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History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books XV - XXI], a non-fiction book by Thomas Carlyle |
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Book 21. Afternoon And Evening Of Friedrich's Life--1763-1786 - __General Or Fieldmarshal Conway, Direct From The London Circles, Attends One Of Friedrich's Reviews (August-September, 1774) |
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_ BOOK XXI. AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF FRIEDRICH'S LIFE--1763-1786 (Chapter V cont.) Now that Friedrich's Military Department is got completely into trim again, which he reckons to have been about 1770, his annual Reviews are becoming very famous over Europe; and intelligent Officers of all Countries are eager to be present, and instruct themselves there. The Review is beautiful as a Spectacle; but that is in no sort the intention of it. Rigorous business, as in the strictest of Universities examining for Degrees, would be nearer the definition. Sometimes, when a new manoeuvre or tactical invention of importance is to be tried by experiment, you will find for many miles the environs of Potsdam, which is usually the scene of such experiments, carefully shut in; sentries on every road, no unfriendly eye admitted; the thing done as with closed doors. Nor at any time can you attend without leave asked; though to Foreign Officers, and persons that have really business there, there appears to be liberality enough in granting it. The concourse of military strangers seems to keep increasing every year, till Friedrich's death. [Rodenbeck, iii. IN LOCIS.] French, more and more in quantity, present themselves; multifarious German names; generally a few English too,--Burgoyne (of Saratoga finally), Cornwallis, Duke of York, Marshal Conway,--of which last we have something farther to say at present. In Summer, 1774, Conway--the Marshal Conway, of whom Walpole is continually talking as of a considerable Soldier and Politician, though he was not in either character considerable, but was Walpole's friend, and an honest modest man--had made up his mind, perhaps partly on domestic grounds (for I have noticed glimpses of a "Lady C." much out of humor), to make a Tour in Germany, and see the Reviews, both Austrian and Prussian, Prussian especially. Two immense LETTERS of his on that subject have come into my hands, [Kindly presented me by Charles Knight, Esq., the well-known Author and Publisher (who possesses a Collection by the same hand): these Two run to fourteen large pages in my Copy!] and elsewhere incidentally there is printed record of the Tour; [In Keith (Sir Robert Murray), Memoirs and Correspondence, ii. 21 et, seq.] unimportant as possible, both Tour and Letters, but capable, if squeezed into compass, of still being read without disadvantage here. Sir Robert Murray Keith--that is, the younger Excellency Keith, now Minister at Dresden, whom we have sometimes heard of--accompanies Conway on this Tour, or flies alongside of him, with frequent intersections at the principal points; and there is printed record by Sir Robert, but still less interesting than this of Conway, and perfectly conformable to it:--so that, except for some words about the Lord Marischal, which shall be given, Keith must remain silent, while the diffuse Conway strives to become intelligible. Indeed, neither Conway nor Keith tell us the least thing that is not abundantly, and even wearisomely known from German sources; but to readers here, a pair of English eyes looking on the matter (put straight in places by the help there is), may give it a certain freshness of meaning. Here are Conway's Two Letters, with the nine parts of water charitably squeezed out of them, by a skilful friend of mine and his.
"BERLIN, July 17th, 1774. "DEAR BROTHER,--In the hurry I live in--... Leaving Brunswick, where, in absence of most of the Court, who are visiting at Potsdam, my old Commander," Duke Ferdinand, now estranged from Potsdam, [Had a kind of quarrel with Friedrich in 1766 (rough treatment by Adjutant von Anhalt, not tolerable to a Captain now become so eminent), and quietly withdrew,--still on speaking terms with the King, but never his Officer more.] and living here among works of Art, and speculations on Free Masonry, "was very kind to me, I went to Celle, in Hanover, to pay my respects to the Queen of Denmark [unfortunate divorced Matilda, saved by my friend Keith,--innocent, I will hope!]