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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 14. The Surrounding European War Does Not End. August, 1742-July, 1744 - __ Hungarian Majesty Answers, In The Diet, That French Declaration, "Make Peace, Good People; I Wish To Be Out Of It!"--In An Ominous Manner |
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_ BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742-July, 1744 (Chapter V cont.)
Hanau Conferences having failed, these things do not fail. Kaiser Karl is become tragical to think of. A spectacle of pity to Landgraf Wilhelm, to King Friedrich, and serious on-lookers;--and perhaps not of pity only, but of "pity and fear" to some of them!--sullen Austria taking its sweet revenges, in this fashion. Readers who will look through these small chinks, may guess what a world-welter this was; and how Friedrich, gazing into phase on phase of it, as into Oracles of Fate, which to him they were, had a History, in these months, that will now never be known. August 16th came out her Hungarian Majesty's Response to that mild quasi-penitent Declaration of King Louis to the Reich; and much astonished King Louis and others, and the very Reich itself. "Out of it?" says her Hungarian Majesty (whom we with regret, for brevity's sake, translate from Official into vulgate): "His Most Christian Majesty wishes to be out of it:--Does not he, the (what shall I call him) Crowned Housebreaker taken in the fact? You shall get out of it, please Heaven, when you have made compensation for the damage done; and till then not, if it please Heaven!" And in this strain (lengthily Official, though indignant to a degree) enumerates the wanton unspeakable mischiefs and outrages which Austria, a kind of sacred entity guaranteed by Law of Nature and Eleven Signatures of Potentates, has suffered from the Most Christian Majesty,--and will have compensation for, Heaven now pointing the way! [IN EXTENSO in Adelung, iii. B, 201 et seqq.] A most portentous Document; full of sombre emphasis, in sonorous snuffling tone of voice; enunciating, with inflexible purpose, a number of unexpected things: very portentous to his Prussian Majesty among others. Forms a turning-point or crisis both in the French War, and in his Prussian Majesty's History; and ought to be particularly noted and dated by the careful reader. It is here that we first publicly hear tell of Compensation, the necessity Austria will have of Compensation,--Austria does not say expressly for Silesia, but she says and means for loss of territory, and for all other losses whatsoever: "Compensation for the past, and security for the future; that is my full intention," snuffles she, in that slow metallic tone of hers, irrevocable except by the gods. "Compensation for the past, Security for the future:" Compensation? what does her Hungarian Majesty mean? asked all the world; asked Friedrich, the now Proprietor of Silesia, with peculiar curiosity! It is the first time her Hungarian Majesty steps articulately forward with such extraordinary Claim of Damages, as if she alone had suffered damage;--but it is a fixed point at Vienna, and is an agitating topic to mankind in the coming months and years. Lorraine and the Three Bishoprics; there would be a fine compensation. Then again, what say you to Bavaria, in lieu of the Silesia lost? You have Bavaria by the throat; keep Bavaria, you. Give "Kur-Baiern, Kaiser as they call him," something in the Netherlands to live upon? Will be better out of Germany altogether, with his French leanings. Or, give him the Kingdom of Naples,--if once we had conquered it again? These were actual schemes, successive, simultaneous, much occupying Carteret and the high Heads at Vienna now and afterwards; which came all to nothing; but should were it not impossible, be held in some remembrance by readers. Another still more unexpected point comes out here, in this singular Document, publicly for the first time: Austria's feelings in regard to the Imperial Election itself. Namely, That Austria, considers, and has all along considered, the said Election to be fatally vitiated by that Exclusion of the Bohemian Vote; to be in fact nullified thereby; and that, to her clear view, the present so-called Kaiser is an imaginary quantity, and a mere Kaiser of French shreds and patches! "DER SEYN-SOLLENDE KAISER," snuffles Austria in one passage, "Your Kaiser as you call him;" and in another passage, instead of "Kaiser," puts flatly "Kur-Baiern." This is a most extraordinary doctrine to an Electoral Romish Reich! Is the Holy Romish Reich to DECLARE itself an "Enchanted Wiggery," then, and do suicide, for behoof of Austria?