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History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books I - XIV], a non-fiction book by Thomas Carlyle |
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Book 3. The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg. 1412-1718 - Chapter 20. Death Of King Friedrich I |
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_ BOOK III. THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. 1412-1718 CHAPTER XX. DEATH OF KING FRIEDRICH I
Much is ended. They are doing the sorrowful Treaty of Utrecht; Louis XIV. himself is ending; mournfully shrunk into the corner, with his Missal and his Maintenon; looking back with just horror on Europe four times set ablaze for the sake of one poor mortal in big periwig, to no purpose. Lucky if perhaps Missal-work, orthodox litanies, and even Protestant Dragonnades, can have virtue to wipe out such a score against a man! Unhappy Louis: the sun-bright gold has become dim as copper; we rose in storms, and we are setting in watery clouds. The Kaiser himself (Karl VI., Leopold's Son, Joseph I.'s younger Brother) will have to conform to this Treaty of Utrecht: what other possibility for him? The English, always a wonderful Nation, fought and subsidied from side to side of Europe for this Spanish-Succession business; fought ten years, such fighting as they never did before or since, under "John Duke of Marlborough," who, as is well known, "beat the French thorough and thorough." French entirely beaten at last, not without heroic difficulty and as noble talent as was ever shown in diplomacy and war, are ready to do your will in all things; in this of giving up Spain, among others:--whereupon the English turn round, with a sudden new thought, "No, we will not have our WILL done; it shall be the other way, the way it WAS,--now that we bethink ourselves, after all this fighting for our will!" And make Peace on those terms, as if no war had been; and accuse the great Marlborough of many things, of theft for one. A wonderful People; and in their Continental Politics (which indeed consist chiefly of Subsidies) thrice wonderful. So the Treaty of Utrecht is transacting itself; which that of Rastadt, on the part of Kaiser and Empire, unable to get on without Subsidies, will have to follow: and after such quantities of powder burnt, and courageous lives wasted, general AS-YOU-WERE is the result arrived at. Old Friedrich's Ambassadors are present at Utrecht, jangling and pleading among the rest; at Berlin too the despatch of business goes lumbering on; but what thing, in the shape of business, at Utrecht or at Berlin, is of much importance to the old man? Seems as if Europe itself were waxing dim, and sinking to stupid sleep,--as we, in our poor royal person, full surely are. A Crown has been achieved, and diamond buttons worth 1,500 pounds apiece; but what is a Crown, and what are buttons, after all?--I suppose the tattle and SINGERIES of little Wilhelmina, whom he would spend whole days with; this and occasional visits to a young Fritzchen's cradle, who is thriving moderately, and will speak and do aperies one day,--are his main solacements in the days that are passing. Much of this Friedrich's life has gone off like the smoke of fire-works, has faded sorrowfully, and proved phantasmal. Here is an old Autograph Note, written by him at the side of that Cradle, and touching on a slight event there; which, as it connects two venerable Correspondents and their Seventeenth Century with a grand Phenomenon of the Eighteenth, we will insert here. The old King addresses his older Mother-in-law, famed Electress Sophie of Hanover, in these terms (spelling corrected):-- "CHARLOTTENBURG, den 30 August, 1712. Of which this is the literal English:--"Your Electoral Serenity will doubtless rejoice with us that the little Prince Fritz has now got his sixth tooth without the least INCOMMODITE. And therein we may trace a pre-destination, inasmuch as his Brothers died of teething [Not of cannon-sound and weight of head-gear, then, your Majesty thinks? That were a painful thought? ]; and this one, as his Sister [WILHELMINA] did, gets them [THE TEETH] without trouble. God preserve him long for a comfort to us:--to whose protection I commit DIESELBE [Your Electoral Highness, in the third person], and remain lifelong, "Your Electoral Highness's most obedient Servant and true Son, "FRIEDRICH REX." One of Friedrich Rex's worst adventures was his latest; commenced some five or six years ago (1708), and now not far from terminating. He was a Widower, of weakly constitution, towards fifty: his beautiful ingenious "Serena," with all her Theologies, pinch-of-snuff Coronations and other earthly troubles, was dead; and the task of continuing the Hohenzollern progeny, given over to Friedrich Wilhelm the Prince Royal, was thought to be in good hands. Majesty Friedrich with the weak back had retired, in 1708, to Karlsbad, to rest from his cares; to take the salutary waters, and recruit his weak nerves a little. Here, in the course of confidential promenadings, it was hinted, it was represented to him by some pickthank of a courtier, That the task of continuing the Hohenzollern progeny did not seem to prosper in the present good hands; that Sophie Dorothee, Princess Royal, had