... She is grown extremely fat.... At Magdeburg, the Prussian Frontier on this side, one is not allowed, without a permit, even to walk on the ramparts,--such the strictness of Prussian rule.... Driving through Potsdam, on my way to Berlin, I was stopped by a servant of the good old Lord Marischal, who had spied me as I passed under his window. He came out in his nightgown, and insisted upon our staying to dine with him--[worthy old man; a word of him, were this Letter done]. We ended, on consultation about times and movements of the King, by staying three days at Potsdam, mostly with this excellent old Lord. "On the third day [yesterday evening, in fact], I went, by appointment, to the New Palace, to wait upon the King of Prussia. There was some delay: his Majesty had gone, in the interim, to a private Concert, which he was giving to the Princesses [Duchess of Brunswick and other high guests [Rodenbeck (IN DIE) iii. 98.]]; but the moment he was told I was there, he came out from his company, and gave me a most flattering gracious audience of more than half an hour; talking on a great variety of things, with an ease and freedom the very reverse of what I had been made to expect.... I asked, and received permission, to visit the Silesian Camps next month, his Majesty most graciously telling me the particular days they would begin and end [27th August-3d September, Schmelwitz near Breslau, are time and place [Ib. iii. 101.]]. This considerably deranges my Austrian movements, and will hurry my return out of those parts: but who could resist such a temptation!--I saw the Foot-Guards exercise, especially the splendid 'First Battalion;' I could have conceived nothing so perfect and so exact as all I saw:--so well dressed, such men, and so punctual in all they did. "The New Palace at Potsdam is extremely noble. Not so perfect, perhaps, in point of taste, but better than I had been led to expect. The King dislikes living there; never does, except when there is high Company about him; for seven or eight months in the year, he prefers Little Sans-Souci, and freedom among his intimates and some of his Generals.... His Music still takes up a great share of the King's time. On a table in his Cabinet there, I saw, I believe, twenty boxes with a German flute in each; in his Bed-chamber, twice as many boxes of Spanish snuff; and, alike in Cabinet and in Bed-chamber, three arm-chairs in a row for three favorite dogs, each with a little stool by way of step, that the getting up might be easy.... "The Town of Potsdam is a most extraordinary and, in its appearance, beautiful Town; all the streets perfectly straight, all at right angles to each other; and all the houses built with handsome, generally elegant fronts.... He builds for everybody who has a bad or a small house, even the lowest mechanic. He has done the same at Berlin." Altogether, his Majesty's building operations are astonishing. And "from whence does this money come, after a long expensive War? It is all fairyland and enchantment,"--MAGNUM VECTIGAL PARSIMONIA, in fact!... "At Berlin here, I saw the Porcelain Manufacture to-day, which is greatly improved. I leave presently. Adieu, dear Brother; excuse my endless Letter [since you cannot squeeze the water out of it, as some will!]--Yours most sincerely, "HENRY SEYMOUR CONWAY." Keith is now Minister at Dresden for some years back; and has, among other topics, much to say of our brilliant friend the Electress there: but his grand Diplomatic feat was at Copenhagen, on a sudden sally out thither (in 1771): [In KEITH, i. 152 &c., nothing of intelligible Narrative given, hardly the date discoverable.] the saving of Queen Matilda, youngest Sister of George Third, from a hard doom. Unfortunate Queen Matilda; one never knows how guilty, or whether guilty at all, but she was very unfortunate, poor young Lady! What with a mad Husband collapsed by debaucheries into stupor of insanity; what with a Doctor, gradually a Prime Minister, Struensee, wretched scarecrow to look upon, but wiser than most Danes about; and finally, with a lynx-eyed Step-sister, whose Son, should Matilda mistake, will inherit,--unfortunate Matilda had fallen into the awfulest troubles; got divorced, imprisoned, would have lost her head along with scarecrow Struensee had not her Brother George III. emphatically intervened,--Excellency Keith, with Seventy-fours in the distance, coming out very strong on the occasion,--and got her loose. Loose from Danish axe and jail, at any rate; delivered into safety and solitude at Celle in Hanover, where she now is,--and soon after suddenly dies of fever, so closing a very sad short history. Excellency Keith, famed in the Diplomatic circles ever since, is at present ahead of Conway on their joint road to the Austrian Reviews. Before giving Conway's Second Letter, let us hear Keith a little on his kinsman the Old Marischal, whom he saw at Berlin years ago, and still occasionally corresponds with, and mentions in his Correspondence. Keith LOQUITUR; date is Dresden, February, 1770:-- HAS VISITED THE OLD MARISCHAL AT POTSDAM LATELY.... "My stay of three days with Lord Marischal.... He is the most innocent of God's creatures; and his heart is much warmer than his head. The place of his abode," I must say, "is the very Temple of Dulness; and his Female Companion [a poor Turk foundling, a perishing infant flung into his late Brother's hands at the Fall of Oczakow, [Supra, vii. 82.]