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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 6. Double-Marriage Project, And Crown-Prince, Going Adrift Under The Storm-Winds. 1727-1730 - __ The Physically Strong Pays His Counter-Visit |
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_ BOOK VI. DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND CROWN-PRINCE, GOING ADRIFT UNDER THE STORM-WINDS. 1727-1730 (Chapter III cont.)
Prince Frederick of Hanover and England, "Duke of Edinburgh" as they now call him, "Duke of Gloucester" no longer, it would seem, nor "Prince of Wales" as yet; he, foamy as another, had thoughts of coming; and rumor of him rose very high in Berlin,--how high we have still singular proof. Here is a myth, generated in the busy Court-Imagination of Berlin at this time; written down by Pollnitz as plain fact afterwards; and from him idly copied into COXE [Coxe's Walpole (London, 1798), i. 520.] and other English Books. We abridge from watery Pollnitz, taking care of any sense he has. This is what ran in certain high-frizzled heads then and there: and was dealt out in whispers to a privileged few, watery Pollnitz's informers among them, till they got a myth made of it. Frederick Duke of Edinburgh, second hope of England at this time, he is the hero. It appears, this loose young gentleman, standing in no favor with his sovereign Father, had never yet been across to England, the royal Parent preferring rather not to have him in sight; and was living idle at Hanover; very eager to be wedded to Wilhelmina, as one grand and at present grandest resource of his existence. It is now May, 1728; and Frederick Duke of Edinburgh is twenty-one. He writes to his Aunt and intended Mother-in-law, Queen Sophie (date not ascertainable to a day, Note burnt as soon as read): "That he can endure this tantalizing suspense no longer; such endless higgling about a supreme blessedness, virtually agreed upon, may be sport to others, but is death to him. That he will come privately at once, and wed his Wilhelmina; and so make an end; the big-wigs to adjust it afterwards as they can and may." Whereupon Sophie Dorothee, gladdest of women, sends for Dubourgay the British Ambassador (Brigadier Dubourgay, the respectable old gentleman who spells ill, who is strong for the Double-Marriage always), to tell him what fine news there is, and what answer she has sent. Respectable Dubourgay stands silent, with lengthening face: "Your Majesty, how unfortunate that I of all men now hear it! I must instantly despatch a courier with the news to London!" And the respectable man, stoically deaf to her Majesty's entreaties, to all considerations but that of his evident duty, "sends the courier" (thinks Pollnitz);--nips thereby that fine Hanover speculation in the bud, sees Prince Fred at once summoned over to England, and produces several effects. Nearly the whole of which, on examining the Documents, [Dubourgay's Despatches (1728: 29 May, 1 June, 5 October), in the State-Paper Office here.] proves to be myth. Pollnitz himself adds two circumstances, in regard to it, which are pretty impossible: as, first, that Friedrich Wilhelm had joyfully consented to this clandestine marriage, and was eagerly waiting for it; second, that George II. too had privately favored or even instigated the adventure, being at heart willing to escape the trouble of Messages to Parliament, to put his Son in the wrong, and I know not what. [Pollnitz, ii. 272-274.] The particles of fact in the affair are likewise two: First, that Queen Sophie, and from her the Courtier Public generally, expected the Hanover Royal Highness, who probably had real thoughts of seeing Berlin and his Intended, on this occasion; Dubourgay reports daily rumors of the Royal Highness being actually "seen" there in an evanescent manner; and Wilhelmina says, her Mother was so certain of him, "she took every ass or mule for the Royal Highness,"--heartily indifferent to Wilhelmina. This is the first particle of fact. The Second is, that a subaltern Official about the Royal Highness, one Lamothe of Hanover, who had appeared in Berlin about that time, was thrown into prison not long after, for what misbehavior none knew,--for encouraging dissolute Royal Highness in wild schemes, it was guessed. And so the Myth grew, and was found ready for Pollnitz and his followers. Royal Highness did come over to England; not then as the Myth bears, but nine months afterwards in December next; and found other means of irritating his imperative, flighty, irascible and rather foolish little Father, in an ever-increasing degree. "Very coldly received at Court," it is said: ill seen by Walpole and the Powers; being too likely to become