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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 13. First Silesian War, Leaving The General European One Ablaze All Round, Gets Ended. May, 1741-July, 1742 - __ Wilhelmina At The Coronation |
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_ BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741-July, 1742 (Chapter IX cont.)
The Marwitz, elder Marwitz, her poor father being wounded at Mollwitz, [Militair-Lexikon, iii. 23; and Preussische Adels-Lexikon, iii. 365.] had gone to Berlin to nurse him; but she returned just now,--not much to my joy; I being, with some cause, jealous of that foolish minx. The Duchess Dowager of Wurtemberg also came, sorrow on her; a foolish talking woman, always cutting jokes, making eyes, giggling and coquetting; "HAS some wit and manner, but wearies you at last: her charms, now on the decline, were never so considerable as rumor said; in the long-run she bores you with her French gayeties and sprightliness: her character for gallantry is too notorious. She quite corrupted Marwitz, in this and a subsequent visit; turned the poor girl's head into a French whirligig, and undermined any little moral principle she had. She was on the road to Berlin,"--of which anon, for it is not quite nothing to us;--"but she was in no hurry, and would right willingly have gone with us." And it required all our female diplomacy to get her under way again, and fairly out of our course. January 28th, SHE off to Berlin; WE, same day, to Frankfurt-on-Mayn. [Wilhelmina, ii. 334; see pp. 335, 338, 347, &c. for the other salient points that follow.] Coronation was to have been (or we Country-folk thought it was), January 31st: Let us be there INCOGNITO, the night before; see it, and return the day after. That was our plan. Bad roads, waters all out; we had to go night and day;--reached the gates of Frankfurt, 30th January late. Berghover, our Legationsrath there, says we are known everywhere; Coronation is not to be till February 12th! I was fatigued to death, a bad cold on me, too: we turned back to the last Village; stayed there overnight. Back again to Berghover, in secret (A LA SOURDINE), next night; will see the Public Entry of Karl Albert, which is to be to-morrow (not quite, my Princess; January 31st for certain, [Adelung, iii. A, 63; &c. &c.] did one the least care). "It was a very grand thing indeed (DES PLUS SUPERBES); but I will not stop describing it. Masked ball that night; where I had much amusement, tormenting the masks; not being known to anybody. We next day retired to a small private House, which Berghover had got for us, out of Town, for fear of being discovered; and lodged there, waiting February 12th, under difficulties." The weather was bitterly cold; we had brought no clothes; my dames and I nothing earthly but a black ANDRIENNE each (whatever that may be), to spare bulk of luggage: strictest incognito was indispensable. The Marwitzes, for giggling, raillery, French airs, and absolute impertinence, were intolerable, in that solitary place. We return to Frankfurt again; have balls and theatres, at least: "of these latter I missed none. One evening, my head-dress got accidentally shoved awry, and exposed my face for a moment; Prince George of Hessen-Cassel, who was looking that way, recognized me; told the Prince of Orange of it;--they are in our box, next minute!" Prince George of Hessen-Cassel, did readers ever hear of him before? Transiently perhaps, in Friedrich's LETTERS TO HIS FATHER; but have forgotten him again; can know him only as the outline of a shadow. A fat solid military man of fifty; junior Brother of that solid WILHELM, Vice-regent and virtual "Landgraf of Hessen"--(VICE an elder and eldest Brother, FRIEDRICH, the now Majesty of Sweden, who is actual Hereditary Landgraf, but being old, childless, idle, takes no hold of it, and quite leaves it to Wilhelm),--of whom English readers may have heard, and will hear. For it is Wilhelm that hires us those "subsidized 6,000," who go blaring about on English pay (Prince George merely Commandant of them); and Wilhelm, furthermore, has wedded his Heir-Apparent to an English Princess lately; [Princess Mary (age only about seventeen), 28th June, 1740; Prince's name was Friedrich (became Catholic, 1749; WIFE made family-manager in Consequence, &c. &c.).] which also (as the poor young fellow became Papist by and by) costs certain English people, among others, a good deal of trouble. Uncle George, we say, is merely Commandant of those blaring 6,000; has had his own real soldierings before this; his own labors, contradictions, in his time; but has borne all patiently, and grown fat upon it, not quarrelling with his burdens or his nourishments. Perhaps we may transiently meet him again. As to the Prince of Orange, him we have seen more than once in times past: a young fellow in comparison, sprightly, reckoned clever, but somewhat humpbacked; married an English Princess, years ago ("Papa, if he were as ugly as a baboon!")--which fine Princess, we find, has stopt short at Cassel, too fatigued on the present occasion. "His ESPRIT," continues Wilhelmina, "and his conversation, delighted me. His Wife, he said, was at Cassel; he would persuade her to come and make my acquaintance;"--could not; too far, in this cold season. "These two Serene Highnesses would needs take me home in their carriage; they asked the Margraf to let them stay supper: from that hour they were never out of our house. Next morning, by means of them, the secret had got abroad. Kur-Koln [lanky hook-nosed gentleman, richest Pluralist in the Church] had set spies on us; next evening he came up to me, and said, 'Madam, I know your Highness; you must dance a measure with me!' That comes of one's head-gear getting awry! We had nothing for it but to give up the incognito, and take our fate!" This dancing Elector of Koln, a man still only entering his forties, is the new Emperor's Brother: [Clement August (Hubner, t. 134).] do readers wonder to see him dance, being an Archbishop? The fact is certain,--let the Three Kings and the Eleven Thousand Virgins say to it what they will. "He talked a long time with me; presented to me the Princess Clemence his Niece [that is to say, Wife of his Nephew ClemENT; one of the Two whom his now Imperial Majesty saw married the other day], [Michaelis, ii. 256, 123; Hubner, tt. 141, 134.] and then the Princess"--in fact, presented all the three Sulzbach Princesses (for there is a youngest, still to wed),--"and then Prince Theodor [happy Husband of the eldest], and Prince Clement [ditto of the younger];" and was very polite indeed. How keep our incognito, with all these people heaping civilities upon us? Let us send to Baireuth for clothes, equipages; and retire to our country concealment till they arrive. "Just as we were about setting off thither, I waiting till the Margraf were ready, the Xargraf entered, and a Lady with him; who, he informed me, was Madame de Belleisle, the French Ambassador's Wife:"--Wife of the great Belleisle, the soul of all these high congregatings, consultations, coronations, who is not Kaiser but maker of Kaisers: what is to be done!