--whom the Marischal has carefully brought up, and who refuses to marry away from him,--rather stupid, not very pretty by the Portraits; must now be two-and-thirty gone] is perfectly calculated to be the Priestess of it! Yet he dawdles away his day in a manner not unpleasant to him; and I really am persuaded he has a conscience that would gild the inside of a dungeon. The feats of our bare-legged warriors in the late War [BERG-SCHOTTEN, among whom I was a Colonel], accompanied by a PIBRACH [elegiac bagpipe droning MORE SUO] in his outer room, have an effect on the old Don, which would delight you." [Keith, i. 129; "Dresden, 25th February, 1770:" to his Sister in Scotland.] AND THEN SEEN HIM IN BERLIN, ON THE SAME OCCASION.... "Lord Marischal came to meet me at Sir Andrew's [Mitchell's, in Berlin, the last year of the brave Mitchell's life], where we passed five days together. My visit to his country residence," as you already know, "was of three days; and I had reason to be convinced that it gave the old Don great pleasure. He talked to me with the greatest openness and confidence of all the material incidents of his life; and hinted often that the honor of the Clan was now to be supported by our family, for all of whom he had the greatest esteem. His taste, his ideas, and his manner of living, are a mixture of Aberdeenshire and the Kingdom of Valencia; and as he seeks to make no new friends, he seems to retain a strong, though silent, attachment for his old ones. As to his political principles, I believe him the most sincere of converts" to Whiggery and Orthodoxy.... "Since I began this, I have had a most inimitable Letter from Lord Marischal. I had mentioned Dr. Bailies to him [noted English Doctor at Dresden, bent on inoculating and the like], and begged he would send me a state of his case and infirmities, that the Doctor might prescribe for him. This is a part of his answer:-- "'I thank you for your advice of consulting the English Doctor to repair my old carcass. I have lately done so by my old coach, and it is now almost as good as new. Please, therefore, to tell the Doctor, that from him I expect a good repair, and shall state the case. First, he must know that the machine is the worse for wear, being nearly eighty years old. The reparation I propose he shall begin with is: One pair of new eyes, one pair of new ears, some improvement on the memory. When this is done, we shall ask new legs, and some change in the stomach. For the present, this first reparation will be sufficient; and we must not trouble the Doctor too much at once.'--You see by this how easy his Lordship's infirmities sit upon him; and it is really so as he says. Your friend Sir Andrew is, I am afraid, less gay; but I have not heard from him these three months." [Keith, i. 132, 133; "Dresden, 13th March, 1770:" to his Father.] CONWAY TO KEITH, ON THE LATE THREE DAYS AT POTSDAM. [Date, "Dresden, 21st July, 1774:" in KEITH, ii. 15.] "I stayed three days at Potsdam, with much entertainment, for good part of which I am obliged to your Excellency's old friend Lord Marischal, who showed me all the kindness and civility possible. He stopped me as I passed, and not only made me dine with him that day, but in a manner live with him. He is not at all blind, as you imagined; so much otherwise, that I saw him read, without spectacles, a difficult hand I could not easily decipher.... Stayed but a day at Berlin;" am rushing after you:--Here is my Second Letter:--
"SCHMELWITZ [near Breslau] HEAD-QUARTERS, August 31st, 1774. "DEAR BROTHER... I left that Camp [Austrian Camp, and Reviews in Hungary, where the Kaiser and everybody had been very gracious to me] with much regret." Parted regretfully with Keith;--had played, at Presburg, in sight of him and fourteen other Englishmen, a game with the Chess Automaton [brand-new miracle, just out]; [Account of it, and of this game, in KEITH too (ii. 18; "View, 3d September, 1774:" Keith to his Father).]--came on through Vienna hitherward, as fast as post-horses could carry us; travelling night and day, without stopping, being rather behind time. "Arrived at Breslau near dark, last night; where I learnt that the Camp was twenty miles off; that the King was gone there, and that the Manoeuvres would begin at four or five this morning. I therefore ordered my chaise at twelve at night, and set out, in darkness and rain, to be presented to the King of Prussia next morning at five, at the head of his troops.... When I arrived, before five, at the place called 'Head-quarters,' I found myself in the middle of a miserable Village [this Schmelwitz here]; no creature alive or stirring, nor a sentinel, or any Military object to be seen.... As soon as anything alive was to be found, we asked, If the King was lodged in that Village? 