a focus of Opposition there. The Visit, meanwhile, though there came no Duke of Edinburgh to see it, was sublime in the extreme; Polish Majesty being magnificence itself; and the frugal Friedrich Wilhelm lighting up his dim Court into insurpassable brilliancy, regardless of expense; so that even the Smoking Parliament (where August attended now and then) became luminous. The Crown-Prince, who in late months had languished in a state of miserable health, in a manner ominous to his physicians, confined mostly to his room or his bed, was now happily on foot again;--and Wilhelmina notes one circumstance which much contributed to his recovery: That the fair Orzelska had attended her natural (or unnatural) Parent, on this occasion; and seemed to be, as Wilhelmina thinks, uncommonly kind to the Crown-Prince. The Heir-Apparent of Saxony, a taciturn, inoffensive, rather opaque-looking gentleman, now turned of thirty, and gone over to Papistry long since, with views to be King of Poland by and by, which proved effectual as we shall find, was also here: Count Bruhl, too, still in a very subaltern capacity, and others whom we and the Crown-Prince shall have to know. The Heir-Apparent's Wife (actual Kaiser's Niece, late Kaiser Joseph's Daughter, a severe Austrian lady, haughtier than lovely) has stayed at home in Dresden. But here, at first hand, is a slight view of that unique Polish Majesty, the Saxon Man of Sin; which the reader may be pleased to accept out of idle curiosity, if for no better reason. We abridge from Wilhelmina; [i. 124.] whom Fassmann, kindled to triple accuracy by this grand business, is at hand to correct where needful: [Des glorwurdigsten Fursten und Herrn, Herrn Friedrich Augusti des Grossen Leben und Helden-Thaten (Of that most glorious Prince and Lord, Lord Friedrich August the Great, King of Poland, &c., the Life and Heroic Deeds), by D. F. (David Fassmann), Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1734; 12mo, pp. 1040. A work written with upturned eyes of prostrate admiration for "DERO MAJESTAT ('Theiro' Majesty) AUGUST THE GREAT;" exact too, but dealing merely with the CLOTHES of the matter, and such a matter: work unreadable, except on compulsion, to the stupidest mortal. The same Fassmann, who was at the Fair of St. Germain, who lodged sometimes with the Potsdam Giant, and whose ways are all fallen dark to us.] "The King of Poland arrived upon us at Berlin on the 29th of May," says Wilhelmina; had been at Potsdam, under Friedrich Wilhelm's care, for three days past: Saturday afternoon, 29th May, 1728; that is with exactitude the ever-memorable date. He paid his respects in her Majesty's apartment, for an instant, that evening; but made his formal visit next day. Very grand indeed. Carried by two shining parti-colored creatures, heyducs so-called, through double rows of mere peerages and sublimities, in a sublime sedan (being lame of a foot, foot lately amputated of two toes, sore still open): "in a sedan covered with red velvet gallooned with gold," says the devout Fassmann, tremblingly exact, "up the grand staircase along the grand Gallery;" in which supreme region (Apartments of the late King Friedrich of gorgeous memory) her Majesty now is for the occasion. "The Queen received him at the door of her third Antechamber," says Wilhelmina; third or outmost Antechamber, end of that grand Gallery and its peerages and shining creatures: "he gave the Queen his hand, and led her in." We Princesses were there, at least the grown ones of us were. All standing, except the Queen only. "He refused to sit, and again refused;" stoically talked graciosities, disregarding the pain of his foot; and did not, till refusal threatened to become uncivil, comply with her Majesty's entreaties. "How unpolite!" smiled he to us young ones. "He had a majestic port and physiognomy; an affable polite air accompanied all his movements, all his actions." Kind of stereotyped smile on his face; nothing of the inner gloom visible on our Charles II. and similar men of sin. He looked often at Wilhelmina, and was complimentary to a degree,--for reasons undivinable to Wilhelmina. For the rest, "much broken for his age;" the terrible debaucheries (LES DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES) having had their effect on him. He has fallen Widower last year. His poor Wife was a Brandenburg-Baireuth Princess; a devout kind of woman; austerely witnessing the irremediable in her lot. He has got far on with his three hundred and fifty-four; is now going fifty-five;--lame of a foot, as we see, which the great Petit of Paris cannot cure, neither he nor any Surgeon, but can only alleviate by cutting off two toes. Pink of politeness, no doubt of it; but