--"I had carefully avoided her; reckoning she would have pretensions I should not be in the humor to grant. I took my resolution at the moment [being a swift decisive creature]; and received her like any other Lady that might have come to me. Her visit was not long. The conversation turned altogether upon praises of the King [my Brother]. I found Madame de Belleisle very different from the notion I had formed of her. You could see she had moved in high company (SENTAIT SON MONDE); but her air appeared to me that of a waiting-maid (SOUBRETTE), and her manners insignificant." Let Madame take that. "Monseigneur himself," when our equipages had come, "waited on me several times,"--Monseigueur the grand Marechal de Belleisle, among the other Principalities and Lordships: but of this lean man in black (who has done such famous things, and will have to do the Retreat of Prag within year and day), there is not a word farther said. Old Seckendorf too is here; "Reich's-Governor of Philipsburg;" very ill with Austria, no wonder; and striving to be well with the new Kaiser. Doubtless old Seckendorf made his visit too (being of Baireuth kin withal), and snuffled his respects: much unworthy of mention; not lovely to Wilhelmina. Prince of Orange, hunchbacked, but sprightly and much the Prince, bore me faithful company all the Coronation time; nor was George of Hessen-Cassel wanting, good fat man. Of the Coronation itself, though it was truly grand, and even of an Oriental splendor,[Anemonen, ubi supra.] I will say nothing. The poor Kaiser could not enjoy it much. He was dying of gout and gravel, and could scarcely stand on his feet. Poor gentleman; and the French are driven dismally out of Linz; and the Austrians are spreading like a lava-flood or general conflagration over Baiern--Demon Mentzel, whom they call Colonel Mentzel, he (if we knew it) is in Munchen itself, just as we are getting crowned here! And unless King Friedrich, who is falling into Mahren, in the flank of them, call back this Infernal Chase a little, what hope is there in those parts!--The poor Kaiser, oftenest in his bed, is courting all manner of German Princes,--consulting with Seckendorfs, with cunning old stagers. He has managed to lead my Margraf into a foolish bargain, about raising men for him. Which bargain I, on fairly getting sight of it, persuade my Margraf to back out of; and, in the end, he does so. Meanwhile, it detains us some time longer in Frankfurt, which is still full of Principalities, busy with visitings and ceremonials. Among other things, by way of forwarding that Bargain I was so averse to, our Official People had settled that I could not well go without having seen the Empress, after her crowning. Foolish people; entangling me in new intricacies! For if she is a Kaiser's Daughter and Kaiser's Spouse, am not I somewhat too? "How a King's Daughter and an Empress are to meet, was probably never settled by example: what number of steps down stairs does she come? The arm-chair (FAUTEUIL), is that to be denied me?" And numerous other questions. The official people, Baireuthers especially, are in despair; and, in fact, there were scenes. But I held firm; and the Berlin ambassadors tempering, a medium was struck: steps of stairs, to the due number, are conceded me; arm-chair no, but the Empress to "take a very small arm-chair," and I to have a big common chair (GRAND DOSSIER). So we meet, and I have sight of this Princess, next day. In her place, I confess I would have invented all manner of etiquettes, or any sort of contrivance, to save myself from showing face. "Heavens! The Empress is below middle size, and so corpulent (PUISSANTE), she looks like a ball; she is ugly to the utmost (LAIDE AU POSSIBLE), and without air or grace." Kaiser Joseph's youngest Daughter,--the gods, it seems, have not been kind to her in figure or feature! And her mind corresponds to her appearance: she is bigoted to excess; passes her nights and days in her oratory, with mere rosaries and gaunt superstitious platitudes of that nature; a dark fat dreary little Empress. "She was all in a tremble in receiving me; and had so discountenanced an air, she could n't speak a word. We took seats. After a little silence, I began the conversation, in French. She answered me in her Austrian jargon, That she did not well understand that language, and begged I would speak to her in German. Our conversation was not long. Her Austrian dialect and my Lower-Saxon are so different that, till you have practised, you are not mutually intelligible in them. Accordingly we were not. A by-stander would have split with laughing at the Babel we made of it; each catching only a word here and there, and guessing the rest. This Princess was so tied to her etiquette, she would have reckoned it a crime against the Reich to speak to me in a foreign language; for she knew French well enough. "The Kaiser was to have been of this visit; but he had fallen so ill, he was considered even in danger of his life. Poor Prince, what a lot had he achieved for himself!" reflects Wilhelmina, as we often do. He was soft, humane, affable; had the gift of captivating hearts. Not without talent either; but then of an ambition far disproportionate to it. "Would have shone in the second rank, but in the first went sorrowfully eclipsed," as they say! He could not be a great man, nor had about him any one that could; and he needed now to be so. This is the service a Belleisle can do; inflating a poor man to Kaisership, beyond his natural size! Crowned Kaiser, and Mentzel just entering his Munchen the while; a Kaiser bedrid, stranded; lying ill there of gout and gravel, with the Demon Mentzels eating him:--well may his poor little bullet of a Kaiserinn pray for him night and day, if that will avail!-- _ |
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