'Yes,' they said, 'in that House' (pointing to a clay Hovel). But General Lentulus soon appeared; and-- "His Majesty has been very gracious; asked me many questions about my tour to Hungary. I saw all the Troops pass him as they arrived in Camp. They made a very fine appearance really, though it rained hard the whole time we were out; and as his Majesty [age 62] did not cloak, we were all heartily wet. And, what was worse, went from the field to Orders [giving out of Parole, and the like] at his Quarters, there to make our bow;--where we stayed in our wet clothes an hour and half [towards 10 A.M. by this time].... How different at the Emperor's, when his Imperial Majesty and everybody was cloaked! [Got no hurt by the wet, strange to say.] ... These are our news to this day. And now, having sat up five nights out of the last six, and been in rain and dirt almost all day, I wish you sincerely good-night.--H. S. C. "P.S. Breslau, 4th September.--... My Prussian Campaign is finished, and as much to my satisfaction as possible. The beauty and order of the Troops, their great discipline, their" &c. &c., "almost pass all belief.... Yesterday we were on horseback early, at four o'clock. The movement was conducted with a spirit and order, on both sides, that was astonishing, and struck the more delightful (SIC) by the variety, as in the course of the Action the Enemy, conducted by General Anhalt [head all right as yet], took three different positions before his final retreat. "The moment it was over [nine o'clock or so], his Majesty got a fresh horse, and set out for Potsdam, after receiving the compliments of those present, or rather holding a kind of short Levee in the field. I can't say how much, in my particular, I am obliged to his Majesty for his extraordinary reception, and distinction shown me throughout. Each day after the Manoeuvre, and giving the Orders of the day, he held a little Levee at the door, or in the court; at which, I can assure you, it is not an exaggeration of vanity to say, that he not only talked to me, but literally to nobody else at all. It was a good deal each time, and as soon as finished he made his bow, and retired, though all, or most, of the other Foreigners were standing by, as well as his own Generals. He also called me up, and spoke to me several times on horseback, when we were out, which he seldom did to anybody. "The Prince Royal also showed me much civility. The second day, he asked me to come and drink a dish of tea with him after dinner, and kept me an hour and half. He told me, among other things, that the King of Prussia had a high opinion of me, and that it came chiefly from the favorable manner in which Duke Ferdinand and the Hereditary Prince [of Brunswick] had spoken of me.... Pray let Horace Walpole know my address, that I may have all the chance I can of hearing from him. But if he comes to Paris, I forgive him.--H. S. C." Friedrich's Reviews, though fine to look upon, or indeed the finest in the world, were by no means of spectacular nature; but of altogether serious and practical, almost of solemn and terrible, to the parties interested. Like the strictest College Examination for Degrees, as we said; like a Royal Assize or Doomsday of the Year; to Military people, and over the upper classes of Berlin Society, nothing could be more serious, Major Kaltenborn, an Ex-Prussian Officer, presumably of over-talkative habits, who sounds on us like a very mess-room of the time all gathered under one hat,--describes in an almost awful manner the kind of terror with which all people awaited these Annual Assizes for trial of military merit. "What a sight," says he, "and awakening what thoughts, that of a body of from 18,000 to 20,000 soldiers, in solemn silence and in deepest reverence, awaiting their fate from one man! A Review, in Friedrich's time, was an important moment for almost the whole Country. The fortune of whole families often depended on it: from wives, mothers, children and friends, during those terrible three days, there arose fervent wishes to Heaven, that misfortune might not, as was too frequently the case, befall their husbands, fathers, sons and friends, in the course of them. Here the King, as it were, weighed the merits of his Officers, and distributed, according as he found them light or heavy, praise or blame, rebukes or favors; and often, too often, punishments, to be felt through life. One single unhappy moment [especially if it were the last of a long series of such!] often deprived the bravest Officer of his bread, painfully earned in peace and war, and of his reputation and honor, at least in the eyes of most men, who judge of everything only by its issue. The higher you had risen, the easier and deeper your fall might be at an unlucky Review. The Heads and Commanders of regiments were always in danger of being sent about their business (WEGGEJAGT)." The fact is, I Kaltenborn quitted the Prussian Service, and took Hessian,--being (presumably) of exaggerative, over-talkative nature, and strongly gravitating Opposition way!