Home > Authors Index > Thomas Carlyle > History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books XV - XXI] > This page
History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books XV - XXI], a non-fiction book by Thomas Carlyle |
||
Book 21. Afternoon And Evening Of Friedrich's Life--1763-1786 - __The Neue Palais, In Sans-Souci Neighborhood, Is Founded And Finished (1763-1770) |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ BOOK XXI. AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF FRIEDRICH'S LIFE--1763-1786 (Chapter II cont.) If D'Alembert's Visit was the germ of the Excise system, it will be curious to note,--and indeed whether or not, it will be chronologically serviceable to us here, and worth noting,--that there went on a small synchronous affair, still visible to everybody: namely, That in the very hours while Friedrich and D'Alembert were saluting mutually at Geldern (11th June, 1763), there was laid the foundation of what they call the NEUE PALAIS; New Palace of Sans-Souci: [Rodenbeck, ii. 219.] a sumptuous Edifice, in the curious LOUIS-QUINZE or what is called "Rococo" style of the time; Palace never much inhabited by Friedrich or his successors, which still stands in those ornamental Potsdam regions. Why built, especially in the then down-pressed financial circumstances, some have had their difficulties to imagine. It appears, this New Palace had been determined on before the War broke out; and Friedrich said to himself: "We will build it now, to help the mechanical classes in Berlin,--perhaps also, in part [think some, and why should not they, a little?] to show mankind that we have still ready money; and are nothing like so ruined as they fancy." "This NEUE PALAIS," says one recent Tourist, "is a pleasant quaint object, nowadays, to the stranger. It has the air DEGAGE POCOCURANTE; pleasantly fine in aspect and in posture;--spacious expanses round it, not in a waste, but still less in a strict condition; and (in its deserted state) has a silence, especially a total absence of needless flunkies and of gaping fellow-loungers, which is charming. Stands mute there, in its solitude, in its stately silence and negligence, like some Tadmor of the Wilderness in small. The big square of Stables, Coach-houses, near by, was locked up,--probably one sleeping groom in it. The very CUSTOS of the grand Edifice (such the rarity of fees to him) I could not awaken without difficulty. In the gray autumn zephyrs, no sound whatever about this New Palace of King Friedrich's, except the rustle of the crisp brown leaves, and of any faded or fading memories you may have. "I should say," continues he, "it somehow reminds you of the City of Bath. It has the cut of a battered Beau of old date; Beau still extant, though in strangely other circumstances; something in him of pathetic dignity in that kind. It shows excellent sound masonries; which have an over-tendency to jerk themselves into pinnacles, curvatures and graciosities; many statues atop,--three there are, in a kind of grouped or partnership attitude; 'These,' said diligent scandal, 'note them; these mean Maria Theresa, Pompadour and CATIN DU NORD' (mere Muses, I believe, or of the Nymph or Hamadryad kind, nothing of harm in them). In short, you may call it the stone Apotheosis of an old French Beau. Considerably weather-beaten (the brown of lichens spreading visibly here and there, the firm-set ashlar telling you, 'I have stood a hundred years');--Beau old and weather-beaten, with his cocked-hat not in the fresh condition, all his gold-laces tarnished; and generally looking strange, and in a sort tragical, to find himself, fleeting creature, become a denizen of the Architectural Fixities and earnest Eternities!"-- From Potsdam Palace to the New Palace of Sans-Souci may be a mile distance; flat ground, parallel to the foot of Hills; all through arbors, parterres, water-works, and ornamental gardenings and cottagings or villa-ings,--Cottage-Villa for Lord Marischal is one of them. This mile of distance, taking the COTTAGE Royal of Sans-Souci on its hill-top as vertex, will be the base of an isosceles or nearly isosceles triangle, flatter than equilateral. To the Cottage Royal of Sans-Souci may be about three-quarters of a mile northeast from this New Palace, and from Potsdam Palace to it rather less. And the whole square-mile or so of space is continuously a Garden, not in the English sense, though it has its own beauties of the more artificial kind; and, at any rate, has memories for you, and footsteps of persons still unforgotten by mankind.--Here is a Notice of Lord Marischal; which readers will not grudge; the chronology of the worthy man, in these his later epochs, being in so hazy a state:-- Lord Marischal, we know well and Pitt knows, was in England in 1761,--ostensibly on the Kintore Heritage; and in part, perhaps, really on that errand. But he went and came, at dates now uncertain; was back in Spain after that, had difficult voyagings about; [King's Letters to him, in OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 282-285.]--and did not get to rest again, in his Government of Neufchatel, till April, 1762. There is a Letter of the King's, which at least fixes that point:-- "BRESLAU, 10th APRIL, 1762. My nose is the most impertinent nose in the universe, MON CHER MYLORD [Queen-Dowager snuff, SPANIOL from the fountain-head, of Marischal's providing; quality exquisite, but difficult to get transmitted in the Storms of War]; I am ashamed of the trouble it costs you! I beg many pardons;--and should be quite abashed, did I not know how you compassionate the weak points of your friends, and that, for a long time past, you have a singular indulgence for my nose. I am very glad to know you happily returned to your Government, safe at Colombier (DOVE-COTE) in Neufchatel again." This is 10th April, 1762. There, as I gather, quiet in his Dove-cote, Marischal continued, though rather weary of the business, for about a year more; or till the King got home,--who delights in companionship, and is willing to let an old man