-- "August 16th, this extraordinary Document was delivered to the Chancery of Mainz; and September 23d, it was, contrary to expectation, brought to DICTATUR by said Chancery,"--of which latter phrase, and phenomenon, here is the explanation to English readers. Had the late Kur-Mainz (general Arch-Chairman, Speaker of the Diet) been still in office and existence, certainly so shocking a Document had never been allowed "to come to DICTATUR,"--to be dictated to the Reich's Clerks; to have a first reading, as we should call it; or even to lie on the table, with a theoretic chance that way. But Austria, thanks to our little George and his Pragmatic Armament, had got a new Kur-Mainz;--by whom, in open contempt of impartiality, and in open leaning for Austria with all his weight, it was duly forwarded to Dictature; brought before an astonished Diet (REICHSTAG), and endlessly argued of in Reichstag and Reich,--with small benefit to Austria, or the new Kur-Mainz. Wise kindness to Austria had been suppression of this Piece, not bringing of it to Dictature at all: but the new Kur-Mainz, called upon, and conscious of face sufficient, had not scrupled. "Shame on you, partial Arch-Chancellor!" exclaims all the world.--"Revoke such shamefully partial Dictature?" this was the next question brought before the Reich. In which, Kur-Hanover (Britannic George) was the one Elector that opined, No. Majority conclusive; though, as usual, no settlement attainable. This is the famous "DICTATUR-SACHE (Dictature Question)," which rages on us, for about eleven months to come, in those distracted old Books; and seems as if it would never end. Nor is there any saying when it would have ended;--had not, in August, 1744, something else ended, the King of Prussia's patience, namely; which enabled it to end, on the Kaiser's then order! [Adelung, iii. B, 201, iv. 198, &c.] It must be owned, in general, the conduct of Maria Theresa to the Reich, ever since the Reich had ventured to reject her Husband as Kaiser, and prefer another, was all along of a high nature; till now it has grown into absolute contumacy, and a treating of the Reich's elected Kaiser as a merely chimerical personage. No law of the Reich had been violated against her Hungarian Majesty or Husband: "What law?" asked all judges. Vicarius Kur-Sachsen sat, in committee, hatching for many months that Question of the Kur-Bohmen Vote; and by the prescribed methods, brought it out in the negative,--every formality and regularity observed, and nobody but your Austrian Deputy protesting upon it, when requested to go home. But, the high Maria had a notion that the Reich belonged to her august Family and her; and that all Elections to the contrary were an inconclusive thing, fundamentally void every one of them. Thus too, long before this, in regard to the REICHS-ARCHIV Question. The Archives and indispensablest Official Records and Papers of the Reich,--these had lain so long at Vienna, the high Maria could not think of giving them up. "So difficult to extricate what Papers are Austrian specially, from what are Austrian-Imperial;--must have time!" answered she always. And neither the Kaiser's more and more pressing demands, nor those of the late Kur-Mainz, backed by the Reich, and reiterated month after month and year after year, could avail in the matter. Mere angry correspondences, growing ever angrier;--the Archives of the Reich lay irrecoverable at Vienna, detained on this pretext and on that: nor were they ever given up; but lay there till the Reich itself had ended, much more the Kaiser Karl VII.! These are high procedures. As if the Reich had been one's own chattel; as if a Non-Austrian Kaiser mere impossible, and the Reich and its laws had, even Officially, become phantasmal! That, in fact, was Maria Theresa's inarticulate inborn notion; and gradually, as her successes on the field rose higher, it became ever more articulate: till this of "the SEYN-SOLLENDE Kaiser" put a crown on it. Justifiable, if the Reich with its Laws were a chattel, or rebellious vassal, of Austria; not justifiable otherwise. "Hear ye?" answered almost all the Reich (eight Kurfursts, with the one exception of Kur-Hanover: as we observed): "Our solemnly elected Kaiser, Karl VII., is a thing of quirks and quiddities, of French shreds and patches; at present, it seems, the Reich has no Kaiser at all; and will go ever deeper into anarchies and unnamabilities, till it proceed anew to get one,--of the right Austrian type!"--The Reich is a talking entity: King Friedrich is bound rather to silence, so long as possible. His thoughts on these matters are not given; but sure enough they were continual, too intense they could hardly be. "Compensation;" "The Reich as good as mine:" Whither is all this tending? Walrave and those Silesian Fortifyings,--let Walrave mind his work, and get it perfected! _ |
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