--Kaltenborn admits that the King delighted in nothing so much as to see people's faces cheerful about him; provided the price for it were not too high. Here is another passage from him:-- "At latest by 9 in the morning the day's Manoeuvre had finished, and everything was already in its place again. Straight from the ground all Heads of regiments, the Majors-DE-JOUR, all Aides-de-Camp, and from every battalion one Officer, proceed to Head-quarters. It was impossible to speak more beautifully, or instructively, than the King did on such occasions, if he were not in bad humor. It was then a very delight to hear him deliver a Military Lecture, as it were. He knew exactly who had failed, what caused the fault, and how it might and should have been retrieved. His voice was soft and persuasive (HINREISSEND); he looked kindly, and appeared rather bent upon giving good advice than commands. "Thus, for instance, he once said to General van Lossow, Head of the Black Hussars: 'Your (SEINE) Attack would have gone very well, had not your own squadron pressed forward too much (VORGEPRELLT). The brave fellows wanted to show me how they can ride. But don't I know that well enough;--and also that you [covetous Lossow] always choose the best horses from the whole remount for your own squadron! There was, therefore, no need at all for that. Tell your people not to do so to-morrow, and you will see it will go much better; all will remain closer in their places, and the left wing be able to keep better in line, in coming on.'--Another time, having observed, in a certain Foot-regiment, that the soldiers were too long in getting out their cartridges, he said to the Commandant: 'Do you know the cause of this, my dear Colonel? Look, the cartouche, in the cartridge-box, has 32 holes; into these the fellow sticks his eight cartridges, without caring how: and so the poor devil fumbles and gropes about, and cannot get hold of any. But now, if the Officers would look to it that he place them all well together in the middle of the cartouche, he would never make a false grasp, and the loading would go as quick again. Only tell your Officers that I had made this observation, and I am sure they will gladly attend to it.'" [Anonymous (Kaltenborn), Briefe eines alten Preussischen Officiers (Hohenzollern, 1790), ii. 24-26.] Of humane consolatory Anecdotes, in this kind, our Opposition Kaltenborn gives several; of the rhadamanthine desolating or destructive kind, though such also could not be wanting, if your Assize is to be good for anything, he gives us none. And so far as I can learn, the effective punishments, dismissals and the like, were of the due rarity and propriety; though the flashes of unjust rebuke, fulminant severity, lightnings from the gloom of one's own sorrows and ill-humor, were much more frequent, but were seldom--I do not know if ever--persisted in to the length of practical result. This is a Rhadamanthus much interested not to be unjust, and to discriminate good from bad! Of Ziethen there are two famous Review Anecdotes, omitted and omissible by Kaltenborn, so well known are they: one of each kind. At a certain Review, year not ascertainable,--long since, prior to the Seven-Years War,--the King's humor was of the grimmest, nothing but faults all round; to Ziethen himself, and the Ziethen Hussars, he said various hard things, and at length this hardest: "Out of my sight with you!" [Madame de Blumenthal, Life of Ziethen, i. 265.] Upon which Ziethen--a stratum of red-hot kindling in Ziethen too, as was easily possible--turns to his Hussars, "Right about, RECHTS UM: march!" and on the instant did as bidden. Disappeared, double-quick; and at the same high pace, in a high frame of mind, rattled on to Berlin, home to his quarters, and there first drew bridle. "Turn; for Heaven's sake, bethink you!" said more than one friend whom he met on the road: but it was of no use. Everybody said, "Ziethen is ruined;" but Ziethen never heard of the thing more. Anecdote Second is not properly of a Review, but of an incidental Parade of the Guard, at Berlin (25th December, 1784), by the King in person: Parade, or rather giving out of the Parole after it, in the King's Apartments; which is always a kind of Military Levee as well;--and which, in this instance, was long famous among the Berlin people. King is just arrived for Carnival season; old Ziethen will not fail to pay his duty, though climbing of the stairs is heavy to a man of 85 gone. This is Madam Blumenthal's Narrative (corrected, as it needs, in certain points):-- "SATURDAY, 25th DECEMBER, 1784, Ziethen, in spite of the burden of eighty-six years, went to the Palace, at the end of the Parade, to pay his Sovereign this last tribute of respect, and to have the pleasure of seeing him after six months' absence. The Parole was given out, the orders imparted to the Generals, and the King had turned towards the Princes of the Blood,--when he perceived Ziethen on the other side of the Hall, between his Son and his two Aides-de-Camp. Surprised in a very agreeable manner at this unexpected sight, he broke out into an exclamation of joy; and directly making up to him,--'What, my good old Ziethen, are you there!' said his Majesty: 'How sorry am I that you have had the trouble of walking up the staircase! I should have called upon you myself. How have you been of late?' 