demit for good. It was in Summer, 1762 (about three months after the above Letter from the King), that Rousseau made his celebrated exodus into Neufchatel Country, and found the old Governor so good to him,--glad to be allowed to shelter the poor skinless creature. And, mark as curious, it must have been on two of those mornings, towards the end of the Siege of Schweidnitz, when things were getting so intolerable, and at times breaking out into electricity, into "rebuke all round," that Friedrich received that singular pair of Laconic Notes from Rousseau in Neufchatel: forwarded, successively, by Lord Marischal; NOTE FIRST, of date, "Motier-Travers, Neufchatel, September," nobody can guess what day, "1762:" "I have said much ill of you, and don't repent it. Now everybody has banished me; and it is on your threshold that I sit down. Kill me, if you have a mind!" And then (after, not death, but the gift of 100 crowns), NOTE SECOND, "October, 1762:"... "Take out of my sight that sword, which dazzles and pains me; IT has only too well done its duty, while the sceptre is abandoned:" Make Peace, can't you! [OEuvres completes de Rousseau (a Geneve, 1782-1789), xxxiii. 64, 65.]--What curious reading for a King in such posture, among the miscellaneous arrivals overnight! Above six weeks before either of these NOTES, Friedrich, hearing of him from Lord Marischal, had answered: "An asylum? Yes, by all means: the unlucky cynic!" It is on September 1st, that he sends, by the same channel, 100 crowns for his use, with advice to "give them in NATURA, lest he refuse otherwise;" as Friedrich knows to be possible. In words, the Rousseau Notes got nothing of Answer. "A GARCON SINGULIER," says Friedrich: odd fellow, yes indeed, your Majesty;--and has such a pungency of flattery in him too, presented in the way of snarl! His Majesty might take him, I suppose, with a kind of relish, like Queen-Dowager snuff. There was still another shift of place, shift which proved temporary, in old Marischal's life: Home to native Aberdeenshire. The two childless Brothers, Earls of Kintore, had died successively, the last of them November 22d, 1761: title and heritage, not considerable the latter, fell duly, by what preparatives we know, to old Marischal; but his Keith kinsfolk, furthermore, would have him personally among them,--nay, after that, would have him to wed and produce new Keiths. At the age of 78; decidedly an inconvenient thing! Old Marischal left Potsdam "August, 1763," [Letter of his to the King ("LONDRES, 14 AOUT, 1763"), in OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 293.--In Letters of Eminent Persons to David Hume (Edinburgh, 1849), pp. 57-71, are some Nine from the Old Marischal; in curiously mixed dialect, cheerful, but indistinct; the two chief dates of which are: "Touch" (guttural TuCH, in Aberdeenshire), "28 October, 1763," and "Potsdam, 20 February, 1765."]--NEW-PALACE scaffoldings and big stone blocks conspicuous in those localities; pleasant D'Alembert now just about leaving, in the other direction;--much to Friedrich's regret, the old Marischal especially, as is still finely evident.
"SANS-SOUCI, 16th February, 1764. "I am not surprised that the Scotch fight to have you among them; and wish to have progeny of yours, and to preserve your bones. You have in your lifetime the lot of Homer after death: Cities arguing which is your birthplace;--I myself would dispute it with Edinburgh to possess you. If I had ships, I would make a descent on Scotland, to steal off my CHER MYLORD, and bring him hither. Alas, our Elbe Boats can't do it. But you give me hopes;--which I seize with avidity! I was your late Brother's friend, and had obligations to him; I am yours with heart and soul. These are my titles, these are my rights:--you sha'n't be forced in the matter of progeny here (FAIRE L'ETALON ICI), neither priests nor attorneys shall meddle with you; you shall live here in the bosom of friendship, liberty and philosophy." Come to me!...--F. [OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 295.] Old Marischal did come; and before long. I know not the precise month: but "his Villa-Cottage was built for him," the Books say, "in 1764." He had left D'Alembert just going; next year he will find Helvetius coming. He lived here, a great treasure to Friedrich, till his death, 25th May, 1778, age 92. The New Palace was not finished till 1770;--in which year, also, Friedrich reckons that the general Problem of Repairing Prussia was victoriously over. New Palace, growing or complete, looks down on all these operations and occurrences. In its cradle, it sees D'Alembert go, Lord Marischal go; Helvetius come, Lord Marischal come; in its boyhood or maturity, the Excise, and French RATS-DE-CAVE, spring up; Crown-Prince Friedrich Wilhelm prick his hand for a fit kind of ink; Friedrich Wilhelm's Divorced Wife give her Douanier two slaps in the face, by way of payment. Nay, the same Friedrich Wilhelm, become "Friedrich Wilhelm II., or DER DICKE," died in it,--his Lichtenau AND his second Wife, jewel of women, nursing him in his last sickness there. ["Died 16th November, 1797."] The violent stress of effort for repairing Prussia, Friedrich intimates, was mostly over in 1766: till which date specifically, and in a looser sense till 1770, that may be considered as his main business. But it was not at any time his sole business; nor latterly at all equal in interest to some others that had risen on him, as the next Chapter will now show. Here, first, is a little Fraction of NECROLOGY, which may be worth taking with us. Readers can spread these fateful specialties over the Period in question; and know that each of them came with a kind of knell upon Friedrich's heart, whatever he might be employed about. Hour striking after hour on the Horologe of Time; intimating how the Afternoon wore, and that Night was coming. Various meanings there would be to Friedrich in these footfalls of departing guests, the dear, the less dear, and the indifferent or hostile; but each of them would mean: "Gone, then, gone; thus we all go!" _ |
||