otherwise the strangest dilapidated hulk of a two-legged animal without feathers; probably, in fact, the chief Natural Solecism under the Sun at that epoch;--extremely complimentary to us Princesses, to me especially. "He quitted her Majesty's Apartment after an hour's conversation: she rose to reconduct him, but he would by no manner of means permit that,"--and so vanished, carried off doubtless by the shining creatures again. The "Electoral Prince" Heir-Apparent, next made his visit; but he was a dry subject in comparison, of whom no Princess can say much. Prince Friedrich will know him better by and by. Young Maurice, "Count of Saxony," famed afterwards as MARECHAL DE SAXE, he also is here with his Half-Sister Orzelska and the others, in the train of the paternal Man of Sin; and makes acquaintance with Friedrich. He is son of the female Konigsmark called Aurora ("who alone of mortals could make Charles Twelfth fly his ground"); nephew, therefore, of the male Konigsmark who was cut down long ago at Hanover, and buried in the fireplace. He resembles his Father in strength, vivacity, above all things in debauchery, and disregard of finance. They married him at the due years to some poor rich woman; but with her he has already ended; with her and with many others. Courland, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Anne Iwanowna with the big cheek:--the reader has perhaps searched out these things for himself from the dull History-Books;--or perhaps it was better for him if he never sought them? Dukedom of Courland, connected with Polish sovereignty, and now about to fall vacant, was one of Count Maurice's grand sallies in the world. Adrienne Lecouvreur, foolish French Actress, lent him all the 30,000 pounds she had gathered by holding the mirror up to Nature and otherwise, to prosecute this Courland business; which proved impossible for him. He was adventurous enough, audacious enough; fought well; but the problem was, To fall in love with the Dowager Anne Iwanowna, Cousin of Czar Peter II.; big brazen Russian woman (such a cheek the Pictures give her, in size and somewhat in expression like a Westphalia ham!), who was Widow of the last active Duke:--and this, with all his adventurous audacity, Count Maurice could not do. The big Widow discovered that he did not like Westphalia hams in that particular form; that he only pretended to like them; upon which, in just indignation, she disowned and dismissed him; and falling herself to be Czarina not long afterwards, and taking Bieren the Courlander for her beloved, she made Bieren Duke, and Courland became impossible for Count Maurice. However, he too is a dashing young fellow; "circular black eyebrows, eyes glittering bright, partly with animal vivacity, partly with spiritual;" stands six feet in his stockings, breaks horse-shoes with his hands; full of irregular ingenuity and audacity; has been soldiering about, ever since birth almost; and understands many a thing, though the worst SPELLER ever known. With him too young Fritz is much charmed: the flower, he, of the illegitimate three hundred and fifty-four, and probably the chief achievement of the Saxon Man of Sin in this world, where he took such trouble. Friedrich and he maintained some occasional correspondence afterwards; but, to judge by Friedrich's part of it (mere polite congratulations on Fontenoy, and the like), it must have been of the last vacuity; and to us it is now absolute zero, however clearly spelt and printed. [Given altogether in OEuvres de Frederic le Grand, xvii. 300-309. See farther, whoever has curiosity, Preuss, Friedrichs Lebensgeschichte, iii. 167-169; Espagnac, Vie du Comte de Saxe (a good little military Book, done into German, Leipzig, 1774, 2 vols.); Cramer, Denkwurdigkeiten der Grafin Aurora von Konigsmark (Leipzig, 1836); &c. &c.] The Physically Strong, in some three weeks, after kindling such an effulgence about Berlin as was never seen before or since in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, went his way again,--"towards Poland for the Diet," or none of us cares whither or for what. Here at Berlin he has been sublime enough. Some of the phenomena surpassed anything Wilhelmina ever saw: such floods and rows of resplendent people crowding in to dinner; and she could not but contrast the splendor of the Polish retinues and their plumages and draperies, with the strait-buttoned Prussian dignitaries, all in mere soldier uniform, succinct "blue coat, white linen gaiters," and no superfluity even in the epaulettes and red facings. At table, she says, they drank much, talked little, and bored one another a great deal (S'ENNUYOIENT BEAUCOUP). _ |
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