'Sire,' answered Ziethen, (my health is not amiss, my appetite is good; but my strength! my strength!) 'This account,' replied the King, 'makes me happy by halves only: but you must be tired;--I shall have a chair for you.' [Thing unexampled in the annals of Royalty!] A chair," on order to Ziethen's Aides-de-Camp, "was quickly brought. Ziethen, however, declared that he was not at all fatigued: the King maintained that he was. 'Sit down, good Father (MEIN LIEBER ALTER PAPA ZIETHEN, SETZE ER SICH DOCH)!' continued his Majesty: 'I will have it so; otherwise I must instantly leave the room; for I cannot allow you to be incommoded under my own roof.' The old General obeyed, and Friedrich the Great remained standing before him, in the midst of a brilliant circle that had thronged round them. After asking him many questions respecting his hearing, his memory and the general state of his health, he at length took leave of him in these words: 'Adieu, my dear Ziethen [it was his last adieu!]--take care not to catch cold; nurse yourself well, and live as long as you can, that I may often have the pleasure of seeing you.' After having said this, the King, instead of speaking to the other Generals, and walking through the saloons, as usual, retired abruptly, and shut himself up in his closet." [Blumenthal, ii. 341; Militair-Lexikon, iv. 318. Chodowiecki has made an Engraving of this Scene; useful to look at for its military Portraits, if of little esteem otherwise. Strangely enough, both in BLUMENTHAL and in Chodowiecki's ENGRAVING the year is given as 1785 (plainly impossible); Militair-Lexikon misprints the month; and, one way or other, only Rodenbeck (iii. 316) is right in both day and year.] Following in date these small Conway Phenomena, if these, so extraneous and insignificant, can have any glimmer of memorability to readers, are two other occurrences, especially one other, which come in at this part of the series, and greatly more require to be disengaged from the dust-heaps, and presented for remembrance. In 1775, the King had a fit of illness; which long occupied certain Gazetteers and others. That is the first occurrence of the two, and far the more important. He himself says of it, in his HISTORY, all that is essential to us here:-- "Towards the end of 1775, the King was attacked by several strong consecutive fits of gout. Van Swieten, a famous Doctor's Son, and Minister of the Imperial Court at Berlin, took it into his head that this gout was a declared dropsy; and, glad to announce to his Court the approaching death of an enemy that had been dangerous to it, boldly informed his Kaiser that the King was drawing to his end, and would not last out the year. At this news the soul of Joseph flames into enthusiasm; all the Austrian troops are got on march, their Rendezvous marked in Bohemia; and the Kaiser waits, full of impatience, at Vienna, till the expected event arrives; ready then to penetrate at once into Saxony, and thence to the Frontiers of Brandenburg, and there propose to the King's Successor the alternative of either surrendering Silesia straightway to the House of Austria, or seeing himself overwhelmed by Austrian troops before he could get his own assembled. All these things, which were openly done, got noised abroad everywhere; and did not, as is easy to believe, cement the friendship of the Two Courts. To the Public this scene appeared the more ridiculous, as the King of Prussia, having only had a common gout in larger dose than common, was already well of it again, before the Austrian Army had got to their Rendezvous. The Kaiser made all these troops return to their old quarters; and the Court of Vienna had nothing but mockery for its imprudent conduct." [OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 124.] The first of these gout-attacks seems to have come in the end of September, and to have lasted about a month; after which the illness abated, and everybody thought it was gone. The Kaiser-Joseph evolution must have been in October, and have got its mockery in the next months. Friedrich, writing to VOLTAIRE, October 22d, has these words:... "A pair of charming Letters from Ferney; to which, had they been from the great Demiurgus himself, I could not have dictated Answer. Gout held me tied and garroted for four weeks;--gout in both feet and in both hands; and, such its extreme liberality, in both elbows too: at present the pains and the fever have abated, and I feel only a very great exhaustion." [Ib. xxv. 44.] "Four consecutive attacks; hope they are now all over;" but we read, within the Spring following, that there have been in all twelve of them; and in May, 1776, the Newspapers count eighteen quasi-consecutive. So that in reality the King's strength was sadly reduced; and his health, which did not recover its