgaden neighbors also emigrated; and Swiss came, and Bavarians and French:--and old trades were revived in those new localities.

Something beautifully real-idyllic in all this, surely:--Yet do not fancy that it all went on like clock-work; that there were not jarrings at every step, as is the way in things real. Of the Prussian Minister chiefly concerned in settling this new Colony I have heard one saying, forced out of him in some pressure: "There must be somebody for a scolding-stock and scape-goat; I will be it, then!" And then the Salzburg Officials, what a humor they were in! No Letters allowed from those poor Emigrants; the wickedest rumors circulated about them: "All cut to pieces by inroad of the Poles;" "Pressed for soldiers by the Prussian drill-sergeant;" "All flung into the Lakes and stagnant waters there; drowned to the last individual;" and so on. Truth nevertheless did slowly pierce through. And the "GROSSE WIRTH," our idyllic-real Friedrich Wilhelm, was wanting in nothing. Lists of their unjust losses in Salzburg were, on his Majesty's order, made out and authenticated, by the many who had suffered in that way there,--forced to sell at a day's notice, and the like:--with these his Majesty was diligent in the Imperial Court; and did get what human industry could of compensation, a part but not the whole. Contradictory noises had to abate. In the end, sound purpose, built on fact and the Laws of Nature, carried it; lies, vituperations, rumors and delusion sank to zero; and the true result remained. In 1738, the Salzburg Emigrant Community in Preussen held, in all their Churches, a Day of Thanksgiving; and admitted piously that Heaven's blessing, of a truth, had been upon this King and them. There we leave them, a useful solid population ever since in those parts; increased by this time we know not how many fold.

It cost Friedrich Wilhelm enormous sums, say the Old Histories; probably "ten TONS OF GOLD,"--that is to say, ten hundred thousand thalers; almost 150,000 pounds, no less! But he lived to see it amply repaid, even in his own time; how much more amply since;--being a man skilful in investments to a high degree indeed. Fancy 150,000 pounds invested there, in the Bank of Nature herself; and a hundred millions invested, say at Balaclava, in the Bank of Newspaper rumor: and the respective rates of interest they will yield, a million years hence! This was the most idyllic of Friedrich Wilhelm's feats, and a very real one the while.

We have only to add or repeat, that Salzburgers to the number of about 7,000 souls arrived at their place this first year; and in the year or two following, less noted by the public, but faring steadily forward upon their four groschen a day, 10,000 more. Friedrioh Wilhelm would have gladly taken the whole; "but George II. took a certain number," say the Prussian Books (George II., or pious Trustees instead of him), "and settled them at Ebenezer in Virginia,"--read, Ebenezer IN GEORGIA, where General Oglethorpe was busy founding a Colony. [Pet.i.tion to Parliament, 10th (21st) May, 1733, by Oglethorpe and his Trustees, for 10,000 pounds to carry over these Salzburgers; which was granted; Tindal's RAPIN (London, 1769), xx. 184.] There at Ebenezer I calculate they might go ahead, too, after the questionable fas.h.i.+on of that country, and increase and swell;--but have never heard of them since.

Salzburg Emigration was a very real transaction on Friedrich Wilhelm's part; but it proved idyllic too, and made a great impression on the German mind. Readers know of a Book called _Hermann and Dorothea?_ It is written by the great Goethe, and still worth reading. The great Goethe had heard, when still very little, much talk among the elders about this Salzburg Pilgrimage; and how strange a thing it was, twenty years ago and more. [1749 was Goethe's birth-year.] In middle life he threw it into Hexameters, into the region of the air; and did that unreal Shadow of it; a pleasant work in its way, since he was not inclined for more.

Chapter IV. -- PRUSSIAN MAJESTY VISITS THE KAISER.

Majesty seeing all these matters well in train,--Salzburgers under way, Crown-Prince betrothed according to his Majesty's and the Kaiser's (not to her Majesty's, and high-flying little George of England my Brother the Comedian's) mind and will,--begins to think seriously of another enterprise, half business, half pleasure, which has been hovering in his mind for some time. "Visit to my Daughter at Baireuth," he calls it publicly; but it means intrinsically Excursion into Bohmen, to have a word with the Kaiser, and see his Imperial Majesty in the body for once.

Too remarkable a thing to be omitted by us here.