already borne two royal infants which had speedily died: that in fact it was to be gathered from the medical men, if not from their words, then from their looks and cautious innuendoes, that Sophie Dorothee, Princess Royal, would never produce a Prince or even Princess that would live; which task, therefore, did now again seem to devolve upon his Majesty, if his Majesty had not insuperable objections? Majesty had no insuperable objections; old Majesty listened to the flattering tale; and, sure enough, he smarted for it in a signal manner. By due industry, a Princess was fixed upon for Bride, Princess Sophie Louisa of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, age now twenty-four: she was got as Wife, and came home to Berlin in all pomp;--but good came not with her to anybody there. Not only did she bring the poor old man no children, which was a fault to be overlooked, considering Sophie Dorothee's success; but she brought a querulous, weak and self-sufficient female humor; found his religion heterodox,--he being Calvinist, and perhaps even lax-Calvinist, she Lutheran as the Prussian Nation is, and strict to the bone:--heterodox wholly, to the length of no salvation possible; and times rose on the Berlin Court such as had never been seen before! "No salvation possible, says my Dearest? Hah! And an innocent Court-Mask or Dancing Soiree is criminal in the sight of God and of the Queen? And we are children of wrath wholly, and a frivolous generation; and the Queen will see us all--!" The end was, his Majesty, through sad solitary days and nights, repented bitterly that he had wedded such a She-Dominic; grew quite estranged from her; the poor She-Dominic giving him due return in her way,--namely, living altogether in her own apartments, upon orthodoxy, jealousy and other bad nourishment. Till at length she went quite mad; and, except the due medical and other attendants, nobody saw her, or spoke of her, at Berlin. Was this a cheering issue of such an adventure to the poor old expensive Gentleman? He endeavored to digest in silence the bitter morsel he had cooked for himself; but reflected often, as an old King might, What dirt have I eaten! In this way stands that matter in the Schloss of Berlin, when little Friedrich, who will one day be called the Great, is born. Habits of the expensive King, hours of rising, modes of dressing, and so forth, are to be found in Pollnitz; [Pollnitz, Memoiren zur Lebens-und Regierungs-Geschichte der Vier letzten Regenten des Preussischen Staats (Berlin, 1791). A vague, inexact, but not quite uninstructive or uninteresting Book: Printed also in FRENCH, which was the Original, same place and time.] but we charitably omit them all. Even from foolish Pollnitz a good eye will gather, what was above intimated, that this feeble-backed, heavy-laden old King was of humane and just disposition; had dignity in his demeanor; had reticence, patience; and, though hot-tempered like all the Hohenzollerns, that he bore himself like a perfect gentleman for one thing; and tottered along his high-lying lonesome road not in an unmanful manner at all. Had not his nerves been damaged by that fall in infancy, who knows but we might have had something else to read of him than that he was regardless of expense in this world! His last scene, of date February, 1713, is the tragical ultimatum of that fine Karlsbad adventure of the Second marriage,--Third marriage, in fact, though the First, anterior to "Serena," is apt to be forgotten, having lasted short while, and produced only a Daughter, not memorable except by accident. This Third marriage, which had brought so many sorrows to him, proved at length the death of the old man. For he sat one morning, in the chill February days of the Year 1713, in his Apartment, as usual; weak of nerves, but thinking no special evil; when, suddenly with huge jingle, the glass door of his room went to sherds; and there rushed in--bleeding and dishevelled, the fatal "White Lady" (WEISSE FRAU), who is understood to walk that Schloss at Berlin, and announce Death to the Royal inhabitants. Majesty had fainted, or was fainting. "Weisse Frau? Oh no, your Majesty!"--not that; but indeed something almost worse.--Mad Queen, in her Apartments, had been seized, that day, when half or quarter dressed; with unusual orthodoxy or unusual jealousy. Watching her opportunity, she had whisked into the corridor, in extreme deshabille; and gone, like the wild roe, towards Majesty's Suite of Rooms; through Majesty's glass door, like a catapult; and emerged as we saw,--in petticoat and shift, with hair streaming, eyes glittering, arms cut, and the other sad trimmings. O Heaven, who could laugh? There are tears due to Kings and to all men. It was deep misery; deep enough "SIN and misery," as Calvin well says, on the one side and the other! The poor old King was carried to bed; and never rose again, but died in a few days. The date of the WEISSE FRAU'S death, one might have hoped, was not distant either; but she lasted, in her sad state, for above twenty years coming. Old King Friedrich's death-day was 25th February, 1713; the unconscious little Grandson being then in his Fourteenth month. To whom, after this long, voyage round the world, we now gladly return.
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