old average till about 1780, continued, for several years after this bad fit, to be a constant theme of curiosity to the Gazetteer species, and a matter of solicitude to his friends and to his enemies. Of the Kaiser's immense ambition there can be no question. He is stretching himself out on every side; "seriously wishing," thinks Friedrich, "that he could 'revivify the German Reich,'"--new Barbarossa in improved FIXED form; how noble! Certainly, to King Friedrich's sad conviction, "the Austrian Court is aiming to swallow all manner of dominions that may fall within its grasp." Wants Bosnia and Servia in the East; longs to seize certain Venetian Territories, which would unite Trieste and the Milanese to the Tyrol. Is throwing out hooks on Modena, on the Ferrarese, on this and on that. Looking with eager eyes on Bavaria,--the situation of which is peculiar; the present Kur-Baiern being elderly, childless; and his Heir the like, who withal is already Kur-Pfalz, and will unite the Two Electorates under one head; a thing which Austria regards with marked dislike. [OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 123.] These are anxious considerations to a King in Friedrich's sick state. In his private circle, too, there are sorrows: death of Fouquet, death of Quintus Icilius, of Seidlitz, Quantz (good old Quantz, with his fine Flutings these fifty years, and the still finer memories he awoke! [Friedrich's Teacher of the Flute; procured for him by his Mother (supra vi. 144).]),--latterly an unusual number of deaths. The ruggedly intelligent Quintus, a daily companion, and guest at the supper-table, died few months before this fit of gout; and must have been greatly missed by Friedrich. Fouquet, at Brandenburg, died last year: his benefactor in the early Custrin distresses, his "Bayard," and chosen friend ever since; how conspicuously dear to Friedrich to the last is still evident. A Friedrich getting lonely enough, and the lights of his life going out around him;--has but one sure consolation, which comes to him as compulsion withal, and is not neglected, that of standing steadfast to his work, whatever the mood and posture be. The Event of 1776 is Czarowitsh Paul's arrival in Berlin, and Betrothal to a second Wife there; his first having died in childbirth lately. The first had been of Friedrich's choosing, but had behaved ill,--seduced by Spanish-French Diplomacies, by this and that, poor young creature:--the second also was of Friedrich's choosing, and a still nearer connection: figure what a triumphant event! Event now fallen dead to every one of us; and hardly admitting the smallest Note,--except for chronology's sake, which it is always satisfactory to keep clear:-- "Czarowitsh Paul's first Wife, the Hessen-Darmstadt Princess of Three, died of her first child April 26th, 1776: everybody whispered, 'It is none of Paul's!' who, nevertheless, was inconsolable, the wild heart of him like to break on the occurrence. By good luck, Prince Henri had set out, by invitation, on a second visit to Petersburg; and arrived there also on April 26th, [Rodenbeck, iii. 139-146.] the very day of the fatality. Prince Henri soothed, consoled the poor Czarowitsh; gradually brought him round; agreed with his Czarina Mother, that he must have a new Wife; and dexterously fixed her choice on a 'Niece of the King's and Henri's.' Eldest Daughter of Eugen of Wurtemberg, of whom, as an excellent General, though also as a surly Husband, readers have some memory; now living withdrawn at Mumpelgard, the Wurtemberg Apanage [Montbeillard, as the French call it], in these piping times of Peace:--she is the Princess. To King Friedrich's great surprise and joy. The Mumpelgard Principalities, and fortunate Princess, are summoned to Berlin. Czarowitsh Paul, under Henri's escort, and under gala and festivities from the Frontier onward, arrived in Berlin 21st July, 1776; was betrothed to his Wurtemberg Princess straightway; and after about a fortnight of festivities still more transcendent, went home with her to Petersburg; and was there wedded, 18th October following;--Czar and Czarina, she and he, twenty years after, and their posterity reigning ever since. [OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 120-122.] "At Vienna," says the King, "everybody was persuaded the Czarowitsh would never come to Berlin. Prince Kaunitz had been,"--been at his old tricks again, playing his sharpest, in the Court of Petersburg again: what tricks (about Poland and otherwise) let us not report, for it is now interesting to nobody. Of the Czarowitsh Visit itself I will remark only,--what seems to be its one chance of dating itself in any of our memories,--that it fell out shortly after the Sherlock dinner with Voltaire (in 1776, April 27th the one event, July 21st the other);--and that here is, by pure accident, the exuberant erratic Sherlock, once more, and once only, emerging on us for a few moments!-- _ |
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