Crown-Prince does not accompany on this occasion; Crown-Prince is with his Regiment all this while; busy minding his own affairs in the Ruppin quarter;--only hears, with more or less interest, of these Salzburg-Pilgrim movements, of this Excursion into Bohmen. Here are certain sc.r.a.ps of Letters; which, if once made legible, will a.s.sist readers to conceive his situation and employments there. Letters otherwise of no importance; but worth reading on that score. The FIRST (or rather first three, which we huddle into one) is from "Nauen," few miles off Ruppin; where one of our Battalions lies; requiring frequent visits there:--

1. TO GRUMKOW, AT BERLIN (from the Crown-Prince).

"NAUEN, 26th April, 1732.

"MONSIEUR MY DEAREST FRIEND,--I send you a big ma.s.s of papers, which a certain gentleman named Plotz has transmitted me. In faith, I know not in the least what it is: I pray you present it [to his Majesty, or in the proper quarter], and make me rid of it.

"To-morrow I go to Potsdam [a drive of forty miles southward], to see the exercise, and if we do it here according to pattern. NEUE BESEN KEHREN GUT [New brooms sweep clean, IN GERMAN]; I shall have to ill.u.s.trate my new character" of Colonel; "and show that I am EIN TUCHTIGER OFFICIER (a right Officer). Be what I may, I shall to you always be", &c. &c.

NAUEN, 7th MAY, 1732. "... Thousand thanks for informing me how everything goes on in the world. Things far from agreeable, those leagues [imaginary, in Tobacco-Parliament] suspected to be forming against our House! But if the Kaiser don't abandon us;... if G.o.d second the valor of 80,000 men resolved to spend their life,... let us hope there will nothing bad happen.

"Meanwhile, till events arrive, I make a pretty stir here (ME TREMOUSSE ICI D'IMPORTANCE), to bring my Regiment to its requisite perfection, and I hope I shall succeed. The other day I drank your dear health, Monsieur; and I wait only the news from my Cattle-stall that the Calf I am fattening there is ready for sending to you. I unite Mars and Housekeeping, you see. Send me your Secretary's name, that I may address your Letters that way,"--our Correspondence needing to be secret in certain quarters.

... "With a" truly infinite esteem, "FREDERIC."

NAUEN, 10th MAY, 1732. "You will see by this that I am exact to follow your instruction; and that the SCHULZ of Tremmen [Village in the Brandenburg quarter, with a SCHULZ or Mayor to be depended on], becomes for the present the mainspring of our correspondence. I return you all the things (PIECES) you had the goodness to communicate to me,--except _Charles Douze,_ [Voltaire's new Book; lately come out, "Bale, 1731."]

which attaches me infinitely. The particulars. .h.i.therto unknown which he reports; the greatness of that Prince's actions, and the perverse singularity (BIZARRERIE) of his fortune: all this, joined to the lively, brilliant and charming way the Author has of telling it, renders this Book interesting to the supreme degree.... I send you a fragment of my correspondence with the most ill.u.s.trious Sieur Crochet," some French Envoy or Emissary, I conclude: "you perceive we go on very sweetly together, and are in a high strain. I am sorry I burnt one of his Letters, wherein he a.s.sured me he would in the Versailles Antechamber itself speak of me to the King, and that my name had actually been mentioned at the King's Levee. It certainly is not my ambition to choose this ill.u.s.trious mortal to publish my renown; on the contrary, I should think it soiled by such a mouth, and prost.i.tuted if he were the publisher. But enough of the Crochet: the kindest thing we can do for so contemptible an object is to say nothing of him at all." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvi. 49, 51.]--...

Letter SECOND is to Jaagermeister Hacke, Captain of the Potsdam Guard; who stands in great nearness to the King's Majesty; and, in fact, is fast becoming his factotum in Army-details. We, with the Duke of Lorraine and Majesty in person, saw his marriage to the Excellency Creutz's Fraulein Daughter not long since; who we trust has made him happy;--rich he is at any rate, and will be Adjutant-General before long; powerful in such intricacies as this that the Prince has fallen into.

The Letter has its obscurities; turns earnestly on Recruits tall and short; nor have idle Editors helped us, by the least hint towards "reading" it with more than the EYES. Old Dessauer at this time is Commandant at Magdeburg; Buddenbrock, perhaps now pa.s.sing by Ruppin, we know for a high old General, fit to carry messages from Majesty,--or, likelier, it may be Lieutenant Buddenbrock, his Son, merely returning to Ruppin? We can guess, that the flattering Dessauer has sent his Majesty five gigantic men from the Magdeburg regiments, and that Friedrich is ordered to hustle out thirty of insignificant stature from his own, by way of counter-gift to the Dessauer;--which Friedrich does instantly, but cannot, for his life, see how (being totally cashless) he is to replace them with better, or replace them at all!

2. TO CAPTAIN HACKE, OF THE POTSDAM GUARD.

"RUPPIN, 15th July, 1732.